Activities Every Day!

It's been a busy week. Something interesting every day.

Sunday night we were pleased to host Tom and Forrest Pixton for their farewell dinner, before they flew back to California on Monday morning early. Last week we showed photos of all their touring. But Sunday we made them "sing for their supper." Forrest is a builder who can fix anything according to his Dad. He has his degree in Construction Management and has been the Facilities Manager for the Oakland LDS Temple for several years, so is now over his head in the major remodel happening there.

Ken and Forrest Pixton, 
working on the Murphy Bed

Our Murphy bed broke on Thursday. The headboard mechanism also holds the mattress in place when the bed is folded up. It broke off. It's just particle board. Ken took it out and glued some of it together. He figured it was easy to  move the brackets to a spot that wasn't broken, but we knew it was a three-person job--two to hold it in place while the third wielded the electric drill (borrowed from our Stake handyman Brother Leostrin.) Ken and the Pixtons got the bed all fixed and we are now able to again get the bed out of the way during the day.

Olya & Nikolai, Sue, Elders Cummings & Packer

Monday night for dinner we were joined by Nikolai and his wife Olya with Elders Cummings and Packer. Nikolai is a friend being taught by the Elders, and this was the first time they had the opportunity to also speak with his wife. They are a wonderful couple, and she had a lot of good questions. We hope the conversation will continue. Sue had made Butternut Squash Taco Soup, which Ken calls "Mexican Borscht." Usually she also serves it with corn chips, guacamole and salsa. The guac and salsa were there, but the two stores that usually have corn chips were all out! We had to do heavy-duty dipping potato chips instead. Welcome to shopping in Russia. You can get almost everything here that we have at home--except when you can't.

Sister Peck, Sister Rawson and Tatiana
 stirring pans of beets, etc.

Monday morning Sue was invited with Sister Peck to come up to the Mission Home kitchen to join Sister Rawson as Tatiana taught us to make Borscht. Tatiana has the reputation for the best borscht in St. Petersburg Stake, so this was a treat. Borscht is like beef stew--everyone has a recipe that is a little bit different. Tatiana's recipe includes half the kitchen, but it is yummy. Sister Peck took copious notes, so the recipe is here.

Tuesday was our District Meeting. We have one more meeting next Tuesday before the end of the transfer, but there are mid-transfer changes happening. Elder Fife left right after the meeting to move to Nevsky. Elder Herrin is now an "Assistant to the Assistants." The two sets of Elders live in apartments with adjoining front doors--right next to each other. So Elder Herrin is eating, sleeping and studying with the Assistants, but he didn't bother to move his clothes and other stuff. He'll probably be back to his own apartment with a new companion in two weeks, or he'll be moving someplace totally different. That's the nature of volunteer life.

"The Center District:" The Allens,
Elders Herrin, Fife, Packer & Cummings, Sisters James & Alder

At the Mariinsky Theater for the opera "Khovanshchina"
Elders Jensen & Cummings, Sisters James, Alder & Allen, Elders Thieme, Herrin & Packer

Wednesday night found our whole district, plus two more Elders from Shuvalovo, at the Mariinsky Theater for the Opera. The volunteers are encouraged to do at least one Cultural Event each Transfer. This was one event with about four cultural benefits.  

The Allens, Elders Thieme, Herrin & Packer

First, it was wonderful Russian music by Modest Mussorgsky. He wrote the words and music, but didn't finish it before he died in 1881. Various others have finished it for performance, including Rimsky-Korsikov (1889), Stravinsky and Ravel (1913). We saw the version done by Shostakovitch in 1959. It was wonderful music with all the lush romantic orchestration, and a capella almost-chanting, and Russian folk melodies. There was even a classical ballet section.  Elder Packer liked that he had a bird's-eye view of the cellos.

Peter The Great briefly appears in the opera "Khovanshchina" or "The Khovansky Affair"

Second, it was a lesson in Russian history. The opera takes place as Peter the Great is trying to consolidate his power when, as a teenager, he is co-Tsar with his older half brother, Ivan V, who had serious health issues. Sue made a cheat-sheet with a bit of background history, the list of main characters with their place in history, and then a synopsis of each act so that we knew what was going on.

Entrance to the Tsar's box from the
Grand Promenade Room.

Third, the Mariinskiy Theater is the oldest/grandest theater in St. Petersburg. There has been a theater on this site since 1783. The current building was opened in 1860. It is the home of the Mariinsky Ballet Company, formerly called the Kirov. The architecture is amazing!


Fourth, it was a great language-study lesson. Above the stage there is a long, narrow electronic scroll that shows the words of the opera as the performers sing--the superscript device. You can see it hanging in front of the screen in the photo above that shows all of us. One of the reasons Sue wanted to see this opera was because it had both English and Russian superscripts. It was interesting to see how the translations were sometimes slightly different.  

