Hello everyone,
Kensie, we are looking forward to talking to you on your birthday. Grandma and Grandpa can't believe that you are tujrning 5 Wow, starting kindergarten soon and you are growing up to be such a lovely young lady. HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
We got to talk to Susan on her birthday and we are happy that things are somewhat better and hope that surgery on the 10th will be successful. We really do wish that we could be there to help you and the family, but you have the greatest help in Jacob and the kids. We are hopeful for the best outcome with this surgery.
We are doing well and look forward to our continuing time here is Russia which seems to be sliding away at an alarming pace. We now have less than a year and so much to do. We do miss home and all of you, however we do have a need to be here. We have a meeting here in our house with a young man in a few minutes. We so look forward to being with these wonderful souls in Russia. Oleg is a fine young man and we count him as a friend. We hope that the message that we give is received well.
The weather is better, actually quite Spring like, rain, grey skies, wind, sun, and blue skies. some leaves on the trees, and soon to see flowers. We enjoy the rain, it seems to be a gentle rain for the most part. The pollen release hasn't missed me and I am just getting over the allergic response to it. All in all we are well.
There are 17 BYU students here in Nizhniy for the next 2 months. We have met many of them and hope they go away learning much of Russian and understanding the wonderful people.
Our driver is the new branch president and is a bit more busy now. His little girl, Masha, has been much sick this winter and also Ivan, his boy. They really are sweet kids and we hope they are better soon. Their mom has been ill a good deal too, so not a great winter for their family.
This May 9th is the national celebration of the end of WWII. They have parades and not sure what else, but we are hoping to see some of the doings. WWll was a terrible time for this country, losing about 25 million citizens.
We were invited over to see the new baby of one of the sisters in the branch and meet the parents. They are visiting from Saint Petersburg for a few weeks. The husband was very interested in talking to us in English and it was a pleasure to talk to him.
We have talked to many of you this past week and enjoy listining to your stories of your lives. It is all good for us.. Love to you all.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
GIDEON PAUL FOUTZ turns 2 April 20, 2012
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Gideon.
We love you Gideon and hope that you had a good birthday. Miss you lots and lots, we know that you are surrounded by lots of love, we wish we could be there with you.
We love you Gideon and hope that you had a good birthday. Miss you lots and lots, we know that you are surrounded by lots of love, we wish we could be there with you.
Monday, April 23, 2012
HANNIE AND HYRUM HAVE BIRTHDAYS APRIL 23, 2012
I am surprised that I haven't written for so long. I wanted to wish Hannie and Hyrum a happy birthday on the 9th and 10th. We did get to talk on the phone to both and it was good to hear how they were celebrating their birthdays. Hannie was working, and Hyrum took the day off school to celebrate and to be with his friend who was visiting from Canada. Anyway here is another HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!! We love you both.
Since our last post we have pictures of our grandson, Coleson Paul Foutz.
He shares the name Paul with his cousin Gideon Paul Foutz who is two years older. They both share the name with my father Wayne Paul Gaertner who died in 1980.
Our spring has finally sprung!! The first two days were even summery, mildly humid and warm into the night. We have since then had more springlike weather, but once the weather broke, it has never turned to freezing in the night. The nights continue to get shorter and shorter. We have it fairly light now until 8:30 PM and the sun rises around 6:00 AM a big change from last December when we had only about 9 hours of light. We walk to church in the light both ways all evidence of ice is gone. We still see piles of snow around in corners where the sun never shines that still are slowly melting. It does feel good to have it sunny again.
We have been involved in teaching some of our people and it feels so good. We sometimes have people who speak English and we need no translation, but most of the time that is not the case. We have told
the missionaries that anytime they want to come to have a home cooked meal, just bring someone over whom they are teaching. So last night we had the elders and a young man over who is very interested in listening. He is a good young man. We were involved in as much as we could be. He said he liked my first attempt at borscht (Russian soup with beets). We liked it and he said it tasted like it might be american style. So far I haven't had any luck to get the ladies to share with me their recipes. Maybe later. Mine didn't stay very red. He is actually a Ukrainian and misses his really red Ukrainian borscht. He didn't offer to teach me, don't know if he knows how to make it.
Since last writing we have had a visit from President and Sister Woolley. That weekeend President called our driver Andrey as the new branch president. He will be a very good one, and his wife, Olga, will be a great support. They both help us a tremendous amount. We are working with Olga, to do some humanitarian work here. It will take time, but we feel confident that we have some good projects. While the Woolleys were here we visited Gorodyets with them. They got to see 2 museums and lots of the countryside. It was good to be with them again. It will be good to go there again when the trees are in full leaf, and the flowers are blooming. It is a pretty little town.
We continue to visit both branches, and they are doing well. We have one more baptism scheduled and maybe another one soon after. The branch president in the lower branch and his wife are expecting their first child, a girl, in the middle of July. They are so happy, it is fun to watch them.
It was good to get a whole envelope of letters from our empty nesters group in South Jordan. What fun it was to get them and we enjoyed every one. Thank you so much Joe for heading up that project for us. Write again anytime!!! We can get letters, and cards with envelopes through the following address: Elder Jerry and Linda Foutz, Russia Moscow West Mission, Muravskaya Street, Bldg. 1 Floor 3, Moscow 125310 Russia. This requires overseas postage. If you write on a single page, writing only on the front, (NO ENVELOPE) then fold it in thirds, taping the two shorter ends, and put the address on the back, you can send this in the pouch for regular mail price at the following address: Elder Jerry and Linda Foutz, Russia Moscow West Mission, POB 30150 Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150.
Someone asked if we are affected by the mission boundry reassignment in the Moscow Mission and the answer is yes. We will be part of the Moscow Mission as of July 1 this year. Our mission president will be going home after a 3 year assignment and the present Moscow mission president will be taking the orphan groups in Russia over. Our mission is presently made of groups in Russia, Belarus, and Kazahkstan. I don't know if that spelling is right the way they spell it here is different because of the cyrillic alphabet. Anyway, we will be one of the furtherest outlying groups in the Russia Moscow Mission
We have ventured out a bit more since we don't have to watch for ice and it is fun to see the architecture on the buildings. We were always watching for the ice and didn't look up that much.
We are slowly getting a bit more of the language, it is a difficult one in which you have to know parts of speech and then rearrange the words to work better in the language. I haven't done much with grammar, I am struggeling just with memorizing sentences for which the grammar is already situated. There is a specific accent on each word and it does matter which vowel you accent!! Since the written Russian doesn't include the accent marks you have to get pretty comfortable with the language to read out loud! We have a teacher who comes over once a week and struggles with us to help in this matter. Oleg is very patient but insists that we do it right and there is one sound that I haven't mastered yet, it is written as 'bl' but it doesn't sound like it is written. It is a cross between 'ee' and 'uy' and is more gutteral than we are used to. He just shakes his head and then is surprised if I get it close, but of course I can never repeat that one time it is close!! Oleg is a young college student, not a member, but loves to serve others. He likes to spend time with us speaking english to improve his skills. He is scheduled to go to Texas this summer on a work permit for about three months. He is real excited to go to the U.S. and hopes he will be understood. His english is pretty good and he won't have any real problems communicating. We hope he gets more serious about the church.
Oleg is going to Galveston, Texas, so we got on line and played him Glenn Campbells version of Galveston! I don't know if he liked it or not but now he knows a bit about Galveston fame.
Transfers were this last week and one of our sister missionaries completed her mission and returned to St. George, Utah. We have a new Elder from Shelley, Idaho, a sister missionary who will serve 2 weeks, and Sister Francom, who was here before has returned to finish the last six weeks of her mission here.
We are doing well and feel blessed to be here.
Since our last post we have pictures of our grandson, Coleson Paul Foutz.
He shares the name Paul with his cousin Gideon Paul Foutz who is two years older. They both share the name with my father Wayne Paul Gaertner who died in 1980.
Our spring has finally sprung!! The first two days were even summery, mildly humid and warm into the night. We have since then had more springlike weather, but once the weather broke, it has never turned to freezing in the night. The nights continue to get shorter and shorter. We have it fairly light now until 8:30 PM and the sun rises around 6:00 AM a big change from last December when we had only about 9 hours of light. We walk to church in the light both ways all evidence of ice is gone. We still see piles of snow around in corners where the sun never shines that still are slowly melting. It does feel good to have it sunny again.
