Hello all:
It seems that we are making all sorts of discoveries. This Monday we took a guided walking tour of the back streets of St. Petersburg, from Catherine the Great Park on Nevsky Boulevard, with its huge lilac bush....
...north to the where the Fontanka River joins the Neva:
St. Petersburg has a grand film theater that reminded us of Stanford Theater in Palo Alto.
The umbrella arcade by the university added color and protected us from the fickle weather. One moment it is bright and sunny. Twenty minutes later it pours buckets from the sky.
Patience helps. We harvested our first lettuce this week, and our zucchini final sprouted. We'll see if the growing season lasts long enough to harvest.
One of the "duties" of the wife of the Mission President is to take pictures. So we took a picture of her at work.
As senior couples, we had a chance to visit with President Childs for one last time in the Mission Home as he prepares to end his service here. He shared with us some of his thoughts. When he was on his young mission in Germany 40-plus years ago, he met some of the German refugees who were forced from Koenigsberg, now Russia's Kaliningrad, suffering indescribable hardships. Many hundreds of thousands died in the process of fleeing west at the end of the war. He noted that the survivors he met fell into two categories: those who made the most of the new opportunities and went on with their lives, and those who remained irreconcilably bitter after 30 years. He said it changed his life. He realized that we control our lives, even in the face of hardships and challenges. As he described it, it was all a matter of personal attitude. And he vowed to keep that in mind as he confronted his own challenges.
This has been a time to learn obedience. In 2 Nephi 31:7 we learn that even Christ would be perfectly obedient. For us, this is a stressful time. As volunteers we are trying hard to be perfectly obedient to the Lord as well as to the laws of the land in which we now live, which are not always easy to reconcile. We are living the lower law so we can fulfill the aims of the higher law. Last week's challenge was the literature labeling and stamping project. This month and next it is a much greater issue. The privacy laws are being interpreted to the point where no personal data or information is to be shared across borders. That means that the many corporations and organizations that have developed world-wide central databases--banks and multinational corporations, for example--must now localize their records and processes. To us in the Church that means loss of our global member management systems, which is something we can deal with. We are back to using MLS--the old Church membership system. Data is kept on the local personal computer and summary information is manually sync'd to a computer in Moscow. However loss of our global volunteer management system ("IMOS"), which tracks organization, housing, funding and history, is recognized as a huge complication. We have used it for funding individual bank cards and keeping track of things like apartment rents and telephone numbers of volunteers. It also tells us their arrival and departure dates, keeps track of visas, schedules their travel, etc. It contains the "Transfer Board" for locating who is in which city and where they will go next. Everything must now be quickly retooled to assure continued operations. At this point, we in the Mission Offices are pretty much on our own. We've been told to make spreadsheets. Sue has now recognized that this is the reason that we, and she in particular, were sent to Russia at this time. We had been thinking about some of the issues even before we heard the news about loss of our online systems within the next 45 days. With her expertise in technology and computers, she will be able to build the tools to deal with the problems, and perhaps even share the solutions with those other office couples in other missions of Russia. Pray for our volunteers in Russia.
The First Presidency has extended President and Sister Childs an Honorable Release effective July 2, 2017. At the final Zone Conference, the Assistants to the President presented him with the Certificate of Release and the Letters of Appreciation.
Lunch was a treat of buckets of KFC, cans of A&W Root Beer and watermelon, all obtained at local stores.
As is the custom, everyone removed their shoes at the door.
It seems that we are making all sorts of discoveries. This Monday we took a guided walking tour of the back streets of St. Petersburg, from Catherine the Great Park on Nevsky Boulevard, with its huge lilac bush....
 |
| Catherine the Great Monument with lilacs and Sue |
...north to the where the Fontanka River joins the Neva:
 |
| Fontanka River mouth to Neva on the left |
In between we saw the world's fanciest food store. It was very sweet and expensive.
 |
| On Nevsky Boulevard--The World's Fanciest Food Store |
There is a monument high on the outside wall of the store to the cats that killed the rats during the Great Seige of Leningrad. Pitch a ruble coin up to the platform. If it sticks, you'll have good luck.
 |
| A monument of a cat sits nearly hidden just to the left of the window on a tiny platform |
There is a sculpture of a bird on a ledge of the bridge by the Fontanka River. It is named Chizyhk-Pyzhik after a bird in a folk song. It's the smallest monument in St. Petersburg at 11 cm high and weighing 5 gm.
 |
| Students drop coins onto the ledge of this tiny bird monument for good luck in exams. Others fish with a magnet for the many ferrous coins that fall into the river |
St. Petersburg has a grand film theater that reminded us of Stanford Theater in Palo Alto.
The umbrella arcade by the university added color and protected us from the fickle weather. One moment it is bright and sunny. Twenty minutes later it pours buckets from the sky.
Hidden in a nondescript courtyard between apartment buildings is an art project that makes graffiti pale by comparison. Walls and playgrounds and patios covered in mosaics. There is no place in the world quite like it.
 |
| The amazing back alley mosaic wall. Our back street tour guide and an American tourist (He was just off the Trans-Siberian Railrod from Mongolia) |
We walked some 12 km that day, arriving home to this--
a beautiful end-of-spring and long-lasting sunset over the old city.
 |
| Sunset on the Neva River as seen from our apartment building at 10:35 pm -June 20, 2017 |
Here is one of our favorite views. It's from our Church building.
 |
| View of the River Neva from the LDS Church building on Malookhtinsky Boulevard |
On the back side of the Church building is a much-used staircase. When we arrived in April, the steps were broken from the severe weather and the bottom two steps were wildly uneven. As reported earlier, Ken saw a workman repairing the staircase and took the initiative to persuade the workman to even up the stairs. With help from Brother Aleksy Leostrin (below), who explained the problem to the workman, the bottom step was built up to even out the second lowest step and new but quite different tiles across the bottom step. The project took many weeks. It was finished just this week.
 |
| The Elder Allen Memorial Step |
 |
| Br. Aleksy Leostrin, an unsung hero in so many ways, in his workshop next to the Mission Office |
Patience helps. We harvested our first lettuce this week, and our zucchini final sprouted. We'll see if the growing season lasts long enough to harvest.
 |
| The Senior Couples: Elder & Sister Babskov, Elder & Sister Archibald, Elder & Sister Roberts, Sister & Elder Allen, President & Sister Childs |
One of the "duties" of the wife of the Mission President is to take pictures. So we took a picture of her at work.
