MEETING OUR NEW MISSION PRESIDENT !!

Pictures make life so memorable. This is our Missionary Zone Conference. Great memories, wonderful counsel and love shared by all. We are so blessed to be able to serve with these fine young men. Heavenly Father has blessed them in their diligent preparation to come to Russia to serve their missions. We are in awe at their leadership and spirituality. We agree with President Gordon B. Hinckley when he said that the future of the church is in our youth and they are so capable. The Lord indeed has Valiant Servants!!!

This is the evening that Pres. & Sis. Pratt and Elder A. left on the train from Khabarovsk. Elder A. going to the MTC. His Mom and 'Granny' are so proud of him and justly so!

July 17, 2009 President and Sister Pratt arrived in Khabarovsk, Russia! They came to our home while waiting to check into their hotel and we had the marvelous privilege of having them visit, attend missionary lessons to investigators and have lunch with us. What a delight! President and Sister Pratt are such great examples of love - Christlike love - and we were so blessed to spend a few days with them as they led us in our Zone Conference. Our Russia Vladivostok Mission has another wonderful leader. We are so blessed. Since we are only branches and saints meeting together in our mission, President Pratt is our District President also. Sunday night, July 19, 2009, we had the wonderful privilege of having Pres. Pratt set apart a missionary in our home. Евгений Геннадьевич Абубакирова was set apart to serve in the Russia Rostov Mission. This young elder represents our Khabarovsk Branch very well. He is in Utah right now at the Salt Lake Temple, Temple Square and the MTC. He will be another great missionary!!!

SPORTS NIGHT IN A PARK

Gleb rode his bike to the park one night and his mom, Lena encouraged me to take a spin. It felt really good to be on a bike again!! I normally take pics, but Elder Sartori has joined in and played Ultimate Frisbee!!! We meet a lot of new people at sports night and it has been really nice to be involved in this missionary effort also. A lot of our English Club-bers come to sports night and everyone has lots of fun. Pres. Hinckley always encouraged us to be happy in this journey of life and share this happiness and sports night is one way that we are fulfilling his counsel!!!

Now that summer is here, we have a "Sports night in a park" and invite members, investigators and friends. They play basketball, but mostly they love to play Ultimate Frisbee. This frisbee game involves a lot of people and they love it.

Hawaiian Activity

Yelena and Elder Temus enjoying fun and food. Hey you guys...did you eat too much of the PINEAPPLE?? The food was delicious and everyone had fun!!!

The group who came to have a good time...members, non-members and investigators.

Старейшина Сартори и Сестра Сартори cooking for the Khabarovsk Branch Hawaiian Activity. Good thing we made plenty!! We had 50 + people come. A spiritual program was first shared, then we played games, line danced and ate "Hawaiian Haystacks". Thanks to all the practice in Relief Society with fixing dinners and ward parties...we had a great success.

A SPECIAL FAMILY

NOTE: PLEASE START AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS GROUP OF PHOTOS AND WORK YOUR WAY TO THE TOP. SISTER SARTORI ASKED ME TO DO THIS POST, AND I DID IT UP-SIDE-DOWN. OH WELL, WE STILL LOVE RUSSIA.

Guess who made the ruble fall into the flour? This is elder Spencer. He is the ZL, here in Khabarovsk. I was really praying that the coin didn't fall when I was cutting the flour. (see, prayers really are answered)

Can you see the value of this beautiful boy and the light in his eyes? God love him so much that he sent us to bring him, with his family back unto the fold. Wow, what a great privilege it is to an insturment in the hand of God.

This is a picture of a wonder family in our branch. "The Chetvergova Family" They had been less active for quite a while. We had visited them many times to encourage them to come back to Chirst. Then one time, the spirit was just right, and we painted for them a word picture about life. We told the that life is like a river, and that we all are swimming in the river of life. We told them the river was dirty and poluted, and that bad people had put things in the river that were dirty. We also told them that we all are floating down stream in the river, and across the river is a bridge. As we float down stream we can see that Jesus Christ is standing on the bridge. He is reaching His hand down towards us and saying "Come unto to Me, and I will give you rest". We explained that in order to get the help from the Savoir, we needed to reach up and grab His hand. If we don't reach up and just float by, He quickly runs down to the next bridge and reached toward us and says again, "Come unto Me". We explained that the way we reach up to Chirst is to say our prayers, study the scriptures, and go to church. The spirit taught them that day. They showed up to church the next Sunday and have been coming every week now. The above picture is when we visited them again this week. We are playing a game with flour and a ruble coin. Each person takes a turn and with a knife and slices a portion of the flour away. The person who makes the coin fall has to get it out of the pile of flour with his nose.

