Culture Day

A while back we went to the Kuznetsk Fortress for a Culture Day. The Fortress was where the city began. "Novo" is Russian for new. We were surprised that there are no bus stops near this "tourist attraction," even though it's surrounded by homes. We took the bus to the end of the line and then walked for nearly a mile along a road that sometimes had a sidewalk (it always ended when we approached the bridges). We finally got there, safely.
Of the four missionaries who went with us that day, only Elder Marcy is still in Novokuznetsk. The other three have been transferred to N'sibirsk or Utah.

Elders Marcy, Capps, Harrison and Terry

The cannons offered lots of opportunities for goofing off.
Inside the Fortress is rather small, considering it used to BE the city.
While there was no fee to get into the Fortress, they did charge us to go in the museum. There's one fee for tourists and one for residents. One of the missionaries told them that we're now living in the city, and asked how much it would be for the six of us. The fee they charged was the tourist fee. I guess even though we're living in the country for 1 1/2-2 years, we're still tourists. The museum is pretty much self guided. There was a lady who answered our questions, but other than that, we were on our own.

A map of the area

Views of the city from atop the Fortress:

The big yellow building is a Pravislavnian Temple.

Although there is often a lot of coal smog in the air, the haze that day was because it was snowy and overcast. The next day the skies were a beautiful blue.

We left the Fortress slightly ahead of the other missionaries. We looked back and saw them having a snowball fight on the wall.

After we were done at the Fortress, we walked down the hill and went to the Pravislavnian Temple, or the building of the Russian Orthodox Church. There are many of these churches of varying sizes in every city, kind of like chapels in Utah. They are the equivalent of cathedrals for the Catholic Church. We'll include pictures of smaller ones in a future blog.


There are no pews. They stand throughout the entire mass. We understand that is between 1-3 hours.

This week in Russia (actually, it's longer ago than just this week):
We've had 1 1/2 more baptisms recently. Kate is a delightful 20 year old. She found out about the Church online and asked to have the missionaries stop by. She was so ready to hear the message of the gospel. She's now the second counselor in Relief Society and one of the YW. One thing we like about her is that she'll never be able to play poker--her face is so expressive. It's really fun to wash

The half baptism is Natalya. The week we moved here she was visiting someone in the branch who she had met online. While things didn't click between Natalya and Vladimir, she was very impressed by his new Church. She came back a few months later for another visit. She even gave the lesson in FHE one week! After she went back home to somewhere in the Samara mission (approximately a week away on the train), she met with the missionaries there. Apparently she lives about 2 hours away from the closest city with a branch of the Church, so it wasn't easy to meet with her regularly. Last week Vladimir told us she had just been baptized. The half comes because we laid the groundwork but didn't do the baptism. We are so excited for her. She will be a real strength in her branch.

Teaching

Tonight we had a real treat. The branch presidency decided it's time for the branch to have a "Preparing for the Temple" class. Who better to teach it than those who have been to the temple the most. President Holbrook asked us to teach it. :) Tonight was the first class. It was so neat to be able to talk about something we love so much. And we were sitting across from this:
Throughout the class, we could see pictures of many of our family members and the letters the grandkids have written and pictures they've drawn for us. It brought home what we were talking about: eternal families. We love them and miss them so much. We're so glad we know we can be with them throughout the eternities. We are grateful for the knowledge we have of our loving Heavenly Father and the understanding we have of the Plan of Salvation. We love that we know so much about the temple and for the many opportunities we've had to attend. What a sweet evening.

This week in Siberia:
We feel like we're in Camelot--almost all of the snow has fallen at night. There haven't been any big storms, but often in the morning there's a fresh skiff of snow and it has gently accumulated throughout the winter. This winter has been mild by Siberian standards. We've often joked with the young missionaries about whose prayers were being answered. We've been praying for a mild winter and they've been praying for colder weather (as in well below frigid). Until recently, it's been our prayers that have been answered. Both fall and winter have been warmer than usual by about 10 degrees above average. Even so, there is no January thaw in Siberia. However, we have had some almost normal weather in the last few weeks. It's even gotten down to -35 a couple of nights. Fortunately we haven't had to go outside much, and when we did it was for short periods mostly during the day and we had our fantastic Russian coats, hats and boots to keep us warm. The white on Dave's scarf and hood are from his breath freezing on them.
This last week things have started warming up. Dave took the liner out of his coat because he was too hot with it in. Arline has found she can leave the warm mittens home--her regular gloves keep her hands warm enough. Although the forecasts show we're not supposed to be above freezing yet, today on the way home from church we saw obvious signs of snow and ice starting to melt. WE HAVE SURVIVED A SIBEЯIAN WINTER!

