Time flies when you are anxiously engaged in good works!! Fun works!! I have absolutely no idea where last Wednesday went!! We have been able to see more of our beautiful Khabarovsk, Russia. I will share pics of architecture from here. It really is beautiful and since Spring has come the city workers have been cleaning up, planting new grass, painting the garbage cans, and making everything really nice!!! Sister Sartori finished an audio recording of a text that will be used in the schools here. That was a nice project and we learned a lot of history from the experience. We were able to introduce two more people to the gospel through the experience. The people here are amazingly nice. We are planning our Institute Graduation right now. We have 4 students who will be graduating in some way...1-2-3 year certificates. Seminary & Institute are great programs to help young people stay connected to the church. Out here in the 'mission field' they are musts!! We love being busy with the elders as they schedule discussions with members and investigators. The spirit is always strong in these meetings. Our apartment is in central Khabarovsk, so it makes it convenient for them and a blessing for us. We cannot say enough about these elders! The Lord really has sent the best to our mission! (Doesn't every senior couple say that?) But the Russian missions are extra hard with the disbelief in our Heavenly Father. We must start from the 'ground up' in our teaching with helping them believe in God. We even had a couple of people tell us that when they received their diploma from institute/university, they had to deny the existence of a God, or they were afraid that their diploma would be denied. Communism must have been so hard on the person's spirit. How hard this still must be for the soul, but as you know, the further we stay away from spiritual things, the harder it is to come back to them! We are trying to spark that light of the gospel in their hearts and it is very difficult for some of them. Our Family Home Evenings are each Monday and we had 16 people come this week and 6 come last week. They are varied, the people love them and the missionaries get to come alive in a different way when they lead us in the activity!!
We had a Branch activity and attended a Theatrical Musical. It was based on a story about pirates. We cannot tell you the name nor the story - it was all in Russian!! We enjoyed it the best that we could. It is always nice to be with our Branch Members and share friendships and love. We invite investigators to these activities as well. One of our investigators was a singer in the musical production. We found a cute little oriental lady who does alterations. In this process, we needed to shop for some buttons. This turned out to be quite an adventurous excursion! Our time was limited, because we needed to meet at a bus stop to go with the elders and we thought we had an idea where the business to purchase buttons was... but as in all things here in Russia...we have found they are not what they seem to be or look like what they end up being! Example: Nice looking bakery goods - look good, taste not so good. A store - you don't know what they sell or what is inside a building until you open the door and walk in...AND THEN IT IS A SURPRISE EVERY TIME!! You are looking for a certain item to purchase - it is located in the most unexpected areas of a business!! So you see, our adventures continue!! English Club is one of our favorite times, because we actually get to talk to people and have them share their "favorites" - movies, things to do, family memories, etc. Some have great family memories, others seem to not have any good memories, or they just do not share them. Family structure, good family structure is not the norm here in Russia. There seems to be a lot of single men and single women. We hope that there is more good family structure than we see. There are few children, in fact, when on the holiday May 1, we walked through the children's park by our apartment and were able to see lots of families. It was a most pleasant sight! The gospel is true, the gospel will help us return to live with our Heavenly Father and Elder Brother, Jesus Christ and all that we sacrifice to do this IS WORTH IT!!! Our love, Elder & Sister Sartori
