20 Jan 2012

This just might be the last mission blog.  Things are really getting busy as we are coming down the home stretch.  Very exciting to know we will be home in less than 3 weeks.  And a few emotions about leaving the mission field.  You probably cannot believe I am saying that, and neither can I, but we have made some wonderful life time friends, and some of them Russians.  We will be friends with many of the missionaries when they come home.  Couple of the elders live within 30 min. of us.The senior couples have already got plans to meet. But the spirit of the mission field has been a blessing in our lives.  And our children have been a blessing to us as they have served with us.  We could not of done it without them.
O.K. Gene checked himself out of the hospital or he would probably still be there. The man he shared the room with could speak English.  But he could not get out of bed.  His wife was visiting and Gene had tried everything he could to get the nurses to get the doctor because he wanted to go home.   He finally asked the man's wife if she would help him.  She was happy too.  She told the nurses to get the doctor and that Gene was going home.  In 30 minutes he he saw the doctor and got himself checked out. And he has been great since.  What a blessing.
Picture time:

Going to the hospital to visit Gene

Elder Perfiliyev and Elder Jenkins helped me find my way
on the metro to the hospital  I could not of done it
myself.  I was so thankful to them .for helping me.

Another wonderful baptism.  This is the boyfriend of
one of our young sisters.  Her name in Jana and I cannot
say his name.  But he was so happy to be baptized.

Elder Ayers, Elder Everett, the boy?, Elder Narbotnakov and
Elder Palmer.  These 3 elders all had a part in teaching this boy.
I guess I should say young man.

And winter finally came.  It is about 14 degrees F today.
These winter pictures are of last Sunday at church.

The children are always out playing.  This is the ice
skating rink by the church/

Mothers with buggies.  I just love watching all the people
outside.  Many if not most do not have cars.  So they are use
to getting around by foot, bus or metro.

My favorite.  A little, teeney, tiny girl on the ice
skating rink.  Of course no ice skates.  Just all bundled
up scarf and all.

We had womens conference this week at the Mission Home.
It was a great day with all the sisters.

Love them all.  And they are all different..But so special out
serving the Lord.

Sister Bice is teaching on how to get along with your companion.
She said learn now because it will prepare you for marriage.

My sweet Sister Ashby writing everything she is learning
in her journal.  I watched her deep in thought many times.

Our Dear Sister Carlson who was going to get married and then
she and her boyfriend both knew she needed to serve a
mission.  So they parted for 18 months.  They have their
wedding date set for this June.  Isn't that a great sacrifice and
an example of true love?

A group picture. Starting at left..Sister Hoorspool, Sister Bullough, Sister Ashby,
Sister Savchuk, 2nd row R-L Sister Huefner, Sister Sorenson, Sister Palmer,
Sister Craythorn, Sister Carlson, Sister Uskova, Sister Frolova,Back row L-R
Sister Thrall, sister Mordwinow, Sister Daniels, Sister Petersen, Sister Workman,
Sister Naegle, me, Sister Rasmussen, Sister Hobbiebullina, Sister Bice and
Sister Walker.

Elder Hayes and Sister Ashby singing I know that my Redeemer
Lives,  Spiritual thought for English club.  Very pretty.

China at the ward building.  Just love it.

The cards go around the closet.  Love them all

We have loved playing the card a day game.  The box is
getting fewer and fewer.  But it is always fun each night
to open one and seee who it is from.  I hang them all
on the closet door in the living room.

District meeting with Elder G, Elder Hayes, Elder Ayers, Elder Everett,
Sister Hobbiebullina, Sister Ashby and Elder Law,  We
love them all.


Thank You to all:
We have so appreciated your faith and prayers for us as
we took this leap of faith and served in Moscow Russia.
It took us all to get this done and it has been a wonderful
expierence.
We will be home on the night of Feb 11 and will speak in church
the next morning Feb. 12th  Yikes!!!!Hope we are awake.
Our church building has chanaged.  We are on 2700 W about
half way between 7800S and 9000 S.  Right by the golf course
and sugar factory road.  Any questions call Michelle or Mitch or
you can e-mail us.
Das-e-don-ya  (goodby)

                                                                                
                                                                           

