Preparing for General Conference

Sue mentioned last week that one of her projects during slow times in the office has been sorting through all her Mom's computer files on G-drive. She found this wonderful photo taken in 1997. Mom and Wil Knights (Sue's step-father) were the Mission Office Couple in Vienna, Austria.












So Ken had to take a matching photo. Like mother, like daughter. Sue's computer monitors are a little newer. (More on this photo below.)
















Our dear Sister Anania-Matafai from New Zealand wanted a photo of herself with Tatiana, who is our wonderful, amazing housekeeper for the Mission Office and the Mission Home. Ken took the photo, and we are posting here just for fun.











Wednesday was Sister Rawson's birthday, and we had lots of celebrations. The Center Sisters and the Sister Training leaders made snickerdoodles and a cake. We all went up to the Mission Home as a surprise to sing to Sister Rawson. Sue and Sister Bettinger had to leave after the song, but Ken stayed with the others to enjoy the goodies.






Then on Thursday we brought in Chinese take-out for lunch as more celebration during our weekly Office Staff meeting. And Sue brought oatmeal spice cake and ice cream. Most Thursday afternoons we meet with the Rawsons, the Pecks, and the Assistants to talk about all the bureaucratic stuff. That takes an hour or so, and then the Assistants and Rawsons move into President's office to talk about missionary stuff. This is the meeting where they decide about Transfers--who will be companions with whom, and in which area.  

Back to Wednesday. Why did Sue take off with Sister Bettinger? The Sisters trio had double-booked themselves. They had the opportunity to help with an English language discussion club at a local library, and also a lesson with a man they are teaching about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The solution? Split up and let Sue go to the library. Since Ken didn't come along, we don't have photos. Sorry about that. Sue can take pictures, but she always forgets.  But the library was fun--in a big old 19th-century mansion house, so many rooms full of books. It still has the wonderful ornate ceilings and big corner ceramic stoves. (The librarian told us they still work!) But they do have central heating now, too. We spoke with six women and one teen-age boy about all kinds of things--travel and artists and families and jobs. And we invited them to a game night in October.

Back row:  Sisters James, Bettinger, Kosmynina,
 Elders Packer & Cummings
Front row:  Sisters Pemberton & Gregson, & Sue

Thursday night was the "Cultural Activity" for our district for this transfer. We went to the ballet together. We all got tickets for Romeo and Juliet at the Mikhailovsky Theater.  








The music is well-recognized Prokofiev.  The dancing was a recent 2012 choreography done by a Spanish man named Nacho Duato. It was an interesting mix of traditional ballet and modern dance. The female dancers did not wear ballet toe shoes, and were often barefoot. It was all so beautiful, and the dancers are amazing.







We sat up high on the second circle, and Sue said she really liked being able to see the patterns of the groups in the choreography that you miss when you are seated on the lower floor. It reminded her of her Dad, who always wanted seats up high when he went to football games for similar reasons.

Sue, Ken, Elders Packer & Cummings
Sisters Kosmynina, Bettinger, Permberton,
 James and Gregson

Afterwards we got someone to take a photo of all of us. Then we found the #289 Marshrutka (mini-bus) and rode it almost all the way home.

Friday afternoon we were back at the Hermitage and walked around after our service to see a couple of new special exhibitions. It is not allowed to take photos in those, so Sue got one off the Hermitage website. We first walked quickly through the exhibit "The Leiden Collection" of Dutch masterpieces. We'll go back and do it more slowly another week when it is less crowded and write about it then. We also saw "Glass made to be Admired." It was wonderful glass pieces made over four centuries in Europe and Russia.




We were trying to find a new furniture exhibit, but got lost. Easy to do in the Hermitage, even after 1.5 years! Ken stopped to take this photo from the eastern-most corner of the Winter Palace. The white building on the left is the Small Hermitage. The yellow one past that is the New Hermitage. They are all connected together on the inside like one big museum. That's why it's easy to get lost!










Sue had Ken's phone looking at the map of the Hermitage, so she wanted a photo of Ken for a change. This is the gold sitting room of the Tsarinas, with a wonderful view of Palace Square. The walls really are all gold! We never did find the furniture exhibit.  Another week. We knew it was just downstairs from where we were, so we tried to sneak down an "employees only" staircase wearing our volunteer badges. But that dumped us down into the employee locker room, and we had nowhere to go but out of the museum!





The Hermitage exhibits some modern art strange stuff, too. One day last summer during World Cup time, we noticed this weird tree in the courtyard with rocks up in the branches. It all looked a little dangerous. Then we found out it was a new special exhibit! But 7 October is the last day it is on display, so Ken took a photo for posterity. When we go back next it will be gone. Not sure we'll be too sorry to see it go.








This is why we are here! On Saturday afternoon we were glad to be at the baptism of Elena. She was baptized by her husband, and it was a wonderful day for their family and all of us!

Saturday night we had a high-pressure assignment. This weekend is General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every October and April we have a weekend of special meetings in Salt Lake City which are broadcast live to the world in dozens of languages. Conference is a wonderful experience full of spiritual strength to all of us from living prophets. The problem is our nine-hour time difference. Thus the three sessions on Saturday in Salt Lake City are here at 7-9 pm, 11 pm-1 am (Sunday morning) and 3-5 am.  They are available for delayed streaming in English immediately, but in Russian maybe not for a few days. The Church leaders here wanted to show the first Saturday session during regular church time on Sunday morning at the Church. In years past they have shown Conference a week later on Sunday, but by that time anyone with Internet has already watched it, so few people come.  

President Rawson asked us if there was a way to capture the live broadcast and then make it available by Sunday morning. To do it  is not trivial, because we must record a screen view of the live session in the evening on the local computer. Then we upload it to the "cloud" so that remote locations can download it again to a memory stick before the Sunday meeting time so they can play it on a local TV set. With relatively low-speed Internet connections, that takes literally hours and hours. As shown in the photo at the tope, Sue did some experimenting with a screen casting program, made a sample file and asked those in out-lying areas to test it on Friday. They all said it worked. So, we then recorded a live broadcast on Saturday night. We were worried, because if it didn't work then we had churches in several cities full of people coming with no program planned! But it did work and all is well. Phew!

The Lord provides. That's one of the great lessons of General Conference. If we come to Him with open hearts and minds we will have Peace, and our Love will grow for everyone around us.