We're currently waiting for our new district leader to come over and meet with us. The zone leaders were transferred to New City and one of the members from New City, Elder Malloy, is coming here to Old City with a new companion and district leader, Elder Ceimers. He is from Latvia, speaks Latvian, Russian and English. He has been a member of the church for about a year and a half and makes the comment that he will have been on a mission longer than he will have been a member of the church. That’s pretty amazing! Sister Ostapchuk completed her mission and went home to Ukraine; she is the sister who, for some reason, I connected with right from the beginning. I will miss her. It was hard saying goodbye knowing that we might never see each other again. Thank heavens for email - we will each get a chance to practice our Russian and English!
We were able to go to Samara Friday and spend the evening with President Sartori and his wife. It was an enjoyable ride from Old City to Samara - lots of trees, little villages, and varied architecture compared to Old City's view of apartment buildings that are all the same. When we traveled from Samara to Toliatti when we first arrived in Russia, it was dark so this was the first time we were able to see the landscape in the daytime and it was quite pretty. President and Sister Sartori were able to give us some additional leadership training information and helpful websites that are now available in Russian. Elder Peterson also spent some time with President regarding generating new ways to find and retain investigators. It was nice to be in the Mission Home. I brought my piano books with me and played the piano for close to an hour in their apartment. The Mission Home has another apartment adjacent to it, but one of the mission counselors was staying there so Elder Peterson and I stayed with President and Sister Sartori. I marvel at their devotion and dedication to keep up with everything. Sister Sartori was trying to manage the move of her 97-year old mother into an Assisted Living accommodation in Utah via fax and email since she is the POA along with all of her mission responsibilities along with hosting us. I’m sure they have people to dinner several times a week; that would do me in!
We had to hustle back in time to do some training for the Young Single Adult councils from Toliatti, Samara, and Saratov. It is amazing to see the Russian future leaders of the church here; they are awesome, devoted people! They are all wanting to plan a conference that would gather many of them from the different zones to associate with each other. We are hoping to help make that happen. We had lunch together afterwards that had been prepared by Sister Kozmenin. Her husband is the Mission Counselor over CES. She is into healthy eating so we had all kinds of interesting foods to try!
We continue to meet with Svetlana each week. She has a testimony of the church but wants to take time to make sure she makes the right decision to be baptized. She has been meeting with the missionaries for close to five months now. Last week we talked about Enos and prayer. This week we are talking about Samuel the Lamanite's prophecy of Christ's birth leading into His appearance to the Nephites in America. Last week she told me I was one of her two friends--that's a step in the right direction! She plays the piano so we have that in common. She likes to choose the hymn we sing at every meeting; she’s a very good sight reader; she is able to tell what the songs sound like just from reading the notes without hearing the music. Hopefully, she will stay for all of church this Sunday since we will be attending at the branch where she lives. Dad is speaking in Sacrament Meeting, and I will be playing the piano. We'll see if anyone shows up! Seriously, though, they rescheduled district conference that was supposed to be this weekend due to the fact that all employed people will be working on the weekend. There is a holiday on Thursday to celebrate Women's Day which causes the necessity for everyone to work on the weekend I guess. Don't exactly get it, but we've been told not to expect many people at church.
We had our first "official" dinner party last week. We invited the District President and his wife, along with the three branch presidents and their wives to dinner. I chose to make lasagna which was just okay, but they said they liked it. Unfortunately, two of the branch presidents and their wives canceled at the last minute so that was a bummer. But it made it so that we were able to bond even more with the branch president from New City. In fact, they were at our apartment for a good fifteen minutes before President and Sister Zolotov arrived; Sister Zolotov speaks English and translates for us so we were on our own to communicate with President and Sister Bushuev and managed to survive just fine. We attended that branch on Sunday, and we could really tell the difference in their reception of us. They initiated conversations and were much friendlier than they had been before. We will keep trying with the other branch presidents; this isn't the first time they have canceled appointments with us:(
We went to visit a member at her Art School. She teaches art to children from the ages of probably 5 to 18. She showed us many of the paintings her students have done, and you can’t believe these were pictures painted by nine-year olds! They were professional-looking oil paintings! There were also pen mediums and other paints. She had a class in session while we were there and allowed us to watch the children paint. Many of her students have gone on to study in Moscow. She is a very talented artist and teacher! She also speaks Russian extremely fast, but we catch a word here and there and also had another member come with us who speaks some English and was able to translate for us.