We have been involved in teaching some of our people and it feels so good. We sometimes have people who speak English and we need no translation, but most of the time that is not the case. We have told
the missionaries that anytime they want to come to have a home cooked meal, just bring someone over whom they are teaching. So last night we had the elders and a young man over who is very interested in listening. He is a good young man. We were involved in as much as we could be. He said he liked my first attempt at borscht (Russian soup with beets). We liked it and he said it tasted like it might be american style. So far I haven't had any luck to get the ladies to share with me their recipes. Maybe later. Mine didn't stay very red. He is actually a Ukrainian and misses his really red Ukrainian borscht. He didn't offer to teach me, don't know if he knows how to make it.
Since last writing we have had a visit from President and Sister Woolley. That weekeend President called our driver Andrey as the new branch president. He will be a very good one, and his wife, Olga, will be a great support. They both help us a tremendous amount. We are working with Olga, to do some humanitarian work here. It will take time, but we feel confident that we have some good projects. While the Woolleys were here we visited Gorodyets with them. They got to see 2 museums and lots of the countryside. It was good to be with them again. It will be good to go there again when the trees are in full leaf, and the flowers are blooming. It is a pretty little town.
We continue to visit both branches, and they are doing well. We have one more baptism scheduled and maybe another one soon after. The branch president in the lower branch and his wife are expecting their first child, a girl, in the middle of July. They are so happy, it is fun to watch them.
It was good to get a whole envelope of letters from our empty nesters group in South Jordan. What fun it was to get them and we enjoyed every one. Thank you so much Joe for heading up that project for us. Write again anytime!!! We can get letters, and cards with envelopes through the following address: Elder Jerry and Linda Foutz, Russia Moscow West Mission, Muravskaya Street, Bldg. 1 Floor 3, Moscow 125310 Russia. This requires overseas postage. If you write on a single page, writing only on the front, (NO ENVELOPE) then fold it in thirds, taping the two shorter ends, and put the address on the back, you can send this in the pouch for regular mail price at the following address: Elder Jerry and Linda Foutz, Russia Moscow West Mission, POB 30150 Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150.
Someone asked if we are affected by the mission boundry reassignment in the Moscow Mission and the answer is yes. We will be part of the Moscow Mission as of July 1 this year. Our mission president will be going home after a 3 year assignment and the present Moscow mission president will be taking the orphan groups in Russia over. Our mission is presently made of groups in Russia, Belarus, and Kazahkstan. I don't know if that spelling is right the way they spell it here is different because of the cyrillic alphabet. Anyway, we will be one of the furtherest outlying groups in the Russia Moscow Mission
We have ventured out a bit more since we don't have to watch for ice and it is fun to see the architecture on the buildings. We were always watching for the ice and didn't look up that much.
We are slowly getting a bit more of the language, it is a difficult one in which you have to know parts of speech and then rearrange the words to work better in the language. I haven't done much with grammar, I am struggeling just with memorizing sentences for which the grammar is already situated. There is a specific accent on each word and it does matter which vowel you accent!! Since the written Russian doesn't include the accent marks you have to get pretty comfortable with the language to read out loud! We have a teacher who comes over once a week and struggles with us to help in this matter. Oleg is very patient but insists that we do it right and there is one sound that I haven't mastered yet, it is written as 'bl' but it doesn't sound like it is written. It is a cross between 'ee' and 'uy' and is more gutteral than we are used to. He just shakes his head and then is surprised if I get it close, but of course I can never repeat that one time it is close!! Oleg is a young college student, not a member, but loves to serve others. He likes to spend time with us speaking english to improve his skills. He is scheduled to go to Texas this summer on a work permit for about three months. He is real excited to go to the U.S. and hopes he will be understood. His english is pretty good and he won't have any real problems communicating. We hope he gets more serious about the church.
Oleg is going to Galveston, Texas, so we got on line and played him Glenn Campbells version of Galveston! I don't know if he liked it or not but now he knows a bit about Galveston fame.
Transfers were this last week and one of our sister missionaries completed her mission and returned to St. George, Utah. We have a new Elder from Shelley, Idaho, a sister missionary who will serve 2 weeks, and Sister Francom, who was here before has returned to finish the last six weeks of her mission here.
We are doing well and feel blessed to be here.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Welcome to our new little Coleson Foutz!! April 5, 2012
Baby Coleson Foutz has been welcomed into the family of Spencer, Amanda, Emma, and Will. Born April 4th at 3:30 pm weighing in at 7lbs and 14 oz., he is healthy and so is Amanda. I am sure that big brother and sister were thrilled. They decided not to know the baby's sex until birth so they have been adding names to the growing list of possibilities for boys and girls. I understand that Emma and Will have suggested that Barbie or Ken would be great names! They haven't decided on a middle name yet.
We keep hoping for some spring and there have been a few false starts to spring, but it has snowed almost every day since we last posted!!! It is still snowing lightly even now. The temperature hovers just above freezing it does not leave quickly. Every day I wish, 'let this be the last snow of the season'. We can't complain because the temperature is slightly warmer and some days it is sunny and bright, can't say it is warm yet, but we are eagerly waiting for Spring to decide to stay. One good thing about the warmer temperatures is that the sidewalks are finally, mostly clear of the ice build up. After all we are in Russia!!!
Our work continues as we get into the lives of the people here. We recently met Albeena and Victor. We found Victor gravely ill with cancer. We were informed a few days later that Victor had died. Safely to his heavenly home and free from pain and suffering. He suffered a lot and she was an angel to care for him in such a loving way, it was wonderful to see. I don't know when she slept. We are happy to know that they are sealed together for eternity and have that hope to be together forever which of course softens the pain and releases her from the terror of the parting. It is still lonely and she will have to find ways to fill in the void as do all who lose loved ones. We hope to support her in any way we can.
We are entering the Easter season and have renewed faith in the promise of the coming of Christ again. We know that He now lives and is aware of each one of us. He is watchful over us and even though we are going through some tough times as a county, we are sure that He will support and help us. We are ever promised that He will watch over with care and intervene when needed, as we ask in faith believing that He is there.
Our work has been full of cooking for several activities, we traveled to Kiev to renew our visas, (an every 3 month requirement for us,) and back in about a 24 hour period, involving 3 flights and one train ride, supporting the younger missionaries, continuing with English conversation helps, studying Russian, visiting the members, and enjoying our general conference: watch at http://www.lds.org/.
We have a baptism this weekend and are excited to be attending that. We are still attending both the congregations (branches) here and I am asked to play piano in both, when we are in attendance. It it good to be needed. Dad goes to the branch presidency meetings and supports in administrative duties.
Dad is going to help Andre with some major snow clean up at the village summer house of his parents today. We have been told that the snow is up around 6 meters high there. It is a concern because it can lay a heavy burden on the fences and roofs, and when freezing has occurred it can damage doors, windows, and plumbing.
They may have to dig to get to the house!! More on that project later.
Dad and I are hoping to do some firesides in our home with the young people, ages 14-27. We will invite them to watch Church Education System (CES) youth talks and will involve them in some service or learning activities. We will hold picnics and such activities when summer arrives.
That is about it from this neck of the woods, as the saying goes. God is good and we are doing the best we can.
Linda has given a good update on our activities. I want to share a miracle with you. A couple of weeks before we arrived in Russia a young 6 foot 8 inch , size 18 shoe, 200 pound young Elder arrived. He took the train to Nizhniy for his first area of assignment. On the train he began speaking the best he could with a women from Nizhniy. It was difficult but he got her e-mail address. He did not attempt to make contact with her while in Nizhniy but a few months later while assigned to another city he had someone help him compose a letter to her and e-mailed her, and she wrote back. About a month ago he was reassigned to Nizhniy. This is a city of about one and a half million people. The other day this Elder heard his name called while he was in front of the large apartment building where Victor had lived. Friends and family had gathered for the funeral and to go to the cemetary. The Elder looked up and on about the 8th floor a women was waving and calling his name. Yes, it was the women he had met over six months ago on the train! I am not a statistician and have no idea what the probabililty of that happening is when one figures in all the random possibilities. I am a believer in miracles. I am a believer in a loving Heavenly Father who knows each of us personally and wants only the best for us. I am a believer that the message that we are here to share with the Russian people is important for them. This elder now speaks Russian fairly well and he will be contacting this women to teach her. We will keep you posted.
PS: The snow today has continued all day and turned into quite a storm. It layed down about 4 inches of snow and no sign that it will melt anytime soon, but we hope so. There is snow everywhere and all the sidewalks are covered again, and the roadways too. Traffic has been bad today and the trip out to the village was attempted but because of the storm it had to be postponed till further notice.
We keep hoping for some spring and there have been a few false starts to spring, but it has snowed almost every day since we last posted!!! It is still snowing lightly even now. The temperature hovers just above freezing it does not leave quickly. Every day I wish, 'let this be the last snow of the season'. We can't complain because the temperature is slightly warmer and some days it is sunny and bright, can't say it is warm yet, but we are eagerly waiting for Spring to decide to stay. One good thing about the warmer temperatures is that the sidewalks are finally, mostly clear of the ice build up. After all we are in Russia!!!
