CES Conference

Here's a couple of pictures from our Turkey trip...one of some old ruins in front of some other old ruins...another of us as we were in the conference room and the obligatory picture with the General Authority...Elder and Sister Bennett.  He is the first counselor in the Eastern European Area Presidency and was the Samara Mission President before the Sartoris.  He is a retired orthodontist from Hollywood. 

We took a picture of a bobsled at the Moscow airport and one of the Mediterranean Sea looking slightly less lovely than it did in the pictures Jared took while on his mission in Italy!

This is the last CES Senior Couple conference in Turkey...in the future the couples will be divided up into faculties based on similar sized programs and meet via Skype.

Guns, More Guns and Bows and Arrows, The Circus, Random Stuff & Mexican Food

We visited the Kalashnikov Museum while in Izhevsk...Izhevsk is the city where all the firearms are manufactured and has been for a hundred years.  In World War Two they produced over 12,000 rifles a day.

I have attached pictures of manly men shooting bows and arrows and handguns.  If the picture of the hog was a real hog Zhenya would have killed him and we would be having shashlik for dinner.   

The first AK-47 was produced in 1947.  Kalashnikov was self-taught and designed many weapons during his lengthy career. He recently died at age 94.

In an effort to save money from our budget we have stayed in less fancy lodging on this last trip.  The first two nights we stayed at the circus.  Really.  Many towns have a permanent circus building and in Izhevsk we stayed in the circus building...they have about twenty rooms they rent.  We were asked if we were acrobats - pretty hard to tell just by looking at us! The next night we stayed in a place named KOMFORT.  A little place with only five rooms just a block from the branch building.  I have attached some pictures of the room and furnishings...I think we may have been in the honeymoon suite.  Again, easy to mistake us for newlyweds.

Here are two more pictures...one of the baptismal font in one of the branches. Many of the buildings have similar fonts since they are leased buildings.  We assume they move the ping pong table and the ladders on the wall before the baptism.  Probably.

The picture of the three trees was an attempt to capture the incredible beauty of the snow...which we didn't do.  The trees and fields glistened and twinkled like fields of stars. We've never seen snow that sparkled like the snow on this trip.  It was very cold and we suspect that had something to do with it.  There were forests of birches that sparkled like they were festooned with strings of diamonds.  Sparkle is really the only word that does justice to how they look.

The fields looked like that fake sparkly snow Mom used to buy for the Christmas village she put up every year.

So, we stopped at a Mexican place for lunch.  The door was locked so Zhenya called them and the manager came and unlocked the door.  Seems like they forgot to do that when they arrived that morning.  Oops.  We ordered a burrito and fajitas and chicken wings and shashlik.  I've attached a picture of my burrito...I've never seen a burrito that looked like this one!  It was really tasty.  We ordered drinks and they said they didn't have any soda but we could go next door to the grocery store (they are called magazines in Russia) so we got our sodas there. Here's a picture of Zhenya with something he ordered...tasted good but we have never seen them before, either.

I enjoyed the shashlik but it was pretty fatty so Sherry made me eat most of it.  Dang.

Traveling & More Traveling

Feb 5--

 We are off again tomorrow...2500 kilometers in six days!  Probably thirty hours in the car with our long-suffering coordinator.  It ought to be fun...dinner tomorrow night with the mission president and wife.  Bought 10 kilos of cookies today for 2000 rubles...we will be meeting with students and teachers along the way. Cookies and tea and juice.

This will probably be our last trip for a while.

Feb 9--

Made it to Kazan!  Beautiful city...snowy, too.  Having another CES Devotional...the talk by Elder Callister is assume.  

Zhenya, our boss, took us to a wholesale renok before we left and we bought cookies - like 15 kilos of cookies - for our trip and to use at home.  That's a lot of cookies and they are really good.  However, we are getting a LITTLE tired of cookies.  I mean, if they are in the car and you're driving down the road you sorta have to eat a few, right?

Last night we stayed in a circus.  Really.  The circus rents rooms.  Tonight we are staying in a five room hotel called KOMFORT. Our boss is being frugal since we are spending the Lord's money.

Feb 10--

We're in Ulyanovsk today.  One active YSA - she is a returned missionary and the relief society president...and she works doing sound and lights in a couple of dance places here.  Fun.

We had lunch in an Irish Pub...you know how Mom gets when she see a leprechaun.  Noisy places but we ate our fill of chicken wings and fries and delicious authentic Irish food like that.  Fries are made from potatoes and potatoes are Irish, right?

We should get home tonight about 23:00.  My job is to get Zhenya to keep drinking his Coke and listening to MY playlist on the iPod instead of mom's so he can stay awake.  He did buy his first Mountain Dew today...we are making progress with his training...;-)!  He even said we would eat in the car while driving tonight - which is a first.  He always wants to stop and eat and then keep driving.  

Like that's a good idea.

He has much to learn.  It would be so cool to drive across America with him...hot chocolate at Starbucks every morning, cup holders (our car has no cup holders), 44 ouncers with shaved ice (our drinks never have ice) and other All-American delights. 

We made it home to Saratov at 23:00.  Nine hours in the car plus a few hours with the two students in Ulyanovsk.  Cold snowy drive home.  Really glad to sleep in our own bed tonight.