Pictures

We have a lot of pictures on the camera of things that were interesting, but there's not a whole story to weave a blog around. Today is a bunch of miscellaneous, unconnected pictures. Enjoy!

They have an interesting way of doing curbing here. The curbs are all preformed. They dig a trench, "drop" them in place and then put asphalt around them. The wide lip gets buried. It's usually a pretty tall step up to the sidewalk.

Before

After

Russian Cheetos (the package has Chester on it and is definitely from Frito Lay, but the Cheetos aren't what we're used to--they're more like rectangular potato chips)

You thought potholes in Utah are bad? This is typical of many sidewalks, parking lots, and even streets--broken and uneven surfaces, but the Russians all take it in stride. It will be interesting to see how people get around in winter.

When we first saw these as we were walking into the mall we felt like we were in Vegas, but they're ATMs, not slot machines. Russia is pretty much a cash society. Russian credit cards are used sometimes, but we can't use our Visa card. Checks are more of a hassle than they're worth. The monthly funds for the missionaries are deposited in their accounts at the bank and they use their ATM cards to get cash. And you go to the post office to make deposits. We don't know what they do at banks.

Dave thought the hats on the ladies selling meat were cute;

however, the meat didn't look appealing in the least.

Natural gas lines run mostly above ground through yellow pipes. It makes for some interesting configurations to get over and around things. In the first picture you can see lines on both sides of the road--on the left the gas line is by the tree.

They love to play Scrabble. For some reason we don't play it with them.

Elder Holbrook and friend in Barnaul

Just after we got to Novokuznetsk we found out it was Elder Harrison's birthday the next day. We didn't have time to do much of anything exciting, but we did surprise him with a cake at English Club that night. Unfortunately, he's getting transferred this week and will be working in the office. We're sorry to see him go, but are looking forward to getting to know a brand new missionary in his place.
The missionaries presently in Novokuznetsk: Sister & Elder Holbrook, Elder Capps, birthday boy Elder Harrison, Elder Marcy, Elder Terry.

The Russian women love their high heels. Often they wear platform shoes/boots with 6" stiletto heels. We've been told the platform part is great for winter because it keeps their feet out of the snow, but the heels make no sense to us. One night at English Club we noticed one of the ladies had on these sneakers with moderate high heels:

Bits and Pieces of Last Week

Ok, so much for bragging about the nice weather we're having. It's now officially winter, at least in Novokuznetsk. A storm came through the night after we bragged about the weather, and temperatures dropped. Thursday morning we woke up to a little bit of snow, even though the thermometer said it was 41. There were still big puddles of water in the parking lot below us, and the snow melted quickly anyway. We're waffling between being excited about experiencing a Siberian winter and dreading it. Dreading comes more naturally, but being excited is more fun. Oh, and in case you can't tell from the picture, Siberian snow looks an awfully lot like Utah snow This picture is out our study window. The white at the bottom of the picture is the awning over the front of a small grocery store on the first floor of our building.

After it had rained for a while we noticed water dripping off the roof of our building. We were a little surprised that there isn't a drainage system because right next to the front door of our entrance is the delivery entrance to a grocery store and there are trucks in and out all day. Then we noticed that there is a drain pipe. But no gutter. Dave says it drains everything it can catch, which isn't much because it's mostly under the eaves!

The mission president and his wife were in Novokuznetsk last week. Sister Gibbons and Arline shared pictures of the grandkids. The Gibbons have two grandchildren. Their newest was born a week after Hadley, so the two absentee grandmas commiserated with each other about missing out on the new grandkids. Arline commented that she wouldn't see Hadley and Ryan until they were a year old and walking. Sister Gibbons said she wouldn't see her new granddaughter until she was 3. We've decided we have nothing to complain about.

