We are busy with cooking for the missionaries and some of the people here. We try to make a place for the missionaries to come to that is inviting with some good food to enjoy before or after teaching. We enjopy meeting people here. They are warm and accepting of us and seem to like to call on the two american senior sisters to bake goodies as much as there is occassion to do so. We enjoy serving and hope that the bit we do bears fruit.
Our recent highlight was a baptism for Oley a very sincere and sweet young woman. She seems very intregrated into the young peoples lives already. She has been a joy to get to know and see her grow.We are working with Oleyg, who has good English skills. He wants to help so we have invited him to help us with some Russian. He is helping us to pronounce phrases and then we try to memorize them. He is a joy to work with. The missionaries are teaching him and we try to back them up. This is the best part of our mission experience, seeing people come into the church and working with those interested.
Recently we worked with Vladimer who is our driver's father. Andre has been waiting 20 years to see any movement in his father toward religion. It is a pleasure to work with him. He is our age and it is fun to see him reading and then teaching us what he has read. He seems to be very excited to the extent that when, we were there he excused himself to go read the Book of Mormon while he was thinking of it. We have high hopes for him.
We have been helping a sister who has recently had a baby, visiting with the missionaries to some people our age, and generally helping out. Grandpa went to the father-son activity and had a good time on the national Defenders Day. Today is national Womens Day and one of the men at English Club gave me a small bouquet of flowers. What a sweet gesture. Grandpa gave me some Tulips, they remind me that Spring is coming soon.
We recently had a tour of 5 museums in Gordyets, a city just about 30 minutes north of NN. It is a beautiful city of about 30,000. They are preserving much of the early Russian architecture in the houses. It is very unique and interesting. Will include some pictures of our tour.
We stay healthy and are happy to be here and enjoy the young missionaries. We get attached to them and eventually they are transferred. We are going through that right now. This week our zone leader has been asked to be an assistant to the president. One of the elders that served here when we first arrived will take his place as zone leader here in NN. We have two sisters leaving, and our sweet Elder from Vladivstock has been transferred to the office. We will miss them all. Soon we will be saying goodbye to the other senior couple here, who leave on the 18th or 19th of this month. There is currently no replacement for them that we know of. We will try to make up for their activities as much as we can. We can stand to be a little busier. They are church education missionaries and as such have a special calling to work with the youth of the branches. They will be missed so much.
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| Model of Cathedral in Gorodyets now demolished. Must have been a beautiful complex. |
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| Beautiful whimsical carving on display in Gorodyets |
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| Detail in lace, the actual is about 2" square. |
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| Childrens Museum. Whistles were given to children so that as they blew them it would scare of evil spirits. They could be molded from clay into any shape they wanted. |
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| Detail of museum in Gorodyets. This is a selection of many houses in the area. Beautiful architecture and fine work. |
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