Trip to Toliatti

Last weekend we took a trip to Toliatti which is an hour north of Samara and seven hours from Saratov by car.  It's only a couple hundred miles but the roads are not conducive to driving very fast...mostly two lane and much of the time the roads are full of potholes and very bumpy.  It's hard on our bodies!

We stayed in a wonderful hotel - The Park Hotel - and held a fireside Saturday night.  Elder Childers was assigned to give a spiritual thought and be did a little object lesson and then showed the attached picture of a redwood tree and talked about how their roots support each other...can't help but remember the talk given by Elder Winkel - our friend and former stake president -  in conference.  No one here has ever seen a redwood tree and this is the first picture we've found that begins to capture the size and beauty.  We projected in on the wall and started at the bottom and scrolled slowly up the tree...we kept scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.  It seemed to work!

The other two pictures are us outside our hotel and standing in front of the frozen Volga River...and one of Elder Childers and our CES coordinator.

Went to church Sunday morning and hit the road home.  We're exhausted but really love traveling with our boss and meeting the great church members throughout the mission.

Sunday

So, today we went to Zavodskoy branch for the blessing of Andre Evgenyvitch Markelov and I got asked to stand in the circle.  Awesome.  And then we planned a birthday party Dec 14th for Zhenya - he is bringing shashlik chicken (which is like Costco rotisserie chicken only flat and different) and we are making a pork roast and mashed potatoes...this is a GUYS birthday!  A RUSSIAM MAN'S birthday!  Our branch president and his wife - who are also Zhenya and Lena's best friends - are coming, too.  It will be fun.

Mom went home after Zavodskoy and I stayed for Volzhski branch because I'm Elder's Quorum President and had the lesson today...my own, personal life history!  I got to talk for 40 minutes about myself.  It was like the best lesson ever!

Plus I got asked to speak in sacrament meeting next Sunday.  Sweet.

And mom is making pizza for lunch tomorrow for the missionaries because transfers are coming next weekend and a bunch of our missionaries are leaving and it's our ZL's birthday today.  I made a kilo of homemade Italian sausage (refer back to the Russian Man) and we bought a whole pepperoni and had it sliced up.

Mom got some olives and fungi and yucky stuff like that, too.

Life is good.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us that means we can decorate for Christmas!  And listen to Christmas music.  And watch Little Lord Fauntleroy, White Christmas, Holiday Inn, and The Santa Clause (except we can't find it).

Christmas is celebrated January 7th in Russia.  During Soviet times New Year's was the celebrated holiday and gift giving for New Year's was the norm...and still is.  The way I look at it is we can celebrate December 25th and then on New Year's and then January 7th.  It's all good! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we fed twenty-two missionaries a nice dinner.  It can be a tough time of the year - particularly for those away from home for the first time.  We made turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy...the missionaries brought dessert and drinks.  The desserts were pretty good!

It takes a long time to feed people here...time to travel to the grocery store, time to cook everything because our oven is really small and time to take the food from our house to the activity center and then set up the tables...etc., etc. The missionaries were very grateful and we told them how grateful we are to them for allowing us to have Thanksgiving as well.  Otherwise we would be home alone and that's no fun.

We played Thanksgving Pictionary...we had each missionary write down something unique that they are grateful for.  Then I picked a few and had them draw a picture on the blackboard.  A few of the unique things they are grateful for include: the applause when an Aeroflot airplane lands, the rolling hills of Oklahoma, crayons, feet, cold weather, yarn, fuzzy kittens and mom...you get the idea.  We then had them write down something they have received that they are grateful for and the the name of the person who gave it to them and what they did to thank that person. They all shared those things with the group.

To top off the day the mission driver left the mission home at 02:30 this morning to drive here with packages so everyone who had one could get it today.  We got a package with lots of fun stuff we asked Hannah to send us...card games to play with students, 200 book rings for scripture mastery cards, socks and knee high nylons and lots of other stuff.  

We are so grateful to be here doing what we're doing.  Tomorrow we get a nice turkey sandwich with homemade cranberry sauce on fresh hot-out-of-the-oven bread.  The new store - that opened here makes the best bread...just like baking it yourself and it's 19 rubles a loaf...like 59 cents or so.  Tomorrow is game night so we'll play our new games...Spoons, Yathzee and Skipbo!