Our work continues as we get into the lives of the people here. We recently met Albeena and Victor. We found Victor gravely ill with cancer. We were informed a few days later that Victor had died. Safely to his heavenly home and free from pain and suffering. He suffered a lot and she was an angel to care for him in such a loving way, it was wonderful to see. I don't know when she slept. We are happy to know that they are sealed together for eternity and have that hope to be together forever which of course softens the pain and releases her from the terror of the parting. It is still lonely and she will have to find ways to fill in the void as do all who lose loved ones. We hope to support her in any way we can.
We are entering the Easter season and have renewed faith in the promise of the coming of Christ again. We know that He now lives and is aware of each one of us. He is watchful over us and even though we are going through some tough times as a county, we are sure that He will support and help us. We are ever promised that He will watch over with care and intervene when needed, as we ask in faith believing that He is there.
Our work has been full of cooking for several activities, we traveled to Kiev to renew our visas, (an every 3 month requirement for us,) and back in about a 24 hour period, involving 3 flights and one train ride, supporting the younger missionaries, continuing with English conversation helps, studying Russian, visiting the members, and enjoying our general conference: watch at http://www.lds.org/.
We have a baptism this weekend and are excited to be attending that. We are still attending both the congregations (branches) here and I am asked to play piano in both, when we are in attendance. It it good to be needed. Dad goes to the branch presidency meetings and supports in administrative duties.
Dad is going to help Andre with some major snow clean up at the village summer house of his parents today. We have been told that the snow is up around 6 meters high there. It is a concern because it can lay a heavy burden on the fences and roofs, and when freezing has occurred it can damage doors, windows, and plumbing.
They may have to dig to get to the house!! More on that project later.
Dad and I are hoping to do some firesides in our home with the young people, ages 14-27. We will invite them to watch Church Education System (CES) youth talks and will involve them in some service or learning activities. We will hold picnics and such activities when summer arrives.
That is about it from this neck of the woods, as the saying goes. God is good and we are doing the best we can.
Linda has given a good update on our activities. I want to share a miracle with you. A couple of weeks before we arrived in Russia a young 6 foot 8 inch , size 18 shoe, 200 pound young Elder arrived. He took the train to Nizhniy for his first area of assignment. On the train he began speaking the best he could with a women from Nizhniy. It was difficult but he got her e-mail address. He did not attempt to make contact with her while in Nizhniy but a few months later while assigned to another city he had someone help him compose a letter to her and e-mailed her, and she wrote back. About a month ago he was reassigned to Nizhniy. This is a city of about one and a half million people. The other day this Elder heard his name called while he was in front of the large apartment building where Victor had lived. Friends and family had gathered for the funeral and to go to the cemetary. The Elder looked up and on about the 8th floor a women was waving and calling his name. Yes, it was the women he had met over six months ago on the train! I am not a statistician and have no idea what the probabililty of that happening is when one figures in all the random possibilities. I am a believer in miracles. I am a believer in a loving Heavenly Father who knows each of us personally and wants only the best for us. I am a believer that the message that we are here to share with the Russian people is important for them. This elder now speaks Russian fairly well and he will be contacting this women to teach her. We will keep you posted.
PS: The snow today has continued all day and turned into quite a storm. It layed down about 4 inches of snow and no sign that it will melt anytime soon, but we hope so. There is snow everywhere and all the sidewalks are covered again, and the roadways too. Traffic has been bad today and the trip out to the village was attempted but because of the storm it had to be postponed till further notice.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Update from Nizhniy 22 March 2012
A trip to the train station with friends and luggage and we bid good-by to our friends the Gays, who after 18 months of faithful service have gone on the midnight run to Moscow and then home Monday night.We were sad to see them go and know for sure that they have ambivelent feelings about leaving. They were loved and in turn loved the people here. They have earned a deserved rest.
We got on the train at midnight the following night for a trip to Moscow for meetings with all of our local missionaries on Tuesday night. None of us slept very well. I think that it wasn't the best wish for 2 elders to be in the compartment with me and Grandpa any more than it was for me to be in there with them for the night. However we made it and were all up by around 6 AM and left the train by 7 AM. We had a short walk to the metro station and then rode the metro to the Central Chapel by 8AM. We had glad reunions with some of the missionaries we have served with previously, and bid good-bye to some who will be returning home in a month. One of the 5 returning sisters is one from our lot.
We rode home on the Sapsan, fast train, and got in around 11:30 PM. By this time we were short on sleep and had many short nights previously so slept in a bit this morning. It felt good. Today Grandpa went to help remodel the apartment with Jenya and I cleaned the apartment and washed the laundry.
We have visited this week with a couple who are adopting 2 little Russian boys with special needs, after a long time of negotiating, fall backs, and redoing paper work. They now have custody of their little ones and are in Moscow with the final stages of preparing passports for the trip home to Florida.
They both have heart problems and the youngest needs medical attention very soon.
We still have winter here, after a false start to spring for 2 days, which gave us hope, it fell into a winter storm with 2 or three days now of more snow. Luckily not much snow, and we hope that is the end of it. The temp is up a bit and even with the storm, some of the ice was beginning to melt off in some degree or other. There are still ice fisherman on the rivers near here, and the snow is still on the rooftops, alleys, and in the parks and open areas.
We are healthy and happy, doing what we can to help the work along. We made some candy for passing out to different individuals who have helped us, and have felt blessed to do our part. The Lord is blessing us and we count it a blessing for us to be here.
We will start being more involved with the lower branch now that we are the only senior couple here. The lower branch president speaks pretty good english and we hope to be of assistance in the branch to reactive and strengthen where we can.
The missionaries here have some good people they are working with and we feel confident that the work is going to pick up and we will see some fruit from the labors of all of us.
We got on the train at midnight the following night for a trip to Moscow for meetings with all of our local missionaries on Tuesday night. None of us slept very well. I think that it wasn't the best wish for 2 elders to be in the compartment with me and Grandpa any more than it was for me to be in there with them for the night. However we made it and were all up by around 6 AM and left the train by 7 AM. We had a short walk to the metro station and then rode the metro to the Central Chapel by 8AM. We had glad reunions with some of the missionaries we have served with previously, and bid good-bye to some who will be returning home in a month. One of the 5 returning sisters is one from our lot.
We rode home on the Sapsan, fast train, and got in around 11:30 PM. By this time we were short on sleep and had many short nights previously so slept in a bit this morning. It felt good. Today Grandpa went to help remodel the apartment with Jenya and I cleaned the apartment and washed the laundry.
We have visited this week with a couple who are adopting 2 little Russian boys with special needs, after a long time of negotiating, fall backs, and redoing paper work. They now have custody of their little ones and are in Moscow with the final stages of preparing passports for the trip home to Florida.
They both have heart problems and the youngest needs medical attention very soon.
We still have winter here, after a false start to spring for 2 days, which gave us hope, it fell into a winter storm with 2 or three days now of more snow. Luckily not much snow, and we hope that is the end of it. The temp is up a bit and even with the storm, some of the ice was beginning to melt off in some degree or other. There are still ice fisherman on the rivers near here, and the snow is still on the rooftops, alleys, and in the parks and open areas.
We are healthy and happy, doing what we can to help the work along. We made some candy for passing out to different individuals who have helped us, and have felt blessed to do our part. The Lord is blessing us and we count it a blessing for us to be here.
We will start being more involved with the lower branch now that we are the only senior couple here. The lower branch president speaks pretty good english and we hope to be of assistance in the branch to reactive and strengthen where we can.
The missionaries here have some good people they are working with and we feel confident that the work is going to pick up and we will see some fruit from the labors of all of us.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
March 13, 2012 Gorodyets Tour 3/1/2012
Well this blogging is getting to be very time consuming for me. I did a whole blog with pictures that didn't get posted and made the next one incomplete. I'll try to relate what was in the one I lost. (Now that I have this one posted the other post on this tour is posting as well. So I have 2 posts about this tour, hope you like the pictures!!)
On March 1, our district of 10 travel to Gorogyets (Городец). I am just beginning to pick out the new alphabet. We have the computer key letters overlaid with stickers that include the English and the Russian letters. No they are not in the same order and that makes it a slightly bit more complicated for me. For example the T is in the N place. The M is in the V place and the O is in the J place. Instead of an I we have the ш (which says sh). And on we go. I personnaly have no problem with the letters but the hardest ones to learn to read, are the ones that look like the english letter but say something different: H is for N, C is for S, P is for R, and B is for V. Reading and typing have become a difficulty but not insurmountable. Any way I digress form my narrative.
