Four of July party on July 8th

We had many of our friends here in Russia offer us a happy fourth of July.  They are very thoughtful. We had a wonderful party on Saturday in celebration of our Independence Day.  It was a little strange because our four main families all had illness and did not come, but we had one less active brother, one Sister, teen boy, one Melchizedek priesthood holder, the six missionaries who were members and eight investigators. 

Julie, Paul and Eric and Colin went to Friday Harbor on Friday of Last week.  They had a wonderful time and called us on skype when they got home late at night.  We had a great time talking to them but their mike was not working so we had to read their comments.  I showed them my new Russian fur hat and a new man purse I purchased instead of replacing my wallet.  They got a big laugh from both items.

 A family home evening demonstration during this week's family home evening at the branch.  Since it was in Russian I didn't get the meaning of this, but each step to the right represented sin and the elastic band would stretch farther and farther.  At this point the Elder behind the post let go and the band snapped back.

 Holly hocks are everywhere right now.  For some reason I love that name for a flower.

 The beginning of our fourth of July party.  It was supposed to be at a park, but the weather and the fact that the parks do not have picnic tables there we opted to have it at the church.  I made (with Sister Hoagland cooking the potatoes and eggs) wonderful potato salad.  The Elders cooked what we use for hot dogs and with a very good watermelon we had a pretty typical 4th of July picnic.

 Armen just moved to Lipetsk and wants to become active.  His friend, Artiome, below is taking the lessons.  He has a girlfriend still in Armenia.  He wanted his picture taken with us.

 Artiome has a baptismal date on the 28th of July.

 First game.  First to remove all tissue from tissue box.  Second game, bounce out 6 ping pong balls from tissue box.

 Second game.  be first to restack all the cups.

 Do you think Sister Hoagland won!

 Third game, knock over the pop cans with a panty hose on your had and a ball in its foot.

 Everyone got a big laugh out of this one.

 Fourth game, first one to eat all the M&M's without getting whip cream on your face.

 Vladimir loved this game.  He was single minded in eating as much as he could of everything.

 For some reason no one seemed to care if they got whip cream on their face

 Vladimir did clean the plate

 One of our first time participants in the branch had a good time too.

 Rodic was slow but sure.

 The three legged race was a hoot.  We had some funny combinations of people.

 Natalie from English club took these pictures as I was in the race.

 Here I am with my partner.  We did a little practice run which made us the fastest of all.

 Sister Hoagland ran a good race but her leg was hurting by the time they finished.  It think they put the twill too high.

 Last was the tug of war.   The far side won both heats.

 After all the games we finished with a spiritual thought.  Rodic has lost his freedom.

 Knocking whipped cream from your arm to your mouth is a skill.

 How did this picture get in here.  Just to show how some of the bread here is really small.

 Here is our planning session for the fourth of July party.  I thought we did really well.  The food was great and the games were fun.

 While we planned, Sister Hoagland and Nastia were preparing  a large pan of Lasagna.  They ate the whole thing.

 Elder Davis is having a little piece of bread.

 Maps of the new East European missions after this yea adjustments.  The Russia Moscow mission is the dark blue in the middle.

 Bought this wonderful wood box set from a wonderful babushka.  She is an investigator the Elders have me come to the lesson with.  She used to make these and she sold the Elders and me three sets.  What a deal.

Elder's Harris and Bishop with our babushka that we purchased the wood boxes.  I also bought the scarf she is wearing for Sister Hoagland.

 The Elders and us at the university where Nastia (Anastasia) received her diploma.  They don't make a big deal out of it.  We waited in this room while she received her diploma down the hall with just a teacher and her fellow students.

 Here she is after receiving her diploma.

One last game at the 4th of July party.  move three cans with a dry spaghetti from the floor to the small table.  The A&W root beer was purchased in Moscow at a specialty store.  It cost $1.20 per can.   Doctor Pepper cost $2.96.  Lucky we had some further use for the cans.  We did not buy DR. Pepper!