05 Jan 2012

This is how we celebrated the Russians Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  There Christmas is the 6th of Jan.  Tues and Wed we spent at home with Gene in terrible pains in his knee.  It sounded like labor pains in a knee.  The pain was making him sick and we tried everything to make it go away.  I finally called our mission doctor.  And he said to give him some Tylenol with codene which I had and it helped it a lot.  But he had to keep taking it for 2 days or the pains were right back.  Then all of a sudden the pain left as quick as it came.  All better.  Must of been something floating in his knee that got stuck somewhere and finally moved.  That is our medical conclusion.  Great day Thursday.  Enjoyed the office, went to senior council night.  Good day.  Then Friday it went down hill again.  Gene told me his stomach was bothering him.  He did not eat much lunch.  I said lets go home and he said he had to much to do so we kept working. (I mean serving) About 4:30pm he looked at me and said I am sick we need to go.  So I started closing down my computer and next thing I know President says Sister Gronning would you come in the office while we give Elder Gronning a blessing.  I did not know he even went in Presidents office, but he was laying on his couch in terrible pain and told me to get him a bag that he was going to throw up the pain was so bad.  Well the pictures explain the rest.

sorry about this picture.  I cannot get it to delete.

It was so sad to see him in so much pain.  We were trying to get
him down the 2 flights of stairs and he just couldn't do it.

                                                     
                                                  

The sweet elders did their best to make him comfortable

                                                                     

And this is where he ended up at the European Medical Clinic.
Not something we wanted to do in Russia.

                                                                                                                                     

What would we do without pain killers?  He was so happy
to be out of pain.

Having dinner.  A hunck of salmon that I had to take out of the
room is smelled so bad.  He looks like an angel in his white
night gown. And he is drinking lots of water.  Lots of water bottles.

                                                                                                   
                
                                                           

Lovely view from his window.

                                                     

This was my pretty walk home from the off tonight.  A light snow
was falling and it was so pretty.  The trees were so pretty.

To sum it up.  Russians believe you need to stay in the hospital along time.  I think at home they would of gave him pain killers and sent him home.  And the nurses all speak Russian so he has to

communicate the best he can.  It is like playing charades all day long.  He shares a room with a man who speaks Russian and English so he helps out once in awhile.  Anyway, we are not staying there

much longer.  We hope to get him home tomorrow and he can wait for it to pass here.  It will be 4 days tomorrow,  What an event coming down the home stretch of our mission.  But we will both learn from this expierence and we will both learn more patience which we need to do,

04 Jan 2012

Happy New Year..in russian (Slovum Godum)

Boy it is hard to believe that we are in 2012. We will be home really soon. It has been such a busy past month with so many things going on that I will just post pictures again and tell about the month.

We started Dec. with 4 new missionaries.  3 Native Russian sisters and 1 elder from Calif.

Then the next big event was the first Moscow Stake Christmas program in history.  It was really a big deal.  20 yrs ago the church did not even exist in Russia and now they have a stake.  We do not have a building large enough to hold the stake so they had rented a hall for the Christmas program.  They had some professionals come in and the 2nd half was all done by church members,   It was just a wonderful evening.

This is our newly baptized member Keseena.  She sang in the chior.
We just love her so much.  She says I can be her grandma.babushka)

Sergey was the master of ceremonies.  He works in the office next
to ours in CES and he is also a bishop of one of the wards.

Sister Missionaries singing.  So pretty.  We have alot
of talented missionaries.

Stage where the performance was.  We were not to sure why the chior
conductor had to be center front?

Elders singing a song.  When they all came walking down the asile
it sent goose bumps up your arms.  You could just feel that they
werre Heavenly Fathers servants.  They are very special.

The manager scene was done so well. The sheperd in green
looks like Michael.

The condutor man is very good, but he is also very dramatic.
This is the chior.

Always my favorite part..the children

The two girls in pink and purple are the twins from our ward.
Tonya and Mela.  The man wiping tears from his eyes explains
how these Russians feel about having the gospel here in their lives.

This is how all the children are bundled up when they go outside.
We call them little Randy's from the Christmas story.
These two were fighting over who the one binki belong too.

Two sisters in our ward who do a cute manager scene presentation.
They sing and move the characters all around.  It is really cute.

They made all these little like rag dolls.  And the table underneath
them moves so they roatate it around and make different scenes.

Walk in the snow to the office.

He came with me

We had snow for a few weeks but it has not got to cold yet.