Городец: A beautiful city on the bank of the now frozen Volga river, up river from NN. It used to be in a strategic spot and was surrounded by a high wall. It is a city of about 30,000 and is very quaint and delightful spot. The houses are traditional 1800's Russian archeticture. The 5 museums we visited were painted nicely and had been mansions or wealthy merchant dwellings. As wealthy as they were the dwellings seemed not to be very substantial and not very richly decorated. This may have been lost over the years though.
We saw a museum that is particularly dedicated to the showing of artifacts that have been unearthed from the 1300-1400's in the site where the town now stands. A lot of war impliments and several items of clothing from the era. There is a room of stuffed animals native to the area, and a room that shows the cathedral complex that once stood on a hill in the city. Some farming instruments and also war impliments. One piece showed the schrapnal taken from the eyes of soldiers (ugh). There were also several carving displays that had been used in the decoration of houses and windows previously.
One of the museums was a 2 year old building, made in the original architecture style of Old Russia. It had many of the same types of displays with the addition of a type of childrens whistles, and a display of clay pots.
Another showed more childrens whistles. Children were believed to have been given these in the day when they believed in evil spirits. As the children blew the whistles the evil spirits were driven away. We all got to make one!! They were made in the form of an animal of any sort. They were then painted in beautiful colors.
Another was a mansion that displayed art work, clocks, books, clothing, and several irons, balance weights, early working tools of all kinds.
Lastly we saw a beautiful merchant home that displayed tea urns. The tea urn had two parts. The water was stored in a outer chamber and inside this chamber was placed a central tube to hold live coals to keep the water warm. They put the tea leaves in the water and then dispensed the ready tea through a spiget to a cup for chilly patrons who would pay for a warm drink. It was an old fashioned type of thermos, and worked very well. They were very popular and over the years they were improved and improvised. There were several urns there that were non operable because they were only decorative. Some were absolutely gorgeous.
We recenly had a baptism that was really a wonderful experience. We have had the visit of our mission president and his wife who came to teach, inspire, and see the branches and generally be of support. They achieved all their goals as far as I am concerned. They both travel extensively and are rarely at home in Moscow. He does all the missionary conferences, all missionary interviews, and then all the interviews for the branches, nine in all in 3 countries. None are very close to the other so it is a major time consumer just to get around to all the missionaries each 6 week period. He has duties in the office, meetings, and newsletters, and general challenges to help solve. What a great team they are and are enduring well.
We are currently helping with the missionary effort by visiting and generally helping the young missionaries. We enjoy it and are happy to be here.
We will be sahying good-bye to the other senior couple serving here. They are in their 18th month of service. Since we are all on a 3 month visa and theirs runs out on the 20th they are leaving here the 19th and we will miss them. They both are talented and have given much to the growth of the lower branch. We will try to take up some of the duties they have been involved in and hope to help keep things going in both branches. President Woolley will be back 14 April again to conduct some branch business and missionary interviews.
On March 1, our district of 10 travel to Gorogyets (Городец). I am just beginning to pick out the new alphabet. We have the computer key letters overlaid with stickers that include the English and the Russian letters. No they are not in the same order and that makes it a slightly bit more complicated for me. For example the T is in the N place. The M is in the V place and the O is in the J place. Instead of an I we have the ш (which says sh). And on we go. I personnaly have no problem with the letters but the hardest ones to learn to read, are the ones that look like the english letter but say something different: H is for N, C is for S, P is for R, and B is for V. Reading and typing have become a difficulty but not insurmountable. Any way I digress form my narrative.
Городец: A beautiful city on the bank of the now frozen Volga river, up river from NN. It used to be in a strategic spot and was surrounded by a high wall. It is a city of about 30,000 and is very quaint and delightful spot. The houses are traditional 1800's Russian archeticture. The 5 museums we visited were painted nicely and had been mansions or wealthy merchant dwellings. As wealthy as they were the dwellings seemed not to be very substantial and not very richly decorated. This may have been lost over the years though.
We saw a museum that is particularly dedicated to the showing of artifacts that have been unearthed from the 1300-1400's in the site where the town now stands. A lot of war impliments and several items of clothing from the era. There is a room of stuffed animals native to the area, and a room that shows the cathedral complex that once stood on a hill in the city. Some farming instruments and also war impliments. One piece showed the schrapnal taken from the eyes of soldiers (ugh). There were also several carving displays that had been used in the decoration of houses and windows previously.
One of the museums was a 2 year old building, made in the original architecture style of Old Russia. It had many of the same types of displays with the addition of a type of childrens whistles, and a display of clay pots.
Another showed more childrens whistles. Children were believed to have been given these in the day when they believed in evil spirits. As the children blew the whistles the evil spirits were driven away. We all got to make one!! They were made in the form of an animal of any sort. They were then painted in beautiful colors.
Another was a mansion that displayed art work, clocks, books, clothing, and several irons, balance weights, early working tools of all kinds.
Lastly we saw a beautiful merchant home that displayed tea urns. The tea urn had two parts. The water was stored in a outer chamber and inside this chamber was placed a central tube to hold live coals to keep the water warm. They put the tea leaves in the water and then dispensed the ready tea through a spiget to a cup for chilly patrons who would pay for a warm drink. It was an old fashioned type of thermos, and worked very well. They were very popular and over the years they were improved and improvised. There were several urns there that were non operable because they were only decorative. Some were absolutely gorgeous.
We recenly had a baptism that was really a wonderful experience. We have had the visit of our mission president and his wife who came to teach, inspire, and see the branches and generally be of support. They achieved all their goals as far as I am concerned. They both travel extensively and are rarely at home in Moscow. He does all the missionary conferences, all missionary interviews, and then all the interviews for the branches, nine in all in 3 countries. None are very close to the other so it is a major time consumer just to get around to all the missionaries each 6 week period. He has duties in the office, meetings, and newsletters, and general challenges to help solve. What a great team they are and are enduring well.
We are currently helping with the missionary effort by visiting and generally helping the young missionaries. We enjoy it and are happy to be here.
We will be sahying good-bye to the other senior couple serving here. They are in their 18th month of service. Since we are all on a 3 month visa and theirs runs out on the 20th they are leaving here the 19th and we will miss them. They both are talented and have given much to the growth of the lower branch. We will try to take up some of the duties they have been involved in and hope to help keep things going in both branches. President Woolley will be back 14 April again to conduct some branch business and missionary interviews.
 |
| Whimsical wood carving of a hunter and his faithful dog. We liked these a lot and they show the gifted talents of the locals. |
 |
| One of the delightful decorative tea pots on display in the museums at Gorogyets. |
 |
| Plaque showing the happy family listening to the recording of societ propaganda. See how engaged they all are and how it adds to family life!!! |
 |
| Helmet unearthed in the Gorogyets area. The owner is unknown but this is the most valuable piece in the museum. Helmet has silver and gold overlays and is believed to belong to a prince. From the 1300-1400's. Nose protector is missing. |
 |
| Close up of the cathederal model that once stood on a hill overlooking the Volga river and all surrounding country side in Gorodyets. |
 |
| Beautiful lace work shown in a work done to show the CCCP revolution. (USSR) 1945-1975 |
 |
| Intricate wrought iron work in an archway of a building. Gorogyets, Russia |
 |
| Detail on the east side an 1800's merchant home which now houses the tea urn display. |
Thursday, March 8, 2012
8 March 2012 (more tour pictures) Alan's Birthday 2-26-57
My brothers birthday was on 26 Feb. Hope it was a great day.
It has been a time of joy, a time of snow, a time of warmth, and a time of cooling. The weather here is like anywhere else, unpredictable and as variable as any. We are happy to see the sun more and even though it is usually cooler when it is out. The tulips were a gift from Dad to me for Women's Day.
 |
| Spring Tulips |
 |
| Collection of Tea urns from the 18th century Russia. |
 |
| New museum in Gorodyets in traditional architecture. |
 |
| Museum in Gorodyets chain armor from the 13th or 14th century. |
 |
| The sign reads Gorodyets. You see the frozen River Volga in the background. There is an open channel about half way across in this location. There is a huge motor works on the opposite side of the river. |
8 Mar 12 Tour of Gorodyets
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.
 |
| Model of Cathedral in Gorodyets now demolished. Must have been a beautiful complex. |
 |
| Beautiful whimsical carving on display in Gorodyets |
 |
| Detail in lace, the actual is about 2" square. |
 |
| 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. |
 |
| Detail of museum in Gorodyets. This is a selection of many houses in the area. Beautiful architecture and fine work. |
Monday, February 20, 2012
Chance is 4, 17 Feb, Sierra is Baptized, 19 Feb
Chance turned 4 this week and we missed talking to him and when we did get hold of his Dad, Chance declined the opportunity to talk on the phone. We love Chance and hope that his birthday was a great one. Happy Birthday Chance!!