We just returned from our trip to Moscow and the first conference of the new Russia Moscow Mission.  Let me talk about the trip.  We left Monday evening at 11:05 pm on a night train.  We took a 45 minute taxi ride to the Voxhall (train station), in a small town west of Lipetsk.  Our beds were a bench not as wide as  a typical sofa by quite a bit and a very hard cushion.  We took this particular train because it arrived in Moscow an hour earlier than the train from Lipetsk, around 7:30 am.  For some reason all these night trains have a suspension that make a horrible bang periodically.  This one on many occasions sounded like a machine gun.  The road bed on this line also felt like we were riding on cobble stones a good deal of the time.  Needless to say it was not one of your best nights sleep.

Below the Voxhall in Moscow is the metro line (subway).  The church is only one stop away via metro.  When I came up from the metro on the way to the church I found that my pocket had been picked.  I immediately canceled our debit and credit cards.  I also had two church cards, one to pay our rent with, (we pay our rent to the church back home in the ward) and another to fund our branch with.  Fortunately we had left all the cash we had just withdrawn at home and I only had $15.00 in cash in the wallet.  We now had no means of getting cash for at least 3 or 4 weeks.  Fortunately we have some wonderful senior couples who advanced us cash to cover that period.  

Our return trip was that same night via over night train at 9:42 pm.  The return was much better as we went directly to Lipetsk on a line with a much smoother road bed.  Just a little banging occasionally.  I was so tired that I did sleep much better.  We are still pretty tired.

We have anticipated the change in the mission since before we left home.  There are nine units in the Moscow stake and I think 11 branches in other cities outside Moscow.  With the new stake the Moscow mission president had no ecclesiastical responsibility and only 50 missionaries so it made sense to combine the missions.  Now he has over a hundred  missionaries and 11 units he has direct responsibility for.  There is no district president to help.

Our meeting began at 9:30 am and concluded at 3:35 pm.  We discussed mission policy so that any differences between the two mission were cleared up.  President Sorenson has decided to use the I touch that the west mission has used under President Woolley.  It provides scriptures, church manuals, Russian  /English dictionary,  church videos and music, city and transportation maps.  (you plug in where you are and where you want to go and it tells you the buses that go there listing the quickest first).  Senior couples don't get them so I am sure there are other features I am not aware of, but they use them all day long and if President had taken them away I don't know how long it would have taken for these young men to recover!   

 Here is the Lipetsk branch primary.  Sister Hoagland works with them.  Elder Harris is the pied piper of all children.  Artiome on the right will be baptized soon and join his family as converts this year.

 Arpine is our only young woman.  It seems that model posing is the thing all over Europe for young women. The Elders and Armine also had to get in the act.

 Just pulled this picture of Jeff and his boys off of facebook.  Quinn and Elliot are going to be very tall men.  Jeff and Fawn have scheduled sealing for August and will also be sealed to the boys.  One of the sacrifices of a Senior missionary is to miss these wonderful family events.  We love them and are proud to be called Grandma and Grandpa.

 Jenni also had some pictures recently on facebook.  We miss them all but thanks to modern communication we can follow all that is going in the family.  They are so funny to see on skype.  Show offs.

 Speaking of show offs, Jenni has been working out.  We are looking forward to Jenni & Rob touring with us at the end of our mission.

 Judy is standing in front of a pleasant little spot not far from our apartment.  We pass it on the way to the bank atm.

This is a cafe about equal distance between the two apartments of the Elders and us.  The third letter in the first word and the first letter of the second word is F.  In Russian the letter p is the r sound.  The Elders have been wanting to try this cafe out for a long time and on P Day we went in.  It lived up to its name immediately  and we never sat down.

 We decided to try this place out about a mile away.  It is the closest thing we have found to a fast food place in Lipetsk.  There are no McDonalds, Burger King or even a Subway.  We know of one other baskin & Robbins in the downtown mall.

 At the main counter you can order fast food, on the left is the bar.  You can't go a block here without finding a place that sells alcohol.  

 Here we are all waiting for our food.

 A hamburger, fries, and a small coke for under $3.00.  The french fries were generous and wonderful.  The burger not so much.

 A "country" voxhall at 10:30 pm.  

 We all went outside to eat our pizza during our lunch break during mission conference.

