Monday, January 30th

Before we left, we wanted to have a family experience, so we rented several rooms at the local Hampton Inn and went out to dinner and swam for hours.  The kids had so much fun doing that!

Since we left home Lauren was put in the hospital for a bacterial infection at Primary Children's. Thankfully she recovered quickly and came home on Saturday.  Alex made a bag of toys for her to take to the hospital with her, so sweet.  She has Face-Timed with us now and she looks so much better! Blessings!

Now Hannah is smiling too! Whether she knows it or not, she is smiling and we are loving it!! Pictures to come!

We got to be on FaceTime with Cora as she opened her birthday present for her 5th birthday!! Yeah, Cora!!



The BEST news of the week, however, was that Scott has been invited to be an Assistant Athletic Director, over compliance, at the University of Montana!! Scott earned a MA degree in Sports Law & Business at Arizona State University Law School last year and has been working as an intern at UVU in the meantime.  He will move to Missoula soon and become a Grizzly!! We are so proud of him!

Sunday, January 29th

Well, it's been a long week!! We arrived in Moscow last Monday night at 5:30 PM and have been running, sleeping off jet lag, shopping, at the office, meeting new people, figuring out the Metro and Uber, walking, shopping, walking, shopping, oh, and did I mention walking??  Other senior couples say they walk up to five miles a day here.  Not quite prepared for that marathon! ;-)

So many people went to so much trouble to prepare for us here.  A temporary apartment was found, food purchased so we'd have some when we arrived, bedding and kitchen tools rounded up, dinners hosted, events with other senior couples set up, a driver who took us to several stores, and to our apartment, and to the office, more shopping at a Costco-like place, and many emails and phone calls to make sure that we are comfortable.  It has been amazing!!

We went a whole week without internet in spite of the fact that we are in a very new building.  Of course, everyone would assume that it would be available and provided.  So we have been off the grid while people were wondering if we'd arrived safely.  Sorry about that!  But we got a router yesterday and now we're back in business!

Because we usually sleep off the first day or two on any international trip, we usually do not encouner too much jet lag.  But since we went into high speed mode immediately, I have really felt it this time.  We slept most of this weekend in order to catch up, so we are feeling much better now.

The Metro here is amazing.  It moves millions of people each day, more than other major cities combined, we are told.  Each station we have seen (which is not too many yet) is decorated in beautiful paintings or chandeliers or tiles.  Moscow is huge as the largest city in Europe.  We live on the upper NW of Moscow, apparently just outside the second ring road around the city.  Traffic is here amazing; one colleague in the office can spend 2-3 hours per day one way coming into the office.  Apparently a the Europe East Area (EEA) offices used to be closer to central Moscow, but they recently moved up to the NW area because of the difficulty and time it took to get to it.

We love our little studio apartment.  It has tons of storage and it is cozy.  I brought some little items from home to put on the counters and Russ made pictures of all of our children and grandchildren so we could hang them up.  It might be too small to spend the entire time here but it is much easier and quicker to clean than home!  We will move to a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment closer to the office next month when Thom and Kathryn Christensen return to the US.

I am inheriting Thom's work which deals with real estate issues in Ukraine and the registration of local religious organizations in order to comply with EEA laws.  It should be very interesting work.  The other lawyers in the office are great and very helpful.  I hope I will be able to help.

Russ will be working with the mission presidents to help the young volunteers here.  There are 14 missions so there are lots of young volunteers.

We will leave Russia in about 90 days for a visa trip.  We will likely go to Riga, Latvia, and have to stay for ten days while the paperwork is accomplished.  I have seen pictures of it and it is beautiful!  We will also go to Georgia in June for a religious freedom conference.  So that will be very interesting.  I was in The Hague in the Peace Palace in April 2011 when the International Court of Justice ruled on a case between Georgia and Russia.  It was very interesting.

We hope you are all well and happy!!  Love from Russia!!

Saturday, January 14th

We went to Walmart yesterday for our last trip.  I was overcome with emotion! Who does that??! Me, I guess. DUH!!  Then when we were leaving our two great friends, both Karen's, walked into Walmart.  Love to Karen Helm and Karen Lamb!! 

Me at the check stand!

Russ making sure that he can pay for our groceries with the Walmart savings he had amassed over the past two years!

The cute checker's reaction when she heard that we were going to Russia!

Thursday & Friday, January 12th & 13th

Thursday

Today we learned about LDS Pamphlets.  It's an app on the App Store which includes so many explanations of Latter-Day Saint doctrine. Beautiful pictures, simple questions, simple answers. 

Friday

Today was our last day at the MTC.  We will miss our new friends--the Larsen's. the Anderson's, and the Whitlock's, and our teachers--who we just spent a week with learning and studying.  Here is a picture of our district in front of the famous MTC map!

Me & Russ @ the MTC Map

Missionaries stand in front of the map and point to the place they are going to serve. Here's our rendition of that:

Wednesday, January 11th--3rd Day at the MTC

Our teachers work very hard to prepare the couples in our district to go to our missions. They are returned missionaries who are now teaching new missionaries.  One served in Italy; the other served in Montana.  There are four couples in our district. They are from California, Idaho, and two of us from Utah.  One couple will go to the Philippines, another to Chesapeake Bay, VA; another couple is going to St. Louis, and we are going to Russia.

Our district spends four hours working in the morning and again in the afternoon after lunch.  They teach principles of effective teaching and relationship-building.  We have fun with them.

Our Morning Teacher: 

Our Afternoon Teacher:

Today I introduced the class to our favorite video from Nursery: "I Am A Child of God!" Made me miss our little Nursery kids!

You can watch it on YouTube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOrcqqpHCt8  

Tuesday Night Devotional, January 10, 2017

MTC Choir

The MTC Choir was made up o about 150 young men and women missionaries.  They have amazing voices! I have heard about this meeting for years and years.  It was wonderful to be there to listen to the music and the talks.  WOW!

Speaker: Elder Neil L. Andersen

The senior missionaries we are training with--about 40+ couples and 3 sisters--come from all over the country, are assigned to places all over the world, and are interesting and funny and amazing people!!

First Day at the MTC--January 9, 2017