Under Lock and Key

At each Zone Conference Sister Podvodova asks the misionaries to tell of a miracle that happened to them during the past transfer (a 6 week period). Well, on Saturday we saw the one that the sisters in our district will surely tell about (for a long time to come). It concerns a lock and a key. Let me tell you about it.

On Friday afternoon we got a call from Sister Barlow (a cute blond from California) and Sister Voutekovich (a beauty from the far eastern side of Russia). They wanted to know if we had some pliers and how soon we would be coming over to the institute building. They were there to teach an investigator and their key had broken off in the lock. They said there was a tiny piece still sticking out but they couldn't get hold of it. We went over with pliers and a screwdriver thinking it was going to be an easy fix. Not so. First, you have to understand that this is a very formidable 10 foot tall, steel door with two locks. It is not an outside door but opens off a rather dark hallway where there are stairs going up to the other floors. No windows could be reached without a ladder even if we wanted to break in.

This is a picture of the institute building. There are two very distinct styles of buildings in the downtown area -- those built before the revolution mostly in the Baroque or neo-classical styles,

and those built in the Stalin or 'Commie' era, which are drab, plain and austere. This is one of the latter styles but quite a nice looking one. Our Institute is through the arched doorway and on the first floor.

We tried the pliers and the piece of key barely sticking out promptly crumbled. The sisters said their key just 'crumbled' when they went to turn it. They didn't force it. We worked at it for some time with no progress. The next step was to call Sister Efimova who works for the church and is in charge of all the real estate rentals. She happened to be in the area and was there in just a few minutes. She had some tools and tried the whole process again. Finally she called the landlord of the building. He was not happy and there was much loud conversation over who was responsible to pay the 'master' that he would have to get to come over. She said it was his fault for giving us bad keys. He, of course, said it was our fault and the church would have to pay. There does not seem to be locksmiths that you could get to come drill it out. No, he would have to call the maker of the lock. He called back after a few minutes and said he could not get hold of the 'master' and didn't know when he would be able to get him over there. We would just have to wait for his call. (Whatever did we do before cell phones???) So we left a note on the door for anyone who might come and went home.

The next day, Saturday, was our P Day and Lou and I went on an excursion to yet another cathedral and cemeteries of St. Petersburg notables.

These are the tombstones of Dostoyevsky and Tchaikovsky that we saw that day. Tchaikovsky's has his face sculptured on it and angels watching over him.

We had walked a long way and were beat when we got home. We had just gotten in the door of our apartment when we got another call from the Sisters. They wanted us to come over to the institute right then because they had a "surprise" for us. Oh, how my feet protested! And I grumbled that "Couldn’t they just tell us that the door is open now?" But, heck, what's another mile-and-a-half? That's nothing, so off we went. And when we got there, sure enough, they were standing by the inside door to the institute, but it was OPEN and they were all smiles. The surprise was not that the door was open but that they had opened it themselves! They said they felt so badly about it when they got home and they thought a lot about it and they found several girl-type tools in their apartment – crochet hook, a long, thin hair pick (used for pulling hair through a cap when coloring), tweezers, nail clippers and a small flashlight. Then they prayed that they would be able to get the broken key out. So they came over with their arsenal of lock picks and successfully removed the tiny piece of key that was left in the lock! It was amazing! The lock was not damaged and we were back in business.

Sister Barlow and Sister Voutekovich, the lock pickers!

It was surely one of those tender mercies of the Lord that President Bednar likes to talk about.

Curtis' Mission Call

We were up at 5:00 a.m. this morning to 'attend' The Opening of the mission call of our oldest grandson in Cedar Hills, Utah (at 7:00 p.m. their time). How amazing it is to be able to be in Russia and in our son's family room at the same time, via Skype. They can just put Grandma and Grandpa in a box on the table to watch and hear everything going on in the room. Curtis is going to California, Spanish speaking. We are proud to see him be the first in what we hope will be a long line of Clements missionaries.

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.