Sierra turned 8 in October last year but sadly her Daddy was away in Afghanistan and so she waited to be baptized. She was richly rewarded for her wait when on Saturday 18 Feb, 2012 she was baptized. She had a lot of people come and she was so happy to be with her friends and family. We wish we could have been there but send our love. We talked to her and she was very happy that day.
Hyrum got new glasses. We love your new glasses and hope you can see lots better at school. hyrum has a new remote control helicopter that he enjoys flying.
We are having a great week. We had a great district meeting. Our English club came later in that evening and we showed the video Johnny Lingo. The club were all men that evening and I think only one is married but all probably have been married. I didn't know how this would work out or if the conversation would pan out. We did find that they were interested in the thought of an 8 cow wife and it was pretty singular for them. We had a good conversation and ended by saying we should make all of our loved ones feel like 8 cow people.
We did our apartment inspections and the outcome was very spectacular! Nice clean apartments and clean sheets. Even clean refrigerators!!
We have tried to get the water filter for one of the sisters apartment working but the connecting adapter is too large. We were going to just buy a new faucet but the landlord didn't want that. So now Andre, our driver, is going to get a friend of his that has a pipe threader and other tools to make a new adapter that will fit the faucet. We hope that this won't take too long. All missionary apartments are fitted with water filters for their health .
I put a quilt on the frame for a small baby blanket for the sisters to help tie. No one came and so Grandpa and I tied it. We did a very good job. I think it was his first time to tie a quilt and he did an outstanding job. We can give it to a sister in the branch who is a new grandmother. We will do another one for the branch crib when the sisters can come help. It is hard for them to come, they have work, school, and other activities that interfere.
Dad had an opportunity to help Andre, our driver, with a service project. He and the missionaries went to the kindergarten run by Andre's mother-in-law (a member of the branch) to shovel snow and chip ice off the sidewalks and the roof tops of some play gazebo's. The snow stays pretty long here and just adds up and then it becomes very heavy. We haven't had a tremendous lot of snow but it all adds up. He was pretty tired, but it was worth the effort.
I finished the quilt while he was shoveling and then found some information and pictures for our Sat English Club visit. On US holidays we are usually invited over to this club to talk about the holiday, this one being Valentines day. We shared what we know about how it is celebrated and what is done. With the internet they pretty well know all about it, but the first hand experience we have is pretty special to them. They seemed interested in what we had to tell them about Valentines Day and our comments about love and family unity. We gave them each a copy of the Liahona and explained to them that there were articles in it for children, teenagers and adults, all good information about how to live lives that are centered around showing love to those around us. My Valentine braved slick walks to go out and buy me some valeintine candy. I made him a large heart shaped cookie. Out of that batch of cookie dough I made a bunch of heart shaped cookies. I think Dad likes those cookies, even though he doesn't care for frosting he still eats them.
We hosted a meeting here for the making of a card that will show the different facets of the church
and programs we offer. It will be on cardstock and will be professionally done. Should be a good tool for the members who want to reach out to the community. After the meeting they enjoyed quite a few of the valentine cookies.
We attended the funeral of a man whose wife is a member of our branch. It was quite different from funerals we have in the US. We didn't know her as she has been home tending to her husband for quite a while. We were glad to be of support to her. There were 7 of us from the branch.
Sierra turned 8 in October last year but sadly her Daddy was away in Afghanistan and so she waited to be baptized. She was richly rewarded for her wait when on Saturday 18 Feb, 2012 she was baptized. She had a lot of people come and she was so happy to be with her friends and family. We wish we could have been there but send our love. We talked to her and she was very happy that day.
We are having a great week. We had a great district meeting. Our English club came later in that evening and we showed the video Johnny Lingo. The club were all men that evening and I think only one is married but all probably have been married. I didn't know how this would work out or if the conversation would pan out. We did find that they were interested in the thought of an 8 cow wife and it was pretty singular for them. We had a good conversation and ended by saying we should make all of our loved ones feel like 8 cow people.
We did our apartment inspections and the outcome was very spectacular! Nice clean apartments and clean sheets. Even clean refrigerators!!
We have tried to get the water filter for one of the sisters apartment working but the connecting adapter is too large. We were going to just buy a new faucet but the landlord didn't want that. So now Andre, our driver, is going to get a friend of his that has a pipe threader and other tools to make a new adapter that will fit the faucet. We hope that this won't take too long. All missionary apartments are fitted with water filters for their health .
I put a quilt on the frame for a small baby blanket for the sisters to help tie. No one came and so Grandpa and I tied it. We did a very good job. I think it was his first time to tie a quilt and he did an outstanding job. We can give it to a sister in the branch who is a new grandmother. We will do another one for the branch crib when the sisters can come help. It is hard for them to come, they have work, school, and other activities that interfere.
Dad had an opportunity to help Andre, our driver, with a service project. He and the missionaries went to the kindergarten run by Andre's mother-in-law (a member of the branch) to shovel snow and chip ice off the sidewalks and the roof tops of some play gazebo's. The snow stays pretty long here and just adds up and then it becomes very heavy. We haven't had a tremendous lot of snow but it all adds up. He was pretty tired, but it was worth the effort.
I finished the quilt while he was shoveling and then found some information and pictures for our Sat English Club visit. On US holidays we are usually invited over to this club to talk about the holiday, this one being Valentines day. We shared what we know about how it is celebrated and what is done. With the internet they pretty well know all about it, but the first hand experience we have is pretty special to them. They seemed interested in what we had to tell them about Valentines Day and our comments about love and family unity. We gave them each a copy of the Liahona and explained to them that there were articles in it for children, teenagers and adults, all good information about how to live lives that are centered around showing love to those around us. My Valentine braved slick walks to go out and buy me some valeintine candy. I made him a large heart shaped cookie. Out of that batch of cookie dough I made a bunch of heart shaped cookies. I think Dad likes those cookies, even though he doesn't care for frosting he still eats them.
We hosted a meeting here for the making of a card that will show the different facets of the church
and programs we offer. It will be on cardstock and will be professionally done. Should be a good tool for the members who want to reach out to the community. After the meeting they enjoyed quite a few of the valentine cookies.
We attended the funeral of a man whose wife is a member of our branch. It was quite different from funerals we have in the US. We didn't know her as she has been home tending to her husband for quite a while. We were glad to be of support to her. There were 7 of us from the branch.
 |
| We just got this picture so here it is for all to see that Celeb was baptized! We love you Caleb. He had lots of friends and family come. Wish we could have been there! We did get to talk to Caleb and he was a very happy young man. |
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Feb 14- 15, 2012 Happy Birthday Raenie and Happy Valentines Day
 |
| Here we are fully covered from foot to head!! We are in front of a large snowbank in back of our apartment building. Such snow piles are quite common here and help preserve winter and diminish the parking spaces. |
 |
| Here we are quite comfy in our Sapsan seating. We were warm and quite surprised to learn that the temperature outside at this very minute was -28 C |
 |
| A very cold looking picture of Lower Nizhiny from the 17th floor of a missionary apartment. To the left in the picture is a frozen lake used now for sledding down the banks. We want to say Happy Birthday to Raenie. We WARMLY wish you a happy celebration. Love you much. |
We have hunted for and acquired a new apartment for two of our sisters and they are safely tucked away in their new dwelling. We had them with us for about a week or so and they were very fine house guests.
They assured us they would miss all of Elder Foutz's breakfasts. We miss the conversation and special spirit they shared with us while they were here. They are in a good area, close to the chapel, their finding area, shopping, and mass transportation.
Yesterday was spent sharing our computer time with the elders and sisters here, and shopping for the dinner we cook for on District day. We tried to find a piece of plumbing for the water filtration system for the sister apartment. We spent quite a bit of time here and there trying to locate this adaptor, but to no avail. The current thinking is that maybe we should just get a faucet that will fit the apparatus for the filter system.
Our small branch had a small turnout on Sunday, probably because it was so cold. Those of us there were warm and enjoyed a nice block of meetings. Our Sunday School class had only one person but we had a good discussion. We had many teachers and leaders missing so following the Sunday School topic the elders used a video for the 3rd hour to explain more fully the principle of agency.
