Deep and Dark in Winter

We are in the depths of winter. For two weeks Ken has been in the dark as his computer had suddenly quit, while outside it has been dark and overcast. This is the time when the sun comes up at 10 and sets at 4. Only street lights pierce the darkness. It had been about three weeks since we had seen the sun at all. Then one lunch hour we saw the sun just peeking over the tall building at the end of our street! This is as high as it rose at noon. (We are at 60 degrees North Latitude.)

A COLOR photo of the Neva River

And the weather has finally gotten cold. We were mostly in the high 30's (F) through December and last week, so the Neva River had a bit of ice, but not much. It would snow 2"-3" overnight, and then rain everything into slush in the afternoon. But now we're down in the 20's all the time, and the river is full of ice. One day soon it will be frozen solid. 





The Christmas tree that graced our office and the Christmas parties of the Mission and two wards finally came down and went back into its box along with lights and balls and paper stars. Sister Rawson joined Sue along with Sisters Camano and Mohlman to put the tree to rest and back in the storage room.

Meanwhile Ken was working to revive his dead computer. On Christmas day, December 25, a flash power outage disabled his fully loaded 1TB (Terabyte=1000GB=1000000MB) Solid State Drive to a point where it appeared to have simply disappeared. Much of the drive's data and an operating system were replicated in a 500 GB external drive, (the small black box pictured here), as well as in Google Drive, iCloud and Dropbox. Still, some large files were evidently lost to posterity. He called a repair shop. He contacted a local Church member who specialized in MAC repair, and was ready to pay him big Rubles, and he scoured the web. He tried all the tricks he could think of, to no avail--until he disassembled the computer. He could then identify the SSD brand and so looked up the help desk of the manufacturer. A live chat pointed him to a FAQ site. Following the instructions there, he revived the drive and had it running with no loss of data in about two hours (through a power reset procedure). He then spent the next two days backing up EVERYTHING to the Cloud and to his two local external drives. Life is good.

In fact, look at the reactions of our Sister Training Leaders and the Assistant Elders when they heard the news that they would once again be seen of Moms on the blog written on this computer:

Sisters Alma Camano &
Lizzy Mohlman

Elders Scott Jensen &
Zack Franckowiak

On Thursday evening Elders Jensen and Franckowiak came for dinner with three other friends, Irini, Marina, and her daughter Yana. We all had a great visit together with the Elders doing a lot of translating. Last summer and fall we regularly had dinner guests, but somehow over all the holidays, there were too many other things happening, and the dinners got skipped. Now we are trying to revive them again.

Friday as we got off the bus at the Hermitage for our weekly service, Ken thought it looked so beautiful he had to take this photo. This is a fountain in the summer, but lights in the winter. He posted this video of the lights streaming a few weeks ago. (The loops are tubes of lights.)

12 Moika Embankment

After our stint at the Hermitage, we hurried out and walked across Palace Square and down a block or two east along the Moyka Canal to the Pushkin Museum. Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) is probably the most-beloved of all the Russian poets. We had to hurry because we finish at the Hermitage at 4:30 and last entry to the Pushkin Museum is 5 pm. The windows along the street here are the apartment where he lived with his wife and four young children.  





On January 27, 1837, at age 37, he had a duel with Frenchman Georges d’Anthès. Pushkin was shot in the abdomen and died two days later at home in this apartment. If you are interested in Pushkin and duels, here is more info.  

The study in Pushkin's apartment. He died on the couch in the back center of this room.

Saturday evening was "Human Target" game night at the church gym.  First we played Battleship. There was a barrier of sheets across the middle of the room, so you couldn't see across. Each team made 'ships' of 3, 4 or 5 chairs, and placed them wherever they wanted. We tossed a ball back and forth. If it hit someone then that part of the ship was out and the person had to leave. When a ship had no people left it was considered sunk.

The ball is in the air!

After Battleship, we took down the barrier, picked up long plastic pipes and became a human Fussball game.  Each row of players can only move left-right. If the ball hit a table at the boal ends laying on its side, that was a goal.  After we'd been playing for a bit a second ball was put into the game, so that made things really busy.

Then someone kicked the ball so high that it hit the smoke detector on the ceiling. That started the fire alarm--a very loud noise.  One of the Elders called the alarm company and got it shut off, but it was also a good time to end the game. The volunteers had brought treats. Sue made snickerdoodles, and they were a big hit. 

That was our whole week.