Getting Ready to Go

On Halloween, October 31, 2016, we received our letter telling us we had been called as volunteers for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to serve in the office in St. Petersburg, Russia!  That was quite a shock.

Just a week later we began our Russian tutoring.  Ken has twice-weekly sessions with Casey and Matt.  Sue has twice-weekly sessions with Ricky and Matt.  These are all done via Skype with the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.  They are helping us a lot, but learning this new language is not easy -- especially at our ages!   We also have 2 wonderful young women  helping us.  Milla and Avi Prokhorov, ages 12 and 10, lived for about 10 years in Moscow and attended Russian Schools.  They come over to our home, usually weekly, and help us with vocabulary and pronunciation.   They have helped us make the 3x5 cards labeling items all over the house.  Even the kitchen faucet has a card that says КРАН  (pronounced kran.)

Now the time is short.  We report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah on April 3, and then fly off to Russia on April 14.  This will be quite the adventure for sure!

We are planning on posting a blog at least once each week, and more often if something exciting happens.  If you want a notice when new items are posted, then send an empty email to allensinrussia+subscribe@googlegroups.com.  You will get a notification when we publish a new post.