We didn't get to teach our young lady this past week because she is out of town.
 |
| Here is a classic Russian made car that we saw in a museum that is shown here probably more for the benefit of our grandsons. |
 |
| This is an early Russian made car and if it looks like a Ford that is because Henry came over and helped start the factory. Thought the grandson would like this one too. |
 |
| Here is a puppet show scene for the kids to enjoy. The shows are put together by the missionaries for use in the country of Belarus. The missionaries cannot openly teach religion so they teach health and good eating in schools, libraries, and in good weather, they are on the streets. They can answer questions about the show. Teaching is allowed when people initiate the inquiry. |
Friday, February 10, 2012
February1- 10, 2012 Lenae's BD 02/03-1963
Well here we are on the first day of February and soon it will be my sister Lenae's 49th birthday!! Can't hardly believe that. We all get older and that is better than the alternative, for most of us anyway.
We are into a cold spell and I guess that is expected to happen here. We had a fairly blustery day today making the temperature seem colder. Everyone is cold and we have turned on some space heaters in the apartment to keep the temperature up. It stays very nice inside. We had a bit more snow and have seen more and more of the ice chipped off the sidewalks so the walking path to church is getting more and more clear.
The sisters apartment in the Lower Nizhniy is being vacated tomorrow. We need to drive down there and pack them up and probably drive them to our apartment. They are homeless for a few days anyway. We have an apartment picked out but the owners are nervous about the church connection and will let us know sometime today if they will rent to us. We have wanted to get them out of the apartment they are in because they commute over an hour to visit many of their appointments. In a different location the travel could be cut to a third or more. Housing is one of our many responsibilities, along with checking the apartments to make sure they are clean and orderly.(We have since moved them into our apartment as the landlord declined their moving into this above mentioned apartment.)
Last Friday we taught a young lady in our apartment. She is a fine person and we are hoping that she will
be persuaded to see things in the light that we teach. She seems to be very well grounded and has many friends and loves to dance and perform in Salsa, Contemporary, Latino, Ballet, and probably others too.
She has very good English and we are hoping that she will read, study, and pray. Isn't that every missionary's wish for their investigators. We love the people here and find them intelligent, informed, friendly, and the young kids are so kind to us. They love to have us be included in their games at the family home evening and are very competitive, but fair. They love to play hockey with the young missionaries, but we stay away from that. Too many lost teeth, gouged eyes, bruised shins, etc. Although, I must say , that in the last 4 months I am not aware of any injuries. I have a hard enough time staying on my feet as it is and do not desire to put my well being to that big a test.
Here it is Feb 10 and we have not had much time to finish this post and will hurry to do so. We have had considerable more cold and wind. It has been down as low as -30C at night and the other night on the Sapsan (fast train) we saw on the digital thermometer -28 C. We have been warm enough and if the wind whips up we will put a scarf over our faces. We saw on the train a digital readout of the speed of the train, which we had not noticed before, that the maximum speed it arrived to was 130 km/ hr. The maximum speed it can arrive to is 250 km/hr. We didn't get that fast. I think that they slow down when they come to little villages and so we could see that the train was slowing and then speeding up again all during the journey. We had another overnight journey too. The rooms,called coupe,were dark enough but quite warm. At least we can lay down and stretch out.
We had great meetings in Moscow and felt quite motivated and ready to go to work again. We met Elder Bennett from the 2nd quorum of 70 who is a very good motivator and speaker. He loves the Lord and over and over again assured us of his and the prophets love. We felt that too. Dad and I had the unique opportunity to go for a tour of Nizhniy with our driver and Elder and Sister Bennett. We saw the kremlin, a good overview of the two rivesr and the lower city, and saw the older part of the upper part of Nizhniy. We stayed in the upper part on the tour because it is more colorful and the lower part is industrial with not so many sites to look at.
We have recently had the good fortune to meet a kind couple who are adopting two special needs kids from here and one other city nearby. This couple are very special to reach out to a select part of the children waiting to be adopted who have health disabilities. Their two year old is needing almost immediate surgery for heart issues and will soon be in the USA to receive this treatment. The five year old also has heart defects and will need some supervision but as he has had surgery his need is not nearly so critical. They have all the clearances to adopt but have to endure a 30 day wait. So, as they have 3 children in Florida, they have returned home and will come back in March to finish the paperwork, visas, and passports and then take formal custody and return to the states.
We are teaching again tonight, have a missionary planning meeting this afternoon, have a meeting with the landlord of the new apartment for the sister missionaries later. So will need to finish this and get going. I'll try to affix some photos at the end of this.
A thought; when all is said and done, at the end of our lives, the most important thing for us to report to the Savior of the world is the relationship with our spouse, the relationship with our family, our endurance in doing good, and our personal repentance and desire to do the Lord's will. Will we be perfect, of course not, but we can move that direction, more each day we hope. The Lord is not so concerned as to where in the journey to perfection we are, but the direction we are heading. Are we on the Lord's errand or are we sidtracked somewhere or turned around and heading somewhere else. The Lord bless you all, know that we as grandparents love you grandchildren, and as parents we love you children (including the in-laws) , and as brothers, sisters, friends and family we love you all too. We love you and miss you and pray the Lord be with you all.
We are into a cold spell and I guess that is expected to happen here. We had a fairly blustery day today making the temperature seem colder. Everyone is cold and we have turned on some space heaters in the apartment to keep the temperature up. It stays very nice inside. We had a bit more snow and have seen more and more of the ice chipped off the sidewalks so the walking path to church is getting more and more clear.
The sisters apartment in the Lower Nizhniy is being vacated tomorrow. We need to drive down there and pack them up and probably drive them to our apartment. They are homeless for a few days anyway. We have an apartment picked out but the owners are nervous about the church connection and will let us know sometime today if they will rent to us. We have wanted to get them out of the apartment they are in because they commute over an hour to visit many of their appointments. In a different location the travel could be cut to a third or more. Housing is one of our many responsibilities, along with checking the apartments to make sure they are clean and orderly.(We have since moved them into our apartment as the landlord declined their moving into this above mentioned apartment.)
Last Friday we taught a young lady in our apartment. She is a fine person and we are hoping that she will
be persuaded to see things in the light that we teach. She seems to be very well grounded and has many friends and loves to dance and perform in Salsa, Contemporary, Latino, Ballet, and probably others too.
She has very good English and we are hoping that she will read, study, and pray. Isn't that every missionary's wish for their investigators. We love the people here and find them intelligent, informed, friendly, and the young kids are so kind to us. They love to have us be included in their games at the family home evening and are very competitive, but fair. They love to play hockey with the young missionaries, but we stay away from that. Too many lost teeth, gouged eyes, bruised shins, etc. Although, I must say , that in the last 4 months I am not aware of any injuries. I have a hard enough time staying on my feet as it is and do not desire to put my well being to that big a test.
Here it is Feb 10 and we have not had much time to finish this post and will hurry to do so. We have had considerable more cold and wind. It has been down as low as -30C at night and the other night on the Sapsan (fast train) we saw on the digital thermometer -28 C. We have been warm enough and if the wind whips up we will put a scarf over our faces. We saw on the train a digital readout of the speed of the train, which we had not noticed before, that the maximum speed it arrived to was 130 km/ hr. The maximum speed it can arrive to is 250 km/hr. We didn't get that fast. I think that they slow down when they come to little villages and so we could see that the train was slowing and then speeding up again all during the journey. We had another overnight journey too. The rooms,called coupe,were dark enough but quite warm. At least we can lay down and stretch out.
We had great meetings in Moscow and felt quite motivated and ready to go to work again. We met Elder Bennett from the 2nd quorum of 70 who is a very good motivator and speaker. He loves the Lord and over and over again assured us of his and the prophets love. We felt that too. Dad and I had the unique opportunity to go for a tour of Nizhniy with our driver and Elder and Sister Bennett. We saw the kremlin, a good overview of the two rivesr and the lower city, and saw the older part of the upper part of Nizhniy. We stayed in the upper part on the tour because it is more colorful and the lower part is industrial with not so many sites to look at.
We have recently had the good fortune to meet a kind couple who are adopting two special needs kids from here and one other city nearby. This couple are very special to reach out to a select part of the children waiting to be adopted who have health disabilities. Their two year old is needing almost immediate surgery for heart issues and will soon be in the USA to receive this treatment. The five year old also has heart defects and will need some supervision but as he has had surgery his need is not nearly so critical. They have all the clearances to adopt but have to endure a 30 day wait. So, as they have 3 children in Florida, they have returned home and will come back in March to finish the paperwork, visas, and passports and then take formal custody and return to the states.
