From Russia With Love...

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

Letter #69: From the Mission Field in Russia

Subject: #69
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 18:01:10 +0600
From: Shirley Lynes <gma@jacklynes.com>
To: jlynes@jacklynes.com

Greetings!!
I can't believe it's Saturday again! Where does the time go? The days are getting shorter. It gets dark a little after 11 pm now. And the sun doesn't hit me in the face until about 5:30 am! The weather has been great this week, even a little cold a couple of days! I had to pull my sweater back out and wear it! But I'm not complaining!!! I have had no trouble sleeping because of the heat this week! The temperature has ranged from about +11 to +22 degrees, whatever that is! I don't really believe summer has come and gone this quickly, though. We've had rain a couple of nights, which makes for puddles and mud, but at least the dust isn't blowing around so hard. It's amazing to me that even up here on the ninth floor we get a lot of dust. I have a good view of the sky from my balcon (balcony). I love it when there is a thunder storm. Up here it feels like we are right in the middle of it! I am still having too much fun going shopping at the reenock! (Not that I'm buying that much!) The people are getting used to seeing me, and they are so kind and nice. I am a bit of a "curiosity" here, as they don't see that many Americans. Most people want to talk to me, but I am at a disadvantage since I don't speak Russian. If they know any English at all, they really like to try to have a conversation. It's interesting! Also, I wish they had about peanut butter here. I know it's too high in fat to eat much of, but if I had some, I probably wouldn't want it. I'd like to have a baked sweet potato, too. They don't know about sweet potatoes in Russia. Look what they're missing!! Sis. Burlena and I made two visits this week. (I still don't class that as work!) We visited the Relief Society president to try to help her get the visiting teaching organized and going. The other visit was to a lady who lives not far from here. She was very nice, and wanted to take us to see a monument of a national hero on Wednesday. I don't think he is a national hero. When I asked Sis. Burlena who he was and what did he do, she could tell me his name, but couldn't tell me what he did. She just said that it had been a long time ago. I guess it was. The statue of the man had him on a horse, of course, and there was a sword on his left side, and what looked like a whip on his right arm. I asked people in my class about him and they said he had led a revolt against the czars about the same time as our Revolution. They said that he didn't really do anything great, but the people in this area didn't have a hero, so they made one out of him! Anyway, I'm really not into looking at monuments of people I've never heard of. But the view from the place where the monument is is spectacular. It must be one of the highest points in Ufa. It was a beautiful day, not hot. So it was worth going just to see the sights. This monument is in a park setting, and the plants and flowers were beautiful. And wonder of wonders, most of the plants were ones I'm familiar with! I've seen dusty miller, geraniums, begonias, petunias, roses, hostas, phlox, salvia, marigolds and others I'm familiar with but don't know the names. The rose gardens were in front of a big official looking building. They were beautiful, and so fragrant! (Russians love flowers!) From that high point you could look down on a river that winds its way around the city. Across the river were sods (individual garden spots), very close to the city. The sods are usually farther out of town. Maybe they had been farther out of town, and the town grew up to the river. The monument is lit up at night, but of course from where we live we can't see it. There was a man there who would take your picture, for a price. He had a couple of white doves, I guess. I thought they were pigeons at first, but on second thought they might have been doves. One of them kept his tail feathers all flared out and standing up. A very proud looking bird! You could hold the birds and have your picture taken. No, I didn't want a picture. I didn't take any pictures either, because I need new batteries for my camera. Since we were with another Russian, she could have carried the camera and taken any pictures I wanted. Pres. Hall had said that if Sis. Burlena carries my camera, they would know that she was just carrying it for me. Anyway, I bought some batteries the other day thinking all I had to do was get double A batteries. Would you believe that some batteries have higher posts on the ends? And that's the only kind I have seen at our reenock. They are too high to fit into my camera and still close the little door. Maybe if I go to a foto (photo) place they might have the right batteries. My camera is digital, and I haven't changed the batteries since I've been in Russia. So they have lasted well. I will put one of the batteries in my purse so that I'll have it to compare with any new batteries I see. What I have are just plain old Duracell batteries, nothing special, I thought. Sis. Burlena doesn't like to wear the name tag, and doesn't really like for me to wear it either, except at church. There everyone knows who we are! Too bad. It became apparent to me one day, that people notice something about me, even if I'm not wearing the tag. There was one day when I was on the bus alone, and had not taken the time to put the name tag on. A lady got on the bus, and it was crowded. She was standing in the stairwell, right in front of where I was sitting, and smiled at me, and started talking to me. I told her "ne panymyu" which, being interpreted, means "not understand". She kept trying to talk to me, and I kept telling her that I didn't understand. I told her I was "Americee", which just made her more interested. She and the lady conductor asked me through motions, where I was getting off, and I told them in three more stops. The lady said something to the conductor about the church and the conductor asked me something and made the sign of the cross, which I interpreted as asking me if I was a missionary. I said yes, and pulled my name tag out of the side pocket of my purse and showed it to them. That satisfied them, and the lady got off at the next stop. So it doesn't matter if I don't have the tag on, people notice something different anyway. So I'm wearing the name tag, even if she doesn't like it. I'm not ashamed to be a missionary!! I love wearing the name tag! I was glad that that particular day I had had money ready and paid my fare before the conductor could assume that I was a retired Russian. (Sometimes they just pass me by!) The fare is so little that I am glad to pay it. The elders keep trying to find something for us to do. They asked me this week about helping get the genealogy program going, with the Personal Ancestral File. The PAF program is in English. Once again, the problem is I don't speak Russian. So they think that I could teach it to some of the young people who speak English and