The Johnson's in Moscow

Bon Soir, mes amis. It is (guess what!) Sunday evening again. C'est bon.

It is lovely this evening--sunny and about 75.

We had the adult session of the Moscow Stake Conference earlier today. Elder D. Todd Christofferson presided. It was a very nice meeting. You will see a bit later that, since the stake has no suitable building of its own they rented a large room at the Moscow World Trade Center for today's meeting.

The search for building sites for the Church in Moscow, and I suppose the rest of Russia, is a story worth telling sometime. The short version is that because the government used to own everything in the country, and since that system collapsed in only in 1991, the good folks here have not figured out how to buy and sell property w/o enormous complexity and very long time periods being involved. 'The Soviet Times' as the natives call it, is not sufficiently far in the past for this country to function with anything like the efficiency that we expect in the U. S. They are trying to some extent, but their hearts are not in it.

The Area Review has gone very well for the most part. The most sensitive and complex event, feeding the general authorities lunch on Friday, went flawlessly. Sister Johnson and her crew of two were not shot on Friday evening.

We have had quite the cultural week. We attended the Old Moscow Circus on Tuesday, Sleeping Beauty on Friday and Swan Lake Saturday evening--at the Bolshoi Ballet. I will comment more as the pictures scroll by, but I need to note here that we wen to "The Bolshoi" as we locals call it, because it was Marlene's birthday yesterday. The tickets were so expensive that the birthday dinner was held at KFC's, or something akin to KFC.

Of course decorum prevents me from telling you how hold she is, but I can observe that Methuselah has to be worried about losing his first place position.

(Now, Aunt Marilyn, you know that was a joke don't you? You will see from the pictures at the theatre, as we Europeans call it, that she looks younger all the time ... and very sophisticated.)

Well, enough of the tension building introduction. Here are tonight's pictures.

We have changed church meeting locations from the far NE of Moscow the far SE of Moscow (because the property managers for the Church played chicken with a new landlord and lost.) This is a scene on the way to our new building, the South Building for those of you who have been to Moscow.

It's funny. The authorities will bring a tiller into one of the weed covered areas, till out a design and drop in flowers.
That looks like grass in the picture, but it is about 20% grass and about 80% weeds. We thought we would take a picture at the front end of the season see how things looked in a couple of months.

We are on our way to the circus on Tuesday evening. This stained glass end of the Metro corridor is covered with clown faces.

Yuri Mikulin is Russia's most famous clown/actor. His statue sits outside the circus building. In Moscow, at least, the two circuses we have heard about have permanent buildings and do not operate from tents moving from city to city.

We are having a pre-circus dinner with the two main ladies from the office, Olga and Evengia.

About to enter the circus. We had a really nice time. Additional pictures come a little later.

This is half of the Area President's office. He wanted to make it into a mini-meeting room so we have added a table, some chairs, and a wall-hung TV for showing PowerPoint presentations. It's a Sony TV with a 3D projection option. Eugeny (the technical guy) and I are testing the 3D glasses that came with the TV.
I have no intention of watching BYU football games in 3D

Sister Johnson and I were unexpectedly drawn into a luncheon for the visiting authorities on Thursday. But that proved propitious because we stole the center pieces from Thursday's lunch to use at the office for Friday's lunch.

Here are the lunchee's and lunchers. Peggy Hopkinson, Marlene, and Olga. (Sister Walker did a great deal to help with the lunch but was not available for this pic.)

Back row: Moi, David Stapley, Pres. Schwitzer, Pres. Rasband, Elder Christofferson, Bishop Stevenson, President Lawrence, President Bennett and Boyce Fitzgerald, the new DTA.

The newly remodeled Bolshoi. We have heard that it took six years and between one and forty billion dollars to restore this theater to it's glory. It was lovely.

The happy couple. Sister Connie Peterson mailed (at exorbitant expense) this lovely scarf to Marlene for her birthday. It got taken to the Bolshoi.

About the fourth curtain call for the principal dancers in the ballet. They were terrific.
I saw more pas de deux, pas de trois, et pliets than I ever expected to see.

The ladies were lovely and graceful.
The men were lovely and graceful.
I have seen more light loafers in the last two nights than one would typically see at a U. of U. football game.

When the mass of girls was dancing one of the swan acts their precision was so wonderful it reminded me of the Cougaretts. (Maybe I will have have to confine myself to the circus. This ballet stuff may be beyond my imagination.)

We are on our way toward the Metro after the ballet. It is about10:00 p.m.

The summer view from the back window.

One of the Russian Orthodox churches with some American tourists posing.

Cute children enjoying the circus.

Cute adults enjoying the circus.

The piece de resistance for the GA luncheon--Becky's bundt cake transported to Moscow. It was really good with fruit and fake whipping cream.

The visitors at the New Moscow Theater, waiting for Sleeping Beauty to start. The performance was nice but it was not in the same league as the Bolshoi. The company was good, however.

The Metro enroute to dinner and the theatre.

Almost KFC. The Walker's and the Hatch's.

The north end of Red Square.

Before going into the theatre.
As we walked from Red Square to the Bolshoi I heard two couples behind us speaking English so I stopped to talk to them. They are from West Virginia and had been riding motorcycles up from the Ukraine through Russian. I only got to talk to one but he said they were riding BMW 1200 something or others. I was very jealous.