Farewell

The first non-missionary church member we met in Novokuznetsk was Sasha. Her English is very good and she has been extremely helpful in many ways to us. A few days after we got here she received her mission call. She waited to open it until she could get her family and friends together. Her patience was amazing to us, but then again, she did ask us to keep it at our apartment so she wouldn't be tempted to sneak a peek!

About 20 people were able to attend. She planned a little program, including having the missionaries sing "Called to Serve" before she got down to business. After opening it she made a few phone calls to others who couldn't come. She even set up Skype so a friend in the US could watch her as she opened her call! She didn't look when she pulled the paper out of the envelope and quickly covered it. Then she slowly slid the paper down, reading each word carefully, stretching out the suspense. She was very nervous and excited about it.

She'd been told by the office that she'll be going to the MTC (Mission Training Center) in Madrid, so she thought she might be learning Spanish. We couldn't tell whether or not she was relieved when we told her that all of the missionaries from Russia go there now instead of Provo, and that they really need native-speaking missionaries in Russia. Sure enough, her call was to Moscow. She was VERY pleased.

She leaves tonight for Novosibirsk. There are three sisters heading to Madrid from our mission. They'll all meet up on Monday and travel to Spain together.

Today was her farewell. She did a good job (and so did Dave, who also spoke). She'll be a wonderful missionary.

With all her family and friends visiting, we had about 3 times as many Russians at church as usual today, which means 24 people were there.

This is a rather small branch. We have about 30 members on the records, but only about 11-12 are active. However, we have one young man serving in Samara, Russia, and now Sasha, and another young man recently returned from St. Petersburg.

Today's Russianism:
Parking isn't a big problem in Russia, even though there aren't a lot of parking lots. Part of it is that mass transit is heavily used, so there aren't as many cars on the road as in the US. The missionaries in Novokuznetsk walk most places because the city is fairly compact.

Quite often we'll see cars parked in places that would never happen back home. For example, if someone is going to a pharmacy with a walk-up window, they'll stop the car at the edge of the road (but still blocking traffic). It's perfectly legal. We've seen cars stop in a similar place when the person wants to go to a walk-away (Russian take out), even though they're blocking the bus stop. We're finding that Russians are amazingly patient. No one honks or gets upset with the cars blocking traffic.

Sometimes we've seen people park in a place that could potentially be a problem, such as in front of someone's storage shed/garage or partly blocking a seldom-used driveway. They park wherever it's convenient, set the alarm and walk away. If someone else comes along and needs them to move, they simply kick the car, setting off the alarm and in a minute the owner comes out and moves it. No one gets bothered. It's so simple and thoroughly delightful. When we first got here we thought we were in a high crime area with the car alarms going off all the time. Not so.