Visa Renewal

The government here definitely likes to let you know who is in charge. One of the major problems for the Church in having missonaries here is that any visitor has to leave the country every 90 days and get their visa renewed to get back into the country. Just imagine the cost in dollars and time to do this for every missionary every three months. We are close to the border but, of course, many of them have to fly long distances to do this. In the past it often took a couple of weeks, sometimes longer, out of the country to get this done.

Recently, the Church has worked out a system that at least cuts down on the time it takes for the process. After each missionary arrives someone in the mission office applies to the US embassy for a second passport for them. This seems strange since ordinarily you can only have one passport at a time, but this is an exceptional, two-year passport. Then, having two passports, one can be sent to the Russian consulate in the country nearest the missionary 10 days ahead of renewal time. The missionary still has to go to that country but the turn-around time is only a day or two because the paperwork has already been done.

We had our first experience in this process last week. We were driven to Tallin, Estonia, about a 4 hour drive, and there picked up our new visas and came back the same day. Should have been a piece of cake -- but it wasn't. Driving out of Russia was no problem, but getting back in is something else. The cars get so backed up because of the time it takes to process each one at the border that they have you park in a designated parking lot and take a number. Our number at 2:00 in the afternoon was 643. Then we sat there in the hot car for the next 8 hours! Of course, it could have been worse -- it could have been cold! (And will be the next times we go.)

I believe I mentioned when in Lithuania that it seems every European city has its fortress, and Narva, Estonia, was no exception. (This was the border town.) Shown here at two forts exactly opposite each other on the sides of a not-very-large river. One is Russian and the other Estonian, but who knows what countries were in power when they were built! It seems that all their history was just continual warefare.

Friends, Rain and the Hermitage

Lunching with friends has always been one of my favorite things to do, but lunching with a friend from home when you are 10,000 miles away is really special, and yesterday we got to do just that. Our friend Portia Loosli from Ashton, and her daughters, were in St. Petersburg for two days on a cruise. She wrote me weeks ago and said that they were coming and would like to see us. She had picked up my comment on this blog that I couldn't find 'regluar' measuring cups and spoons and said she was bringing me some and anything else I wanted. What an offer! I did have her bring me some piano prelude music because I brought only organ music and there are no organs here so I play only hymns for every meeting. Anyway, we arranged to meet at one of the cathedrals and how good it was to see her. We loved visiting with her and her daughters, Michelle and Jane. It was just so good to talk to folks from home. We sent our love to all our temple shift workers with her. So thank you, Portia, for lunch and the 'goodies' you brought, but most of all for taking the time and effort to see us. I hope anyone else reading this who may be 'cruising' this way would do the same.

When we left them it was raining and we, rather inadvertently, took the long way home and walked for over an hour in the rain. But it was a warm rain and we had umbrellas so we just enjoyed it. It seems so ironic that we have had over a week of rain, just like you are having at home. And we just received an email from the Wades in Belarus and they said the same thing. I'd say this is a pretty wide-spread weather pattern. But we are happy to hear of full reservoirs at home. Haven't heard that for many years.

We recently had our first opportunity to visit the Hermitage, one of the most famous museums in the world for which St. Petersburg is especially known. It is a huge complex of mansions built by Catherine the Great and other of the tsars and houses such a vast collection of art, sculpture and lavish furnishings that it is said if you spent just 30 seconds at each display it would take 11 years to see it all. You certainly don't begin to see it all in one visit. The best-known part of the museum is housed in the baroque style Winter Palace of the tsars, built in 1752. This photo shows only a very small part of the palace but you get the look of it. I have to admit that neither of us are art conisseurs (can't even spell it), but being in the presence of original Rembrandts was a bit awe inspiring. This is where our missionaries do their service hours. Each missionary spends 4 hours a week working here. We are envious but the couples don't get to do it because we don't speak Russian.

Couples Conference in Lithuania

The Europe East area, of which Russia is a part, is the largest mission area in the church. (That should be no surprise considering how large Russia, alone, is.) In addition to all of Russia it includes the fromer USSR states and Armenia and Bulgaria. Last week we attended an area conference for CES couple missionaries, which was held in Lithuania. There were 11 couples there and 3 more couples in Ukraine who were not able to attend because of recent changes in their visa regulations. (Remember that this included only those whose calling is Church Education System or Seminaries and Institutes, as it is also called.) We flew to Lithuania, via Moscow, on turbo prop planes. Almost couldn't believe our eyes. Earlier a couple of our Russian friends had asked us which airline we were going on. When we replied they exchanged knowing smiles and one of them said, "Ah, that's the one we call Russian Roulette!" That was a bit unnerving.