We had our first overnight train ride--twice, two nights in a row--and found that other than being short it wasn't so bad. We left one night and returned home the next. President Gibbons called a special meeting for all the branch presidents. (President Holbrook got to take his companion, but the others left their spouses at home.) There are plans for forming a stake in Siberia. That's a BIG step! Unfortunately it won't happen until after we've gone home, but things are moving along. There are seven cities in our mission where missionaries are serving. They are as far apart as Lake Tahoe, California, on the west and Rapid City, South Dakota, on the northeast, without freeways in between.

When we got on the train the porter came to our compartment and jabbered something in Russian. Dave said "I don't understand" in Russian, so with a mild look of frustration the porter turned to Arline and asked her the same thing. It was really hard to keep a straight face. Fortunately with his hand motions it was easy to figure out what he was asking, so she told him there would only be two of us in the compartment and the two top bunks wouldn't be used.

A "new" change: One of the rules for missionaries is that the elders are to stay with their companion or be in a group of missionaries, but in our mission that's been waived during transfers and visa trips because of the great distances traveled. However, there's a new directive from Church headquarters and effective immediately missionaries are not to travel alone. This week we have two missionaries from Novokuznetsk going on visa trips, but on different days. Instead of one leaving on Monday and the other on Thursday as scheduled, and the lone elder teaming up with the other missionaries here while the companion is gone, they both leave Sunday night and go to Novosibirsk. One stays in Novosibirsk and meets up with another missionary whose companion is going on visa trip and they street contact for a couple of days. Then the first set of missionaries returns from Finland and they street contact while the other elders go on their visa trip. The problem with having them all go at once is the groups are big--16 total and they don't like to have that many missionaries traveling in a group. For some people it is a little overwhelming to see so many of them together. Also, flight options are limited as well as space in the hostel where they stay in Finland. In the future they'll figure out a better way to deal with this, but for the next couple of groups to go, this is how they have to do it because of the dates on the already processed visas. While we've found visa trips to be very refreshing, they are a BIG drain on the mission, both in terms of work being interrupted and cost. An elder who served as the travel secretary for a time said that our mission is the most expensive in the Church in terms of travel costs because of the visa trips.

Last week was our Institute teacher's birthday. He brought two beautiful store bought cakes and we had also made a cake for refreshments that night. The Elders started serving the other people but not eating any of the cake themselves until Dave served up the homemade cake. Then they went to town and came back for seconds. They LOVE any homemade food, even our attempts at learning how to cook the Russian way. They eat all our mistakes without complaint. When we first arrived in Novokuznetsk, several people, missionaries and members alike, said something along the lines of, "oh, you're the one who makes such good bread." Dave's reputation preceded him. And yes, he does make good bread. His hamburger buns are especially tasty (especially considering the alternative).

Recently we got some new Bibles to have on hand at the church to use in classes. In Relief Society on Sunday a couple of them were on the table in Relief Society. The reaction of one sister was priceless. She broke into a big smile as she excitedly and reverently leafed through it. Such a sweet thing to witness.

General Conference

Because General Conference is broadcast in the middle of the night here (sessions start at 11:00 pm and 3:00 am our time), we don't get to watch it live at church. We don't have a satellite dish or even internet available at the church building so we can't watch the rebroadcasts of it the next week either. Instead, the Church sends us DVDs in English and Russian and we watch them as soon as we can after the DVDs arrive. Some people have watched all or parts of Conference on the internet at home, but the young missionaries and some of the members don't have internet access. We met yesterday and today at the branch to watch. We suggested holding it at our home because we could watch it more comfortably there, but according to Russian law we can't do that without unregistering the branch building and reregistering our home as our new place of worship. Here's the building we use:Inside it's not very big--the length is about the size of the light pink to the edge of the picture.

For all the sessions combined over two days we had a total of 7 investigators who watched anywhere from one talk to 3 sessions, 6 missionaries, and 12 members.

The Russians watched the Russian DVD in the main room and five of the six missionaries watched in English in the other. Between meetings we had food. Saturday we bought sandwiches and Sunday a few people brought quick breads and brownies.(below) The Amerikanskis--We did have one investigator who speaks
limited English join us for half of one session

Conference was AWESOME! Dave's favorite talk was by President Packer; Arline's was by President Uchtdorf. After it was over, several of the missionaries just sat and watched the scenes around Temple Square and the Conference Center. It was so good to see home!

