Barnaul's Birthday Party

Yesterday was the birthday celebration for Barnaul city. They shut
down some streets and had all sorts of festivities such as a parade (mostly with vintage cars), balloons all over--even a lot of the adults carried them, games and activities for kids, skits, and fireworks that night that we could see from our apartment across town. It was fun to be a part of it.

They put these flags out for holidays and celebrations. Usually the flags are white, red, and blue, the colors of the Russian flag, but sometimes they're purple or green or whatever!

This ferris wheel has been up the whole time we've been here, so it wasn't new for the festivities, but they were constantly loading and unloading it. Literally. Riders don't get to go around and around. Each car gets unloaded/reloaded every time it goes around. Never do they let the riders go all the way around without stopping. And that's not just yesterday because there were so many people wanting to ride, it's all the time. I guess to them it's a view, not a ride.

Elder Bowler, excited about his toy for the day

There was an area with a whole bunch of these little battery-engine cars. As far as we could tell, the kids could just get in a ride them around that area, no tickets necessary. There was a lot of silver confetti on the ground and just enough of a breeze to kick it up into the air and make things festive for the kids. There was also a man nearby who was selling bubble guns and he was making lots of bubbles. Those two things combined with little cars made for lots of fun for the kids in that area. In other places there were games for the kids to play, including things like riding a bike on a slalom course between cones. We saw a cotton candy machine and the guy making it just kind of waved the paper cone around, making for very loose, lopsided cotton candy. A little while later we saw another one, but that guy knew what he was doing. With the humidity, the cotton candy was probably pretty messy to eat!

King Hansen, our fearless Zone Leader, with his royal scepter

They put their fire trucks on display and let the kids climb around and play all over the trucks--the Elders called them fire truck jungle gyms. The kids were loving it. We get the impression there isn't much need for fire trucks here, even though you'd think they would because of all the smoking that goes on. However, most of the homes, whether they're apartments or houses, are made of thick cement walls, inside and out. If someone starts a fire by falling asleep with a cigarette, the damage is pretty much limited to just to their furnishings and doesn't spread to other apartments or houses.

We went to see the skit done by an investigator, Marina. Here we are in front of part of the set, Irina, Arline, Marina. At least we think we got the names straight. They're very attractive identical twins.They even got two of the elders to join in the circle dance like many other spectators (No, they're not holding hands--that's the camera angle)

Behind them you can see part of one of the props they helped make for the skit

This week in Russia:
We finally have our new mission president. We were expecting President Peterson to arrive on July 1, but mid-June my nephew Tyler told us we were getting someone else. We hadn't heard anything about a change so we thought Tyler misunderstood. Surprise--he was right! Apparently President Peterson had visa issues, so when the Missionary Department found out, they switched President Peterson's assignment to Arkansas Little Rock. President Gibbons, who was supposed to go to Little Rock, was reassigned to Russia Novosibirsk at the last minute. They announced the change at their farewell. It takes more than a couple of weeks to get a visa to Russia, so one of the senior couples here became the interim president while the Gibbons were getting their visas and changing gears. The Rolfes did a great job before heading back to Irkutsk, which is now part of the Vladivostok mission. Although we never did actually meet them, we emailed and were involved in conference calls with them. They did a lot for the mission in a short time. We will miss them.

We already love the Gibbons. They are very warm, humble, and slid right into place. He even speaks Russian! In his pre-Russia life, President Gibbons was a judge and we recognized him from some training videos. We have been very impressed with both President and Sister Gibbons. We've only met them once . They came to Barnaul for what we called a Meet and Greet session and a quick interview with each missionary. We've also Skyped with President Gibbons twice since then. He brought a lot of new energy to the mission. To a certain extent, it's kind of like a transfer on steroids. Each time we get new missionaries in Barnaul, whether they're new to the mission or just new to Barnaul, there's an increase in excitement and energy. Of course, President Gibbons' "transfer" and the resulting energy will last 3 years, not 6 weeks!