We stayed in a very nice hotel in a quaint, old town which had the obligatory ancient fortress/castle, which you find in most every European city. Our conference was good -- very instructive and uplifting and inspiring. It is really good to rub shoulders with others who are out doing the same sort of thing you are doing. It helps to share experiences.

We arrived back in St. Petersburg around 11:00 pm and were met at the airport by our branch president, who moonlights as a taxi driver. On the way back to our apartment he drove us by this very unique church pictured here, and because we are now right in the middle of White Nights, I was able to take this picture at midnight with no special timing or lighting. This church is very un-Russian. It was built in the Neo-Gothic style for Catherine the Great just as a little, whimsical church where she could stop over on her way from one palace to another.

Yesterday we attended a baptism of a young lady who will be in the branch we attend. She has been taught by several sets of missionaries over several years and finally felt the spirit testify to her of the need for baptism by authority. A baptism here is a wonderful thing. They are rather few and far between in this country. (Our whole mission only had 44 baptisms last year.) The elders and sisters work so hard but find their greatest success in re-activating young members. One of our greatest concerns is keeping especially the young people active. Even many returned missionaries are inactive within a year or so because of the pressures of living in this culture. Hence, the great need for a strong Institute of Religion program. These young adults are where the future of the church lies. We found at the couples conference that our situation here in St. Petersburg was the envy of the other couples because we are just embarking upon opening a real Institute Center, which will be open for a portion of every day to attract the young people there. The only other centers like this are in Armenia and in Moscow (althought there is no couple there at the present time). We are excited about the opportunity ahead of us in setting up this Center and establishing a curriculum that will entice the young single adults to gather there for classes and social interaction. We keep being told that our main objective should be to get the kids to get married (in the temple, of course).

Things are happening

Boy, we have caused a stir around here. It seems the Area Presidency really wants the youth emphasized. So all of a sudden, two weeks ago in our church meeting, which meets at our intitute building on Sundays, the Branch President gets up and announces that the branch is moving to another building on June 14th because this building is to be a youth center. So we will now start having a family home evening on Monday, classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and the building will be open all week long for the youth to come and study, play games, socialize, and talk. This will begin in about two weeks. I thought they might wait until January when a new building is to be finished, but, just like that, they are gone. That means instead of a 15 minute walk to church, it will now be two twenty minute walks and a metro ride, but that is ok, as we now have our own building to decorate and supervise. We have about 70 active youth and hope to get that over a hundred before we leave. We are also going to work with the missionaries to contact all the return missionaries who have gone inactive.

Two weeks ago we started a family home evening for any youth who did not have a regular home evening they were attending. We had two Elders and two youth show up the first night. This past Monday we had two Elders, six youth and us, so it is progressing. One of the six was a non-member. We will miss the next Monday as we will be in Lithuania at our convention but another missionary couple will hold it for us.

I am constantly amazed at the many things there are to see here. Two weeks ago we went up north with the other two couples to the very old city of Vyborg. It was full of history and historic buildings including a fortress that was built to stop any invasion. The top of this place was 240 steps straight up. Sweden built the original town and then it became Finnish and now Russian, since World War II. The next Saturday we are going to Peterhof. It has famous fountains and is a palace. I am sure by the time we leave, there will not be a palace or cathedral we haven't visited. And there are a huge number of them around. The picture below is looking through an old, bombed-out building in Vyborg to the clock tower beyond, which still has a working clock. There was a young man dressed as a monk standing there showing people around and telling the history.

It is facinating to be around these people. To think, when I was in grade school we were being taught to hate the Russians and that they were going to bomb us at any time. Now we look at them with such different eyes and wish somehow we could get them all to listen to the message we have for them. That will get better for us as the language becomes better.