I know you all recognize this sign even if it says Макдоналдс in Russian instead of McDonald's. I just want you to know that a Big Mac taste the same halfway around the world. It is a sad state in life when you look forward to eating at Макдоналдс or McDonald's.

We were in the north part of the city about five miles from our apartment and were riding a tram-vi which is a train that is run by electricity and goes down the middle of the road. You have to watch out each side because the numbers don't correspond to each other, so I was looking out one side Tom on the other, we were looking for number 4 I saw number 13 so I thought we had a ways to go but Tom spotted it on his side and said "Let's get off" so I stood up to get off, he stepped out and the doors closed on him and the trolley took off with me still inside. I was a little worried; I had no money, had no idea what our telephone number or address was, and am not even sure I could have found it if I knew the address and I had no keys to get in if I did find it. About a quarter mile later the trolley came to another stop and I started walking back and Tom was walking to meet me. We realized that the 10 minutes separation was our longest for the past six weeks. Tom's gift to me for my birthday was some rubles, subway tokens, a list of telephone numbers and addresses. Later we got an extra set of apartment keys from the mission office. I carry all of it in my identification pouch which is always around my neck.

Tom's navigational skills are improving, we only get lost a few times a day now. The last two weeks we have been looking up old projects sites (mostly orphanages and hospitals) to see if we are interested in revisiting them. We don't go in because we have no way to communicate with them and one time when we opened a door to look inside the cleaning lady started speaking to us very sternly in Russian so we got out of there very quickly. Almost all buildings have guards. We do take lots of pictures, I am just waiting for the day when a policeman or one of the guards comes up and asks me why I am taking pictures of these places.

We had transfers this past week and they transferred all the Elders in our District (except Elder Arave of course he is stuck with Sister Arave as a companion, FOREVER). We were an international district: Elder Smirnov from Russia, Elder Wichtermann from Switzerland, Elder Carter from California, Elder Asbury from Utah, and of course the Arave's from Wapello. We were also a multi-lingual district, Russian, German, English, & Spanish. You should have heard us sing in all those languages. We came close to competing with the Tabernacle Choir. They were a fun group to be with. We are going to miss them, not only were they a great help to us in getting adjusted to St. Petersburg, they were very good translators and excellent cooks. They made us a couple of delicious Russian meal at our District meetings.

This is the outside of the building and a little history.


In 1891, the prominent choreographer Marius Petipa commissioned Peter Tchaikovsky to write the music for The Nutcracker Ballet. Petipa developed the scenario of this ballet, but when he fell ill, it was left to Lev Ivanov to finish the choreography. In 1892, the first showing of the Nutcracker took place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St-Petersburg Russia, home of the Kirov Ballet.

This is one of three balcony box seats
and the balcony seats ran between them.

This is the ceiling.

The scenery was painted so vividly!

Last week we were able to go to the St. Petersburg Nutcracker Ballet. It was so marvelous, from the building, outside and inside, to the scenery and the performance. All of it was breath taking. It cost 300 rubles a ticket, and is sold out every night it is here. Only Russians are supposed to be able to buy tickets but one of the Branch Presidents who works in tourism was able to get us some tickets.

This little lady living at the rest home was so cute.
When I took her picture, she kissed my hand.

Saturday afternoon we went to a baptism for a young man from China who is here studying the Russian language. There is a whole group of youth from China living in the same apartment but they didn't know each other until they came here. Jiang Wei was the second to get baptized since coming here. There were 21 Chinese at his baptism. One of the talks was given by a young lady in Russian and was translated into English by a missionary from Switzerland whose native language is German and was then translated into Chinese by the first Chinese fellow who joined the church. I would call that one international meeting.

I spoke to soon it is cold now, 9 degrees F. but to the Russians it is -13 C. So that means cold to me in any language. Saturday, Jan. 3 was the busiest day we have had since we have been here. We went to a Christmas Program put on by Ovtovo Branch at a Rest home clear on the very outskirt of St. Petersburg.

There are 93 rivers and creeks,20 canals and more than 100 lakes in Saint Petersburg. It is sometimes called "Northern Venice", Today the city stands on 42 islands. St. Petersburg was founded in the mouth of the Neva River where it spills into the Gulf of Finland. There are 539 bridges, 342 are in the city itself. There are 22 drawbridges, and eight over the Neva River(one of the bridges is the picture on our blog with the frozen water). Here is a picture of a frozen canal with the building lined streets.

We have done a lot of walking around the city and exploring the different communities. It is amazing all the buildings and statues. When they were first building Saint Petersburg there was a law that all the houses had to be be built along the streets, according to plan and not at random and the law prohibited any spacing between buildings.

Happy New 2009!!!! Well a new year has begun, time to start over on our resolutions. It isn't as cold as I thought it would be, cold but not freezing, not yet, it might get colder later in January. We never see the sun, it is always overcast. I am always lost, every time I walk out of our gate, I am lost. I can never remember which way is North, South, East or West. Tom says it is because we never see the sun. I go out and turn the wrong way every time. I am worried if Tom ever leaves me I will be walking around trying to find my way home forever. But believe me I would ask for directions, probably wouldn't understand them but I would still ask.