Friday, September 26, 2008

Before the Revolution



Beautiful old residences dot the city.

частный дом - Private Home








Below the high rises apartments that characterize Yekaterinburg are many, many small, old charming wooden houses. These are all across the street from the Mission Office.

Denver to Frankfurt to Yekaterinburg






We flew out of SLC about 1:30 Sat., and arrived in Yekaterinburg about 5:00am Sunday morning. The giant flight schedule board in Franfurt fascinated us. We had an eight hour layover so we took a train to the giant Banhaus where we ate wonderful apple and marzipan pastries and went for a walk in the city.
In Yekat (as the missionaries say) we were met by President Allen. No trouble with customs or immigration. Here we are!!

On the road again -- after a two week wait



So after a two week wait we repacked our luggage and headed out. (Thanks to all the Macs for the great bags.)

We didn't want to spend our two week wait on P-days so we tried to be Russian missionaries in Utah. We started by getting various translations of useful handouts and DVD's from Temple Square and from Distribution.

Then we began right at home. As some of you know, we learned that our elusive neighbor had a Russian girlfriend who just had a baby; because of the happy event the babuska was visiting from Russia, so we had them over for dinner. We also gave materials to the wife of our SLC mechanic who Roger had learned came from Bulgaria. Then Heather told us they had a Russian neighbor so we visited her, too. In addition we gave things to a Russian clerk in a gift shop in SLC, to the Vietnamese people where I get my nails done, and to a Spanish-speaking mechanic.

We tried to get up early, exercise, study, dress like missionaries and wear our tags. We also continued our language study. It was a great two weeks.

Mendon Elders at MTC



Thursday, September 25, 2008

MTC Language Tutors



Our language tutors were Katia Vertai (phone) from Ukraine and Justin Bogh (MTC) from CA.

And still more




We could see Y Mountain from our dorm window.

More MTC