It got cold

For this past week the temperature has gotten quite low and we are really feeling St. Petersburg weather. Not cold like Rexburg, but with the wind and the humidity, it is feeling cold. And we leave home at 3:40 in the almost dark to walk to the institute. The cold is because the sky has cleared some and we are able to actually see a little bit of sunset. So our missionary day begins in almost dark and it is really dark when we come home. But the streets are well lit and even some of them have decorations across them. They don't celebrate Christmas as we do. They have only been able to recognize Christianity for not quite twenty years now. So the Christmas traditions we are used to are not here. No music on the radio, which some of you would be cheering about. But we took some Christmas music on our computer so we have it. We are having a white elephant gift exchange at our zone conference on December 28, and we will be having dinner with the mission president and the other couples on December 25th. The big holiday here is January 7th, which is the official New Years date.

Just so you have an idea what the cold is like: This morning it took me a good five minutes to go from white shirt and suit pants to entering the cold weather. I am wearing themals now as my first defense. Then I put on my shoes, which have an insert to guard against cold. Next comes a heavy scarf around my neck, then my hat with ear flaps to pull down. Then comes my long coat with a heavy lining. This zips up to my chin and is quite comfy. Then I have to adjust the bus money in my coat pocket so I can find it easy when we get on the bus. Then on go my heavy gloves. Last I adjust my hood over all the top to break the wind. Diane is doing the same thing and by the time we are ready to go it is pretty hard to see who is there. So we set off.

We catch the bus in front of our apartment. I wave my hand, the bus stops and we get on. Diane goes to find us a seat and I turn and pay the driver. Then I turn, spot her and go sit down. A block later I began talking to her, but she had her hood up and didn't hear me. I commented a couple of times and decided she really couldn't hear as the bus was quite noisy. When we near or stop, I get up and walked to the front of the bus, and let the driver know we want to get off. When he stopped, I turned and Diane was not moving. Then I glanced back and saw that she had been sitting at the back of the bus and not where I was sitting. So I had spent 20 minutes talking to the wrong lady! I am sure she was really glad to get rid of the guy who had been sitting by her and pestering her talking in this foreign language. We had quite the laugh as we moved on to catch our trolley to "get us to the church on time".

We don't have quite all our 'gear' on in this picture but you get the idea, except that with her hood on instead of that hat Diane was not as recognizable.