It was a dark and stormy night

We had a really quiet week! We were walking home from dinner last night and Ken said he had not taken any photos all week! So he took a couple. This is the Zanevskiy Prospect intersection with Novocherkasskaya.  






















We walked down there to have dinner in the local German restaurant for our Friday-night-date-out. It had snowed all morning and was beautiful. Then it rained all afternoon. But the City has put up these lights spanning the street from the end of Nevsky Bridge to this intersection, and lights on lots of the light poles, too. It all looks very festive.




The German restaurant 
is pretty good. Note that its signage is a mixture of three languages--in German Frakturschrift. For dinner Ken had pork bits with gravy over spaetsle. Sue had chicken Kiev. Then we stopped at the local corner market on the way home and bought soda and ice cream for dessert.


Our only excitement in the office this week was the annual Christmas Lunch. The Russian office staff put on an amazing spread with three or four kinds of salad, baked salmon, chicken with potatoes, and plates of oranges and grapes. Sister Rawson made a chocolate Texas sheetcake and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. It was all yummy.

Saturday night was the big Stake Christmas Party. It's quite the event. They even moved our seven-foot tall mission office Christmas tree up to the third floor! [There is an elevator and a large rolling flat cart.] 

Over three hundred people attended. The hall was full to overflowing. We think the program was that each ward did a short Christmas play featuring the young children. [Our Russian language skills don't always allow for full understanding of what's happening.] 

This was our favorite from Nevsky Ward. There was a stack of brightly wrapped packages, and each of the children came by and grabbed one--with a little pushing and pulling. Then the narrator talked about gifts we can give at Christmas. Each of the children put his or her package on the front table as a gift was mentioned--being kind, listening well, feeding the hungry, etc. Then they lined up to sing "Away in a Manger." As they did so, one of the girls rearranged the packages on the table so that a different side was facing towards the audience, and that made the picture of Jesus Christ that you can see in the photo. It was a special remembrance of why we celebrate Christmas. 



At the end the children all lined up together to sing "Silent Night."










And then the men's chorus sang "Joy to the World."

After the program was over all the teenagers gave nearly everyone a bag of about ten cookies that they had made and packaged.

It was a great evening!