First Post!!

We made it to Russia and are doing great! Here's an update:

At last we have internet service in our home office. We have been having to travel to the mission office to do it, which takes an hour each way. We have also had limited access time there.

We have not seen the sun for two weeks. It gets light around 9:00 and dark at 3:00. They say that in summer it is just the reverse so we will have to close the blinds to sleep. I'll let you know of that when the time comes. I am starting to understand why the alcoholism rate in Russia is so astonishing. It has been overcast all of the time. Two storms, which melted off soon.

The people here are very interesting. There are many tall, blonde, thin people. Andrei Kirelenko would look very typical here. All of the women wear tight pants and tall, spike heel boots, and go by the name of Natasha. Everyone here walks a lot because that is necessary to get around. The women in the spike boots can really cover a lot of ground. We are getting our fair share of exercise too. I'm glad that we did all of that walking before our mission now.

We know how to catch one bus line, ride the metro, and shop for groceries.

Our supervisors, the Irelands, were here last week to go over our proceedures. They are from a little farming community is Southwestern South Dakota. Joe Cannon has been to there home many times, because that is where the branch resides. We can now start to meet with people and review grant applications. We will meet with the mission presidency on Thursday evening at 6:00.

We have now attended church twice and several mission meetings. The missionaries are great to interpret for us. There are several native speaking missionaries that have excellent english skills. There are also a lot of returned missionaries here in St. Petersburg. Most of them have excellent english skills as well. In a church setting we are able to communicate 0K.

The price of food is about double what it would be at home. We spend about $200 per week for groceries. Eating in restaurants, of which there are many in our neighborhood in the heart of St. Petersburg, is totally off the budget. A hamburger and fries costs $10. Potatoes are good and cheap. I like to nuke them and fry up an egg to go with it. I found a source for picante suace, so happiness reigns here. They also have what is called an Armenian tortilla. It's about 2 feet by 4 feet. We cut them up into useable sizes with a pair of scissors. Of course they are made from wheat, so I'll have to wait to get a good corn tortilla. We were just happy to find a store with peanut butter. Transportation is much cheaper than operating vehicles at home. All of the walking should make us live to be a hundred if we don't get run over. Our needs are small. For Christmas I will get a scarf for Pat and she will buy me a hat. These are bonefide needs in this part of the world.

This city, at least the part where we live, is phenomenal. The original city was built by Peter the Great. The palace of Catherine the Great, his grandaughter, is right across the street from where we live. I have never seen so many huge buildings with ornate facades, and statues on them. Most of the buildings are between 5 and 7 stories. The main level is commercial and the other levels are apartments. I have not seen any single family dwellings yet, except for Catherines Palace. There are around 5 million people in St. Petersburg, most of them are trying to get on the metro at the same time as us. We will try to get some pictures loaded up to send out. This area is crisscrossed with canals that tie from one point on the river to another. Lots of beautiful parks, monuments, and cathedrals as well. I have really never seen anything like it before and in such a huge abundance.

The members of the church seem to be very well educated. They are friendly. Each member is a valued asset, there have been around 60 convert baptisms this year. Last Sunday was the primary program. There were only 6 children in the program. They were beautiful. The church owns the building which houses the office and the mission home. There is large chapel and recreation hall, classrooms, and offices as well. It would be of a similar footage to the Wapello building. It uses up 3 floors. All is very new and modern.

The missionary situation here is getting very difficult. There were 136 missionaries here a year ago. There were 68 when we arrived. Since then 6 have completed their missions and returned home, and 3 who were serving local missions have now been called away to full time service elsewhere in Russia. I think that this conversation about us being available to serve in another country boils down to desperation here. They will close three more apartments this week. There are several native missionaries here. The visa trip is to Estonia. It takes a long day over and back. They take a van full, go to a parking lot there, give their money and papers to a man, putter around town for 6 to 8 hours, meet him back at the parking lot for their new docs, and drive home. It takes about 18 hours.

We are finally getting over the 10 hour jet lag. We have had to completely reverse our day. All of the loafing has given me plenty of time to read. I have finished 1000 pages of War and Peace, which is about 1500 pages.

I expect to be able to start to function now that we can commucicate some. So we will now see what kind of trouble we can get into.

We pray for each of you and carry you with us in our hearts.

Love,

Tom and Pat