The whole production was 4.5 hours long! It started at 6 pm and Sue figured we would not stay until the end. But at 9:45 when Intermission #2 started, everyone was too excited about it to leave. We did have permission from President Rawson to stay out later than the usual volunteer hours, so we stayed to the bitter end. And the end is bitter. Not a happy ending, but spectacular.


Thursday was quiet in the office. We had our usual Staff Meeting with Rawsons, Pecks and the Assistants to discuss the mundane running of the Mission. This week it was not so mundane. President Rawson told us about his conference call that morning with the Area Presidency, Area attorneys, and the five Russian Mission Presidents about the latest rules and regulations around Russian privacy laws. There will be a major audit of church records by the government in January, so we need to make sure all our files are correct. It's an on-going issue.

"Discarded" water bottles at The Hermitage entrance

Friday we were back at the Hermitage. It's definitely winter season. The entrance is much quieter. Most of the groups going through are school classes, not from tour boats. But Sue asked Ken to take this photo. Water bottles are not allowed inside and get stopped at security. (There are so many that this table gets cleared ever hour or so.)








As we left, Ken wanted to take this photo. He has the artistic eye and takes lots of beautiful photos that don't stay in the blog or it would be way too long. But now and then Sue lets him leave one in. This is the gate going out of the Winter Palace courtyard towards Palace Square. It was about 4:45pm and the sun was just setting. That's the General Staff Building in the background, beyond the Alexander Monument.

We were walking out that early, because we decided to do our weekly tour across the square in the General Staff Building. It houses the modern art, and we wanted to see the Faberge collection. There were three rooms. Two were full of beautiful tea sets and other household decorative items. Sue really liked these elaborate enamel vases, etc. The third room was more practical items that the Faberge metal works made during World War I. They made plain copper cooking pots and lots of bullets! This room was a special temporary exhibit in honor of the end of the War tomorrow (November 11).

As we left the General Staff Building we couldn't help but notice that the whole atrium area was walled off with panels all looking like this.  

Ken took his camera and stuck it around a corner and got this. There was another room about the same size, also full of [mostly] young [mostly] men and laptops. vk.com is the Russian equivalent of Facebook. vk is short for В Контакте which means In Contact or In Touch. So VK is sponsoring a contest this weekend for groups to code new apps that tie into VK. About 400 people are participating, and the prize pool is 1.5 million rubles. That's about $23,000.

After we left the Hermitage we stopped for dinner at Burger King--it needed to be quick--and then split up. Ken walked down to the Post Office to pick up a package we knew was there. We hope this is the last one to the PO Box. The new ones are now coming to the Pocht near the office instead. But on the way he walked by St. Isaac's and had to take another pretty picture.

Sisters James & Alder, Elena, Dasha & Sue

Ken went to the main Pochta by himself, because Sue had walked down to the LDS Institute building on the Fontanka Embankment to join the Center Sisters in a Knitting Night. They had invited Dasha and her friend Elena to come for the evening. They'd invited others, too, but only these two came. It was a good party!

The Boshoelevsky Bridge, which is near our apartment

Saturday for our Preparation Day we did laundry and cleaned house in the morning, and then took the Metro down to the "Grand Maket"--or Grand Layout. It's a miniature model of lots of Russia from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. There are trains and planes and cars and hot air balloons. There are ships and factories and forests and coal mines. There are cities and villages and mountains and rivers. It's all pretty amazing. 




One spot is just labeled, "Who Is This?"  

"Easter Egg" in the Layout: Putin riding a bear

On October 27 we posted a photo of two cars facing each other on our not-one-way-but-so-narrow street. We saw today that this must be a common occurrence, as it is immortalized here in miniature.

And we learned a new Russian idiom. The sign is translated as Do Not Worry... Be Happy. But literally it says "Work is not a Wolf."

Elders Fife & Baptista, Oksana and Daniel

We left the exhibition hall and took a bus over to the Nevsky Ward chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the highlight of the week. Back on October 27 we posted a photo of Oksana and her son Daniel at our house for dinner the previous Monday. It was their first meeting with the volunteers, and that night they announced they wanted to join our church. Today they were both baptized--and it was wonderful!







Many members of Nevsky Ward and others came to support them in this big step.

We were on our way out the door but stopped to take another photo with Daniel. He's an amazing young man.  

Sister Kosmynina, friend they are teaching, Sister Bettinger

And this last photo is almost our last of Sister Bettinger. She goes home in less than two weeks! So here's one last post for her parents. But we'll see her in the summer, because she lives just a few miles from us in California!











Oh, by the way, Ken spoke in Church back on October 28. In English. With a brief introduction in Russian followed by side-by-side translation. It was about trying to understand the atonement of Jesus Christ. It was well-received and really touched people.