Dear Everyone,  (Including Nathanael),

It is Sunday morning, about 10:00.  The sun is shining brightly and the temp is 45 going to 62 on this May 27th in Moscow.  We are well other than congenital stupidity, total memory loss, and incipient (or full-blown) dementia.

(You know, self-diagnostics is a difficult proposition.  [Ben, was it Ben Franklin or Shakespeare who said, 'A physician who treats himself has a fool for a doctor?']  One needs one's wife to get an accurate diagnosis.  Isn't that right, Rusty?)

I have asked Marlene for a diagnosis but I can't remember what she said.

We will have to start our journey toward the church building in about a half an hour, so I won't get much written this morning, but I can start the picture upload which can run while we are gone.
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It is now Sunday evening a little after 8:00.  It will be light until 11:00 and light again about 5:00 a.m.

It has been about 10 days since I made a blog entry.  The hiatus has been because nothing very interesting was happening … until the latter part of this week, and the weekend, which I will tell you about after telling you how boring the previous eight days have been.

When my presidency is in town my work in unrelenting.  They are very busy and need a great deal of support.  The only relief I get is when they are out of the office traveling across this vast land.   While it is true they can email and telephone while they are on the road it’s just not the same as when they are in the office. 

(What is the name of that character in the Charlie Brown cartoons?  You know the one.  It’s that little kid who has the perpetual dust cloud floating around with him wherever he goes.  In this analogy I am not that kid.  That’s the role of my presidents.  They go around creating work for me and I am the one trying to clean up after them.)

Wait, this is taking on a negative tint, which is not the image I am after at all.  And, since I am too lazy to rewrite what has come before let me just extend and correct my remarks to say that these are wonderful men, and they generate a lot of work for me.

Anyway, they were out of the office two weeks ago, for a week, but returned this last week.  And their return brought with it a lot of work for your humble servant.  Thus, unless you are interested in the work I am doing (not) there was little to blog about.

But, things got more interesting starting on Thursday.  One of the very nice secretaries has decided to go on a mission.  She has only been a member for a year but the urge burns within her to share the gospel.  In the hinterlands of the Church missionary applications run through the Area office, which means they run through Sister Johnson.  Calls are, therefore, received in the Area office and then forwarded to the affected priesthood leaders who hand-deliver (because the postal system is so fabulous) the call letters to the missionaries.  This second step adds about a week to the call-notification process.

Of course Olga knows that Sister Johnson would have her call notice a week before her stake president would receive it, so the issue was:  Can she wheedle the information from Sister Johnson, or not?   We had a lot of fun with that question.  Pictures follow.

Then on Friday our Public Affairs Director retired.  He is Alexander Manzhos.  What a nice man!  He had been an Area Seventy for many years.  He served in the Area Presidency for a season.  Anyway, we had a Russian (though he is Ukrainian) retirement party for him on Friday.  It was very tender and fun.  (Pictures to follow.)

Finally, by way of introductory comments, we had Metro and downtown Moscow adventures on Friday night and Saturday as we tried to expose our law student intern, Travis Hunt, to as much of Moscow as one can stuff into a half-dozen weekends.  (Pictures follow immediately.)

I told you a lie above.  We didn't do nothing for 10 days.
A week ago on Saturday we took our 2nd trip to Izmaylova so that Travis could buy stuff to take home to Arizona/Provo for his wife and child.  Here is Marlene checking out some of
 the goods. 

This past Friday evening we had the Walker's and Travis to dinner for pancakes.  This is the last of the lot.  They belong to Travis.  He has got syrup, jam, bananas, yogurt, nuts and whipped cream on them.  I think all the brown, white and red food groups are represented.

The Walker's are a handsome couple.  They liked the hot cakes too.

Here is a clean shot of Travis.  I was thinking the other day--The Church produces these kind of young men by the bushel:  clean cut, smart, returned missionaries, responsible, good men, devoted husbands and fathers.  They seem so common to us, because we are surrounded by them.  You are surrounded by them.  It really is a miracle.

This was a very cute and curious young girl.  People (even 'mericans) don't necessarily like strangers taking their pictures, so I used my iPhone to sneak this one into the mix.

Marlene is very impressed with Moscow's dandelions.  I think I have shown some of them to you previously.  You will see more later.  We have seen several girls with these halos.

Yesterday we went to Leo Tolstoy's house.  This is one of Moscow's Pravaslavian (Russian Orthodox) churches.  They are always colorful and eye catching.  We passed it on the way to the home.

It is a little hard to see because of the white background, but there is a lady going through the trash can.  That is a common site for us.

Walking from the church back to the Metro last Sunday we saw something terribly heart wrenching.  A man was going through one of the containers that holds discarded bottles.  He was drinking whatever he could find in the bottles.  Oh, my.

Marlene noticed the modern wiring techniques at play in this old building.

Here we are at the side door, but tour entrance of Tolstoy's home.  He lived here during the winters from about 1885 to 1895.  He had already written his most well know works and had had his 'conversion' to some kind of Christianity.  He knew the Pravaslavian church has lost his way, so he seems to have invented a very strict creed which he followed.
The guidebook we were reading said his conversion caused tension within the family.  At dinner the wife would sit at one end of the dining table with the sons and he would sit at the other with the daughters.
That sounds a lot like our house except all the children sit with their mother and I sit with the dog.

A billboard on the wall of an adjacent building.   That is the beard that Nathanael's wishes he could have.

The front door.  A large, lovely, home.

