A Russian Rainy Thanksgiving

We were told that the rainy season here is April and May, but that's not been our experience. It has rained almost every day for two months now. It doesn't both us much as we have umbrellas and it is almost fun to walk in it. Only one day did we have beautiful, big, fluffy snowflakes for a couple of hours. Other than that day it has been in the 40's. So we are watching the cold temps and snow in Rexburg and wondering what is going on.

Our mission president is from the Ukraine and neither there nor here in Russia do they celebrate Thanksgiving, of course, but he tried to accomodate the American missionaries. He told us we could celebrate the day with our district missionaries only. (It's handy that it falls on P Day.) The 4 districts which have senior couples in them surely had an advantage. Dinner would be at our place, of course. There are a total of 10 of us in our district right now but the zone leaders were going to be out of town visiting a set of elders who are all alone in a distant city. Now 8 people may not sound like a big deal but our apartment has a table to seat 4 and our kitchen is tiny with very little in the way of pots and pans, dinnerware, etc. to fix and serve such a meal. And then there was the problem of finding a turkey. For some reason they don't seem to have them here. The elders found one for us. It weighed a whole 8 pounds! We later went shopping at the same store and found some turkey breasts to supplement.
About 8:30 Thanksgiving morning we got a call from the zone leaders saying they were back in town because of a mix up with their train tickets and could they come to dinner? Of course! but now we had to get a little more creative with the seating arrangements.

Diane did a yoeman job of putting the meal together. We had most of the traditional stuff: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, stuffing (one of the elder's mom had sent him a package which included Stove Top Stuffing), rolls, fruit salad, and warm apple pudding. We got everyone seated with some living room manuevering. Everyone got filled and a little more. Sister Clements kept saying, "pass things around again." They ate up everything, and I mean everything. She said she had never 'come out even' on a meal before. Two of the elders insisted on helping with the dishes but first they started picking that tiny turkey carcass right down to bare bones. There was absolutely nothing left of it. And I know they had already eaten their fill.

During the meal we had each one tell one thing they were thankful for and what their family Thanksgiving traditions were. We have only one elder and one sister who are not American in our district right now, so this was all new to them. The church is growing slowly here but they are adapting, and I'm sure they took mental notes of things they want to do in their families. Several members have told us how greatly the Americans have influenced them with our customs and traditions.
After the meal was cleared away most of them played Phase 10 for a couple of hours. They stayed until it was time for them to go home and change so they could go back to work. P Day ends at 6:00 p.m.

Even though we hated being away from our family, this was a Thanksgiving we will always remember. And we did get a Skype call from them the next morning, which was Thanksgiving evening in America. So we got to share with them also. We loved that they were all together even without us. How thankful we are for all our blessings, and our great land of American is high on that list.

It's a party!

Boy, are we learning Russian culture. When we first got here our mission president asked us to work on getting all the young adults married. Just like that, no ideas or comments, just try to get them all married in the temple. As we have thought about it over the months, and watch them meet and find each other we have been very puzzled. It looks like it is pretty haphazard in how they tell each other that they are interested and then all of a sudden they are a couple. There is no 'dating' involved until they have already made a commitment. So we decided to try something radical. We decided to throw a party for the young adults, a Halloween party. We had no idea how complicated that could be out here.

First of all, when we proposed having a party, our student council looked at us with th0se blank faces that we have come to interpret, "What in the world are they talking about." After much discussion we got them to agree to try "our party" which would consist of the youth coming together at the institute to play games, visit with each other, and eat. Sounds pretty simple. Come to find out they don't do that. First they don't come together to just visit, that seems to be unreal to them. Second, they don't just come together, unless there is a program planned. Just to 'hang out' seemed very foreign to them. The eating part they understood.

Next came getting the word out. It was announced at all the branches but that is like bouncing a ball against a wall. Either they don't listen, or they don't hear, or more importantly, they don't understand. So we started a word-of-mouth campaign. That was much more successful. A few actually put it on their Facebook page, hooray for modern technology, and it was announced and explained at our institute classes.


The night of the party came, Halloween, and the place was filled with young people having fun. Can you believe that? They came and were having fun even though there was no organized plan for them to follow. There were a few who stood around and wanted to know when the program was going to start, but they soon joined in. Our Chinese members brought some friends, there was an American group of English teachers on holiday from Lithuania who came (most of them were members and heard about it from our own English teachers). There were some enthusiastic investigators who the elders and sisters brought. And there was a nice crowd of our students.

From 6:00 on the ping pong table and the foos ball were in constant use. We had Twister going and some board games. There were people at the puzzle table all night. The couches had groups visiting. "Do You Love Your Neighbor" always is a very popular group game. One of the elders had made a pinata in the shape of a pumpkin. After it was hit several times the top separated from the body of it so I had a sister pitch it to me and I batted it quite successfully with the candy flying all over the room. And we had a video going staring Bill Murray (with voice-over translation) that people drifted in and out of. The kids hadn't bought nearly enough food. (Nobody ever makes and brings food.) I gave the elders some more money and sent them to the closest little market where they bought out all their cookies. Anyway, it seemed to go over well, and we even had a few cookies left over at the end.


So we taught them how to have a successful "party." Who would have thought something so innovative would come out of Rexburg. Our student council president and our district young adult leader were so excited about the night that they both insisted that we plan a party each month. Our young adult leader even asked if the youth in America have parties like this. It would be like any Young Men and Woman combined activity. They were amazed that everyone was having a great time.