District Conference was held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Novosibirsk. Many members of the outlying areas--including those in Novokuznetsk and Barnaul--were bussed in. Members of each branch were seated together so when their new branch presidencies were announced, each branch stood as a group and sustained them. It was neat.
The Novokuznetsk group--22 of us in all:
There was a missionary choir. We got drafted into it because we wear name tags. Apparently all they cared about was the number of bodies, not if we could sing or even pronounce the words in Russian. Here we are at the last rehearsal, with the back of President Gibbons' head in the foreground.
Our new branch presidency: seated, President Ivan; back row: Elder Holbrook (secretary), Брат Kirill (2nd counselor), Брат Vladimir (1st counselor)
One thing we really enjoyed about the District Conference was the opportunity to see many of our old friends from Barnaul. It was so wonderful to visit with them again. They seemed as excited to see us as we were to see them. The Relief Society had crocheted a baby blanket for us. Our granddaughter was born just before we left Barnaul and the sisters didn't find out about it in time to get it finished before we moved, but they wanted us to have it. We really suspect that it was one woman and her daughter who did most if not all of the work on it. Hadley has outgrown it already, but we expect to have more granddaughters in the future.Here are many of our friends from Barnaul
The Barnaul group
One last picture before leaving
This week in Russia:
We helped to bury a man yesterday.
The father of one of our members passed away earlier in the week. We got to go to his funeral and support Elena. He was young, only 55. Very sad. If we understood correctly, his death was connected with drinking.
Some interesting things about the funeral (we assume they're typical of all Russian Orthodox funerals, but this is the only one we've been to so we don't know for sure).
When you buy flowers for a funeral, you get an even number--2, 4, 6. There are no big funeral sprays or flower arrangements, just cut flowers, usually red carnations or roses.
The coffin was a red crushed velvet box, inside and out. The lid was not hinged--it was two separate pieces with black trim along the rim. It was latched together just before being lowered into the grave.
The shroud was a beautiful white satin-type fabric edged in golden lace, and there was a band on his head with pictures of saints. We were told the band is for health reasons--so that when people kiss him goodbye, they don't have to touch the skin of a dead body)
In the cemetery the burial plots are all individual, and people are buried in the order in which they died. They're not grouped together by family, so a husband isn't next to his wife unless their funeral is the same day.
The hole is dug by hand and in shape of coffin, wider at the top, narrower at the feet, and just barely big enough to lower the coffin.
After a short graveside service, they lowered the coffin and we each threw a handful or two of dirt before the gravediggers filled in the hole. When they were done, there was a nice mound and we put flowers on top of the mound. Someone asked us why our cemeteries are flat--we looked around at the older graves and noticed they were all mounded.
A low metal fence is erected around the grave. It's four pieces that quickly hook together to form a square around the grave.
It was all so unique that we would have loved to take pictures, but that would have been highly inappropriate.
We hope this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and that we don't have to experience another funeral.