We are teaching again tonight, have a missionary planning meeting this afternoon, have a meeting with the landlord of the new apartment for the sister missionaries later. So will need to finish this and get going. I'll try to affix some photos at the end of this.
 |
| Babushka Ina who just broke her arm. Sweet small lady who loves the Gospel and her missionaries. |
 |
| Babushka Ina's living room, really her bedroom too. She has only the one room to herself and shares the bathroom and kitchen with a 2nd and maybe 3rd apartment. |
 |
| A famous Russian scene in the art museum in Moscow. Features the 3 bogatera. They are heros in Russian folk tales. |
 |
| Christmas day 2011 with Johnson, Kenneth, and Joseph. We really had a great time. |
 |
| This is the Sapsan train. The letters you see on the side say it in Russian. |
 |
| Here we are in our winter gear in front of our Apartment building. Don't we look like natives? |
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Gorky Square and Sapsan Train
 |
| Lights in Gorky Square 20-11-12 |
 |
| Lights on Gorky Square 2011-12 |
 |
| Lights on Gorky Square 2011-12 |
 |
| Elder Foutz in front of the Sapsan Train. The letters that look like 'cancah' are really Sapsan in Russian! |
 |
| Sister Foutz in Ukraine Keiv Airport Jan 2012 keeping warm. |
 |
| Sapsan engine and cars in Moscow 2011 |
Thursday, January 26, 2012
25 Jan 2012
Hey everyone! It is getting colder but we are managing just fine. We senior folks don't get out in it that much and we bundle up really well. It has been around -10 thru -20 at night. We have a porch outside the office and keep some extra food items in there and a few things have been freezing. We try to keep a watch on the liquids and keep them some place else.
Jerry has been a companion to one of the elders here in the city because his companion went home. He actually went home a few days over his two year committment but not in sinc with the rest of the transfers. We thought that there was a young man from another city who would come and be with him but that didn't work out. He is staying here with us for two days while one of the young elders here travels to another city to work. The other elder here is traveling to Ukraine for his visa renewal. After his visa renewal he will travel back here with his own new companion and a new one for our elder here.
This past week we have had our english club and did a demo about time using the jar with large rocks, gravel, and sand in it. We then observed that at last it could hold some water. We talked about how it would be impossibe to fit the largest things in unless we fit them in first. We can't be successful unless we do the most important things first, then fit in between those the good but not vital things and then do the other things and so forth. All the people seemed to like the message and one asked us to please let him have a copy of the message. We have been asked to speak at another english club meeting here in the city in February about Valentines day and traditions in the USA.
Some other activities during the past couple of weeks include, helping out a couple who are here from Florida to adopt two small children with special needs, attending the games night with the youth and family home evening.
We visited a young woman who is not currently attending church, hoping that she will start up again. She has lost contact with the missionary who baptized her back in 1994, and we hope to help her. Her information was on a cell phone that was lost or stolen and she is now moved and has a new phone number. I went to a meeting with some of the sisters and we decorated envelopes and paper to be used for invitations for a celebration of women that is pretty important in Russia. Linda's artistic endeavors were pretty sad, but not that much different from everyone else's. Jerry continues to help with the apartment remodel with Jenya, on occassion as time allows.
Linda was asked to speak on Sunday for about 10 minutes. That is a talk of about 5 minutes length for me and 5 minutes for the translater. I find it more difficult to do a good 5 minute talk than one that is longer. You really need to come to the point and then make it and close. The talk was on charity, who better to talk about that subject than Sister Foutz! She did a great job. The young women in the branch that Linda had the sisters over to tie a quilt for had her baby monday and is doing well, as is the baby. She loves the quilt.
Jerry was asked by the Mission President to get the leadership of the two branches together for a meeting to discuss the statistics and see how we can improve. In 2011 the average Sacrament meeting attendance percentage was almost half what it was in 1999. It was an eye opener for the priesthood leaders. The purpose of the meeting was to make them aware and get them committed to a plan of action to move the work forward. They committed to do that and I think we will see some improvement. One of the problems is that the membership records are in bad shape. There are many that are still on the rolls but not here any longer or have died.
We are doing well and thank the Lord for His patience with us and this opportunity.
Jerry has been a companion to one of the elders here in the city because his companion went home. He actually went home a few days over his two year committment but not in sinc with the rest of the transfers. We thought that there was a young man from another city who would come and be with him but that didn't work out. He is staying here with us for two days while one of the young elders here travels to another city to work. The other elder here is traveling to Ukraine for his visa renewal. After his visa renewal he will travel back here with his own new companion and a new one for our elder here.
This past week we have had our english club and did a demo about time using the jar with large rocks, gravel, and sand in it. We then observed that at last it could hold some water. We talked about how it would be impossibe to fit the largest things in unless we fit them in first. We can't be successful unless we do the most important things first, then fit in between those the good but not vital things and then do the other things and so forth. All the people seemed to like the message and one asked us to please let him have a copy of the message. We have been asked to speak at another english club meeting here in the city in February about Valentines day and traditions in the USA.
Some other activities during the past couple of weeks include, helping out a couple who are here from Florida to adopt two small children with special needs, attending the games night with the youth and family home evening.
We visited a young woman who is not currently attending church, hoping that she will start up again. She has lost contact with the missionary who baptized her back in 1994, and we hope to help her. Her information was on a cell phone that was lost or stolen and she is now moved and has a new phone number. I went to a meeting with some of the sisters and we decorated envelopes and paper to be used for invitations for a celebration of women that is pretty important in Russia. Linda's artistic endeavors were pretty sad, but not that much different from everyone else's. Jerry continues to help with the apartment remodel with Jenya, on occassion as time allows.
Linda was asked to speak on Sunday for about 10 minutes. That is a talk of about 5 minutes length for me and 5 minutes for the translater. I find it more difficult to do a good 5 minute talk than one that is longer. You really need to come to the point and then make it and close. The talk was on charity, who better to talk about that subject than Sister Foutz! She did a great job. The young women in the branch that Linda had the sisters over to tie a quilt for had her baby monday and is doing well, as is the baby. She loves the quilt.
Jerry was asked by the Mission President to get the leadership of the two branches together for a meeting to discuss the statistics and see how we can improve. In 2011 the average Sacrament meeting attendance percentage was almost half what it was in 1999. It was an eye opener for the priesthood leaders. The purpose of the meeting was to make them aware and get them committed to a plan of action to move the work forward. They committed to do that and I think we will see some improvement. One of the problems is that the membership records are in bad shape. There are many that are still on the rolls but not here any longer or have died.
We are doing well and thank the Lord for His patience with us and this opportunity.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Jan 19 2012; Alayna is 1
So far we have missed the birthdays of our grandchildren Stan who turned 5 on the 18 Oct, Dallin who turned 6 on 19 Oct, Sierra who turned 8 on 24 Oct, Ruby who turned 7 on 24 Nov, CJ who turned 5 on 28 Nov, William who turned 4 on 17 Dec, Andrew who turned 10 on 21 Dec, Caleb who turned 8 on 1 Jan and then was baptized on the 7th, Emma who turned 7 on 11 Jan and Alayna who turned 1 on 19 Jan (today).
I think we have managed to at least talk to the parents and let them all know that we miss them and are so glad for their progress. We wish Happy Birthday to all. Alayna has taken to walking behind her little push toy and her Mom says she can walk anywhere. She just holds onto the handle and it balances her. She has even taken two steps on her own so far. Way to go Alayna. Stan is excelling in his preschool and the teachers say he should skip preschool next year and go right into Kindergarten. We shall see how that goes. All the grandchildren are of course: smart, cute, sweet, handsome, beautiful, fun, intelligent, clean, thrifty, brave, and reverant. I'll stop there but could go on as of course all grandmas think the same about their grandchildren.
A little about us here in Russia. We have received letters of Christmas greetings from our home ward in South Jordan and was so good to hear from all of them. Thanks to Bro Reed Nelson for forwarding them on to us. We miss our ward and hope all are doing well. For the first time in our 2 missions I have a visiting teacher, Jennifer Walquist! She e-mails and I appreciate hearing about her and the encouragement she provides. I guess now we need a home teacher who e-mails too!!
The ideas as to how to serve are coming to us slowly. We do appreciate the help of the Lord in reaching out to our friends with whom we can converse only very little. They are great people here and just need a little encouragement and direction. We will be busy implementing our various activities. Our best bet is to go slowly and let them catch the vision. Don't want to overwhelm them in any way.
We still have snow and got more last night. The temperature is dropping but so far not significantly. We still sleep with the window open at night because that is they only way to control the heat in the apt. We do keep plenty warm.
A few ladies and 2 missionaries came over to our apt and we tied a baby quilt for a lady who is due soon. We also made no-bake cookies and it was fun teaching. They enjoyed learning about the no bake technique. I have been called as a counselor in Relief Society. They can't speak more than 10 words of English and i can't speak more than 10 words of Russian it will be a fun exp. Dad spoke in church and did a good job with the help of a translator.
