From Russia With Love...

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

Letter #58: From the Mission Field in Russia

Subject: #58
Date: Sat, 04 May 2002 17:49:15 +0600
From: Shirley Lynes <gma@jacklynes.com>
To: jlynes@jacklynes.com

Greetings from beautiful, warm Siberia!! Yes, I do believe that spring has finally arrived! The weather is absolutely beautiful, and warm! I have taken walks every day this week! That is so nice to be able to get out and around again. The sky is clear and the sun is shining brightly. I walked this morning for about 25 minutes, which is a long time if you haven't been out much in 6 months! It makes life so wonderful! We still have hot water, too! I HAVE SURVIVED A SIBERIAN WINTER!!! The young sisters had wanted to have a picnic on p-day, but they wanted to know if we could dress in casual clothes. So they called the office to ask, and were told we COULD NOT have a picnic! We had forgotten that with spring comes tick season, and we aren't allowed to go into the woods, or anywhere there is grass! These ticks carry some kind of disease, so the picnic was out! It hasn't been warm long enough for us to even remember that it is spring! So we had lunch at the sisters' apartment instead. It was a nice walk over there, but they live on the fourth floor, so there were stairs to climb, too! The bad news is that Stephen wasn't baptized after all. Someone told his mother something ugly about the church, so she told Stephen that if he was baptized, she would throw him out of the house. He is 18 and still lives at home, studying at the university. He can't make it on his own yet. I know that one day she is going to see the light, and she will be so sorry for all the trouble she is causing her son. When she sees the light, she is going to be so embarrassed!! I am continuing to pray for him, and especially his mother. I just wish she would investigate on her own, instead of listening to people who don't know what they are talking about! Tomorrow is Easter Sunday here. That sure seems odd. But they have their own way of figuring the date for Easter. I don't know exactly what it is. Victor, from Yekat, who is in charge of seminary and institutes, has come down today to hold some meetings, and he brought the mail and new Ensigns and church news. It is very timely, because the editions of the news are the ones from around Easter. So I just read the first presidency's Easter message. That worked out very nicely! I had canceled classes for this afternoon so that I could go to the baptism, which of course has been called off. So I have all afternoon to read! I'm grateful for that. Victor will be holding a fireside meeting late this afternoon, which I will go to, if I can find someone willing to translate for me. Elder Porter is very good at translating. The other day I called one of the elders a hard-headed youngun! The other missionaries thought that was funny. But that's what they are sometimes. He was getting some soup, and I told him to use the green cup (which holds about 2 cups). He didn't plan to eat that much, but the little cup he put it in didn't have a handle, so I had told him to use the other cup. He insisted that this would be all right. And then he realized it was hot to hold! So I told him he was a hard-headed youngun! I think that expression will be with us for a while! The young sisters heard me say that to him. It gives them something to laugh about. And gets my point across. We are all hard headed younguns sometimes. I bet Heavenly Father would agree with that! The Russians have been having holidays this week. In communist times they used to have big demonstrations, and parades with military equipment on display, and soldiers marching! Nothing like that happened this week. They have five days off work. Then next week they have another couple of days off because on May 9th they celebrate Victory Day. That commemorates Russia winning World War II. Their history books teach them that Russia won the war, almost single handedly. If that makes them happy, I can live with that. I just bite my tongue when they tell me that the war didn't affect the US. One day I did tell someone to try telling that to all the widows from that war. Russia did lose an awful lot of people in that war. I'm not here to straighten out their history books! I know that their civilians suffered terribly. The sisters have been trying to contact all the inactive people on their part of the branch list. Last week they took some of the young women with them and visited some of the people. One sister they visited said that no one from church had ever been out to her house! We have about 110 members in the branch, with an average attendance of about 52. Pitiful. We need to have average attendance of 55 to qualify for our own building. But that's only half of the people who have been baptized in Kurgan. I worry about inactive people. They are in more trouble than people who have never heard the gospel because they know what they're not doing. Our branch is so new that a lot of the people have no clue how to help reactivate the others. The missionaries stay so busy trying to teach the gospel to the new contacts