Busy, Beautiful Week

This week was as crazy as last week was calm. We had lots of people come to town -- Zone Conferences.  President Rawson has moved the mission down from 3 zones to 2. It's a good choice as the number of volunteers here goes down from 60-ish to mid 40's. So half the mission comes for all-day conference on Wednesday, and the other half on Thursday. We do this every six weeks -- usually two weeks after Transfer Day. Because everyone has to come into Saint Petersburg to get to any other city in the mission, both conferences are held here. When we served in Germany 12 years ago there were four zones (about 100 missionaries), and the mission had several large cities that ran basically north/south of each other. So there were four zone conferences in different cities. To have the President go out to the different areas for Zone Conferences is more common in other parts of the world.

But one of the delights of Zone Conference is that all the Senior Couples come to town. There are only four sets, but we like to get together with people 'our age' now and then. On Monday night the Roberts were in town from Petrozavodsk -- about 5 hours NE of us. We went out to dinner with them and President and Sister Rawson at a restaurant run by Jamie Oliver, a famous British TV chef.

The restaurant is just around the corner from the "Saviour on Spilt Blood" church -- an amazing place!

The back side of the Savior on Spilled Blood Memorial

From the backside of the restaurant to the church looming over the nearby buildings.
We ended up in this inner courtyard because Ken and President Rawson spied a
Museum of Classic Cars. Old City St. Petersburg has a museum on every block!

This is the Square that was the Fan Zone for FIFA Cup Soccer in June. We assume it will be again for World Cup next year.  The restaurant faces this square.

British Cook Jamie Oliver's Italian Restaurant in Russia!
Pres. & Sister Rawson, Sister Roberts, Elder Roberts, Sister Allen 

We had great food -- salads, pasta, cheese bread, and Ken's huge hamburger!

Jamie's Hamburger Special for Elder Allen

Tuesday was the first meeting of the entire new Mission Presidency. They have a lot of work to do! We are excited that Kostya Serebrennikov is one of the counselors. He is from Siberia but served his mission here about 15 years ago. He is also one of the Mission Drivers and is an excellent translator, so President uses him a lot for various projects.

The New Russia St. Petersburg Mission Presidency, August 2017:
Ken Allen, Clerk; Andre, Executive Secretary; Valentin, 1st Counselor;
Brent Rawson, President; Konstantin, 2nd Counselor

Wednesday and Thursday were the Zone Conferences.

The Theme of the Zone Conferences, which Ken shortened to PBLJ:

• Pray for Guidance
• Be Obedient
• Love the People
• Find Joy in the Work

One of Two Zone Conferences

The Volunteers and Dr.  David Hansen presented a memorable skit to show that you cannot judge a problem and offer a solution without a deeper understanding of the causes of the problem. Elder Wilson donned a (food-color) bloodied and cutoff shirt with his arm missing, and then told the doctor that his arm hurt a little. The doctor offered him a vitamin pill as a remedy... .

Elder Pierce Wilson, Dr. David Hansen, Elder Robert Parker

For lunch both days the mission provided Chinese food. We had rice with vegetables and ham, green beans with chicken, and sweet & sour chicken. The only problem is that the nearby Chinese restaurant doesn't deliver. So Ken walked over there with our two "Officeniki" and rolled the food back to the church using our Babushka cart and a hand truck. The "-niki" is the ending in Russian for a person who does something -- sort of like '-cian' in English. So the two Elders who work in the office with us are called the "Officeniki" by everyone.

Chinese take-out picked up for Zone Confernece
Elder McKay Muhlestein, Elder Ken Allen, Elder Pierce Wilson

We participated in Zone Conference on Thursday, so we took our turn at the Hermitage service on Wednesday this week. Again, after our three hours helping at the entrance, we had some time to visit the exhibits.

It is difficult to convey the experience and enormity of the Hermitage Museum. It has over 400 rooms in about seven huge buildings with millions of exhibits that supposedly would take nine years to browse completely.

The General Staff Building

This week we visited the General Staff wing, the curved building across Palace Square from the main entrance.

Palace Square looking northeast

There is a permanent exhibit of the collection of impressionist and post impressionist works. We spent over an hour on the fourth floor seeing several rooms of Picasso, Manet, Monet, Matisse, VanGogh, Renoir Gaugin, Pizarro and many others. You can find many of the most famous works via Google on the Internet.

Evening view from the fourth floor of the General Staff Building looking west

Post-Impressionism

Ken has posted an album of a few of our favorites on Facebook.  You can see it here

School starts on September 1, no matter what day of the week it falls on. This year it was Friday. There is a school across the street from our complex. This is the opening ceremony, which featured a very loud megaphone and traditional songs early in the morning. Fortunately, it is not so loud every day.

Friday was a group outing of the Mission President and Senior Couples to Pushkin and site of Catherine The Great's Summer Palace. It is about an hour south of St. Petersburg. The great Russian poet, Pushkin (1799-1837), was raised in this area. The town was originally named Tsarskoe Selo, which means royal village. After the Russian Revolution when references to the Tsar and all royalty were taboo, the town was renamed after Pushkin.

The Grand Entrance -- but no one goes in this way now.  All of us tourists go in the back door.

Here is the group for our outing at the back door. L-R:  Elder & Sister Archibald (serving in Veliky Novgorod), Sister Babskova & Elder Babskov (from Ukraine, serving in Kaliningrad), Sister Rawson, President Rawson, Sue & Ken.

Kostya Serebrennikov took the photo. He came along as driver for all of us and translator into Russian for the Babskovi and into English for the rest of us as needed.







Here are the Senior Couples in the Grand Ballroom of Catherine's Palace in Pushkin, south of St. Petersburg. Clockwise from Sue: Ken, Sister Babskova, Elder Babskov, President Rawson, Kostya Serebrennikov, Elder Archibald, Sister Archibald, Sister Rawson:

Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

The palaces are in the midst of a multi-decades-long restoration
 having been in the path of armies 75 years ago

The palace is surrounded by acres and acres of gardens.

We Senior Couples lunched after our tour of the palace and gardens. We went to a Ukrainian restaurant and had borscht, caesar salad, stroganoff, chicken kiev, and other yummy things. Starting with Sue and going around: Ken, Elder Archibald, Sister Archibald, Elder Babskov, Sister Babskova, Kostya Serebrennikov, Sister Rawson, President Rawsob.

Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Saturday we worked in the office a bit to make up for taking Friday off. Our dinner-invitees companionship postponed to Monday, so we went grocery shopping, picked up the dry cleaning and had chicken burritos for dinner. Sue buys Old El Paso brand salsa and Mission brand tortillas. You'd think we were at Palo Alto Safeway.

Inspirational Story of the Week

As part of his Russian language study, Ken has been learning scriptures in Russian. This week he selected a scripture on the purpose of life: Alma 34:32 from the Book of Mormon:
"For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors."

When Ken chose this scripture, Elder Matt Niu, our Skype tutor and recent former missionary/volunteer in this mission, told a story about a related experience, a bit of a missionary miracle that seem to happen a lot. One day he felt prompted to memorize this scripture, so all day long he practiced it while going about town. Toward the end of the day he and his companion were stopped by a man, a heckler, who called out to them and said something like this: "Hey you Mormons, what's the meaning of life? I don't want any long explanation, just tell me." Immediately Elder Niu recited this scripture in Russian to the man and told him it was a scripture from the Book of Mormon. The man was silenced. And he accepted the offer of a gift: a copy of the Book of Mormon.