Now that we have lived here for two months, we want to share what we know, where we have been and where we want to go. Khabarovsk, Russia is a very cultured city. Russia as a country respects and loves cultural aspects. Khabarovsk is a city of 580,000 people and it has many museums, theatres, parks, squares, universities and institutes, and wide sidewalks to walk any where you need to. The buses include: regular buses, trolley buses (they run on wheels and electric attachments up on top of them) and tram-vies (they run on metal rail with electric attachments up on top of them). We have experienced all of them and they are very needed to get to our "south, north and central areas". These are areas that our mission has used to divide up the city. This week two of our elders will be going home (We are not aware of others in our mission who will be doing the same) and it is necessary to close our south area and combine it with the other two areas. To give you an example, one of the farthest people we went to teach with the elders was a walk to the bus stop, then a 30 min. ride on the bus/or trolley bus then a 15-20- min. walk again. We are so grateful that we are in pretty good physical shape, because we are exacting it out of our wonderful bodies!!! Khabarovsk is across the Amur River from China. Khabarovsk was named after a Russian explorer named Yerofey Khabarov and started as an outpost in 1858. After WWII, Khabarovsk was the site for War Crime Trials of the Japanese.
We want to share our sites now. When we first looked out our apartment, we noticed that the power poles and power lines run on top of the apartment buildings. There are tons!!...literally tons of apartment buildings! Our apartment building is 15 floors and we are sure glad we are only on the 3rd floor - especially when the elevators don't work! We are relatively lucky as we have found as we visit our investigators and less actives sometimes they don't even have an elevator in their building! (We have a small one and a large one!!) Now let's think about this and get the right perspective.... to shop for anything, you must walk and carry it home! When Bro. & Sis. Williams told us about their living in Vladivostok (which is basically the same) with their 7 children we really did not understand the whole picture of the shopping thing, the carrying home thing, and the apartment living thing! We now do. We have a whole new love for our home and our cars!!! We did not bring our exercise weights with us, but purchased some here and it is a good thing that we did!! We walk a lot! We love it! The sidewalks are W I D E which is nice, but many of them are extremely uneven and the stairs EVERYWHERE are totally uneven... this makes for an adventure whenever we go out...so you see, we are always on an adventure!! :)
Our Spring sounds like yours...warmer and drier, then that very morning or afternoon, it snows!
However, the snows do not stay long. All our sidewalks and roads are dry now. All snow has melted!..and we had 4-6 foot piles ALL OVER! We are so thankful that we got to have snow and a little cold (we missed the -40 below weather) and see the beauties of this city blanketed in snow. There are few single dwellings, but there are some. They are away from the city center which has only apartments buildings and offices and theatres. Many people have 'dachas' which is gardens. The people in the city have dachas 20-30 min. drive/bus ride away, the single dwellings/homes have them in their yards like us. The single homes are very old, very worn & tattered. There is no extra money to fix up homes and apartments, so most people cannot do it. Now, picture a home 50-80 years old and never having anything done to it! Some of the single homes have no running water, so this has to be carried in. Some homes, buses, tram-vies and buildings are just old. They definitely live like the prophets have told us to do... "Fix it up, wear it out or do without". The people are inventive in using everything and fixing so they can use. We guess they don't fix-up homes because they feel they are 'good enough'.
The people, ah yes, the people. We have met W O N D E R F U L people...right on the street! Last night we were walking home from English Club at the church and three young-single-adult-age people called to us, we stopped and talked. It is mostly the younger ones who call out in English "Hello!" or "Americans!". We stopped and had a delightful visit with them, handed out the English Club invitation with the address on it and shared our family photos. They were fun, we talked in English and Russian to them. Even though the youth learn English in school, they do not always have the opportunity to speak it, so they seem to enjoy talking to us and practicing their skills. On another occasion in this same park, we were called over to them by an older woman who spoke English. We again had a delightful conversation in English/Russian and we always walk away with our hearts lifted. Why? ..because these nice people have accepted us and basically welcomed us to their land by talking to us! We are complete strangers, walking on foreign soil and they say "Hello". The Missionary Badge is a wonderful thing to show the presence of our Heavenly Father in these goodly lands. We love you all. We think of you often.
Thank you for your prayers and your faithfulness in serving in the Kingdom of God. Our love we send to you....Elder and Sister Sartori aka..Ctapehshena ee Cectpa Captopi
