Last week was New Year's, and this week was Christmas.
The Russian Orthodox Christmas is on 7 January. But it's not much of a holiday here. It does mean that everyone is off work from 31 December to 9 January, and even after that, all the decorations are still up.
And there is no Santa Claus. Instead Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost) comes on New Year's Eve, or New Year's Day, and brings gifts for all the children. He leaves them under the Yolka (Fir Tree). He has no elves to help him, but is accompanied by Snegurochka (snow maiden) who is his granddaughter. One of the Hermitage employees who works at the entrance with us will often treat us to a piece of candy. This week she gave us two small chocolates with the pictures of Ded Moroz and Snegurochka on the wrappers.
Last week we showed our sister volunteers picking out their new pants that they could wear while serving. Our missionary granddaughter Sister Megan Mills, serving in North Carolina, celebrated with many sister missionaries in the world as she showed off her new pants. (Sister Mills is on the right.) She is in a mission where bike riding is common, so pants will help with that.
The Shuvalovo Ward in St. Petersburg had a Christmas party this week. It also meets in our Stake Center building, so we crashed the party. They put on a full Christmas pageant with actors and scenery and music. It was wonderful.
We work regular office hours, but our evenings at home are pretty quiet. On Thursday we invited Elder and Sister Peck to come down from the fourth floor to our apartment on the second floor to put together our 3-dimensional puzzle of St. Isaacs Cathedral. Reed & Jen and kids gave us this for Christmas three years ago before we came to St. Petersburg. Now we've been inside this cathedral several times and even climbed up to walk around the dome near the top. We will take the puzzle all apart and leave it behind for the future couples who come and live in our apartment to enjoy.
Friday we went back to do our Hermitage Service. It was such a beautiful evening when we left--lightly snowing again. We've had a bit of snow nearly every day for the last three weeks. The big tree is still up in the middle of Palace Square.
The fence around the base of the tree has all these pretty panels that say Happy New Year and Merry Christmas.
We walked down Nevsky Prospekt on a shopping expedition. There is also a beautiful big tree in front of Kazan Cathedral. The lights on the tree blink on and off in rows up the tree. Under the big glass dome by the tree is a nativity scene.
We've been looking for our souvenir sweatshirts of St. Petersburg for months (years?). We wanted them to be in Russian, not English. And Sue wanted a zipper down the front. The former is almost impossible, and the latter is impossible. So we finally gave up and walked down to Savior on the Spilled Blood church. There are many, many small street vendors there, and they have the best selection of souvenir anything. We decided we needed to buy something soon, and what we really want doesn't exist. So these are next best. Mostly in Russian. No zippers, but they do have pockets. And good memories of St. Petersburg--bridges up, with Peter and Paul Cathedral in the background. They say Я [сердца] Петер -- I [heart] Peter. Russians just call the city "Peter."
Next stop was dinner at Столовая №1--Cafeteria #1. Cafeteria style restaurants are popular in St. Petersburg, especially with the young people, but we haven't visited them much. We should. Food is good and cheap. All this cost us a little under $10. Sue had borscht, chick cordon-bleu, potato/tuna salad, a roll with chicken stuffing, a brownie and a glass of "compote" which is fruit juice mixture. Ken had rice, beef stew, vegetable salad, chicken cordon-bleu, cranberry juice and a big cinnamon roll. Notice the Yolka right behind him. And the muzak playing was all American Christmas songs in English: Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells, etc.
Saturday we cleaned house (not a big project in 400 sq. ft.) and then went our separate ways. Kolpino Ward was having a baptism in our building, so Ken went down to take photos. It was supposed to be at noon. But whoever had been assigned to fill the baptismal font didn't realize that it takes almost three hours to fill! So the volunteers and others were running around to other faucets in the building and filling up buckets and dumping the water into the font. At least hot water here comes from the central heating plant and there is no danger of running down the hot water tank to empty.
Sue went shopping by herself. She needed to go to the yarn store (Something else to fill quiet evenings is knitting.) And the grocery list this week was short. (We are starting to think about using up supplies before we go home. Boo-Hoo.) She took a bus over to Laduzhkaya Mall to "Leonardo," which is a wonderful big craft store that has everything! Then she walked across the street to the Okay market. It's even bigger than the Lenta where we usually shop. And it has salsa!!! Lenta has tortillas, but not salsa. The big two-liter jar we bought just a couple of months ago is all gone. Okay only has small jars, but Sue bought four, and that should get us through the next six weeks or so. They also had ground nutmeg, which she hasn't been able to find anywhere else. It was a successful shopping trip!