As senior couples, we had a chance to visit with President Childs for one last time in the Mission Home as he prepares to end his service here. He shared with us some of his thoughts. When he was on his young mission in Germany 40-plus years ago, he met some of the German refugees who were forced from Koenigsberg, now Russia's Kaliningrad, suffering indescribable hardships. Many hundreds of thousands died in the process of fleeing west at the end of the war. He noted that the survivors he met fell into two categories: those who made the most of the new opportunities and went on with their lives, and those who remained irreconcilably bitter after 30 years. He said it changed his life. He realized that we control our lives, even in the face of hardships and challenges. As he described it, it was all a matter of personal attitude. And he vowed to keep that in mind as he confronted his own challenges.
This has been a time to learn obedience. In 2 Nephi 31:7 we learn that even Christ would be perfectly obedient. For us, this is a stressful time. As volunteers we are trying hard to be perfectly obedient to the Lord as well as to the laws of the land in which we now live, which are not always easy to reconcile. We are living the lower law so we can fulfill the aims of the higher law. Last week's challenge was the literature labeling and stamping project. This month and next it is a much greater issue. The privacy laws are being interpreted to the point where no personal data or information is to be shared across borders. That means that the many corporations and organizations that have developed world-wide central databases--banks and multinational corporations, for example--must now localize their records and processes. To us in the Church that means loss of our global member management systems, which is something we can deal with. We are back to using MLS--the old Church membership system. Data is kept on the local personal computer and summary information is manually sync'd to a computer in Moscow. However loss of our global volunteer management system ("IMOS"), which tracks organization, housing, funding and history, is recognized as a huge complication. We have used it for funding individual bank cards and keeping track of things like apartment rents and telephone numbers of volunteers. It also tells us their arrival and departure dates, keeps track of visas, schedules their travel, etc. It contains the "Transfer Board" for locating who is in which city and where they will go next. Everything must now be quickly retooled to assure continued operations. At this point, we in the Mission Offices are pretty much on our own. We've been told to make spreadsheets. Sue has now recognized that this is the reason that we, and she in particular, were sent to Russia at this time. We had been thinking about some of the issues even before we heard the news about loss of our online systems within the next 45 days. With her expertise in technology and computers, she will be able to build the tools to deal with the problems, and perhaps even share the solutions with those other office couples in other missions of Russia. Pray for our volunteers in Russia.
 |
| Sister Childs, President Childs, with the Assistants to the President. |
The First Presidency has extended President and Sister Childs an Honorable Release effective July 2, 2017. At the final Zone Conference, the Assistants to the President presented him with the Certificate of Release and the Letters of Appreciation.
The morning sessions of the three final Zone Conferences were held in the chapel. We even recited the Russian version of Our Purpose (see earlier blog post) almost from memory. The afternoon sessions were at the Mission Home down the street. Here the Central Zone gathers for a photo op on the living room.
Friday afternoon was our weekly District Meeting. It was Sue's turn to pitch the "curve ball," the spiritual thought or exercise with a twist. Last week Ken had the curve ball and taught everyone to make the paper airplane he had learned while attending General Conference 66 years ago, a flyable angel that reminded us of Alma 29:1 ("Oh that I were an angel and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth and cry repentance unto every people.") Sue's presentation this week was a scripture chase, much as she had conducted as a high school seminary teacher. She would recite a phrase and the first person who could find and quote the scripture won a candy. Extra credit was given for scriptures that were memorized in Russian. It was quite a competition.
Friday evening the Stake Music Director held a seminar for music leaders on conducting a choir. As representative of the Stake President, Ken spoke briefly on the value of worship though music. We watched the inspiring video of the largest virtual choir ever--The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing the Hallelujah Chorus by Handel. Oh, what music can do!
Friday evening the Stake Music Director held a seminar for music leaders on conducting a choir. As representative of the Stake President, Ken spoke briefly on the value of worship though music. We watched the inspiring video of the largest virtual choir ever--The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing the Hallelujah Chorus by Handel. Oh, what music can do!
 |
| Millions of fans including teens and parents in Palace Square in front of the Hermitage (directly below the camera) at the Scarlet Sails Concert |
Speaking of music, Friday night was high school grad night in St. Petersburg, highlighted by the Scarlet Sails celebration during the White Nights festival, as described in the history books. (Read about it here.) Wednesday was the longest day of the year, with the sun setting close to 11 pm and rising again about 3 am and never really getting dark in between. High school grads and their parents got free tickets to the Scarlet Sails concert in Palace Square, the largest grad night party on the planet. We of course didn't go or stay awake for the fireworks, since it stretched way past midnight. But we watched part of it live on television. The concert was an eclectic mixture of genres--pop singers, acrobats, ballet, modern dancers, folk dancers, student groups and more pop singers. The kids knew all the words to the pop songs. What an influence music has on culture.
Till next time! {до свадания!}