that they don't have sufficient time to find the inactive ones. We don't have a very large percentage of men in the branch, either. But right now it seems that almost all the investigators who are being taught are men! Men in their late teens to middle twenties. I pray earnestly for them to listen with their hearts. They need the gospel, and we need them! Next Sunday will be Mother's Day, and I'm allowed to talk to my family. We get better connections from the US than from Russia. But I will need you to call me on Saturday, instead of Sunday. Sunday I will be going to Yekat. So if you want to talk to me, here is the number: 011-7-3522-42-6090. And remember, I'm 10 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. On May 12, as I said about, I will be getting back on the marshoot and going to Yekaterinburg. As far as I know now, I will be flying out of Yekat early Monday morning, May 13, to Moscow. From there I'll go on to Helsinki, Finland, to renew my visa. Sis. Rogers and I will be traveling together. For some reason, we have to leave the country to get the visa renewed. I don't know why, except it's the rule. I took a little break from writing, and the young sisters and I went to Zoom's Department store. It's not far from here. I bought a new skirt and two blouses. They look very nice, if I do say so myself! Maybe that will hold me till I get home. Today I saw two women putting new stucco on the outside of part of our building. The ground floor end apartment has been turned into a shop, and they closed up the windows on the back of the building. So they needed to stucco it to match the rest of the building. These women did a great job, and looked like they really knew what they were doing. One day this week, Olga, one of my students, brought me some flowers. They look a lot like daffodils, except the outside of the petals were sort of fuzzy, and blue. Inside of the petals are yellow. Otherwise, they looked quite like daffodils. Very pretty. Olga also brought pictures yesterday of her trip to Tunisia, Africa to show us. She had just gotten back from a week there. It is right on the Mediterrainian Sea, and was just beautiful. I don't know what her husband does for a living, but it's not usual for Russians to be able to do that kind of traveling. She is the one I've told you about who had also been to Rome. She is a beautiful lady. It is just her and her husband in the family. They don't have any children. In my scripture study, I'm back in 2 Nephi, in the Isaiah chapters. I'm trying to really study it and understand it. It isn't always easy to understand Isaiah, but Christ said "great are the words of Isaiah". So I need to understand it more than I have before. I have a couple of study guides to help me. I really love the Book of Mormon. It doesn't matter that I've read it countless times; there is always more to learn. When we remember how difficult it was writing on gold plates, we have to know that if the writers made the effort to write it, it must be important. I try to think, what am I to learn from this? I am grateful that those men, all those years ago, made the effort to write, knowing they were writing for us, not for their own contemporaries. They didn't write just to have something to do! And when you think of Moroni, wandering alone for over twenty years! I hope when you think about it, and that you will think about it, you will realize what a special book the BOM is, and that it was written for us. The Lord had shown us and our doings to Moroni. In Mormon 8:35, Moroni says, "Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing." And he asks us why we walk in the pride of our hearts and other questions. If you haven't read that chapter in a while, take time to read it. He was truly writing to us at this time. And another thing: when you get thrown into new situations that are difficult, realize that it may be an opportunity to learn something. (It usually is!) I found a quote this week that I like: "There is no comfort in the learning zone, and no learning in the comfort zone." So when we get shoved out of our comfort zone, we know there is something to be learned, whether we like it or not! Try to accept it as a learning experience, and learn quick!! Well, I guess I've preached enough for one letter!!! (You may be saying I've preached too much! I hope you are still reading!) On days like today, I think of the Primary song, "I think the world is glorious, and lovely as can be!" It is a glorious world, and there is much to be learned. Don't let troubles weigh you down and keep you from seeing the beauty in the world and in all the people around you. Try to feel the love the Lord has for each one of us, and try to feel it for other people. Oops, preaching again! I love the Lord! I am grateful for His kindnesses to me. I know He is my Redeemer. I know He lives, and loves us. He cannot forget us. We are graven on the palms of His hands! Be good to each other. Have a good week. I love you all and pray for you every day. Till next week!

Love,
Mom, Grandma, Great Grandma, Shirley, Sis. Lynes, sister, aunt, cousin, friend, acquaintance, email pal, babushka going walking! (choose one!)