Thoughts of Thanksgiving

This was the week of Thanksgiving in the U.S.A. We wish you all a...

Front: Elder Simmons, Sister & Elder Allen, Sister & President Rawson, Elder S. Jensen
Rear: Sisters Mohlman, Eaton, Wilson & DaLuz, Elders McKendrick, Franckowiak, Parker, 
Wallace, Winchester, & Tribe

The Mission Leaders met at the Mission Home for their all-day Council and enjoyed a home-cooked Thanksgiving feast of ham, beans, carrot soufflé, heavenly [funeral] potatoes, macaroni & cheese, and rolls. We don't usually attend this meeting, but were invited to come for lunch. Russians eat turkey for Easter, but it's not to be found this time of year.

For dessert in the late afternoon, it was pumpkin pie with whipped cream, lemon meringue pie and a Russian-type apple pie/cake. There were also pound cake and brownies. Ken looked at Sue's 3 pies and exclaimed, "But one pie are square!" Thank you to our predecessors, the Hintze's, for leaving behind a can of pumpkin pie mix. It was only enough for one deep-dish pie, but we cut it into 16 pieces and everyone got a thick sliver.  The lemon pie looked good on the outside, but again did not 'set.'  So, we had lemon meringue soup. Sue needs to better figure out this recipe. Russian sweetened-condensed milk isn't the same as at home, we think.

Every year for decades, Ken has played in a Turkey Bowl game. Usually it's an early morning touch football game with his sons and grandsons and the members of the local ward. Last year it was in Mesa, Arizona, with sons Reed and Keith and grandson Lucas, all great athletes.

This year, even without a turkey, it was an early morning (6:30am!) floorball game with the Elders and Sisters. They are all the ages of Ken's oldest grandchildren, and are also all great athletes.

TURKEY BOWL 2017: Floorball, St. Petersburg

Elders S. Jensen, Simmons & Allen, Sisters Eaton & Mohlman, 

Elders Tribe & Wallace

After Thanksgiving Dinner we came home and decided it was the evening for watching a movie. We were hunting around online for something to stream, but there aren't very many good movies out there. We found "The 33," which might seem a strange choice for Thanksgiving. It's based on the true story of 33 miners trapped in a Chilean mine for 69 days in 2010. But it was a wonderful Thanksgiving story--full of the love of families and hope for the future. Family is really what's important. And we are so Thankful for all of our family, for sure!

To back up for a minute, on Tuesday for our District Meeting we watched the video of Church Apostles Elder Dallin Oaks and Elder Russell Ballard as they did a live Q & A with young single adults from all over the world. If you haven't watched it, it is really wonderful.  They were funny at times, but answered some tough questions.  The video is available here. 

It reminded Sue of when President Uchtdorf came to Germany in 2005 and did a similar event just for our group in Hamburg. When he spoke in earlier general church meetings, he had such clear perfect high German that Sue could understand most of it. When he later spoke to a small group of just the young single adults, he turned off his "apostle" German and became one of the "kids." It was fast and slangy, and Sue hardly understood a word. But the young people loved it!

It was a rather quiet week at the office--which we needed after the craziness of the week before. We just did office work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Sue spent part of Wednesday making pies, of course. Ken says there are really two Pi-Pie Days each year--March 14 (3.14) and the day before Thanksgiving (cooking). We went to do our usual Friday afternoon service at the Hermitage.  But instead of helping at the front entrance, which isn't quite so busy this time of year, they asked us to spend some time researching and finding on-line photos, drawings, maps, etc., of New Orleans in the early 1700's. The Hermitage volunteer staff leaders are holding a special party for all the volunteers on December 4. This year is the 300th anniversary of Peter the Great's two-month-long visit in France. The volunteer staff leaders are very interested in how the French colonies in the New World, specifically Louisiana, had such an impact on French Society. So this will be the theme of the party. They always do some kind of special skit and have a pot-luck lunch. The party is on a Monday afternoon, which is our Volunteer's Preparation Day, so the ones currently living in the city can go and share in the festivities.

Ken took more photos of the Hermitage. It is just so huge, there are photo-ops everywhere!

Detail of the front gate.

World War I cannons on display in the Inner Courtyard.

As we entered Palace Square about 1:30 pm 
we could see the city Christmas tree just going up.

By the time we left three hours later the lights were already all up on the outside. It's after 4 pm and the sun is already down. (We haven't actually seen the sun for over two weeks. It's up in the middle of the day--between 9 am and 4 pm, but it's always cloudy. We're getting freezing rain, but no snow that sticks.  Saturday was sleet.)

And there were stacks of ornaments still to be added. You can see the man in the bucket truck on the right. There is another bucket truck behind the tree, too. Decorating a tree that size is quite the project.

We had a lazy Saturday at home. Ken did a bunch of office work in the morning and video editing all afternoon. Sue has been knitting. She also walked about a mile down Novocherkasskaya Avenue looking for green split peas. There are at least two small grocery stores on each block. She went all the way down one side trying them all, then came back the other side. No one had green split peas. A few places had yellow ones, so she finally bought some of those. What else does one do with leftover ham, except make split-pea soup?


Ken has been studying the Book of Mormon and pondering upon the vision of the Tree of Life as seen by Nephi--and how he was caught away in the Spirit by the mysterious Spirit of the Lord. 

Here is his latest commentary. 

Also included are some thoughts about the process of communicating with the Lord and about the scriptural images found in the dream. And that barely scratches the surface of this remarkable vision.