Seminary and Institute Teacher Training

The first two pictures above are of our beautiful walk to church. Then the large building is where we rent space for church. The top building is the entrance for 'our church'.
This blog thing is still hard for me to wrap my brain around!!! I mentioned our beginning of our teacher training in the last post. I want to share some pictures of Nakhodka, Russia. It is a pretty city from the photos, isn't it? We walked to church and took these on our walk there. Our branch rents a few rooms in this large building of which our entrance is on the side. Notice how large the building is. I think it is Nakhodka's Culture Center or something like that. E/S Henderson said that the parking lot was busy every Sunday with the town's people gathering and enjoying the last good days of weather.

WE HAD A BAPTISM!! :)

September 5, 2009 our Khabarovsk Branch got bigger.....WE HAD A BAPTISM!!! Sophia got baptized! She is a very spiritual young woman and we love her. We only wish that we could speak more Russian to her and many others like her!! :( We are still learning and studying, but our counsel is also "do not teach the gospel in your country's language". As seniors who know only a little bit, it really would be dangerous!! I know that E. Sartori joked about knowing just enough to get into...or stay out of trouble...so we will do as we are told!!! We will continue to study the Russian language for the rest of our lives!!! Sophia is the lady in the red outfit! Her testimony is so sweet and she will be an asset to the Lord's work here in Russia. The evening of Sophia's baptism, our Branch had a special Spiritual Activity. We had the "409 Presentation". I know many of you will remember years ago this activity that strengthened so many of our testimonies.
We began training our teachers for Seminary and Institute. We began right here in Khabarovsk. Our dear sister, Galina, is a diamond!! She has a pure heart, a talent for teaching and loves everyone. Then we traveled to Nakhodka and trained Nikolai there. Nikolai is a counselor in the Branch Presidency. We stayed overnight in a beautiful, old hotel and attended our Nakhodka Branch. We spoke in Sacrament Mtg., friendshipped the members, E. Sartori trained the Branch Presidency then we visited with our Senior Couple, E/S Henderson's. What a delightful couple, what great examples of love, courage and strength to follow our Savior.

ELDER SARTORI IS CALLED/ASSIGNED TO BE 2ND COUNSELOR IN THE RUSSIA VLADIVOSTOK MISSION

While we were at camp with the YSA Conference, Pres. Pratt called Elder Sartori to be a 2nd counselor in the Russia Vladivostok Mission. This was okayed by our East Europe Area Presidency. Pres. Pratt said that this is more of an assignment with our missionary call than a calling. We are excited, because as we visit the branches with CES assignments, we can now represent the Mission Presidency. We have two cities that do not have branches that we will be visiting with this new assignment...they are Artyom and Magadan. We love to work hard and missions are definitely HARD WORK! We love working for our Heavenly Father. We love the humbling blessing of feeling His Spirit in this work. We are constantly helped and guided with impressions of what we should say and do. We are sure the people are the same all over the world...some are accepting and teachable and some are not! To our dear friends and family - may we always strive to be teachable as to the things of the spirit. It is so vitally important for our eternal salvation. May our Heavenly Father's choicest blessings be yours as we strive to be obedient to His commandments... we know this to be true. His servants, E/S Sartori

YSA Conference for the Russia Vladivostok Mission

We came back from Korea to our long-awaited-for YSA Conference for the whole mission. It was here in our Khabarovsk! We went to a camp just about 30 minutes from our church. Everyone was so excited to go and sleep in a dormitory at the camp. So many were involved in the planning and preparation and it was all worth it! Everyone who attended the conference was spiritually lifted, friendships were strengthened and new ones made. Even our Mission President and Sister Pratt with his 1st Counselor, Pres. and Sister Zviagolsky were able to attend. Bro. Drachyov, who is one of assistants to the Europe East Area CES Director, Henry Kosak, and lives in Novasibirsk, was able to come also. The YSA are AWESOME! We heard their talks, their testimonies, saw their talents and were constantly amazed at their service to one another!!!

