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| Sisters Allen, Khasaeva, Brown & Drake |
Our new Russian Sister and her companions came by the office on Monday to get money from Ken. She was going to the Finland Consulate the next morning to apply for her visa for a Temple trip to Helsinki. All went well and she should have her visa in two weeks. Hurray!
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| Elders Jensen & Woodruff visit Elder Allen's office |
Elders Jensen and Woodruff are the Zone Leaders who serve in Shuvalovo area--that's the other ward in our building--so they stop by now and then to say Hi.
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| The last of the Family History Center |
We have been working to clean excess "stuff" out of the church building--particularly anything that might have personal information about individuals. That can violate Russian privacy laws. So, Sue went through the room formerly known as the Family History Center and cleaned out about 50 binders worth of stuff. She also had stacks of old church manuals, because the church curriculum for Sunday School, etc., is changing for 2019. She had found a paper recycle company that would come and pick it all up. The empty binders went out on tables in the church foyer last Sunday with a sign that said "Take what you can use." By the end of two ward's meetings, they were all gone.
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| Sister Allen welcomes the recycle truck |
Then on Tuesday morning we welcomed the recycle truck. It was snowing and blowing, but the papers all got loaded and sent out the door. Another Hurray!
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We like this big wheeled cart for
moving stuff around the building |
Tuesday after our District Council meeting, the APs, Elders Thieme and Packer, who can drive, took Ken to two post offices to get the next load of Christmas goodies coming for our volunteers. We still have a dozen or so packages in the pipeline, and are hoping they show up this week!
We also knew we had two small packages at the main post office downtown. It's pretty easy for us to go there after Hermitage Service on Friday. The website said one package was 250 grams (1/2 lb) and the other was 900 grams (2 lbs.) That's easy to carry, right? Oops. We got there and one was 250 grams, yes. But the other was a big box about 15x15x18 inches and it weighed a lot more than 900 grams. We managed to carry it home on the bus and then walk the 1/2 mile in the dark from the bus stop. Then we weighed it: 4 kilograms + 900 grams. Someone who put the info on the website got the grams part right, but forgot the kg part! So it really weighed almost 11 lbs. Some Elder will be really glad to get it.
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| Tuesday Dinner with The Elders and Evgeny & Artyom |
Tuesday night dinner was fun. Elders Thieme and Packer invited their friend Evgeny, and he brought along his friend Artyom. Evgeny likes to speak English. He calls himself Eugene, and speaks with a wonderful western twang.
We love modern communication! As senior volunteers, we can talk to our family or friends whenever we want. We were talking to our daughter Rachel this week, and Sue started giving instructions to "Alexa." That's Rachel's Smart Speaker device. Sue told "her" to play Christmas music, and "she" did. Then Sue told "her" to play Beach Boys instead, and the music changed. It was pretty funny.
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| Prop for the Stake spectacle-Elders Gianni & Herrin |
Saturday was the St. Petersburg Stake Christmas Performance. In preparation on Wednesday morning Elders Gianni and Herrin came to help unload props for the show. The man on the right is our Stake-build-anything-person. He's amazing.
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| It's not a roll-top |
After our Hermitage Service on Friday we stayed to see a special exhibition called "Don't Believe Your Eyes." It is all examples of "deception" in art. Things that look like one thing, but aren't really.
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| Half table, mirrored |
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| Not a bookshelf? |
This is not necessarily a bookshelf. It's a cupboard, but the book spines are just painted on the front but they really looked like spines.
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| 3D printer at work |
And it wasn't all 'old' art. They had a 3-D printer going to show how new copies of things are made, too. Next week we'll go back and see what was made.
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| Not a bas relief |
This looks like a marble bas-relief from a distance, but it's really just a flat painting.
This was one of Sue's favorites: a beautifully carved chair, with ax-handle arms and a pair of gloves sitting on the back of the seat, but carved into the wood.
Outside, the city continues to get decorated for the Season. We were afraid the big tree wasn't going up in Palace Square, but it finally showed up this week.
The light poles on the side streets off Nevsky Prospekt have a ring of blue LED lights around the top, and they shine down on the pole, leaving this beautiful blue pattern on the pole and ground.
Saturday morning we went to the Reenik. That's the flea market area. It's just behind Gostini Dvor, which is one of the big fancy expensive malls in St. Petersburg, the oldest department store in the city, if not Europe. But the Reenik is for us common folk. Sue wanted a big Russian scarf, which she found. Women wear these huge flowered scarves with fringe all around that are really fun. Sue looked at a store just off Nevsky on Friday, and they were 2700 rubles and up. (About $40.) She got almost the same scarf at the Reenik on Saturday for 400 rubles ($5.95) Much better!
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| Sue with her early Christmas presents |
We also badly needed a new babushka cart. That's what we use to lug our groceries home. The old one has a wheel that's looking bad, and the bag has holes in it. Sue had seen them several places last summer, but they were hard to find this week. More places were selling coats, hats and gloves. But we found one, so all is well.
The other thing we wanted was St. Petersburg sweatshirts in Russian. But they are not to be found!Everything at the Reenik is in English! Nike, Reebok, etc. So we'll have to break down and buy them from some tourist trap place on Nevsky.
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| Donudiction |
So we left the Reenik and stopped across the street for "lunch" at the donut shop in Gostini Dvor on our way back to catch the Metro home. Russian donuts are wonderful. They are fresh-fried, soft, squishy delights. You can get them with either powdered sugar or sweetened-condensed milk squirted on top. We added hot chocolate with milk and had a great meal. Sue says if she didn't care about nutrition she'd live on donuts and ice cream.
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| Gostini Dvor |
We walked through the inside corridor through Gostini Dvor to get to the Metro. It's warmer in there. And we found a small watch-repair stand to put a new battery in Sue's watch. It was losing about five minutes each hour. Everything is all decorated for Christmas and New Year's of course.
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| Lenta |
We took the Metro to Novocherkasskaya. That's the stop nearest to our apartment. But instead of coming home, we got on the free marshrutka (mini-bus) to Okhta Mall to do our grocery shopping in Lenta with the new babushka cart.
The Lenta store is full of Christmas stuff, too. (As is the whole mall.) And it looks like any US mall the week before Christmas. In fact, we barely got on the marshrutka at the Metro stop. Sue got on and thought it was about full, but was afraid Ken wouldn't make it, as he was about four people behind her in the squish of people. He made it and thought he'd be the last. Then six more people pushed in behind him!
After we finished our shopping we decided we were tired and didn't want to face that crowded bus with our cart of groceries. We took a taxi home. It was 150 rubles ($2.23) and worth every penny.
And we got home in time to put away the groceries, change our clothes and go to the church for the Christmas Performance. The Russian word for performance is Спектакль, which sounds just like "spectacle."
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| The Gift of the Magi |
There were short plays, including The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. It was in Russian, of course, but we got the idea.
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| Young Adult Choir |
There were musical numbers. Here's a video.
And some cute little girls running around in white dresses with angel wings on their backs and halos floating above their heads. They, too, were Santa's Helpers.
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| The cast of the Stake Performance taking final bows |
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