We're still enjoying nice weather. We often walk home at night carrying our jackets. One night last week a woman walked past us, looking at us the whole time. We thought she was going to fall off the curb and break her neck as she turned around to look at us. My guess is she was looking to see what insane people look like! We've been told the Russians don't dress for the weather, they dress for the time of year. Now they're all bundled up--they love their warmth! Once it dips much below about 20̊ C (68̊ F), they turn the heat on in the buses. We are ALWAYS plenty warm, at least for now, even Arline who was often cold at home. The way heat works here is that they heat all buildings with hot water running through pipes throughout all the cities. They admittedly overheat the buildings (typical government wastefulness). Like I said, the Russian love their warmth. In our apartment in Barnaul we could turn the radiators off. In our new apartment we don't have turnoff valves. The radiators aren't working very well and the landlady said she'll get them fixed. We think they're working too well, especially since there isn't a way to turn them off. You can have heat or you can have . . . heat. We've been told that when the apartment gets too hot we should just open the screenless windows. For a while we tried that, but gave up on that when the mosquitoes got too bad--fortunately they're slowly going away. At the church the Elders turned off the radiators only to have people from the apartments above us come down and complain that they were cold because that turned off their heat as well.

This week's Russianism:
We have another new grandchild! Ryan was born on his due date (just like his older sister). This birth was a little easier on us because we'd already missed the birth of one grandchild, but we're still looking forward to seeing him next year. We're already kind of met him--we Skyped, he slept.

Ryan Stanley Holbrook

Sunday, October 2, 2011, 7:00 am
8 lbs 4 oz, 20.75 inches long

Novokuznetsk

After being here for a month, we figure it's about time to tell you about Novokuznetsk.

First of all, we may be in Siberia, but unlike Salt Lake we haven't had snow yet. However, once winter hits, it will be here until spring--no January thaws around here. Right now we're about ready to trade colder weather for the mosquitoes. Russians don't have screens on the windows.

As we arrived in Novokuznetsk, we felt a softer feel to the city--don't know of any better way to describe it other than a softer feel. We like it here. One of the new elders went to Barnaul for splits last week and he noticed the same thing. His first comment to us was that Barnaul has a different feel to it.

The church is a nice walk from our apartment, 15-20 minutes depending on which route we take. We keep trying out different ways to get there and think now we've found the easiest, most direct route, and it's mostly on paved roads. We can take the bus and get there in about 10 minutes, but still end up walking almost as far because there are no buses running on the street where the church is and the building is in the middle of a l-o-n-g block.

The people in the branch are nice and we felt welcomed very quickly. The Huffakers, a senior couple who visited Novokuznetsk periodically in the past, did a great job of preparing the way for us. They're warm, outgoing, and flat out refuse to try to learn Russian, so the pressure is off of us for that. The branch members came to love them, and hence they love us and we love them. We average around 20 people at church each week and hope to increase that so we can get a bigger building soon. Right now we're meeting in a place that used to be a beauty salon. There's one big room with a smaller room behind a set of sliding plastic doors, a hallway that is the branch library and a single restroom (with a shower!). The restroom is about half the size of the second room. Fortunately the only non adult in the branch is a 12-year-old boy, so we don't have to try to hold Primary and YW in addition to RS and Priesthood. YM is in the hallway. It's hard to hold three groups of English Club in this building and sometimes we have trouble hearing, so we're really hoping for that bigger place soon.

A lot of the apartment buildings look awful on the outside and the entrances are rather scary too. For ours we walk in to a small dark hallway. When the outside door closes behind us with a loud clang, things get very dark and we walk cautiously across the uneven floor to the stairs. On the first landing there's a switch to turn on lights for the stairwell. We're on the third floor. Since there are only three floors in our building, there's no elevator. We were so glad to have the elders help us move our things in! Once we get inside the apartment things are better.

