How about
that, boys and girls – TWO Christmases!!
Yes, Monday, January 7th was Orthodox Christmas in Russia or
the Russian Christian Christmas – and it is just as big a deal as December 25th
Christmas. Everyone was still off work
until Wednesday so we had a fairly quite couple of days. Our meeting Tuesday was just President and
Sister Gibbons, the Office Elders, AP’s and us.
We reviewed and mapped out the next few weeks and it seemed kind of
weird that we will be home and have left all this behind during this next
cycle. We have one more transfer (Feb.6th)
and then before the next one rolls around we will be gone - very strange.
Wednesday
everyone (our 3 Russian employees) came back to work. We did a “welcome back to work lunch” for
them and they got a real kick out of it.
The big comment was “we will have to take some more days off so we can
do this again when we return!” It was
fun for us to see them enjoy the gesture so much. All three of them are the absolute best and
try so hard to help us with our Russian and to learn some English themselves so
we can all communicate better. We are so
thankful for Olga who speaks English so very well and can help out so
much. Actually, she runs the whole place
so we are always glad to see her return whenever she has been away. We are trying to get her to come to visit
when we get home.
Thursday
turned out to be just another day except for the Ballet we attended with Elder
and Sister Gundersen in the evening. It
was a beautiful snowy evening as we walked to the Opera House. It is always a treat to be able to attend the
super performances there. Then Friday
came and brought with it our weekly District Mtg with all the missionaries in
our District. After our meeting Sister
Webb went with our Sister Missionaries to visit an American girl who is in the
hospital here (the hospital is a story for another day) and I went with our
District Leaders to visit a young man from Kenya, working for the circus here
in Russia, who was in the TB hospital in another part of town. We both had very interesting, yet wonderful,
experiences and it was a little different to “split” and not be together. It is always an uplifting experience to go visiting
with the missionaries.
Saturday we
had an all-day training meeting with all the Branch Presidents, District and
Mission Presidency and the District Council.
For those reading this that don’t get the “church speak” these are the
people who are the leaders in the mission and the various cities throughout
Siberia. The Church is firmly
established in the 7 major cities across our mission; Omsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk,
Barnaul, Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo, and Krasnoyarsk. All of these cities are big cities of over
500,000 which is still mind boggling for us to realize that are so many big
cities in Siberia. But then again
Siberia is a pretty big place. After the
meetings were over we ordered up a taxi and headed once again to Berdsk for the
weekend. It is a very special little
group trying to get established in Berdsk.
We are still meeting in the apt we have rented there but are working
hard to secure a permanent place to meet.
After Church was over and everyone went home we, that is to say Sister
Webb, fixed a little something for the missionaries before they left and then
we packed up and headed back to Novosibirsk and our little apt which has become
home to us in Russia.
We hope this coming week is the best ever for
everyone. We love you all and hope you
are enjoying good health in the New Year.
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| Leaving the Opera House Gundersens in the foreground |
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| Church Leaders in Siberia |
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