The Temple and a Cultural Night

WoW! Sounds like you had a crazy week! I have to say I really am sad that Sparkle Josh has finished his run... and man was it a good run. Has somebody told Katie yet, I think she could take this hard... I'm a little bummed I won't be able to take it out for one more cruise but I'm sure that Honda is waiting to head back down to utah soon. Yea for old cars! The tea party looked amazing!!!! You are all wonderful! That sounds like a lot of fun and looked delicious. Thanks for the tips on how to sleep on a train. We are very lucky as sisters to have the privilege of a whole coupe so not to worry, I don't have to sit by crazy people all night, and we have a bed! I also found out that we will get to do this lovely little trip to Samara and back, one more time on Friday-Saturday and then on Monday! Yea for not living where your
mission president lives. Ali your new baby is absolutely adorable. I'm so happy that you got another girl! Good luck with your kids, you are a fabulous mom! Well this week was really good. The Visa trip went very smoothly and except for the lack of sleep, the loud and overpacked Moscow airport (as usual) and the lady who loves to say 1,1,1,1,2,4,1,1 over and over again I would call it a success! I am now officially legal to be in Russia three more months. It is seeming really really crazy that I only have one more of those left! WHAT! Well I think the big news and most exciting part of this week's email is the TEMPLE DEDICATION! Huzzah! And yes, we were allowed to watch it and we even got to watch the Spectaular satruday night that they
always do before the dedicate a temple. So the dedication was amazing and it is such a blessing that now there is a temple so close to RUSSIA! (Just think, it means the next temple they announce could be IN Russia). The prophet came to dedicate the temple and it was definitely a wonderful experience. it is so powerful every time the
prophet gets up to speak. The spirit and power he has is so strong and I just feed off of his testimony and willingness to serve. It was so neat to be there with my Russian brothers and sisters and see their testimonies adn willingness to serve as well. I loved being able to be in the temple! It is a blessing and has a special spirit there. The Kiev temple is incredibly beautiful (you should look at pictures on
the internet). We had memorized "I love to see the temple" in Russian and so have been singing that all week. It was sad to leave the chapel when the dedication was over because I really felt like I was leaving the temple. But I know "I;m going back someday". The trip to Samara was a lot of fun and it was great to see some other
sisters. IN Penza we are the only sisters and so we get HUNGRY for sisters. We got to meet the new sister in our mission, sister Linyova and she is really really cute. We also got to see Sister Loboda and I saw SIster Tedrow on our visa trip., It was great to be able to talk to them all and I had a great time with Sister Tedrow "cathcing up". Can you believe we haven't seen each other for 6 months? AH!
So our investigaotr did get baptized on satuday and it was a great experience. We really enjoyed being able to see her enter into that covenant with her Heavenly Father. Sister Jackson and I did a musical number at her service and it went well. Sister Jackson has a beautiful voice and so she sang and I played. We were lucky to have a lot of members there and have their support. Our investigator felt the Spirit
really strong and had a great experience knowing that the ward loves her and knowing that she had entered into a covenant with her Heavenly Father and was now a member of our church. Baptism is such a neat experience! Then right after the service was the Cultural Spectacular for the temple and it was also great. We loved being able to see
people we knew in the program like Elder Kashapov, Sister Horenko,Sister Walker( an MTC roommate) and some youth from our mission. It was a beautiful program and the dancing and singing was of course amazing. It was overall a fantastic night. Aren;t we lucky! One funny story-- Wednesday night we were heading to the train station
to get on our train to head back to Penza when a HUGE rain storm hit. And I mean huge. I haven't seen one of those in my life. People getting on the bus were DRENCHED head to foot and just dripping water. Luckily we were on the bus when all of the chaos started and it ended quickly but the amount of water dumped in those few minutes was CRAZY! The road were flooded! We saw cars just stuck in the road with rivers passing them. We got out of the bus and needed to cross the road but
there was no way to do it without being in the water up to our calves. So we watched people try to manuever through the rivers for awhile and decided that the best option was to... just take off our shoes and jump right in. So with shoes in hand we headed across the river and made it to the other side of the street with no hard done. Thankfully we had a towel, dried off our feet and headed to the train station
where we got on the train to Penza and arrived safely at home THursday morning. so yes, I walked through Russian streets barefoot and I'm proud of it. I also need to report (for anyone who served in this mission) that Elder Gersimenko is now in our district here in PENZA! SHOCK! After having been the Assistant to the President for what seems an eternity he had made his way to us. There you have it, the news is
out. Well I hope you all have a good week and everything goes well with the
"schoolers". Good luck with classes, moving in, meeting friends etc. I love you all!
Thanks Jill for the email-- it made my day! And you are crazy-- 50? Really? good luck and you better magnify that new calling. That sounds like a winner.
Well love and kisses. The Church is true! Sister Morris