By Russian standards our apartment is big and the kitchen is medium sized.

We have two bedrooms with BIG closets and lots of storage space

The wide "hallway" between the bedrooms where we have our computers set up

Our single bathroom (they took out the wall between the rooms for the toilet and shower and turned it into one big American-type bathroom), including the requisite washer

The kitchen/living room area--that's a ceramic cooktop!
The flowers are Dave's housewarming gift to Arline

We expect to have some branch activities here such as firesides, Family Home Evenings and the occasional party, so we got a bigger apartment than most Russians have, even those with families. It's a little older than the apartment we were used to, but it's nice to have more room.

Most apartments in Russia come with a balcony. Some are enclosed (but not heated or insulated and often used only for storage and/or hanging laundry). Ours is not only enclosed, it's been turned into a nice room with wallpapered walls, right off our bedroom. It would be fun to turn it into a cozy reading nook. It has a light, but no outlets, so right now we use it for drying laundry.There's a small area with some playground equipment below us. However, we're not situated so we can see that very well. But we do have some interesting sights. This guy sweeps up the leaves on the "road" around the front side of the apartment every day. Sometimes he has a broom like this one--leafy branches held together with duct tape, sometimes a broom with just the branches, and sometimes an old broom with very worn stiff plastic bristles. From the other side of our apartment we can see traffic in several directions because we have a corner apartment with great views. There are five windows on that side. There's a school down a side street so we see kids coming and going every day and a small park-like area on an island between two streets.

Soon after we moved in Dave was concerned about the temperature because he said he could see the white puffs of breath from people crossing the street below. Then he realized they were all smoking.

This week's Russianism is a follow up to last week:
Thursday there was an accident right below us on the street. A taxi hit another car. We didn't see it happen, but watched right after. The taxi driver took off his taxi sign (here they're just a magnetized removable sign on the roof of the car) and his big antenna and disgustedly threw them in his trunk. The electric bus couldn't get around them, so all the passengers had to get off. A few minutes later another electric bus pulled up behind that one and also had to let off passengers. At least 3 police cars drove by but didn't stop. A drunk standing on the side of the road offered up quite a bit of amusement. Cars kept stopping to let him cross, but he wanted to gawk at the accident. Finally he crossed over and looked at it up close and then slowly continued on his way across the street. When cars honked at him to tell him to move, he drunkenly pointed to his eyes with two fingers and then the cars, meaning he was looking at the accident. He didn't care than traffic was backing up for him as well as for the accident.

The police actually responded pretty quickly this time--they arrived less than 25 minutes after the accident! After taking pictures and all sorts of weird measurements that didn't seem to have any relevance, they had the taxi driver move his car a few feet so they could look at the damage done to the two cars. That took another few minutes and then the police drove off. Fortunately in this case, both cars were drivable and they didn't have to block more traffic with a tow truck. Once the cars were moved, the traffic cleared up in 2-3 minutes, although it had been backed up farther than we could see out of our windows. It's amazing what a difference two lanes of traffic and no rubbernecking can make. The whole thing lasted about 45 minutes.

Visa Trips, Part II

Things could get a little confusing in this post because of the similarities in the names of Novokuznetsk, where we live, and Novosibirsk, the name the city where the mission home is, so for this post I will call where we live by the nickname Kuz.

When the mission office started planning our visa trip, they had us traveling overnight 3 out of 5 nights--on night trains coming and going from Novosibirsk as well as the overnight flight from Moscow and gave us about 17 hours to kill in Novosibirsk. Dave didn't like that schedule, so he went online and found much better connections than what they had planned, and we got to fly all the way instead of taking a train from Kuz to Novosibirsk and back. The office wasn't able to get the exact flights we hoped for, but we thought three flights to get to Helsinki sounded much better than an overnight train trip and two flights. It's the first time anyone had tried this schedule and these airports, but we knew we could handle it and looked forward to having some time to do a little sightseeing in Saint Petersburg during our 7-hour layover there.