While Sue was gone Ken also had the Assistants take him to the Post Offices. There were four packages at Novocherkasskaya and just one at Bolsheokhtinskiy. These are the last! There is only one package left in the pipeline from all the Christmas ones, and it is supposed to be delivered directly to the Office, but it seems to be lost. We hope it shows up soon. From now on, we will mostly have the volunteers pick up their own packages. Ken will go get them for those serving in far-off cities. Others can get their own. But it is SO HELPFUL when parents send the tracking numbers!!! It has made a huge difference in our package handling efficiency.
Because of all the snow recently, the sidewalks are treacherous, and we were feeling lazy, so we called a cab to take us to the Fontanka building for "English Night." There are always people here who want to practice their English. Sue organized the first game: "Speed Talking" (sort of like Speed Dating).
We lined up two rows of chairs facing each other and gave people a topic to talk about for two minutes. At the end of two minutes, one of the rows stood up and moved one chair down and everyone was given a new two-minute topic. Topics were Family, Education, Work/Job, Vacations, Hobbies, Pets, etc.
We originally set up chairs for 20 and realized that wasn't enough, so did another smaller set with 10 more chairs. And that still wasn't enough. The room was full!
As more people arrived we'd tap one of the volunteers on the shoulder and pull him/her out and let the visitors have that seat. Three Elders standing together watching just looked like they needed to be "posed" a little for a Ken photo: Speak no Evil. See no Evil. Hear no Evil.
But the Sisters don't want to be left out of the photos, either!
Ken took this photo of Priesthood meeting today, the first meeting under the new two-hour Sunday regiment. It was a lively discussion.
Saturday we actually had REAL sunshine all afternoon!! (Well, at least until the sun went down about 4:20 pm when a sliver of moon and a rare star appeared.) In the afternoon, when Sue was waiting for the bus, she just closed her eyes and stared towards the sunlight. It was glorious. Sister Peck said she's starting to mark in her calendar the days when there is sun. In winter, St. Petersburg averages just 20 hours of sunshine per month. It had been almost three weeks since the sun last shone through the clouds! And then today (Sunday), it was almost sunny again. After church we went outside on the Neva River side of the building to take a photo of the sun!! The clouds were thin, so the sun did actually show through. This photo is at 3 pm, so there is still over an hour before sunset. The sun doesn't dip. It just moves across the southern horizon from east to west until it disappears for 16 hours. But we won't see it rise. The coming week will bring more snow.
The Russian Orthodox Christmas is on 7 January. But it's not much of a holiday here. It does mean that everyone is off work from 31 December to 9 January, and even after that, all the decorations are still up.
And there is no Santa Claus. Instead Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost) comes on New Year's Eve, or New Year's Day, and brings gifts for all the children. He leaves them under the Yolka (Fir Tree). He has no elves to help him, but is accompanied by Snegurochka (snow maiden) who is his granddaughter. One of the Hermitage employees who works at the entrance with us will often treat us to a piece of candy. This week she gave us two small chocolates with the pictures of Ded Moroz and Snegurochka on the wrappers.  |
| Sister Megan Mills (rt.) on North Carolina |
Last week we showed our sister volunteers picking out their new pants that they could wear while serving. Our missionary granddaughter Sister Megan Mills, serving in North Carolina, celebrated with many sister missionaries in the world as she showed off her new pants. (Sister Mills is on the right.) She is in a mission where bike riding is common, so pants will help with that.
 |
| Elder E, Sisters Dixon & Drake, Elders Jensen & Woodruff |
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| The star above shone bright. |
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| Everyone dressed up and played a part. |
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| And after the pageant the bazaar served great treats. |
We work regular office hours, but our evenings at home are pretty quiet. On Thursday we invited Elder and Sister Peck to come down from the fourth floor to our apartment on the second floor to put together our 3-dimensional puzzle of St. Isaacs Cathedral. Reed & Jen and kids gave us this for Christmas three years ago before we came to St. Petersburg. Now we've been inside this cathedral several times and even climbed up to walk around the dome near the top. We will take the puzzle all apart and leave it behind for the future couples who come and live in our apartment to enjoy.
Friday we went back to do our Hermitage Service. It was such a beautiful evening when we left--lightly snowing again. We've had a bit of snow nearly every day for the last three weeks. The big tree is still up in the middle of Palace Square.
The fence around the base of the tree has all these pretty panels that say Happy New Year and Merry Christmas.