Traditional American Thanksgiving Soup

So...tonight we have a fireside and we're - surprise! - bringing food.  We also have an emergency food box and a 72-hour backpack that we had to rotate.  Each year we are supposed to eat the food in them and buy new food to replace the old food we ate.  The food in them is gross so we gave it to the students and missionaries to eat.  Except for the many cans of beans...we had beans in tomato sauce, kidney beans, white beans, pork and beans...beans everywhere.

Mom had her "head boy/slave" dice up a kilo of ham and some onions and some red and yellow peppers and then she sauteed them and added all the beans to make soup for tonight.

I'm telling the students this is traditional American Thanksgiving Soup and we have it every year.

Well, I want to tell them that but my companion Little Miss Integrity won't let me.  She keeps quoting the white missionary handbook - something about keeping the commandments.  Blah, blah, blah. 

She is such a goody two-shoes. My style, such as it is, is being totally cramped.  I am not being allowed to express my originality.

Mom had a great birthday...I took her  grocery shopping (that's like her favorite thing to do) and then she cooked for four or five hours and then we went to FHE and she got sung to...she loves being sung to...and then we came home and I watched her prepare us some turkey sandwiches.  It was awesome.

I did do the dishes all by myself.

Tonight I go home teaching for the first time in Russia.  Cool.  Mom will be at the firesdide feeding people.

Wednesday News

Whew...just finished our monthly shopping trip to Metro...stuff for institute, home, district and mission.  We have a district fireside next week, we have to fill the emergency food box in our apartment and we always have food to fix for institute.

The Markelovs had their baby this morning at 02:30.  Mom and son are healthy.  Since the maternity hospital does not allow visitors - and Lena will be there a week - we drove by after shopping and stood on the lawn and she showed us the baby through the fourth floor window...and we talked on the phone a little. Interesting...

Now we have an hour before class...made a quick burrito with leftovers and away we go. By the way...attached is a new enchilada sauce we now use...it is quick and easy and delicious.

Life is good.

Enchilada Sauce

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup butter

4 T flour

1/2 chili powder

16 ounce tomato sauce

3 cups water

1/2 t cumin

1/2 t garlic powder

1/2 t onion salt

Heat oil and butter in skillet over medium-high heat.  Stir in flour and chili powder, reduce heat to medium and cook until lightly browned, stirring constantly to prevent burning flour. Gradually stir in tomato sauce, water, cumin, garlic powder and onion salt into the flour and chili powder until smooth.  Continue cooking over medium heat ten minutes or until thickened slightly.  Season to taste with salt.

Pumpkins 2013

We carved jack o'lanterns tonight for FHE.  If you remember last year we had six pumpkins and maybe eight people carving...this year fifteen pumpkins and twenty carving.  Sherry has plenty of leftovers to make pumpkin puree...which means pumpkin bars and pumpkin muffins will be on the menu soon...life is good.  She made chocolate-banana-not cupcake/muffins today.  These kids are SPOILED!!!

We love these students and missionaries...

Life is VERY good!

P-Day Lunch

So...the new mission rule is no getting together for lunch after district meeting. We're the only senior couple around so the rule is really for other districts who apparently took a little longer for lunch than recommended!

Now we feed our district on Monday - P-Day (Preparation day).  This week we made Goop which is a Delaney family favorite that our family ate at least once a month.  Quick, easy and cheap. Perfect food.  Here's a picture of our district chowing down today.  Mom slipped in some spicy cole slaw and beets and homemade ranch dressing which they enjoyed a lot with carrots sticks...and on the goop, of course.  Gross.

Making banana muffins for FHE tonight.  Cook, cook, cook.

Dinner

Mom just made beans and rice and shredded chicken and guacamole and spicy cabbage and enchilada sauce burritos for three elders and two investigators.  And everyone spoke English...life is so good.  I feel like I've been doing dishes for two days straight...which I have.

Apple crisp and ice cream for dessert, too.

No cooking tomorrow!!!