Changing' Things Up--Again

Yesterday President Gibbons arrived in Novokuznetsk for a brief visit and a meeting with the missionaries. One of the things he told us is that plans have been approved to change our mission from three separate small districts to one large district prior to forming a stake in Siberia. That is a very big deal, and something President Gibbons has been working on almost since he arrived last year. Moscow has a stake, and three other missions in Russia--Novosibirsk, Saint Petersburg, and Samara--will soon have pre-stake districts. The work is moving along!

During that meeting he also announced that our mission boundaries will be changing again this summer. Last year two cities in the eastern part of our mission were moved to the Vladivostok mission. That saved a lot of traveling for the mission president as well as for missionaries on transfers and visa trips. However, effective in July, the entire country of Kazakhstan will become part of the Russia Novosibirsk mission. Kazakhstan is one of the ten largest countries in the world, so we'll be back to our previous status of being the largest mission in terms of land mass. In terms of missionaries, we're probably one of the smallest with only 55 missionaries and 5 senior couples.

Kazakhstan is presently part of a Moscow mission that will be dissolved in July, so we don't have to open up the country. Even though the country is so big, there are only two cities with missionaries at this time. It will be challenging for those who work there, since it's a predominantly Muslim country. We were told there will be a write up on the changes in the Church News later this week.


This week's Russianism:
Many of the cars here have a remote ignition. We'll be looking out the window and notice that suddenly the lights of a car blink and exhaust starts coming out of the tailpipe. They warm up the car before they head outside--it takes a long time with our temperatures--and the lights blink every once in a while. Here's a picture Dave took of two cars warming up. The lights just happened to blink at the same time and he quickly snapped the picture. We never saw this the first part of our mission, but that's probably because it was warm!

Snow Follies

Oksana, a lady who has come to English Club a lot, has been trying to get us to do some activities with her and her son Viktor. Her English is limited and of course our Russian is more than limited, but we've been able to communicate with the help of the missionaries or others who speak English well. She wanted to show us around town, or drive to see the trees in the nearby mountains, or take us to see the people swimming in the river in the middle of winter, or take us paintballing, whatever. Each week she came up with a new suggestion, but we couldn't find a time when we could all get together. Finally, the activity that worked with her schedule and ours was to go to a sleigh riding hill. We told her that we would "only see"--two of the few words we know in Russian, and not participate.

We climbed in the back seat of their car with a pair of skis between us that stretched from the windshield to the back window. After driving for about 15 minutes we pulled off to the side of the road and picked up Viktor's girlfriend, Zhenya. We don't remember the make of the car, but do remember that it was barely big enough for 5 people and a pair of skis. But Zhenya also had a a snowboard. After adjusting and readjusting, we finally got everyone and everything in and slammed the door closed. It bounced back open. It only took about three tries and a lot of wiggling around before the door stayed closed and held us all in place. Fortunately the ski resort was just another 10 minutes down the road.

On the way Oksana asked if we ski. Arline told her no, mostly by showing moving her hand forward and having it tip over while saying "bonk"--Oksana very quickly caught on that Arline doesn't stay vertical on skis in the snow.

Viktor, Arline, Oksana, and Zhenya

As soon as the picture was snapped, Viktor and Zhenya headed off for the T-bar.

Oksana took us around and showed the various activities. It was a resort with a lot of options.

This looked like a fun little sled

The skating rink

Oksana asked if we wanted to skate. One "bonk" and a tipped over hand and she laughed and walked on.

We're guessing this recreational area is used in warmer weather as well. The playground didn't look like it's been used in a while.

We found the tubing hill interesting. They have a rather ingenious way of doing it. One of the missionaries later told us that he's seen a similar thing at home, but we never have. There is a looped cable running constantly. Each tube has a hook attached to a cord. The rider gets situated on the tube and when he's ready, the operator slips the hook on the cable. It's held on by the angle of the hook against the cable. At the top, the snow is first built up and then it suddenly drops down, the hook loses the friction and drops off the cable. They've dug a path around the top of the hill and then a chute down the other side.

Oksana rented a tube and insisted that we join in the fun. Insisted is a rather benign way of stating it. Suddenly she stopped understanding what we meant by "only see, only see."
Arline went first. This is as close to a video as we could get.

Dave's turn (he's a much better photographer than Arline is so there aren't as many pictures of him)

Oksana took a couple of turns as well

After we'd each gone down three times, she decided we were ready for something else. We warmed up in the cafeteria with her friends. Oksana had brought some sandwiches from home and insisted on buying us something so we got bottles of water. A few minutes later she walked over and gave us some blinis, Russians pancakes served with sour cream.
After all that, she tried to get us to go horseback riding, but we absolutely refused. Later we found out horseback riding and winter sports are both on the forbidden list for missionaries--too many injuries!

Here we are after all the activities--safe and sound and happy.

This week in Russia:
We need to to clear up a misconception. I guess we've always gone to bed too early and never saw the snow movers in operation. Last night we heard a terrible noise outside. They don't just brush the snow off the street; they also have machines that look like long, high tractors with a blade on the front that can really move snow.