And the packages keep coming.  We put this one under our tree.
Our children are the best!!!

This was full of medicines and other things to help us make
it down the home stretch.  Michelle and Sonya have
helped us so much with medications from home and other things
that we cannot buy here.

And the rewards of a mission.  Another baptism in our ward.   A mother and
her son.  Sevetta and Denise(that is Dennis in Russia)  Sister Ashby and
Sister Marty taught them the lessons.

Her mom and dad (who are not members) Brother Narbotnokov and Sisters
Marty and Ashby.

Elder Law and Elder Hayes also helped teach Denise and the man
on the end is our bishop.  Bishop McChaliff(that is not how you spell
it, but if I spelled it correct you would not know what his name was)

It was Denise'e 12th birthday the day he was baptized and this
is a cake his mom baked and surprised him with.


Now the Mission Christmas Party on the 24th of Dec.  We all meant at the South building...takes us about 1 1/2 hrs by bus and metro to get there.  We started with 3 baptisms which was wonderful.  Then President gave a little talk.  We watched a movie and then had dinner.  After dinner each district had prepared a skit.  It was a great day.  So fun being together as a whole mission.

Elder Law, Sister Hatch and Elder Zinn.   Looks like they are
reading scriptures.  Elder Zinn is our new office elder.

Sister Mordwinow and Sister Ashby enjoying dinner.

So much food.  And the missionaries love it.

Waiting in line for their turn.

Skits.

Elder Clawson on the window ledge is really a sleep walker.  This
skit was about him.

The elder sitting straight up is Elder Gump. (Forest Gump) and he played
the part perfect.

Sister Ashby and Mordinow were rapping to some words they
made up about teaching and finding people.

Babushka's (grandmas) that the missionaries are trying to teach.

Seniors....this is the area couples and the mission couples. There are 5 couples
in our mission and the rest are area.  But we all are like one.  We get together once
a week and the area helps with all the missionaries.  It is great.

We sang senior tells to the tune of jingle bells.  Chorus:

Oh!!!We are told we are old by each one of you,
Have you thought what you would do for money fun or food?
We are told we are old by each one of you,
Have you thought what you would do for money fun or food?

And then came Christmas Day.  Always a hard time to be away from family.  But one thing that
makes it easier here is that they celebrate Father Frost (Our Santa Claus) on New Years
Eve and on the 7th of Jan is their Christ only Christmas.  So the 25th of Dec. is just
another woking day here.
But we did have a wonderful Christmas.  One we will always remember.

Sister Ashby played beautiful Christmas Carols for us.

Elder Ayers loves to play classical music and he does it very well.

Elder Hayes was ratther excited with his new transformer.

Now this was really special.  The elders cooked Christmas dinner for us.
We stayed after church and spent the rest of the afternoon with them.
We are eatting in the chapel.  Only place to do that.  They fixed chicken,
potatoes, corn, rolls and a hot wasil drink.  Cake for dessert.  It was so good.  But
most of all so thoughtful.  Wil and Kaseena had dinner with us also.

Elder G says it is good down to the last bite.

Finally home and time to open our two packages. The things on
the couch are goodies from Mats family and we ate them
all on New Years Eve.

This package is from the whole family.  And we loved it so much.
Gene ate the hickory farm crackers and cheese and mustard and
he said I don't know if this taste so good because I haven't had it
for so long, or if it is really this good?  He loved it.

The grandkids are always sending cute cards.  The green box that has cards
and candy in it is so special.

This is what it said on the top of the box.

And this is what was inside.  It is so exciting to open a card each day.
They come from everyone. The ones we have opened so far have been
both family and friends.  We are loving this card game.

Another year older.  I have been making rice bags for aches and
pains so I guess Michelle thought she would buy a real store bought
bag for me.

Our little tree with our box of cards under it.

And another visa trip to Riga Lativa.  We thought we had done our last, but we had to do
one more to stay one month longer.  So we just took a few photos of old town
at Christmas time.

                                   The seniors had a little after Christmas party and ate and did
                                    white elephants.

Gene opening his white elephant. He was really excited.  It was a DVD Iron
Man 2.  But Sister Nuenschwander took it from him and he ended
up with a bag of hotel supplies.  Soap, shampoo, lotion etc,

Happy New Year.(.Slovum Godum) from the clock on the Kremlin.