Our Fourth was just another day here. I made a flag cake for district meeting on Friday though. I found some big red gummy candies that I cut into strips for the stripes and then bought what looked like blueberries, but I think they're currants, for the stars. I thought it looked pretty legit. The sisters brought a flag cake, too (man, we think alike!). They used raspberry jam for the stripes and cut stars out of banana slices. Their cake looked terrific as well. The elders brought a watermelon that was better than any watermelon I ever bought last year. So, we had a little taste of home away from home.
Well, our investigator Svetlana has given us a baptismal date of January 13. Crazy, huh?! Don't know how she came up with that exactly; we haven't actually talked to her--she has talked to the elders. So we don't know how that will all work out, but we will encourage her to continue coming to church, reading the Book of Mormon and praying and hopefully she will work towards that goal. We won't continue to meet with her formally for lessons but will be in close contact.
Our Sabbath was good. Elder Peterson didn't get home until 6:30 from meetings. I wasn't required to be at the last leadership meeting so I came home a couple of hours before that. He has been working hard this last week on this two-hour training to the branch leaderships about disciplinary councils. He said it loses effectiveness in the translation, but I'm sure it was just great. We invited a woman over who we met on the bus last week. She also speaks English and is more interested in meeting to practice her English but oftentimes that is how we can approach people and eventually get them interested in the church. The missionaries used to have an English Club a few years ago that attracted a lot of people but apparently there was problems getting permission to teach the students younger than 18, and I'm sure there were probably other reasons too, so the class was discontinued. Anyway, this woman is an English interpreter for some medical company that receives orders from pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer. She speaks very well and has agreed to help us with our Russian once a week. So we will choose gospel-based sentences for her to help us practice next time. As soon as she realized we are Mormons, she said, "Oh, I don't like Mormons. They have 100 wives." But she still agreed to meet with us so we must not be too bad and we assured her Mormons only have one wife.
I have been asked to teach Relief Society this Sunday on visiting teaching. I have really been praying to know the things to say that will encourage the sisters to do their visiting teaching. Somehow they think we have some unique secret in America to doing visiting teaching. I've been thinking a lot about that. Everyone around the world has the same 24 hours in a day. Sisters in America work, take care of families, serve in church callings, etc., but many still are able to find time to do their visiting teaching. What makes the difference? The main thing I've been able to surmise is that we see the examples around us of sisters who do their visiting teaching. I saw my mom do her visiting teaching and had visiting teachers visit her. We've been able to recognize the blessings from visiting teaching. The sisters in our branches have never done their visiting teaching, have no desire to start doing it, and don't see the need for it. I want to help these sisters somehow realize how important it is for them to set the example for generations to come. I'm so grateful for the visiting teachers I have had throughout the years and know it's the Lord's way for us to take care of each other. We have been preaching home teaching and visiting teaching the whole time we've been here, and I think they're getting tired of hearing about it. If any of my readers have any wonderful ideas, send them along!
Elder Peterson has been craving coconut. He came home from the market the other day with a whole coconut. The YSA helped him crack it open after FHE the other night, which was no small feat! Much to his disappointment, the coconut was just a hollow piece of mold! But not to fear! Grandma Joyce's package arrived to save the day with packages of Jell-O coconut cream pudding. Life is good again!
We took a trip out to Prebrejnee on Saturday to see Grandma Vera and her husband. They are in our Komsomolski branch. She will be 80 next month, and he is somewhere in his 70's, I'm guessing. They showed us their cute apartment they had just bought and renovated and fed us lunch. Of course, we sang a hymn and left a spiritual thought. Somehow we made it through our visit trying to understand each other. Grandma Vera is very patient to correct us and somehow knows what we're trying to say. I forgot to take a picture unfortunately. We also took cookies over to one of the outgoing branch presidents one evening. They had the other outgoing branch president and his wife over so that was great to be able to visit with all of them. We are hoping that any small gesture will leave bigger results in expressing our appreciation and love for them. They know we love them and are not as afraid to try and talk with us even though it's hard to understand each other sometimes. It's all an adventure!
Here's our quote for the week: "Practice doesn't make perfect; practice makes permanent. So practice the right things!"
Picture 1 - Our awesome district (notice the air conditioner)
Picture 2 - Concrete Hunting
Picture 3 - Elder Hughes and Elder Anderson
Picture 4 - Stas, Vitali, Arthur, Jenya, Dima
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