We were able to go to Samara Friday and spend the evening with President Sartori and his wife. It was an enjoyable ride from Old City to Samara - lots of trees, little villages, and varied architecture compared to Old City's view of apartment buildings that are all the same. When we traveled from Samara to Toliatti when we first arrived in Russia, it was dark so this was the first time we were able to see the landscape in the daytime and it was quite pretty. President and Sister Sartori were able to give us some additional leadership training information and helpful websites that are now available in Russian. Elder Peterson also spent some time with President regarding generating new ways to find and retain investigators. It was nice to be in the Mission Home. I brought my piano books with me and played the piano for close to an hour in their apartment. The Mission Home has another apartment adjacent to it, but one of the mission counselors was staying there so Elder Peterson and I stayed with President and Sister Sartori. I marvel at their devotion and dedication to keep up with everything. Sister Sartori was trying to manage the move of her 97-year old mother into an Assisted Living accommodation in Utah via fax and email since she is the POA along with all of her mission responsibilities along with hosting us. I’m sure they have people to dinner several times a week; that would do me in!
We had to hustle back in time to do some training for the Young Single Adult councils from Toliatti, Samara, and Saratov. It is amazing to see the Russian future leaders of the church here; they are awesome, devoted people! They are all wanting to plan a conference that would gather many of them from the different zones to associate with each other. We are hoping to help make that happen. We had lunch together afterwards that had been prepared by Sister Kozmenin. Her husband is the Mission Counselor over CES. She is into healthy eating so we had all kinds of interesting foods to try!
We continue to meet with Svetlana each week. She has a testimony of the church but wants to take time to make sure she makes the right decision to be baptized. She has been meeting with the missionaries for close to five months now. Last week we talked about Enos and prayer. This week we are talking about Samuel the Lamanite's prophecy of Christ's birth leading into His appearance to the Nephites in America. Last week she told me I was one of her two friends--that's a step in the right direction! She plays the piano so we have that in common. She likes to choose the hymn we sing at every meeting; she’s a very good sight reader; she is able to tell what the songs sound like just from reading the notes without hearing the music. Hopefully, she will stay for all of church this Sunday since we will be attending at the branch where she lives. Dad is speaking in Sacrament Meeting, and I will be playing the piano. We'll see if anyone shows up! Seriously, though, they rescheduled district conference that was supposed to be this weekend due to the fact that all employed people will be working on the weekend. There is a holiday on Thursday to celebrate Women's Day which causes the necessity for everyone to work on the weekend I guess. Don't exactly get it, but we've been told not to expect many people at church.
We had our first "official" dinner party last week. We invited the District President and his wife, along with the three branch presidents and their wives to dinner. I chose to make lasagna which was just okay, but they said they liked it. Unfortunately, two of the branch presidents and their wives canceled at the last minute so that was a bummer. But it made it so that we were able to bond even more with the branch president from New City. In fact, they were at our apartment for a good fifteen minutes before President and Sister Zolotov arrived; Sister Zolotov speaks English and translates for us so we were on our own to communicate with President and Sister Bushuev and managed to survive just fine. We attended that branch on Sunday, and we could really tell the difference in their reception of us. They initiated conversations and were much friendlier than they had been before. We will keep trying with the other branch presidents; this isn't the first time they have canceled appointments with us:(
We went to visit a member at her Art School. She teaches art to children from the ages of probably 5 to 18. She showed us many of the paintings her students have done, and you can’t believe these were pictures painted by nine-year olds! They were professional-looking oil paintings! There were also pen mediums and other paints. She had a class in session while we were there and allowed us to watch the children paint. Many of her students have gone on to study in Moscow. She is a very talented artist and teacher! She also speaks Russian extremely fast, but we catch a word here and there and also had another member come with us who speaks some English and was able to translate for us.
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