18 Nov 2012, 2030 hours.

Workers of the world:  Unite!  Come to Moscow for the winter. Test your manhood.

I have not blogged much lately because our lives have fallen into a boring routine.  The children have gone home--so all the fun has gone from Moscow.  The area presidency has come home--and have resumed working me like the Russian serf that I have become.

I will pre-apologize for the inclusion of some granddaughter pictures in this edition of the blog.  I know it's not good form to apologize for one's writing, but there you go.  However, in my defense, I think any honest observer will have to admit that we don't brag up our grandchildren nearly as much as, say, (just picking a name at random from a hat full of names) the Thomsen's do.

Daylight has shrunk to about eight hours a day.  The sun hardly shines even in those hours, though that's its job.  By 12/21, the winter solstice, we will have the sun rising at about 10:00 a.m. and setting at 4:00 p.m.

I did not realize it until after the winter when I looked back on the experience, from the perspective of spring, that I was probably a  little depressed when we first got here.  That might explain the holes I kicked in the concrete walls of our flat.

Apropos that introduction, we happened to catch our good friends, Dave and Connie Peterson, on Skype yesterday morning.  Our conversation turned toward winter, and darkness and depression, and they gave the wonderful suggestion that one might be able to find a special light the you can turn on during the winter that helps to brighten one's flat and therefore one's mood.

You can see from the photo below that the Peterson's are nothing, if not cheerful ... or something.

Seriously, we are grateful for the advice.

The Peterson's preparing for a dark winter, or getting ready to fly to St. George

On to the photos and the commentary.

Some babe on the Metro.

We see lots of tee shirts in English.  I think this young man "Survived the Invasion" of the zombies.

Addie has just learned that her parents are both leaving on another trip and that Aunt Rachael will be tending her.

Sister Johnson decorating our hotel room in Tallinn, Estonia.

Addie and her dad at the doctor's office.  She is, or course, mimicking his stance.

I think this picture might have been taken before she got her shots, but that is just a guess.

Addie helping to decorate our front yard.
Nice pants for this outfit, right?

This is Nathanael and Joclynn's girl, Jessie.  She is either six of 16, I can't really remember for sure.

This is from church today and a very tender scene.  The brother on the left is a recent convert and is giving his first church talk, in French.  The brother at his left is interpreting into English.  But the interpreter was standing too far from the microphone so we could not hear the interpretation.

But, the main point is that the gospel moves forward across the world, one person at a time.

A Phillapina sister spoke next is quite good English.  She spoke about the need to accept the callings that come to us.  It was a very tender talk given by a very sweet sister.

Another illegal photo in church, but the Primary children sang the intermediate song today.  They look and sound just like a small Primary anywhere in America.  They are cute and it was fun.

This photo marks a very sad moment.  I am eating the last of the Cheerios the children brought to us when they came to visit last month.  I know all you rich Americans don't care much about Cheerios, but we poor Russians crave them.

A close look will show you a raspberry on my spoon.  Marlene carefully saved a few raspberries from the summer when they were briefly available.

Cheerios, raspberries, and pretty good milk are going to be a hard combination for me to beat, post-mission.

Have I mentioned that I have walked all over Moscow with my BYU hoodie and have not seen a single bit of recognition in anyone's eyes?

Not only do we need to bring the Church out of obscurity but let's nor forget BYU.

Sunrise at about 0830.

Two of the brethren eating fish eggs.  I don't think it is going to catch on.

Elder Walker getting ready to strum his saw.  He is really good at it.

We are celebrating our 47th anniversary in the office.

Friends helping us celebrate.  Of course we had to buy the cake.

Someday I will tell you about the brother who is third from the left.

We have gone to a restaurant with friends on the night of the anniversary and met other friends from the office and a couple on their way home to Utah from about their fifth Russian mission.

This is the front door to the Jones' apartment.  The clocks are labeled "Fruit Heights" and "Moscow."

One of the anniversary roses close up.

I think we have mentioned to you that the Russians feel it is bad luck to give someone an even number of roses--unless you are wishing them ill, or the flowers are for a death.  So, when I went to the store to buy the flowers the sweet clerk, who did not speak much English, asked how many I wanted.  Of course I said "A dozen", forgetting the custom.

She typed the number in a calculator (which his how sales people tell us how much something costs), and she asked, "Is this the right number?"  I said, 'yes', and then she signaled that I should probably buy one more.  It finally dawned on me what the problem was, so Marlene got 13 roses.

I owed the Jones' and the Hopkinson's something in return for recent kindnesses they had done for us, so we determined to take them to dinner and the circus.  We had to go a few days early to buy the tickets because it is often impossible to get tickets by just showing up.

This is in a park across the street from the Old Circus.

Nathanael and Ben horsing around.

Speaking of that--as we rode the Metro to church this morning a couple and a boy about 16 got on.  She was carrying a hockey goalie stick--apparently the young man's.  As they got off a few stops later we saw his really big bag full of hockey stuff.  We know what that is about.

Marlene has found a new friend.

Becky, Rachael, and Emily getting ready to do their chores.

We went to a mall to test a newly opened Wendy's and Marlene was impressed by the ambiance.

This was in a toy store.  The cost was about $700.

Holiday decorations, but you can't tell the scale very well.

Here is a lamp compared to a midget.

We have traded secretaries in the office.  Evgenia, standing, is moving to the Service Center.  Oksansa, on the left is coming to replace her.  Olga in the orange blouse is just a day or two away from going on her mission to London.

Pizza and juice (sok.)

The Jones' on our night at the circus.

Inside the circus.  Sister Jones is having some kind of trouble, but none of us were brave enough to ask her about it.

The circus band stand.

Our view from the cheap seats.

Apparently dinner was insufficient.

Dawn from our back window.

Olga just after being set apart by President Bioko.

That was a tender experience, a Russian stake president in Moscow, setting apart one of our Russian friends to take the gospel to the English.

A women's mission conference at the stake center last Friday.  I think it was just an excuse so Marlene could leave me at office in order to have a little fun with the girls.

Children, you heard that Izmaylova had a fire?  This is just inside the front gate.  The watch shop survived but all of the booths for about the first 75 years were toast.  The fire burned up to and including Ivan's stall.

We say him yesterday and he seemed to be okay.  He is adaptable.

Construction on the kiosks.

Still in Izmaylova.

I think this is one of the president's initiatives.

With his reelection we won't need anymore military stuff. 

A new, for us, Metro station--shiny and bright, just like me, and the Peterson's.