2nd TRIP TO SEOUL KOREA

We guess that you will have to scroll down to start our blog entry of our 2nd trip to Korea. This blog thing is strange to us still. We post an entry and it starts at the bottom and pictures add on top of it!! Enjoy, however you choose to read it!! our love, E/S Sartori

Ancient Korean guard attire at the gate of the Palace grounds.
Sister Sartori showing family pics to some cute young ladies who came up and started talking in English to us. We pulled out our pictures and when we showed our grandson, Andy, they asked how old? She said he is 16 years old - they squealed and said, "Phone number please!" Don't worry, Andy, you are safe! We don't remember your phone number!!!Okay, this is on the Palace grounds also. This is where we missed our grandchildren!!! We sat down on the benches to rest and Sis. Sartori began feeding the pigeons. Small children began to gather one at a time and watch. We shared pieces of bread and with gestures showed how we were feeding them. What a delight.... we then sat back and enjoyed the children and birds. What a treat to see their smiles, their delight at a bird catching their crumb and sharing with their little sister or brother the fun! Yes, we missed our grandchildren!!! Palace grounds with the modern city in the background. It kinda reminds us of Central Park in New York City! We found this Palace on some beautiful grounds that had a museum and other artifacts on display with it. A cute little Korean man came up to us and offered as a volunteer to tell us about the history of this palace. It seems that it dates back to 1300-1400. Unique architecture. WE FOUND COSTCO IN SEOUL, KOREA !!!! Elder Sartori got a little homesick when we went in this Costco. This Costco is three floors high or low! We put the shopping carts on an accomodating escalator and rode to the next floor. Elder Sartori and Elder Magill had an interesting ride as they tried figuring out if the carts were held in place with magnets, grooves or both!!!?? !! FASCINATING! Here is a nice image to share. This is an older structure of obvious architectural beauty and it is in the middle of modern Seoul! We loved it!!! This river is in the middle? of Seoul. Elder Goff at the temple said that when he was in Seoul 40 years ago (?time) this was an open canal of sewage. Look at the improvements! Wow! South Korea is doing well. The church members are growing and doing well. They use their temple. Sister Peck said that they come by bus, some start at early hours just to come and work in the temple all day on Saturdays...twice a month. They were so respectful, so humble. I loved walking by the people and bowing to them...what a nice gesture of respect. This is our bus taxi to the plane. Wow, we had beautiful weather! Hot and humid, but beautiful!! This is Elder and Sister Magill from Wisconsin. They are our "VISA BUDDIES". They are wonderful!! Totally wonderful!! Notice we are standing by a bus and see the airplane in the background? - the bus is going to load us up and drive the few hundred feet, we get off and board the airplane! Total Russia. We have a hidden blessing!! Russia has us leave the country for Visa renewal and it is a great blessing!! We fly a short 2 hour flight to Incheon Korea Airport and then ride a 40 minute bus to the Seoul Korea Temple dormitory. We are blessed to stay in this beautiful place..the dormitory is actually downstairs and down a hallway from the Temple Entrance so it seems like we are in the temple!!! Heaven!! We're in Heaven every time we go there. Pres. Pratt gave us permission to stay two extra days, so we will share our adventures. Of course we did temple work, but also visited some of Korea. Seoul is huge!

More YM/YW Conference

Before leaving Vladivostok on the train to head back up north to Khabarovsk, our youth were able to participate in 'Sports Night'. We also hold this in our Khabarovsk. This is a great time to let people know we are normal folk and when we get tired from playing Ultimate Frisbee, we can sit and talk about gospel principles and introduce people to the church. The missionaries love sports night and we have it all summer!!

To continue writing about our YM/YW Conference... We had a talent show, a fireside, a service project, uplifting speakers and a dance. We decided to share this fun picture of the dance. All the youth loved dancing when they began this dance! In Russia it is called ручеёк. It is nice to see such great activities for the youth. We rode the train all night to arrive in Vladivostok for this conference. It was a great time for the youth to get re-acquainted or to make new friends.

Vladivostok YM/YW Conference

These are the three young people that we took to Vladivostok for our YM/YW Conference. Left to right: Kristina has been investigating the church and the Spirit definitely has touched her. Dasha wants to be baptized, but her Mother says no right now. Sasha is a member and just yesterday was ordained a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. These were delightful young people and it was such a great blessing for Elder Sartori and I to be their chaperones. The conference included about 12 other young men and young women from Vladivostok, Artyom, Nahodka, Usserisk, Sakhalinsk, and our Khabarovsk.