Moscow, Friday night, 10 F going to -4.  Ouch.

Winter has come with a vengeance and is here to stay.  Oh, well, just one more.

We are well.  It is the Christmas season, of course.  Things are a little odd here.  The Orthodox Church likes to old ways so they have stuck with the Gregorian (?) calendar which runs about 12 days behind the current, regular, calendar.  A consequence is that Christmas in Russia is celebrated on January 7th instead of December 25th.  So, 12/25 will come and go for us w/o much of  a blip in activities.  We might take the day off work if we can get the slave-drivers to agree.  They have not heard that the serf system was abolished in Russia in 1865.

I moan but everyday goes by like a blur.  Looking forward it seems like we have a long way to go.  Looking backward it looks like it has gone fairly quickly.

I believe that I have mentioned that we have a 'devotional' in the office each morning.  Yesterday was my turn.  I told the assembled throngs a little about some of our family Christmas traditions and how much the children and grandchildren have come to expect them and how unsettled they are if we vary from the norm.  However, we have heard no complaints about our absence from home this year except for one issue.  The grandchildren wonder how they are going to get their yearly allotment of pajamas without geezpa and geezma being in Utah.  Great minds (Becky) are working on a solution.

We had our last Visa Trip yesterday.  This is the drill the Russian government requires of us (at least Americans) which is that we fly out of the country and come back in so that they can keep track of us and give Aeroflot some additional revenue.

We had the worst day of our sorry Russian lives.  Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

The plot was to fly from Moscow to Riga, Latvia (that's one of the Baltic states, Dave Paull), stay a couple of hours and fly back to Moscow in the evening.

We were just a little late leaving the flat to get to the Metro to connect with the express train to ride to the airport.  I (Mr. Metro-Expert) forgot which Metro stop had the train station.  By the time I realized my mistake we had lost about 30 minutes.  We got to the right station, got on the next available train and got to the airport with about 45 minutes to flight time.  The lines were long and it took approximately forever to get to the check in desk in order to get a boarding pass.  A young man was helping us, but it was clear that something was wrong, but of course Russians know nothing about customer service so he told us nothing.  He left his station to find a supervisor to ask about whatever the problem was.  She wandered over to the counter and we asked if something was wrong with our passports.  She said, 'no', but offered no further information.

By now, of course, our time was drifting away.  The kid kept looking at his screen, pretending to be studying something (sort of like Dave Paull when he is using his computer) but saying nothing to us.  Finally another supervisor lady came over and told him to give up on whatever he was doing.  So he gave us three boarding passes.  One for me to get from Moscow to Riga and one to get back, and one for Marlene to get from Moscow to Riga, but not one coming back.  Apparently the system would not spit out four boarding passes.

Well, enough of that story.  After a half dozen more glitches we finally made it back to Moscow at about 10:00 p.m.  There was some wind blowing last night so on the walk from the Metro to the dump I about froze my (beautiful) face off.  Ooo. It was cold--sort of like Craig Thomsen's heart.

Here is a sampling of the 400 pictures we have taken since the last blog.

The senior missionaries had a conference Wed. and Thursday.  Marlene wanted to preserve this picture.  We are not in it.  We were on our way to Riga.

I wonder how many of those ladies got up off their knees by themselves?

The view out our window.  The lakes are now ice.

This is the youngest Johnson grandchild, digging for gold apparently.

And Emily says she won't eat anything!

Christmas decorations in the flat.  Pretty nice, eh?

Riga yesterday.  The Millett's on the left and Sister Adams kindly picked us up at the airport and drove us part way to town so we could have lunch together.  

Thanksgiving dinner at the Walker's home with some of the missionaries.  It was all very nice.

Oleg Rumyantsuv, the man on the right is our wonderful Area travel manager.  He and three of his staff took us and the Walker's to lunch for being visa couriers.  They are Irina, Zhenya, and Natasha.

We are at our second Mexican restaurant since coming to town.  Cafe' Rio has got nothing to worry about.

We got an exclusive invitation to a multi-embassy fund raising event, along with about 5,000 other people, at a fancy hotel.  On the way to the exhibit rooms we stumbled across this St. George meeting room--for Rusty and Tammy.

We thought these were the cleaning ladies, but it turned out they were part of the entertainment.

They are Ukrainian songstresses.  One of their numbers was, "Mowing the Grass with My Grandma."  I thought it was pretty catchy.

Seeing these babes we were sure we had found the cleaning staff, but no ...

They were dancers.  They did some super dooper Korean thingee designed to impress the emperor into  letting them clean the palace.

As we left the fund-raiser we found these boots that Rachael had left behind.

Outside the hotel, proving that Russians love Christmas just as much as any other retailer.

Some interesting buildings and a tourista with toasty ears.

This is a multi-venue performance center.  We will watch The Messiah here on the 28th.  We have come to pick up our tickets ahead of the event.

Elder Jones had a birthday the other day and they kindly invited us to come and share their chili dinner with them.
I asked them to provide gas masks and this was the solution.

This is before any chemical reactions have taken place.  It was all very nice--in the short run.

We don't see this much anymore and so we take a picture whenever it appears, in case our memories fail us.

The Area employees were kind enough to invite some of the missionaries to their Christmas devotional program and lunch.
This is our secretary, Oksana reading a nice (I presume) Russian poem. 

Stake conference was this past weekend.  This is before it got really cold, but you know these folks know how to dress for the weather.  Every child draws Marlene's attention.

Inside the same building where conference was held (a live theatre facility) was this lovely restaurant with this impressive display.

As part of the senior conference we went to a dance performance on Wednesday evening.  This is the theatre (Tchaikovsky) where we went with the children when they were here.  I could find the place blindfolded.

Pre-dance frivolity by Elder Storm and a sister I did not meet.  The young man just behind Marlene is spending his last night in Russia with his mission president and wife prior to going home to Georgia.

Some of the early dances required that Sister Sorenson hold her hands over his eyes.  The dances were no problem for us, of course, because we are so sophisticated that we can appreciate the art w/o noticing the bumping and grinding.

Riga last night.

(Dave, Notice that 'air Baltic' on the airplane?  Riga is in one of the Baltic states.)

Sister J. near the end of a long day.  We started at 0530 and got to bed at 2300.  (11:00 p.m., Dave.)

I am really starting to get worried now.

Marlene has gone native.  She is starting to pose for pictures!

Good grief.  How am I going to be able to keep her down on the farm?