New Family Friends

This past week we had several wonderful experiences. First of all, we will share our experience with a sweet Russian family that came to our apartment and had dinner with us. This was a mother, father, daughter, son and his girlfriend. The young missionaries found this family and had a visit with them prior to us arriving in Russia, but we haven’t had the opportunity to meet with them until last week. What a wonderful time we had. They absolutely enjoyed looking at our pictures from home on the computer. Everyone from Russia that we show our pictures of the mountains above home to, say that it looks like an area in Russia called Altai. We instantly felt a great love for this dear family, as they just glowed as we talked with them. After showing them the mountains by our home, they invited us to go on a trip with them to the Altai region. Not sure if that’s possible, but it would be fun. We would first need to learn Russian much better than we know now. We are looking forward to meeting with this dear family again, hopefully much sooner than later.

On another day, as we were entering our apartment, a gentleman that lives in an apartment near ours was coming out. We had a brief conversation with him in the hallway. He has a basic understanding of English, enough that we were able to have him, his wife and his daughter over for a nice visit. He said that he wanted to take us on a tour of Berdsk and show us where the good and not so good places of the city are. They were very pleasant and we look forward to becoming closer friends with them. We gave them a copy of the Liahona magazine that we hope they will enjoy.

This week was a week of travel. We went to Novosibirsk on Friday for a meeting, on Saturday to a concert and again on Sunday for Branch Conference. We most always enjoy the train ride, it seems more often than not, we are able to have a conversation with someone and enjoy it. Though, many times there is a great language barrier, but it is still fun. It is interesting how almost everyone on the public transportation just sits with somewhat of a blank look and don’t communicate with others. We seem to be about the only ones talking. We have found the best way to break the ice and start a conversation with people is to show them pictures of our family and of Utah. It is handy to pull up pictures on the iPhone and start showing them our family. They always say: Wow, Large family - Not using those words though. We have met so many wonderfully kind Russian people by just trying to strike up a conversation. As we reach our destination and depart from each other, it seems that we feel a bond of friendship towards each other - We love it. We have little handouts with information about the church and with a contact number that we enjoy giving out. Most will accept them with a smile.

On the cultural side of things, we attended a symphony at the Novosibirsk Theatre on Saturday. This is the largest theatre in all of Russia. It is larger than the Bolshoi Theatre (which means Large Theatre) in Moscow. It was an enjoyable evening with the other senior couples. We even went to another KFC in Novosibirsk and had fast food again. That is uncommon for us, as there are no fast food restaurants in all of Berdsk, even though it has a population of around 100,000 people. We haven’t figured that one out yet! Here’s a great business opportunity for someone in Russia.  : -)

Entering the Novosibirsk Theatre

Inside the theatre

The orchestra

Lunch during district meeting at the Palmer's

My new friend on the train. Wonderful man.

Our train stops - Berdsk is #38 in the bottom left.

Skype call home for Dad's birthday party that my brother emailed to us.

Our picture of the Sanpete Valley - People here like to see this picture of Utah.

Moments on the train...

This was a fun week with our traveling and our English classes. We have a group of students that we call our adult class. This past week, they had us come visit their class and we had a party with cake and tea. They even brought juice for us. They are so fun to meet with and so loving to us. We want to have them come to our apartment in the near future and visit with us, as we only have a little over an hour in their class. The time goes by way too fast. A husband and wife couple even brought us some homemade raspberry jam for us to take back to our apartment. It is delicious. They also mentioned that they want us to come to their house when the weather warms up and have a BBQ, which we are excited to do.

On Wednesday, we went to visit one of our dear members who lives between Berdsk and Novosibirsk. It took us two different Marshrutkas to get there and longer than had we expected. He is very dedicated. Whenever we have church meetings or any other gathering, he is always faithful to be there. It was very humbling to us to visit this dear man. When we got to his “flat” as they call it in Russia, we became aware that he shares the kitchen and bathroom of an apartment with two other people. He lives in a single room of the apartment with a sleeper sofa as a bed. It is very neat and organized. We were impressed with his collection of journals from over the years. We have noticed that he is always taking notes during meetings. He is about 85 years old and is a retired mathematics teacher from a university here. It is a pleasure to know this dear man.

This week was a week of more travel than normal. We left early Thursday morning on the train to Novosibirsk to go to a university and judge an English class competition. We both split up and went into separate rooms to help judge two different groups of students. We were both impressed with the language abilities of the students that we met. The faculty there treated us kindly and expressed a desire to have some of their students attend the English conversation group that the missionaries hold one evening each week; so hopefully we will be able to put many young people from Novosibirsk in touch with the missionaries.

This past Friday was our week to have the missionaries in our district come to Berdsk and attend a training meeting at our apartment. Laura made a very nice meal for them and we enjoyed having them come to our apartment. She even made one of the Russian food dishes that we tasted at the college that we help at. The Russian translation name of it is, “Herring under fur coat”. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. It looks like it should be a sweet salad, but it is beets and several other vegetables. It’s very tasty.