The day started out great. A sister in the branch who speaks English very well was willing to be our taxi driver, which was nice because we weren't looking forward to a 45-minute trip to the airport in silence. We made all our connections, one of them just barely. They seldom use Jetways on the flights we were on, so we were loaded on a bus, got taken to the plane and climbed the stairs. After landing we did the same in reverse. It takes a little while to get everyone loaded and unloaded. Then we had to go through security again--between each leg of our flights, even when we never went out of a secure area, we had to take off our shoes, belts and anything else that might set off the machine. What we expected to be a 50-minute stroll between gates was instead a rush. But we made it.

When we got to St. Petersburg we discovered there are two terminals there, at opposite ends of the runway. We think one terminal is used for international flights and one for domestic flights. A taxi was the only way we could get from one terminal to the other--there are no buses, shuttles or trains running between the two and it's several kilometers with no walking paths. Part of our assignment was to do some reconnaissance and find out what is involved so others traveling through Saint Petersburg in the future can know how to navigate through the hassles. By the time we finished doing that and got all the details worked out, we decided to stay put rather than take a chance on missing our flight. We ate at TGI Fridays and had a surprise--our waiter got all excited when he saw our name badges. He is LDS and said he wants to go on a mission, but he's too old. We told him to find a wife and wait a few (or several) years and then go as a senior couple!

Unfortunately, we've told Nosovsibirsk that we don't recommend going through Saint Petersburg in the future because of the hassles with the airport. Too bad--we were looking forward to seeing that beautiful city on another visa trip, and we were excited about finally finding those elusive English speakers. Almost everyone we talked to had some English skills!

Helsinki was just as wonderful the second time there. It's beautiful, clean, lots of English, both spoken and written. And we get to spend time in the temple. We feel like we're in such a different world that we've forgotten what a treat the temple is. We met up with the Michies again, some neighbors from our stake who have been serving a mission at the Helsinki Temple, and went to a late lunch together after they finished their shift. They are a gold mine of information about the city and know a lot about the history of the Church in Helsinki and parts of eastern Russia. He speaks Finnish because he served a mission there years ago. They were very gracious hosts and showed us all around, ending at a huge department store called Stockman's where we could shop to our heart's content. It was a delightful afternoon. We're sorry they're finishing up their mission next week and won't be there for our future visa trips. Elder Michie sent us this picture of obedient geese using the crosswalk right by where we had lunch.

The Holiday Inn where we stayed is in a great location, right next to the train station. The FinnAir bus from the airport dropped us off at the plaza in front of the hotel, and the next day we took a train to the mall where we caught a city bus that went right by the temple. There are several malls and big stores within walking distance of the hotel. It was so easy to get around. That's typical of a lot of places in Europe.

Breakfast was included at the hotel. They put out a wonderful spread--it rivaled a breakfast buffet on a cruise ship. The hotel is downtown and although it's right next to the train station and in front of a very nice bus plaza, it's not noisy at all. Early one morning Arline watched for over an hour (maybe the German Omas rubbed off on her). There were usually 7-9 buses and sometimes as many as 16 in constant motion. We also could see trolleys and other buses going down the street a block away. It was fun to watch crowds of people leaving a train and hurrying to a bus or wherever they were going. Street sweepers were also out in force and got things clean to start the day.

We're not here on a mission for visa trips to Helsinki, so we won't say much more about it (but it sure is a wonderful bonus!)

We didn't buy any liquids like mustard or BBQ sauce this time, so we didn't have to check luggage on our way home. That meant hauling our suitcase up and down the stairs throughout the airports--very few working escalators and a few very small elevators at the airports--and going through security with one more thing, but we didn't have to worry that it wouldn't make the transition on the close flight.