Bits and Pieces

We've had a busy few weeks...here's some "bits and pieces" of what we've be doing.  

We traveled with our boss to Ulyanovsk, Kazan, Izhevsk and Samara - about 1500 kilometers and five days of travel.  The highway system in many places is not conducive to fast travel so it is common to go under 100 kph (about 58 mph) and even much slower.  The highways in Tartarstan Oblast are much better...that's where Kazan is.  On the last day of this trip we hit an object in the road and punctured our gas tank.  We pulled into a nearby auto repair - which was a blessing because most of our travel was through very rural country - and three guys came out smoking cigarettes to check out the damage.  We survived that experience and went into a kafe for some lunch.  Our boss talked to a couple of guys eating there who turned out to be mechanics in a truck repair shop next door.  They had him pull in the car and they put some goo on the holes and it patched them.  The holes were about 3/8 inch in diameter and the gas just poured out of them.  After a three hour delay while all this happened we were headed on down the road.  Sweet.  Got home exhausted but happy.

Kazan is a beautiful city...we've included a picture of a building there.  Wikipedia gives an explanation...The origin of the name Kazan is uncertain. The most accepted legends derive it from the Bulgar (and also modern Tatar) word qazan, which means 'boiler' or 'cauldron'. One legend claims that the city was named after the river Kazanka, which was named after the son of a Bulgar governor dropped a copper cauldron into it. Other local legends claim that the city was named for the resemblance of the hill on which it sits to an upturned cauldron. 

The attached picture plays on the cauldron theme...the building is a wedding registration palace...in Russia to get married you just go register with the government.  Any wedding ceremony is after the fact.  

The next weekend we headed back to Samara for teacher training...what we call inservice in America.  Lena and Tanya, the wife and daughter of our boss, came with us.  It was wonderful to get to know them better and travel together.  Sherry and Lena went shopping at the mall while we went to teacher training on Saturday.  The mall has Ikea and a bunch of other stores. We went to church Sunday and headed home.  

When a new coordinator is hired by CES a more experienced coordinator is assigned as his mentor.  Zhenya mentor flew into Samara for the teacher training and we got to meet him. 

It is so fantastic to have a boss with a church-owned vehicle who can take us grocery shopping!  We don't have to ride a bus for hours or take a taxi.  It's paradise.  We went to the Happy Mall where we shopped at a new-to-us store for groceries and then bought some better ping pong paddles because our boss was not satisfied with the less expensive ones we had previously purchased!  Everyone at institute is a way better ping pong player than we are.  We also went to Castorama which is the Russian version of Home Depot.  Very cool to walk around.  Castorama is a French home improvement retailer.

Zhenya also took me shopping for games for Game Night which we are starting up next week at the Activity Center...we'll be open Friday from 18:00 to 21:00 for students to drop in and play games or hang out.  We bought Ticket to Ride and Connect Four and Rummikub to add to our collection.  Sherry also put up a puzzle and we're putting that together.  Zhenya bought a projector for institute at a place called ULMART...it's a store you walk into and all that is there are computers.  You sit down at one, find what you want, print out a ticket and take it to the cashier and pay for it.  Then you sit and wait for your name to be called and go up to a counter and they bring out what you bought...pretty cool.  Then you take it to a final counter and they take it out of the box and make sure it works.

Last night we attended a circus in Saratov.  They have a building here that is just for circuses...and it's the oldest circus building in Russia.  The circus was cool...the clowns were the best!  A few months ago we had mentioned to the Markelovs that we'd love to go to the circus sometime...so they told us when the performance was and we got the tickets. They didn't allow pictures during the performance but here are some outside and before. Afterwards they took us to a shashlik kafe for chicken and pork...pretty good night.

This week we have FHE, Youth and YSA Fireside tomorrow with taco soup and homemade tortilla chips...and Tabasco sauce and jalapenos!  That ought to get their attention...Russians that we know don't really do "spicy"., institute Wednesday with potato soup and toasted bread, Sherry puts butter with spices it in on the bread and toasts it in the oven...sorta like really big croutons.  The students love it!. Thursday is district council and Friday our first game night.  Next Sunday I get to teach my first lesson as Elders Quorum President.  That ought to be fun!  

