From Russia With Love...

a.k.a. Letters from Sis. Lynes in Russia

Letter #43: From the Mission Field in Russia

Subject: #43
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 20:57:18 +0500
From: Shirley Lynes <gma@jacklynes.com>
To: jlynes@jacklynes.com

Dear Everyone,
Well, another week has come and gone. I don't know where the time goes. It seems like I just wrote to you, and here it is time to do it again! I hope all is going well for everyone. Things are sort of quiet here. The weather has been mild, for Siberia in January! No new snow this week. I'm told that this is a very unusual winter. I don't mind one bit! When it gets so cold outside, it is difficult to get the apartment warm enough to be comfortable. We will be meeting in the new place tomorrow. The only problem I know of at this time is that there is no way to make music -- no piano. The Russians don't seem to mind just singing with no accompaniment, but it seems funny to me. We have to send a bill to the office in Yekat for a keyboard, and then they will give us the money to buy one. I would almost vote for unaccompanied singing. I haven't heard a keyboard that sounds good enough to play for sacrament meeting yet. I asked why we couldn't just order one from distribution, but it takes so long to get anything from half a world away! We had use of a nice piano in the museum. But I guess we can't have everything. I'm told the new place is very nice. I'll tell you about it next week. I got a couple of new (to me) Church news today. The one from the week ending Dec. 22 has an article about some people helping orphanages. I hope you saw the article. The picture of the children shows you just how beautiful the Russian children are. The children really are in need of all the help they can get. Life is hard here in Russia. Like always, the children are the ones to suffer. Tuck your little ones in tonight and be grateful. There is also an article about the scriptures on CD Rom that sounds really great. And the cost is so low I had to wonder is it was a misprint. I can't wait till I get home and can get it for my computer. It sounds like it will be a lot easier to look up the footnotes. Wednesday was Elder Fawson's birthday, so we all got together and had breakfast together at Elder Fawson and Elder Graham's apartment. (That is the same place we had Thanksgiving dinner.) Elder Chapman's mother had sent him some sugar cured ham that he brought and shared with all of us. Delicious! I got to walk there and back, which felt good. It was quite nice going, but coming back the wind had started blowing. It was still nice, though. Sis. Borlena didn't go, so the other two sisters came by for me and walked me there, and two of the elders walked me home. They were coming to do their email. It wasn't slippery that day. We had all kinds of good things for breakfast, but the ham was my favorite. It tasted a little like home! Elder Chapman will finish his mission the end of this month. Sis. Karkeska from Ukraine is finishing her mission the end of this month, too. Elder Graham, our zone leader, is being transferred, same time, to Chillyabinsk, so we will be getting three new people for our little group. That's almost half, as there areeight of us here in Kurgan. Sis. Borlena and I don't expect transfers anytime soon. We both would be satisfied to stay here till we are finished. We both finish in September. I know we won't be left here that long, though. Just when you get comfortable and think you are settled, you get a phone call from the president. He and his wife will be going home at the end of June. So we will have a new mission  president the first of July. That will be interesting to see who gets the call to come here. There is quite an opportunity to work here. The Pravoslavic church is the main church in Russia, and they don't have anything to keep their people happy. I don't really know much about that church, except they have big, gold domes on their churches. They don't seem to have much of a program to help the people to be better people. And they pray to icons. Very different from what we are used to. (Icons are pictures or statues of various saints.) After having our little activity for the youth last week, it seemed quieter during Sacrament on Sunday. I hope they learned something. They really are such good people. They just don't have much experience in going to church. The Russians had another holiday this week. What they call "old new year. They used to celebrate New Year's on Jan. 13 and 14. Some of them still celebrate. Any reason is a good reason! So Happy New Year! A man in my beginner class (he's not really a beginner, he just comes when he wants to!) was telling me about the old new year, and gave me a present of a candy bar! I made the mistake of checking the ingredients, and sure enough, there was alcohol in it. So I couldn't eat it. It has such a pretty wrapper, too! And I do love chocolate! Oh, well! Well, I got my laundry done again today. I just never expected, at 65 (and a half!) years old, to be hanging over a bath tub washing clothes by hand! And this polyester stuff drips terribly! So it has to e hung over the tub for a long time before you can hang it anywhere  else. So that sort of ties up the tub! No matter how thoroughly you wring it out, it still drips! I think the thread is hollow and just holds water till you hang it up! Then it all runs out! It's been a long week, and tomorrow it starts all over again. Classes are going all right. Attendance hasn't picked up that much, although I do have a couple of new students. There were a lot more people coming when the young missionaries were doing the teaching! Maybe they ought to go back to teaching, at least once a week or so. The whole purpose for teaching English is to get people to come, so if they only come to be with the young missionaries, at least they are coming. If they will come, they will feel the Spirit, and maybe want to know more about the Church. We will have to see what happens. Someone in one of my classes told me that there is a flu epidemic in Russia, and they expect it to reach here in about 2 weeks. I'm grateful I already had my flu shot. I sure don't want to ever have the flu again. It almost killed me the last time I had it! I have been sitting here with this computer on my lap long enough that my leg is starting to hurt, so I guess that is my cue to get up and do something else. Like go to bed. It's still a little early, but that's all right, too! Sis. Borlena and I have been reading the Book of Mormon together, and we still need to do that. I say we have been reading together, but actually, I read it out loud in English, and she follows along in her Russian BOM. That's the way she wants to do it. It helps her understand the English better. So this is about all for this week. No preaching tonight. If you miss it, go back and read last week's letter again! I love you all very much and miss you. I would love to hear from you.

Love, Mom, Grandma, Great Grandma, Shirley, Sis. Lynes, sister, aunt, cousin, friend, acquaintance, babushka who's had her flu shot! (choose one)