On Sunday, we traveled to Novosibirsk again to attend church meetings there. We actually enjoy the train rides because we have the opportunity to sit by people we have never met and try to have conversation with them. On the way there, we sat by two young girls from a city named “Iskitim”. They were so cute, and were even sending us texts later that afternoon. On the return trip, we had one of those memorable experiences that we will always cherish. For about the last 20 minutes of the ride a sweet older lady got on the train and sat in the seat by us. We tried our best to have a conversation with her but she knew no English at all, so we started showing her pictures of our family and of the mountains around home and did our best to explain the pictures. It was one of those times when you wished that time would slow down. We arrived at the train station in Berdsk and had to leave her. As we were saying goodbye and shaking her hand, she had to pull Laura close to her and give her a kiss on the cheek goodbye. As we were walking past her window after leaving the train, she was right up next to it waving goodbye to us. We couldn’t talk for a bit because of the tears in our eyes.

We have come to the conclusion that we are to make as many friends as we can while we are here and just love the people of Russia, along with showing them how much we love each other and love life. Then hopefully when they have the opportunity to listen to the young missionaries sometime in life they will take the time to listen to their message.

A poem shared at our district meeting to make your eyes water.

Our adult English class friends.

Brother Vitali - Our dear 85 yr old member

"Herring under fur coat" - Yummy

Brief view of another cathedral near the highway to Novosibirsk

Looking down from our apartment at the missionaries coming for District Meeting.

General Conference, a nice way to conclude the week.

We were able to conclude this week by watching General Conference. We had to wait a week for it to be available for our members in Russian, plus the fact that we are 13 hours ahead of back home. We enjoyed it very much and now we are pondering our 25 words :-) We cheated and had our headphones plugged into our iPhones and listened in English over the internet while the others listened in Russian.
 

Last week’s events included another trip to Novosibirsk for a meeting. On our way we decided to take the train and get off up the line a ways and trek up through the forest and through a small community to try to make contact with a member that we haven’t met. We wondered around the community back and forth for a while until we came to about the last housing complex there. We did location her apartment and a relative was at home, but not the member. Oh well, hopefully next time we can meet her and let her know that we are now holding meetings much closer to her home. For many years, the members here have had to travel on Sundays for about an hour by train to attend any church meetings. Hopefully, soon we will have a building rented where we can hold church meetings and also other meetings that will be beneficial to the people here. We would like to be able to hold a free English conversation group one night a week where the local people can come and speak in English with us and the other missionaries as extra practice for their English. There is quite an interest from the young people to learn the language.

We met this last week again with the college class of students and had a great time. They made several Russian dishes of food for us to try. They also explained to us how they made the food and shared their recipes. It was very tasty. We enjoy being with them. We were also asked to stay after for another class of beginner English adult students. They were very timid at first, but by the time we left they seemed to have loosened up and felt more comfortable. It’s interesting to hear the questions that they have for us about America. We have a wonderful relationship with the English teacher of these classes. She could not be any more pleasant towards us.

One of our dear young friends in Berdsk told one of her professors in Novosibirsk about us being here and that we are enjoying volunteering. She made contact with us and we are planning on going this next week to assist her with one of her language competitions. We are looking forward to that upcoming opportunity.

It has been so nice to be able to put on a lighter coat and have the weather warm up a little during the days. However, we did about freeze while trying to find the members home that we mentioned. Also another side note, the little shed frame that was pictured in our prior blog did not survive. The snow released from the room during the week and broke the frame as expected.

Our latest English class

The "Electrishka" coming in

From our last trip to KFC

We are finally feeling more familiar with the Metro in Novosibirsk

Train station along the way to Novosibirsk

Looking across the lake by our apartment towards Novosibirsk - 4/15/2013

Our apartment is the light colored one in the background

Our fun college class with their tasty Russian treats for us to try

The fitness center by our apartment

Church in Berdsk grows by 33%. :-)

A great week it has been! We have a new member of our little family in Berdsk. Ilia, an eighteen year old young man that started coming to our apartment the first week that we arrived, got baptized on Saturday. He is a very fine young man and we are happy to have him in our midst. The Elders have done an amazing job teaching him. He has been to our apartment many times and is strong in his understanding of what he has been taught. He even stood in our meeting on Sunday and spoke with confidence in front of everyone in our group.

We travelled to Novosibirsk two times this last week, once on Friday for a zone meeting and then again on Saturday for Ilia’s baptism. Whether we go by Taxi, Marshrutka or Electrishka train, it seems to take close to an hour to get there. We had an enjoyable zone meeting with the other missionaries in Novo and also had a nice meal afterwards. Laura even made homemade rolls for it!

They are still chipping away at the ice here. Often you see people out with an ice chipper chopping away to either clear a sidewalk down to the pavement or trying to make a path for the water to run away. It is starting to get a little bit warmer and now there is a lot of water on the streets.

After the baptism on Saturday, we decided to walk to a KFC. (They have places like that in Novosibirsk, but not in Berdsk) It was interesting, when the minute we walked through the door of KFC, a few of the kids in a booth heard us speaking in English and said hello. I walked over to them and started a conversation with them. When I told them I was from America, their eyes lit up and great big smiles came across their faces. I wonder if they had ever spoken with anyone from America. They wanted to get pictures with us and even had me write our names on a paper for them. The young people here in our mission are very friendly to us. They are about the only ones that we can communicate with.