As we disembarked in Saint Petersburg, we got off on the only Jetway used for any of our 7 flights. Then we ate dinner in the new Burger King. We noticed two tall round towers in the middle of the tarmac at either end of the terminal and tried to guess what they were for. We soon found out. After we went through security, we were directed down some non-working, escalators, got to a long People Mover that did work in one direction, climbed lots of stairs back up (the escalators at that end were permanently gated shut) and came up in the middle of one of those glass towers. They are additional gates! No Jetways, just gates. We watched an absolutely gorgeous sunset and then boarded the plane.

We weren't able to rearrange the overnight flight from Moscow to Kuz. "Overnight" means we boarded just before 11 pm and landed about 6 am. With the 3-hour time change, that meant we managed to get nearly 4 hours of sleep. Even the stewardess was tired. She spoke with a heavy accent and very quickly, so we couldn't understand much of what she said. We recognized when she said Novosibirsk in Russian and thought it was funny since we were landing in Kuz. Then she said Novosibirsk again when she spoke in English (that was about the only word we could understand). Overnight flights are hard on everyone. Even with that, we weren't prepared for what we saw as we pulled up to the terminal. We were very tired and our Russian isn't the best, but we can recognize the name of our city, and that wasn't what was on the side of the building. It said Novosibirsk, in both Russian and English. We got very nervous. Dave checked our tickets to make sure they said Kuz, and they did. Something had probably been said on the plane but we didn't understand it. We followed the crowd into the terminal and got a transit pass. We could tell it was a transit pass because it said "transit pass" in English on it. We were put in a holding area with many other passengers who apparently were diverted from various flights.

Sitting in the holding room we really struggled to stay awake--we'd only slept 3-4 hours on the plane, plus the room was SO warm. The heat radiated up through the floor and even melted a chocolate bar in one of our bags. However, the seats were the typical uncomfortable airport chairs, so sleep wasn't really a possibility. The batteries for Dave's hearing aids and the iPad ran out, which had most of our reading material and entertainment. We were so glad when they called our flight to Kuz.

Once in a while announcements were made when certain flights were ready to board and often repeated in English, but there was no translation whenever we heard them say Kuz, and there were no employees from the airlines to ask questions of. We were simply in a holding area. We sat and waited for 5 hours. We found out later that the airport in Kuz was fogged in. It finally cleared about 11 am. They took us back to the very same plane we'd flown in on--this time we didn't have to go through security again, had us sit in the same seats, and 35 minutes later we landed in Kuz. We got home about 23 hours after we checked out of our hotel in Helsinki.

The diversion meant that we missed an opportunity Saturday morning to talk with a high school group. The teacher has come to English Club and was very excited to have some American speakers talk to her English students. The topic was schools then (when we were young), now, and our expectations for the future. She knew we had our visa trip. On Thursday she had talked with the Elders to see if they could help her out if we didn't make it back. Apparently flight delays in Russia are more common than we realized. The missionaries covered for us and she was ok with that, although they couldn't give a first-hand account of what schools were like in the US 40-50 years ago. However, they said most of the students there were young teenage girls who absolutely LOVED the young Americanskis.


This week's Russianism:
We are learning every day how much we took for granted at home. We are learning every day, period. Patience is one of the things we're learning the most. We are amazed at how patient the Russians are and how they take all the hassles and delays in stride. They've come to accept things in their lives that we would never put up with at home. For example, when any vehicles get in an accident, big or small, they stop and wait for the police to come, even if it's a bus or trolley. They don't move the vehicles until after the police are through checking it out, a process that can last well over an hour. Traffic backs up, big time. When the police come, they park wherever is most convenient for them. Sometimes that means 3 lanes of traffic are blocked--two by the cars in the accident and one by the police. People just accept that. It drives Dave crazy!

It's surprising that there aren't more accidents because steering wheels can be on either side. Someone said they think that's because the cars with the steering wheel on the right are cheaper. We've decided there aren't more accidents because most people use public transportation so there aren't as many cars on the roads, plus we think drivers have learned to be more defensive in order to deal with the mix of right- and left-hand steering wheels.