Missionary work has been slow as the new year celebration is continuing. School is out and the banks were even closed from Dec 30 thru 10 Jan! Things are beginning to come to life again. Today is a holiday and is celebrated by the state church as the day of the baptism of John the Baptist.
We continue to do weekly meals for the 8 missionaries and the two of us couples each week. The other couple help out so it isn't all on us alone. We roasted 3 chickens yesterday and did vegetables in the crock pot and had dressing and gravy and thanks to someone who mailed us jello we had a jello fruit salad. They thought it was thanksgiving and really enjoyed the meal. Not much left over to clean up.
We continue to feel the hand of the Lord in our work and know that He is interested in what we do and are thankful for that.
I think we have managed to at least talk to the parents and let them all know that we miss them and are so glad for their progress. We wish Happy Birthday to all. Alayna has taken to walking behind her little push toy and her Mom says she can walk anywhere. She just holds onto the handle and it balances her. She has even taken two steps on her own so far. Way to go Alayna. Stan is excelling in his preschool and the teachers say he should skip preschool next year and go right into Kindergarten. We shall see how that goes. All the grandchildren are of course: smart, cute, sweet, handsome, beautiful, fun, intelligent, clean, thrifty, brave, and reverant. I'll stop there but could go on as of course all grandmas think the same about their grandchildren.
A little about us here in Russia. We have received letters of Christmas greetings from our home ward in South Jordan and was so good to hear from all of them. Thanks to Bro Reed Nelson for forwarding them on to us. We miss our ward and hope all are doing well. For the first time in our 2 missions I have a visiting teacher, Jennifer Walquist! She e-mails and I appreciate hearing about her and the encouragement she provides. I guess now we need a home teacher who e-mails too!!
The ideas as to how to serve are coming to us slowly. We do appreciate the help of the Lord in reaching out to our friends with whom we can converse only very little. They are great people here and just need a little encouragement and direction. We will be busy implementing our various activities. Our best bet is to go slowly and let them catch the vision. Don't want to overwhelm them in any way.
We still have snow and got more last night. The temperature is dropping but so far not significantly. We still sleep with the window open at night because that is they only way to control the heat in the apt. We do keep plenty warm.
A few ladies and 2 missionaries came over to our apt and we tied a baby quilt for a lady who is due soon. We also made no-bake cookies and it was fun teaching. They enjoyed learning about the no bake technique. I have been called as a counselor in Relief Society. They can't speak more than 10 words of English and i can't speak more than 10 words of Russian it will be a fun exp. Dad spoke in church and did a good job with the help of a translator.
Missionary work has been slow as the new year celebration is continuing. School is out and the banks were even closed from Dec 30 thru 10 Jan! Things are beginning to come to life again. Today is a holiday and is celebrated by the state church as the day of the baptism of John the Baptist.
We continue to do weekly meals for the 8 missionaries and the two of us couples each week. The other couple help out so it isn't all on us alone. We roasted 3 chickens yesterday and did vegetables in the crock pot and had dressing and gravy and thanks to someone who mailed us jello we had a jello fruit salad. They thought it was thanksgiving and really enjoyed the meal. Not much left over to clean up.
We continue to feel the hand of the Lord in our work and know that He is interested in what we do and are thankful for that.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Trip to Moscow and Ukraine
January 9, 2012
We had a great trip to Moscow for our annual Mission Christmas party. We had a great time visiting with the other senior couple missionaries who serve here in Russia Moscow West Mission (RMWM) or MWM). We are serving far from each other and see each other only when we all go to Moscow. However our little district has 2 couples the only city that does. We have two branches, we prosylete they are working with the youth.
Our trip to Moscow began at 11:30 in the evening in a sleeper car. We did manage to sleep some. Up by 6:20 AM to leave the train by 7AM. We caught the Metro and went almost as far south as one line went. We then walked about 1 mile or so to the chapel. We had good food, lots of visiting, a game for the young missionaries, a movie, and skits. We left with the office couple and settled in for a short night. We made it fine to the airport and after some help we found where to go. After walking about a mile we found the gate. We made it into Ukraine just fine. We had a bit of a wait for our return ticket but all was good. Our plane waited for a connecting flight that had about 20 passengers to join us. We got to Moscow just fine but about 40 minutes late. We had some good coaching so we were somewhat prepared from here. We found the marshrutka to the aeroexpress. Luckily the marshrutka let us off at the door of the aeroexpress office. We bought tickets and boarded for about a 30 minute ride to the metro. We decided to follow the crowd to find the metro. It is a bit daunting for us but we just walked in the only direction we could go and found the escalator going about 3 stories down.
Right in front of us was the line we needed and it went right to our stop in about 11 minutes. We found our Sapsan (fast train) station and they were just boarding. All in all it turned out good and we felt blessed to manage through a lot of new territory in such a smooth way.
We are back to our routine and are prepared to cook for the missionaries on Wed. We have apartment checks tomorrow (Tue) and some appointments after that. All is good (AG).
All of the Russian missionaries are limited to a 3 month visa. Each 90 days We leave the country, get the visa stamped and come back and start the process over again. To be legal in the country you have to have a passport, a current visa, a commuting paper, and a community paper. All except the passport are only valid for the period of 3 months. So we leave and come back all in the same day just to renew the visa. When we return we see our person who takes our passport with current visa to get us the community paper. She returns it to us and we are legal. While she has our things we have a copy of our passport and visa and the flight coupon from our flight into country. That makes us legal inbetween time.
we are the couple who prosylete and the other couple here do CES or in other words working with the youth. They are a great couple and we really like them. They are from Joseph, UT. We had never heard of Joseph before, just a little place not far from I-70 at Cove Fort.
We had a great trip to Moscow for our annual Mission Christmas party. We had a great time visiting with the other senior couple missionaries who serve here in Russia Moscow West Mission (RMWM) or MWM). We are serving far from each other and see each other only when we all go to Moscow. However our little district has 2 couples the only city that does. We have two branches, we prosylete they are working with the youth.
Our trip to Moscow began at 11:30 in the evening in a sleeper car. We did manage to sleep some. Up by 6:20 AM to leave the train by 7AM. We caught the Metro and went almost as far south as one line went. We then walked about 1 mile or so to the chapel. We had good food, lots of visiting, a game for the young missionaries, a movie, and skits. We left with the office couple and settled in for a short night. We made it fine to the airport and after some help we found where to go. After walking about a mile we found the gate. We made it into Ukraine just fine. We had a bit of a wait for our return ticket but all was good. Our plane waited for a connecting flight that had about 20 passengers to join us. We got to Moscow just fine but about 40 minutes late. We had some good coaching so we were somewhat prepared from here. We found the marshrutka to the aeroexpress. Luckily the marshrutka let us off at the door of the aeroexpress office. We bought tickets and boarded for about a 30 minute ride to the metro. We decided to follow the crowd to find the metro. It is a bit daunting for us but we just walked in the only direction we could go and found the escalator going about 3 stories down.
Right in front of us was the line we needed and it went right to our stop in about 11 minutes. We found our Sapsan (fast train) station and they were just boarding. All in all it turned out good and we felt blessed to manage through a lot of new territory in such a smooth way.
We are back to our routine and are prepared to cook for the missionaries on Wed. We have apartment checks tomorrow (Tue) and some appointments after that. All is good (AG).
All of the Russian missionaries are limited to a 3 month visa. Each 90 days We leave the country, get the visa stamped and come back and start the process over again. To be legal in the country you have to have a passport, a current visa, a commuting paper, and a community paper. All except the passport are only valid for the period of 3 months. So we leave and come back all in the same day just to renew the visa. When we return we see our person who takes our passport with current visa to get us the community paper. She returns it to us and we are legal. While she has our things we have a copy of our passport and visa and the flight coupon from our flight into country. That makes us legal inbetween time.
we are the couple who prosylete and the other couple here do CES or in other words working with the youth. They are a great couple and we really like them. They are from Joseph, UT. We had never heard of Joseph before, just a little place not far from I-70 at Cove Fort.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
GAZ Factory
 |
| We toured the GAZ car factory in Dec and this is a picture of the more recent cars made with the GAZ model called Volga. They stopped making the Volga 2 years ago. They make tractors, trucks, and SUV's now. |
 |
| This is an older GAZ model car. It looks like an old Ford because Henry Ford came over here in 1929 and helped start a car factory. They started rolling off the line in 1932 if I remember right. The original cars all looked like the Ford models. During WWII they made tanks, planes, and other war implements and the factory was bombed several times. They still find scrapnel of various sizes even now on the grounds, especially when digging for expansions. |
Friday, December 9, 2011
Beautiful hand work
 |
| A beautiful drink dispenser. All hand painted work! |
This is done at the doll factory as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)