We walked down Nevsky Prospekt on a shopping expedition. There is also a beautiful big tree in front of Kazan Cathedral. The lights on the tree blink on and off in rows up the tree. Under the big glass dome by the tree is a nativity scene.
Next stop was dinner at Столовая №1--Cafeteria #1. Cafeteria style restaurants are popular in St. Petersburg, especially with the young people, but we haven't visited them much. We should. Food is good and cheap. All this cost us a little under $10. Sue had borscht, chick cordon-bleu, potato/tuna salad, a roll with chicken stuffing, a brownie and a glass of "compote" which is fruit juice mixture. Ken had rice, beef stew, vegetable salad, chicken cordon-bleu, cranberry juice and a big cinnamon roll. Notice the Yolka right behind him. And the muzak playing was all American Christmas songs in English: Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells, etc.
Saturday we cleaned house (not a big project in 400 sq. ft.) and then went our separate ways. Kolpino Ward was having a baptism in our building, so Ken went down to take photos. It was supposed to be at noon. But whoever had been assigned to fill the baptismal font didn't realize that it takes almost three hours to fill! So the volunteers and others were running around to other faucets in the building and filling up buckets and dumping the water into the font. At least hot water here comes from the central heating plant and there is no danger of running down the hot water tank to empty.
Sue went shopping by herself. She needed to go to the yarn store (Something else to fill quiet evenings is knitting.) And the grocery list this week was short. (We are starting to think about using up supplies before we go home. Boo-Hoo.) She took a bus over to Laduzhkaya Mall to "Leonardo," which is a wonderful big craft store that has everything! Then she walked across the street to the Okay market. It's even bigger than the Lenta where we usually shop. And it has salsa!!! Lenta has tortillas, but not salsa. The big two-liter jar we bought just a couple of months ago is all gone. Okay only has small jars, but Sue bought four, and that should get us through the next six weeks or so. They also had ground nutmeg, which she hasn't been able to find anywhere else. It was a successful shopping trip!
While Sue was gone Ken also had the Assistants take him to the Post Offices. There were four packages at Novocherkasskaya and just one at Bolsheokhtinskiy. These are the last! There is only one package left in the pipeline from all the Christmas ones, and it is supposed to be delivered directly to the Office, but it seems to be lost. We hope it shows up soon. From now on, we will mostly have the volunteers pick up their own packages. Ken will go get them for those serving in far-off cities. Others can get their own. But it is SO HELPFUL when parents send the tracking numbers!!! It has made a huge difference in our package handling efficiency.
Because of all the snow recently, the sidewalks are treacherous, and we were feeling lazy, so we called a cab to take us to the Fontanka building for "English Night." There are always people here who want to practice their English. Sue organized the first game: "Speed Talking" (sort of like Speed Dating).
We lined up two rows of chairs facing each other and gave people a topic to talk about for two minutes. At the end of two minutes, one of the rows stood up and moved one chair down and everyone was given a new two-minute topic. Topics were Family, Education, Work/Job, Vacations, Hobbies, Pets, etc.
We originally set up chairs for 20 and realized that wasn't enough, so did another smaller set with 10 more chairs. And that still wasn't enough. The room was full!
 |
| Elders Packer, Thieme & Herrin |
As more people arrived we'd tap one of the volunteers on the shoulder and pull him/her out and let the visitors have that seat. Three Elders standing together watching just looked like they needed to be "posed" a little for a Ken photo: Speak no Evil. See no Evil. Hear no Evil.
 |
| Sisters Karlsson, Stockman & Anania-Matafai |
But the Sisters don't want to be left out of the photos, either!
Ken took this photo of Priesthood meeting today, the first meeting under the new two-hour Sunday regiment. It was a lively discussion.
Saturday we actually had REAL sunshine all afternoon!! (Well, at least until the sun went down about 4:20 pm when a sliver of moon and a rare star appeared.) In the afternoon, when Sue was waiting for the bus, she just closed her eyes and stared towards the sunlight. It was glorious. Sister Peck said she's starting to mark in her calendar the days when there is sun. In winter, St. Petersburg averages just 20 hours of sunshine per month. It had been almost three weeks since the sun last shone through the clouds! And then today (Sunday), it was almost sunny again. After church we went outside on the Neva River side of the building to take a photo of the sun!! The clouds were thin, so the sun did actually show through. This photo is at 3 pm, so there is still over an hour before sunset. The sun doesn't dip. It just moves across the southern horizon from east to west until it disappears for 16 hours. But we won't see it rise. The coming week will bring more snow.
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