they could handle it from there. I haven't worked with the PAF since I left Charleston, and I don't know how much I remember. But I guess I know more than they do. And anytime you know something more than someone else does, you can (conceivably) teach them! That's how I'm functioning in teaching English. I tell them that it is a conversational class; I don't lecture and I don't do monologues, so they had better be prepared to talk when they come in that class. They sometimes will talk, but sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get them to say anything. I keep hoping that they will get more used to me and not be so shy about speaking. They just don't think that they speak well enough. But I tell them that the purpose of the class is for them to practice speaking and listening. I sure do miss song birds. We mostly just see little sparrows, and pigeons, which is an improvement over Kurgan, where they had crows nesting in the trees in the park! Big ole nests!! Big ole birds!! They were either crows or magpies. There weren't any songbirds in Yekat last summer either. I was told it was because we were in town, but I don't know if that's the reason. At any rate, I really miss our mockingbirds! There are a lot of things that we just take for granted and hardly think to be thankful for. Like hot water! Yes, I'm back on that subject again! We were without hot water for two days. Nothing in the faucet for one day, then the water was back, but no heat. This morning, oh, joy, the hot water was back!! I don't know for how long, but I'm going to enjoy it while it's here! Little things mean a lot! I talked to the office Thursday afternoon, and they said there should be money on my card now. I'm not in need. I just didn't want them to forget about it. Someone had reversed numbers: My release date should be 9/6 and they put it in as 6/9. I don't have the travel plans yet, but they tell me that my release date will be 9/25, which is a week later than I had been told. Oh, well. In the grand scheme of things, what's a week, one way or the other? There are a few other missionaries going home at that time, and they think it will be better for me to be traveling with other people. I reminded Sis. Mock that I want to fly into Augusta, Ga., and that there should be a flight from Frankfurt to either Atlanta or Charleston. So if there is, I will be flying out of Frankfurt alone anyway. I see no reason for me to have to fly into Chicago, and then back to Atlanta when Atlanta is an international airport, with customs people. Those going home to the west go through Chicago. I just hope that it doesn't start getting cold before I can get out of the country. I have no winter clothes left. I'll make do, or buy something. It's not a big problem. Thursday I had 15 people in class, some of them new to me. At the end of the class, one girl asked me where she could get some information on our church, that she was very interested in learning about the church. As you can imagine, I told her to wait right there and I'll find someone who can get you information! Elder Carter happened to be in the hall, and I got him talking to her. He gave her a Joseph Smith pamphlet and a Book of Mormon. After she left, he said it was hard translating the first discussion into English from Russian. She wanted him to talk to her in English, and he had practically given her the whole first discussion! And one day in class we were talking about food, and I was showing them pictures of different food and seeing if they knew the English words for all of them. When I showed them a picture of a red apple, they said, "Apples aren't red. They're green!" And most of the apples you see here are green! Our poor Russian sister who got hit by a marshroot last week is still in the hospital. They did surgery on both arms Thursday, and in about 10 days she should be functional again. They put some kind of plastic thingies in both arms. Would you believe someone had to go buy the things? The hospital didn't have them, so someone had to actually go buy them and bring them to the hospital. They cost 16,000 rubles total. I don't know what the doctor is charging to do the surgery. They also didn't have any pain medication to give her after the surgery! Can you believe that?! Pray I don't need medical attention in the little time I have left!!! The poor thing can't do anything for herself. Someone is going in and feeding her. It sounds like they may be furnishing some food to her, but she cant use either arm to feed herself, or do anything else. A big "thank you" to Jim Leeth and Creighton for sending me population statistics. It helps the people understand how big a place is. Here in Russia, they can put a lot of people in a small geographical area because of all the doms. I know in large cities in our country there a lot of apartment houses. I've just never lived in any of those places before. There are probably almost as many people in Yekat as there are in the whole state of South Carolina! Hey, that's all right. I love our little state!!! You don't know how much you love it! I think sometimes about the blessing that is ours of having been born in the United States. I don't know what we did to deserve that blessing, but I'm mighty grateful for it!!! I have been very thankful for the free time I have had on my mission so that I can read and study. I finished the Book of Mormon again last Sunday, and am in Mosiah again. I'm also reading the D&C again, and am about half way through. I started reading the New Testament this week and am about half way through Matthew. I've been reading "Jesus the Christ", and it made me want to read the New Testament again. When I started "Jesus the Christ" it took a little "wading" to get into it, but now I can hardly put it down! It is helping me to understand the things that Jesus did when He was alive. Sometimes the Bible is a little hard to follow, or to understand. This book is helping me a lot. I realize that I have lots more time to read and study than most of you do, but I really hope that you are not procrastinating reading the scriptures. It really does help your spirituality. I'm sorry to be missing the Old Testament in Sunday School. I'll catch the last three months! I don't know the Old Testament as well as I would like to. As a missionary we are supposed to read the BOM for thirty minutes a day. I find that in that amount of time I can usually read about ten pages. We are to do other scripture studying also. Don't forget that just like your bodies need food each day, so does your spirit. The scriptures are like letters from home. Go read your letter from home! I hope you are enjoying the summer. Things are going well here. I hope they are going well with you, too. I heard that the kids in Charleston will be going back to school on August 8th. WHY?????? Children need time to be children!! You're young such a short time, and old for such a LONG time (if you're lucky!!). Have a happy week! I love you all so very much!

Love,
Mom, Grandma, Great Grandma, Sis. Lynes, Shirley, sister, aunt, cousin, friend, acquaintance, email pay, babushka loving hot water!! (Choose one!)