We found out how attached we are to the outside world with the internet. We didn’t have it for about four days and we definitely missed it. It is so nice to stay up on the news back home, Skype, email, texting, Facebook, etc. One thing that has been very nice is the Mormon Channel streaming audio. That is our radio station that we play each day in our apartment. Another thing that we really missed for the past few days was Google Translate. Boy, do we use that a lot…

Our nice young friend in Berdsk put one of her teachers at a university in Novosibirsk in touch with us and she asked if we would come to the university and assist her on an English project. We met with her after our zone meeting and we are looking forward to assisting her. Our volunteering in local English classes has been very enjoyable thus far. Everyone has been so kind to us.

Another thing that is so nice about our mission is the amount of study time that we have. We have decided to somewhat follow the young missionary guidelines and spend our mornings reading, studying, exercising, etc. However, we are kind of missing the mark on the time that we wake up…  Part of the benefits of being a SENIOR COUPLE :-) 

Elder Leonhart, Ilia & Elder Bunnell

Our newest member, Ilia, with us.

The correct way to spell "Novosibirsk".

Sidewalk revealed from last weeks ice chipping.

Zone meeting meal - Yummy.

Ready to start zone meeting.

I told you Laura has her eyes on these Russian boots...

Our new young friends in Novosibirsk KFC.

Our "Electrishka" train schedule.

Picture taken April 7th - Still wondering if the shed frame will survive.

On the "Metro" subway in Novosibirsk.

English is a key…

This past week was filled with great experiences.  A new friend of ours in Berdsk introduced us to a very sweet English teacher. We went to her school and office on three different days to talk to her students in English. On one of the days we stood in front of her college class (similar to high school seniors at home) for about two hours as they asked questions about us and about America. We had a great time speaking with them and look forward to meeting with them many more times. At the other times, we met in her small office with several students, some adults and some teenagers. They were somewhat shy but very pleasant. We look forward to many upcoming experiences volunteering in the schools and helping with English. The younger generation has a desire to learn it, but the older ones don’t speak it at all. It is very rare to find an older person who knows any English. We love the look on the kid’s faces when we start talking to them in English. Our Russian hasn’t improved much yet, and we seem to get a better reaction when we speak in English - Not always though :-)

We decided to have a party for our little church group here in Berdsk on Thursday. We had the three members and four who are not members attend, plus the two Elders and the two of us at the party. We watched a short video on the resurrection of the Savior and had a nice meal. Another one of our new friends in Berdsk, a sweet young lady in her mid-twenties, came to our apartment the day before and taught us how to make a common Russian food called Vereniki. Plus another dear young friend brought some of her mother’s Vereniki for us. It was a great meal. Laura made a yummy carrot cake also and a bunch of other goodies. To conclude the party, we played a couple of games from home that we have played with our family. One of the games was a game of elimination where you pick any animal you want and make an action and a sound similar to that animal. It was fun and very interesting to say the least. I think everyone had a great time. We surely did.

On Sunday for church we were able to have a couple of sister missionaries from Novosibirsk come and speak at our little group meeting. They came the night prior and stayed the night at our apartment. They did a great job and it was fun to get to know them. Right after our meeting we headed to Novosibirsk by Marshrutka. The mission president and his dear wife invited all of the missionaries in the area to the mission home for a nice Easter meal with them. It was a great get together and fun to visit with all the missionaries. In Russia they celebrate Easter on May 5th, so we get to celebrate Easter two times this year. There is a special greeting and reply in Russia for Easter that we absolutely love: 

"Христос воскрес!" (Christ has risen!)     "Воистину воскрес!" (Indeed, he has risen!) 

Miracles happen – small and large. We have had multiple experiences that seem that the Lord’s hand has been guiding us. Just to mention one little one; last night after leaving the mission home, we got outside the mission home building with the Elders and they looked at their watch and said that we had 14 minutes to catch the train. We had several blocks to walk first and then catch the Metro (subway) to the train station and still buy tickets. Well, we stepped up our pace and got to the Metro. Hopped on and headed two stops away to the train station exit, ran up and out of the Metro to the train station. Purchased our four tickets and stepped through the gate as the front of the train was pulling in. Hopped on the train for our hour ride to Berdsk and as we got off of the train in Berdsk and walked to the road, there was the Marshrutka #13 waiting, empty, that goes right to our apartment. It was 10 or 15 minutes after 9pm at that time and in the past they rarely go to our apartment location after 9pm.

This blog is getting kind of long, so for now we will defer sharing some of our other experiences until a later blog. Many interesting experiences of meeting people…

College group - English class

A Marshrutka stop

Our little group in Berdsk

We finally found lettuce and had a salad :-) 

Mission home Easter meal

Easter meal

Sweet Young Sister Missionaries

Kinder Egg - Yummy chocolate and a surprise inside

Kinder Eggs - Popular in Russia

Our special missionaries with us.

Novosibirsk missionary senior couples with President and Sister Gibbons.