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.