THERE IS NO GREATER JOY THAN TO HELP OTHERS COME UNTO CHRIST....

Visit to Lithuania

A view on a walk in Kaunas, Lithuania

Our morning devotional group. Fun, spiritual and friends.

Awesome street!!!

This is a beautiful building on the center of town.

Statues are big in Europe.

A river runs through Kaunas, Lithuania.

Beautiful Kaunas, Lithuania.

This is our street right out of our hotel. Notice the narrow sidewalks and the cobble streets.

Lithuania felt like a little bit of heaven compared to Russia. Elder Sartori even said he noticed right away how much better the water was. We arrived in the capital city, Vilnius, Lithuania, then rode a bus to Kaunas, Lithuania. We stayed in the old part of town, the original town and found it quaint with cobblestone streets and sidewalks right next to the building and only about 30 inches wide! Our CES training is invaluable and we are so thankful for every minute we learned. The other Senior Couples are amazing!! We learned much from all they shared and all the things they do in their respective missions (Baltic States Mission, Russia St. Petersburg Mission, Russia Rostov Mission, Russia Novasibirsk Mission, Russia Ekaterinburg Mission, Russia Moscow Mission, Armenia Mission, and I really can't remember the other ones.) We sat at the feet of Henry Kosak the CES East Europe Area Director and his assistant, Sergei Seminov. Fine spiritual giants who tried to help us constantly with the vision of the Seminary and Institute Programs. Our lives have reached a new spiritual plane under their teaching and directions. We were able to get up early and go walking and take pictures. We were able to catch a few minutes here and there and so this was a spiritual feast with a little travel mixed in.

Moscow - Red Square

We went in this building with a fountain in it and found that it went on and on and on!!!

We did not have time to go in any of the buildings, but one...it was okay.

These two pictures below and on the side, show the massiveness of Red Square in Moscow. Cool buildings!!

So we had this wonderful Senior Couples Conference planned in Lithuania June 8-12. We learned first hand how big Russia is and how big this area is. We left Khabarovsk on Monday the 8th, flew all day and still arrived in Moscow Monday morning!!...I think. I don't think I'd better try to explain time changes and everything, just know that there was 30 + hours of travel (fly, bus, fly again and bus again!!) We fared quite well, we were blessed with little to no jet lag!! MISSIONARIES ARE DEFINITELY BLESSED CONSTANTLY WITH MUCH! So, we arrive in Moscow and have an 8 hour layover. They had given us good instructions of bus and metro if we wanted to go into the center and see 'Red Square'. The said, "..however, everyone gets lost so plan plenty of time so you don't miss your flight." This did not scare us! We and another couple went on the adventure!! We rode a bus for 40 minutes, then hopped on the subway. We asked young people along the way for directions and help. (Young people in Russia like to talk English to us) Everyone was very helpful and we were able to make our excursion without getting lost!! :) Enjoy the pictures of 'Red Square', then we will write about Lithuania.

Spring is getting wet!

We guess that our Spring is just like home - wet! The plants are loving it. The Datchas are loving it and of course the people think it is great for their Datchas. We had our last S & I 'graduation' (we cannot legally call it graduation because of Russian law....it should be referred to as S & I accomplishment or something like that!) when we flew to Usserisk, Russia. The students were happy that we could go to their program...then we became the program!! It is always fun to see the many young people who are many of the stalwarts of the branches. They do not have Seminary or Institute at their schools, so it is taught in a home or the church just like in many other missionary areas in the world. We get to visit them and talk to and train the teachers. This is our primary assignment of our mission - working with CES, the students and the teachers. Our six branches require airplane flying to them or riding the train to visit them. They have good people in them.