Happy Easter !!

It was Easter the World Over

This week began with a trip to the Novosibirsk Zoo.  The missionaries in our district planned a trip to the Zoo for P-Day and invited us to join them.  We are always up for an adventure so we accepted and tagged along.  We arrived right at feeding time so it was quite interesting to watch them feed the Lions, Tigers and Liger – yes there is such a thing.  We finally saw our first YAK and so for my brother who thought our only mode of transportation in Siberia would be by YAK, I have included a picture.  It is a little hard to see the thing and Sister Webb wouldn’t let me hop in the pen to go sit on him so what you see is what you get.  We had a great afternoon with the young missionaries but they certainly wore us out.  I guess we are not as young as we thought.!!  Imagine.!!!

We hosted our two English groups this week again.  Tuesday evening there was a pretty big group and we played the alphabet game – you know the “I’m going on a trip and I am taking (something that starts with an A) then the next person repeats and adds something that starts with a B, etc.  Everyone who came had a great time.  One of the guys enjoyed it so much he was going to go home and play it with his girlfriend.  It was really fun and it is so interesting to see them interact and help each other with the language, the alphabet and everything.  We are having fun with this each week.  Although, we must admit it is a little stressful trying to get something organized each week.  Thursday’s group was very small compared to the large group on Tuesday.  We are anxious to see what this week will bring.

Also, we had 4 lessons in our apt this week which is always a lot of fun as we get to visit with new people, meet new friends and revisit with old ones.  This week Mikhail came back, Marina who was recently baptized came for a lesson, and we met two new people, Eugeni from up the street, and Anya from English.  It was a great week for teaching.  We have also, made friends with our security guard at the front gate (thanks to Sister Webb’s chocolate chip & walnut cookies).  He only knows one English word “Good Luck” – okay so maybe he knows two English words.  Anyway, whenever we walk in or out of the gate he stops whatever he is doing, comes out of the guard shack and says good luck with a big smile.  Now this is really something because anyone will tell you that Russian’s just don’t smile.  In fact that is probably the single biggest things that give us away as Americans because we smile and say hello to people as we pass by on the street and that is simply unheard of behavior.  We are having a lot of fun with him and have committed to get to know him better.

Our week ended almost as it began only instead of an animal zoo we went to the people zoo.  This is the BIG reenok (PblHOK - in Russian)  on the edge of town.  We both commented to each other that never at anytime have we ever seen so much stuff in one place at one time anywhere we have ever been.  This must be at least a 5 acre block of land with merchants packed closely together in 6 x 8 booths selling everything you can possibly imagine.  Furs to plastic wrap, soup to nuts, sewing needles to sink stoppers – you name it.  If they don’t sell it at this reenok then it doesn’t exist.  We were absolutely amazed.  We had no idea that they had this variety or availability of goods in Russia.  They had open air meat markets, farmer’s market wares, etc.  It had the atmosphere of a flea market, mixed with the food vendors from the Chelan County Fair or Apple Blossom. Quite impressive.

In the midst of all of this we have had the opportunity to watch the sessions of conference throughout the week.  Conference as usual was a spiritual feast.  Some great messages were given and even greater lessons taught.  For those of you who don’t know about our semi-annual church conference in Salt Lake take a moment and go to lds.org and watch one of the talks. All of our leaders speak to us twice a year in conference sessions which last over a weekend in five different sessions.  The messages are fantastic, inspiring, encouraging, helpful an uplifting.  We know you would enjoy them all.

Have a great week.  Be safe, be good and be happy.  Life is amazingly wonderful.  We love you all.

Randy n Sue

The YAK
(In the background - OK)



Treat at the Zoo
Sugar Water (Soda Pop)
& Pop Corn



Open  Meat Market
at the PblHOK

The Famous Russian "Carry"