Happy Easter, or Novokuznetsk's got Talent

Russian Orthodox Easter is next week, but we had a mini celebration today after church since today is when most of the western world celebrates Easter. Several people brought hard-boiled eggs, some decorated, some brown ones embellished with a sticker. A few people also brought treats. After our meetings, we visited while we munched. We broke eggs, as opposed to broke bread :)

Novokuznetsk's got Talent:

Last night we had a talent show at the branch. Mary organized it as a YW project. She really did a super job! She had decided on a spring theme. In some of the pictures you'll see the "leis" they made last Wednesday at YW for people to wear.

She wrote on the sidewalk in front of the building to invite people to come to our talent show. That netted us three 10-year-old boys. We did a group shot before we got started. This is most of those who attended. Mary is the one in the purple dress.
The evening started off with dressing two people with newspapers again, and they stayed "dressed" the rest of the night, at least as much as the newspapers cooperated.
The missionaries sang, both as a group and individually. Elder Воронков (Vah-rahn-kove) played the guitar and sang "Love Me Tender"--with no trace of an accent! The Young Women had learned a new hymn--"As Sisters in Zion"--and sang it.

In between talents she had activities, like the two American missionaries taught them how to sing "Row, Row, Row your Boat" and it actually sounded pretty good! She also called people up out of the audience randomly and told them to do something to make others laugh. Our Latvian Elder who is rather formal suddenly started rapping--so out of character it worked--we laughed AND cheered. Another activity was for one person to try not to laugh. Here three adults copied every movement Данел made, and it took them a while to get a giggle out of him.

Some other highlights of the evening:

Данел, one of the young boys who dropped in, is a GREAT break dancer and was willing to show us his stuffMary's friend is an incredible beader. We got pictures of about half of the items she brought, all beautifully beaded:

The Russians recognized and could sing along with "We Will Rock You"
There was a race to see which team could move the M&Ms from one plate to the other the fastest

We reenacted a Russian folk story where it takes everyone to pull out the turnip. Arline was the turnip, Dave was the old grandpa, and one by one we had a grandma, granddaughter, dog, cat and mouse pulling.Three of the Russian young single adults did a dance about the Russian Mafia that kept us laughing--a gypsy, a fighter and a king.
The evening ended with our talent--refreshments. Dave made his fabulous cinnamon rolls and Arline made banana bread (at Mary's request), cookie dough brownies and sugar cookies. Before we came to Russia we had been told that Russians don't like sugar as much as Americans do, but always seem to enjoy all of our sweet treats.

IT was a very fun evening.


This week's Russianism:
Bus, train, and plane tickets are always printed with Moscow time. People have to be aware of this and know the time difference between where they are and Moscow. This causes some confusion and yes, even Russians sometimes miss flights/connections. Most flights in and out of the country go through Moscow.