We've found some very cool games to play for FHE.  There is a cool website for youth ministers with some great games...www.thesource4ym.com/games/.  We played a new one for FHE this week...we had twenty-three in attendance and they ate two fresh apple cakes Sherry made.  

Borscht

So - today we made borscht from start to finish...and we have pictures!  We started with a beef roast with a bone in it and a pork roast with a bone in it.  We boiled them in salted water for two hours and them cleaned all the meat off the bones...and included the bone marrow which our cook instructor (Lena Markelov) insisted we add for the delicious flavor.  We chopped up onions and cabbage and grated some carrots and a large beet.  We also cut up a few potatoes and cooked them in the meat broth.  After they were cooked we mashed them a little. Then the onions and cabbage and beets and carrots were cooked in a little oil and a couple tablespoons of vinegar was added to maintain the red color.  Mix it all together and simmer a few hours and voila, you have borscht.  There is a certain sequence everything happens in that I'm not too sure of...I think it's a Russian secret.  Everyone here has their own borscht recipe and this batch is different from the last batch we made with her.  I've included a couple of pictures of our helpers...Tonya, the shopper and Lena, the cook.  We're having borscht for institute Wednesday night.  Yes, of course we will make some for you when we visit...and if I eat it EVERYBODY eats it!

Institute Opening Social

Saturday we had our institute opening social in Saratov.  The neatest thing for us was that it was completely planned and carried out by the institute council...all we did was provide the food.  The students even cleaned up which was awesome!

The theme was the Book of Mormon since that is what we are studying this year.  The students went on a trek like Lehi and his family...they had to answer various questions to proceed.  There are pictures of us gathering,  Sherry with one of our daughters, the "daughters of Ishmael" and, of course, the food.  It's all about the food.  It was a really fun evening with about thirty in attendance.

Basketball

I found a new game online the other day...basketball!  You get two teams and each team member gets a chair.  They can set the chair anywhere they want on the basketball court/room/whatever.  Once they set the chair where they want it they sit in it and then they can't move the chair.  So - seated basketball!  We started with four players per team and then five.  When we first started we said they could stand on their chairs if they wanted...that got just a little too aggressive!  In fact, two of them were wrestling for the ball near the basket and made a little "ding" in the drywall!  Oops!  Of course, we know how to fix that!  Except we don't have any drywall mud or drywall tools or touch up paint...we're working on them!

Saratov Institute

We had sixteen students at institute tonight!  Sherry made soup and crackers which we ate from 17:30 - 18:30 and then class until 20:00 and ice cream afterwards.  It kinda looks like a real institute doesn't it!?  Off to Samara this weekend to get Zhenya's new car and visit the Samara Institute Council...then next week we have our Saratov opening social.  The most coolest thing is next week Zhenya is taking us to the store to shop for institute food!!!  In his new car!!! No more buses!!!

Life is good

Youth Conference

Here's a few pictures from youth conference.  The first is a picture of me thinking about doing something...the second is Mom actually doing something!  Nothing has changed, has it?!  As they say here - нормальный (normalee)!

There is a picture of the Roller Hall - the skating rink that we used for many of our activities...none of which were skating.  The facility covered the skating floor with carpeting and we held our dances and service projects there.

Another picture is of us with Sister Nechiporova one of the session directors.  She is also the Eastern Europe Area Public Affairs Director and a Phd.  Nice lady.  Her husband is the EEA Welfare Director and was mission president in Rostov Mission until last year.

Final two pictures are of the performers at our variety show and a group picture of all the conference attendees.

We've been home for a few days and are starting to recover...we were pretty exhausted when we got home.  My knee was very sore...I had surgery on it in 1973 and if I do stupid things it hurts and I have to rest it.  The combination of traveling and lugging our suitcases for miles and up and down at least a bazillion stairs in the Moscow Metro and then being a group counselor and then a week at youth conference running around and also throw in some swing dancing...my knee needs a break. It's getting better ever day.

Went grocery shopping today and Sherry is in the kitchen making three batches of brownies for institute tonight and zone conference tomorrow.  Normalee!