Institute and a Visit to Tsarskoye Selo

It has been almost two weeks since we posted on here and so much has happened I am not sure exactly what to put in. Every Monday we have a district meeting with our young elders and sisters. On July 6th they asked to have it at our home. It was trasfer time and we were losing two sisters and one elder of the six that meet with us. So after the meeting we had a meal together, whith the missionaries doing the cooking and assembling. It was a Ukrainian main meal of rice and meat and had way to much oil in it, but was ok. One of our six is from the Ukraine and is one of the Branch Presidents of a small branch here.

We are having Family Home Evening every Monday now at our institute. It is for those who are not attending another FHE with their own family or with another group. The first night there were six of us in attendance. Last night there were 14 so we are seeing some progress. When school starts up again in September we expect the numbers to grow a lot. Last night there were 4 non-members and one of them has his baptismal date set so it has been fun for us to be a small part of encouraging him.

I still have to pinch myself almost daily. We are in St. Petersburg, Russia. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever picture us in this city surrounded by elegant palaces, monumental cathedrals, and historic sites. This week we were showing the sights to a missionary couple who had come to town to do their visa renewal and then stayed around to attend their zone conference. That gave them a few days to see the city. We traveled and spent a day in Tsarskoye Selo (formerly Pushkin) at the place of Catherine. About a fourth of the front of the castle has been converted into a museum and includes the famous "amber" room.

The best part of the past two weeks has be our converting the chapel of our former branch into a youth center. This ground floor part of a 5 story building has a chapel, six classrooms, and a lavatory. The Branch moved in there three years ago and asked to be allowed to stay for three months and possibly six. When we got here the Area Presidency decided the building needed to be used for the youth as they feel the youth are the future of the Church in Russia. So the branch moved elsewhere and we have been sort of remodeling. Half of the chapel is now a classroom where our institute classes will be held. The other half is a social center. We have a ping pong table, table for chess, table for a puzzle, desk for studying, keyboard for piano practice, two couches for lounging, stero system for music, big portable tv for video's, and a foos ball for now. Prior to this time the institute had two classes a week and during the summer only one class. Starting yesterday the open hours will be 4-9 pm, M-F of every week. There will be home evening on Monday and then classes on the other 4 nights. Sister Clements will teach piano any day on demand, we have three keyboards. We will also have an English class on Book of Mormon that I will teach. We have two of the classrooms set up as places for individual study (most of our students are in university) and two set up for offices for us and for our coordinator. He takes care of seminaries and institutes for the whole mission which includes the Baltic States and we are in charge of what happens in our building. We were excited yesterday to have one girl come in who wants to improve her conversational English and another young man who wanted to come in and practice his piano, this from just announcing the hours. It is going to become a great refuge for all youth from the world of Russia. It will also be a place for the missionaries to be able to come to teach their investigators. So now we look forward to going to open the building each day and mingling with the youth.

Pinching myself again, it is all so amazing. And, by the way, we are still averaging over five miles a day in walking.