Some suspects in the garden outside the front of the house.

A cute, little, summer room.

We met two Americans while we were touring the house.  He is just out of the USMC about to go to USC dental school. They had stared in St. Petersburg, were spending a couple of days in Moscow, were then going to get on the Trans-Siberian train and go to Beijing and then fly home to California from there.  Wow!
They don't speak any Russian.  Adventuresome souls.

I think this building is not being used, except as a green house.

We could not find any signs but I suspect this building, with the tree growing out the top, must date from about Tolstoy's time.

Here's a break from Tolstoy.  The Russian staff is presenting Elder Manzhos and his wife the gifts we bought for him.

Elder Manzhos graciously receiving some Russian history DVD's.  His wife is about to open the Matryoshka doll we got for her.  It was a little unusual in that the large figure was that of a man.  That is not common.

On the way back from Tolstoy's home toward the Metro.  I include it in case any of you want to hurry over for the show.  It will be on 4 & 5 Eyune (June.)

Last shot of Mr. Tolstoy for you Russian literature sophisticates.

We have now made our second appearance on Arbat street, where the swells shop.  The marketing folks have caught some flies in their spider web.

Everyone who comes to Moscow must see Arbat Street.

Ah, lunch!  I won't have to continue my vegetarian binge.  Protein.

This is my long lost Aunt Zhenia.  I happened to find her on the street playing Stairway to Heaven.
For a few rubles she invited me into the picture.

Marlene was sure this was an older, heavier, version of her brother Lewis.  I agreed.

Travis getting the required, under-the-hand picture in one of the Metro stops.
We were on an adventure to see some of the most picturesque of the stops.  More to follow with minimal commentary, since some of these are duplicates from previous postings. 

Extra long escalator.  I think we were going up.

Marlene and I had an unusual experience on an escalator like this, though not this one.
The 'rules' are that if you are just going to ride up, then stand to the right so the folks in a hurry can pass you on the left. We were doing that, chatting about something, and noticed a lady coming up behind us on the left.  But, instead of passing by she stopped just behind us and rode the rest of the way to the top standing just to the left behind us.

When we got to the top and started to walk forward she caught up and asked, in what we think was a British accent, "Are you foreigners?"  We said, "Yes. Americans."  She said, "You are beautiful people."

Being old and slow of mind we were too surprised to say anything, and in an instant she was gone into the crowd and we had lost the chance to thank her, let alone talk with her.

I don't know what to make of this.  Obviously Marlene is a lovely person, but ...

This was Friday night and the crowds were bigger than any I had previously seen.  There were mobs everywhere.
Lovely lighting.

Sometimes there is no more room.

I have to tell you a story.  When it's crowded like this you get on, without any hope of a seat of course.  But because Stevie Wonder taught all of the train operators how to drive they accelerate quickly and jerkily, and stop with the same skill.

With no place to sit, you hurry on, and look for one of the horizontal or vertical hand bars to hold onto so you won't fall into your neighbor when the thing jerks to a start.  And you don't have very long to find a hand-hold, because as soon as the doors slam shut Stevie Wonder hits the 'go' button.

Marlene was in the usual hurry to find something to hold on to.  She saw an odd-looking vertical pole near the back wall of the car and grabbed it as the train took off.

The guy holding his bundle of six-foot lengths of  metal  sheet rock corners was not amused.  He grabbed his corners away from Marlene with a scowl to boot. She did not fall to the floor because the car was too crowded, but after recovering from the shock of what had happened she could not stop laughing about the experience.

The guy with the corners was not nearly as amused.

More loveliness.

We are walking toward Lenin's bust.

Here it is in Cyrillic.  L E N ee N e.

Whoever decided that we need to kill dandelions?  The Russian's are not buying the concept.

The guys are fishing and the girl is exercising.

A Saturday in the park behind us.  A rather large contingent of runners.  Moscow Sport is what the leg of the sign says.

We thought we would be having hamburgers at the ward party later on this day, so I let myself be talked into KFC.  The problem with that is that I can eat home-boiled chicken everyday, if I wanted to, except I have vowed that no boiled chicken will ever pass my lips again.

Plus Moscow's KFC's don't sell mashed potatoes--which is what Ben always buys, and which I can now see the reason for, or for which I can now see the reason.

Proof that I was there.

The ward BBQ, where I thought I would be eating a hamburger.  It was not to be. Even Marlene was put off by the way the mystery meat looked.

We tried hot dogs but that was a mistake too.

Brother Nagele cooking up a storm.  I did not starve however.  There were plenty of cookies and some half-good potato salad.

Mormons doing what Mormons do.
This was like being transported to Utah.

Julie Smith who teaches English here.  That is how you form your tongue to make the Pssst! sound.
Julie guided us to church on the first Sunday we were here. Very nice young lady ... as you can see.

Jim Hopkinson, the Area Finance manager.  Another good man.

Marlene's favorite flower.  If she gets off the airplane, upon our return, with a dandelion hair piece do not be surprised.

We have our hot water on again.  The g'vmint has decreed it.  This gentleman has installed a water meter in the hole in the wall in our bathroom.

Some of the staff getting ready for Olga to open her call letter.  The gentleman in the left front is Andrey Filimonov, the assistant PA director.

Four missionaries come once a week for Russian language training from Andrey.

Olga getting ready to open her calling.  She is going to ...

Sunset.  About 10:00.  The buildings are alight with the sunset.

Love and peace to everyone.