 President Sorenson is showing the maps of our new zones on this paper.  One map shows the three zones around Moscow and the other shows the Veronezh zone which remained the same.  One change, there will now be two zone leaders in each zone which I think is pretty universal around the world.  Our zone leaders will be in Lipetsk.  Elder Harris has been our zone leader and will continue with a new zone leader companion whom I don't know the name yet.  Elder Bishop will transfer to a ward in Moscow.  We will surely miss him.  His companion has only three months on him so that should be a challenge for both of them to learn the language.

The remnants of 65 pizza's delivered for lunch.  Some of us even had it for dinner.  Until Sister Hoagland put her hands on the stack it was above her shoulders.

On Thursday of last week Elder and Sister Huefner from the area auditors department came to train our branch presidency and clerks concerning money handling policy.  Sister Hoagland and I had a wonderful time at dinner with them.  They are from Bountiful, Utah.  In eight months they have so far traveled over 40,000 miles throughout Eastern Europe fulfilling their calling.  They came via bus from Moscow.  

Day at the farm

The mission gets more interesting every day.  This week we had one of our sisters break a toe that required surgery.  Natalia was to be hospitalized for 10 days.  Because of a wind storm we had on Tuesday there were many injuries that required them to release her two days early.  That was a fun storm as we had just finished English club and the wind and the rain was fierce for about 15 minutes.  We waited for about 50 minutes before we ventured out into a light sprinkle.  Trees and limbs we down everywhere and we were without power for 18 hours.  We did get it back for an hour in the morning that recharged the refrigerator.  

I met in the home of a less active member, who desires to return to activity, with the Elders (I need an interpreter).  He came for sacrament meeting last Sunday.  He is concerned that he is responsible for his children not being active.  We encouraged him to be faithful and gave him a blessing.  

Samville has a chronic  back disease and will enter the hospital for treatment this week.  We also gave him a blessing Sunday.  Samville and Margarite live outside of town in the village but Margarite stays in town to work and lives with Vica while Vica's husband works in Moscow.  Now that it is summer, Margarite's daughters are living in town as well.

I had many experiences with the Elders teaching investigators, playing volleyball with the branch, visiting members, giving blessing and having interviews.  

 We had dinner with Vika and her boys and Elders Harris and Bishop.  We love this little family.  Armond has been working in Moscow for three months now and we hope he is getting paid.  Kind of a shady deal driving truck for Some Armenians who don't keep records.  Artiome in the end of the table will be baptized as soon as his dad is in town long enough to baptize him.  They joined the church the weekend before we arrived here.

 A beautiful sunset from our apartment window.  At this time of year the sunset lasts for a couple of hours.

 We went to Sargis's farm to celebrate their daughter Ani's birday.  She turned 21.  We had an hour and a half ride in a van with 18 passanger seats.  This was one of the passengers waiting to get on.

 Here are some other passengers waiting.  Our Elders and two others who work in the office in Moscow joined us.

 What a hot and stuffy ride this was.  As you can see I was in the back.  Sister Hoagland stayed home as it is a rather diffucult trip.   This bus drops us off about 4 or 5 miles from the farm and the Elder's had to walk it the last time they came.  Fortunately a van used as a school bus came by and took us in.

 Some chickens on the farm.

 The goose

 The Elders helping make cheese.  It is Armenian and very salty cheese.

 Here they are draining off the liquid through cheese cloth.  I wondered where that name came from.

 No running water on this farm.  Elder Harris is pulling up the bucket to fill on these containers.  A friend of the family on the Left.

 Chickens and rabbits.

 A goat was killed for the occasion.

 Chopped goat.  I didn't think goat was much of a dinner meat before, and now I can confirm it.

 Sargis and his friend.

 They just built two tables and two very long bench's for the occasion.

While I was at the farm some clowns and a ballerina showed up at the playground at our apartment building. 

Sadly we said good bye to the Wooley's on Monday.  They were wonderful and the missionaries loved them.  They spent a good deal of the time visiting all the branch's of the mission as none of them were a part of a district or stake.  It was amazing how well they new everyone and how the people loved them.  

We leave again for Moscow this evening for a mission wide conference.  It will be the first as the new Moscow mission is organized.  We will have new zones and maybe our branch will be part of a stake or district.  We are excited to see what will happen.