From Russia With Love...

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

Letter #71: From the Mission Field in Russia

Subject: #71
Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 22:30:20 +0600
From: Shirley Lynes <gma@jacklynes.com>
To: jlynes@jacklynes.com

Hello out there in Cyberspace!
Another week gone!! It wasn't quite as hot this week as it was last week. When I got up this morning, it was 20 degrees. It's now almost 9 pm, and it is 29 degrees. We still haven't had any rain. It gets really dusty when it goes so long without raining. I understand that a lot of the US is in a drought situation. I hope it will rain soon, here and there. We need it to rain to cool things off. I have had a wonderful day today! We had zone conference with lunch afterward. Sis. Gee is trying to get a choir of missionaries going here in Ufa, so we had some time to practice before the conference began, and then afterward too. Some of us were enjoying singing the songs of Zion, in English, so much that we sang for about two hours! It was really fun. We don't often get to sing in English. There also aren't a lot of hymns translated into Russian. There are only about 68 pages in our hymnbook. So it was a real treat! And then there was a fireside meeting at 6 pm with Victor Solemein, the CES coordinator for our mission. I really like Victor and his wife. So it has been an enjoyable day for me. I also got some new Church News and a new Ensign, so I'll have a good time tomorrow afternoon, too! I really enjoy the association with the other missionaries. They are such a good group of young people! I really enjoy the association with Pres. and Sis. Gee, too. Our Russian sister who had the accident got out of the hospital this past Monday. She was at the fireside meeting tonight. She has no cast or bandage on either arm now. When I saw her last week, she had bandages on both arms. And she can move and use her fingers too! Most of the bruising has cleared up, too. I did a little more work this week than usual. I went on an appointment with Elder Eddins Monday after English. How about that? Senior sisters can go on splits with elders! Even though I can't speak Russian, I enjoyed meeting these people. The wife comes to church very faithfully, but her husband is not as active as she is. Tuesday night I went with the young sisters to hold a family home evening with a new member. Her family aren't members. Sis. Black cooked supper at their home, and she and I had to leave before eating because she had another appointment to see an investigator with one of the senior Russian sisters. We left Sis. Behling to do the home evening. (The new member agreed to walk Sis. Behling back home.) The appointment she had was to finalize the baptism date with the mother of a young family. She has had all six discussions, with the knowledge of her husband, loves the BOM and wants to be baptized. A little problem came up while we were there. Her husband, who had been there for the first discussion and was doing well, had been busy working and unable to find time for the rest of the discussions. The wife finally said she wanted to go ahead with the discussions and he could catch up when he wasn't so busy working. Tuesday night he came into the room and told us not to come back. He wanted her to give back everything the sisters had given her. (She kept the BOM, and everything else too.) He and his father (I think that may be where the trouble is coming from) are Muslims. He pretty much told her she had to choose between the church and her family. She has three little children. So that was a first for me. I've never been thrown out of anywhere before! It was really sad, because she really wants to continue learning and be baptized. She said she has the knowledge now and will teach it to her children. I know the Lord can perform miracles, and I'm praying for his heart to be softened. I had an appointment Wednesday with Elders Ady and Eldredge to see a less active family, but they aren't familiar with the area where I live. They didn't come to the ofstanovka (bus stop) where we were supposed to meet. I waited for a while, and then walked down to the next stop. They were there, and didn't know where to find me! By then it was too late for the appointment, so they are going to set up another one for next week. I'm getting to see a little more of the city, too. Ufa has lots of trees. It softens the look of all these apartment doms. I was thinking about all these apartment doms the other day, and I guess the government was trying (along with controlling the people!) to furnish better housing for the population. The older homes I've seen are tiny log homes, most in a state of disrepair. So even though I don't like apartment living, I can see one reason why they have resorted to them. I guess my complaint about it is that no one feels any responsibility for the common areas. But here in Ufa in a lot of complexes people have planted little flower gardens, and that does make it feel better. I've seen some beautiful flowers that I don't know the name of. They almost look like hollyhocks, with flowers all the way up the stalk. Sort of like gladiolas, but flowers all the way around the stalk. And the flower stalks are taller than my head. I've seen them in yellow, pink, almost maroon, and sort of purple, I think. They are beautiful. I don't know if they grow from bulbs, but where I've seen some of them growing, I know they come back every year. Some of the places I've seen them, I know nobody is gardening!! I hope I can find out what they are and get some for my yard. I've also seen some trees that are already starting to turn yellow. I remember last year that the trees in Yekat started turning very early, too. One thing the Russians consider as very rude is to walk in someone's apartment with your shoes on. So everywhere we go, we take off our shoes just inside the door, and visit in our sock (or with me, stocking) feet. It does keep the apartments cleaner. And almost no one has vacuum cleaners. They take the rugs down to the yard where there are things almost like clothes line poles, except there are two poles with another pole between them, instead of one pole with a cross bar at the top. Does that make any sense? If I were writing, I could draw you a picture of it, but oh, well. Anyway, you can hear people down there beating their rugs almost every day. (Not the same people, of course!) There is a vacuum cleaner here in our apartment, but it doesn't do a very good job on the carpet in my room. An Oreck it's not!! Laundry is a lot easier here than it was in Kurgan!! I'm so grateful for an automatic washer. No more hanging over the tub, scrubbing by hand! We don't have a dryer, of course, but we do have clothes lines out on the balcony and I can reach them! In Kurgan, I couldn't reach the lines over the tub. Sis. Burlena would stand on a chair to hang my things up for me! We had hot water until Thursday afternoon, but we don't have it now! I hope it won't be long till they get it back on! I do love my shower!! I have an appointment to go with the young sisters to the children's hospital again on Monday. The children there are so sweet and seem to like us coming to visit with them. Sis. Black said she has the card game Skipbo to play with them this week. We played Uno with them last time. And then Monday night we have family home evening again. Here's something funny that I learned in my English class the other day. They told me that in Russia, a woman with a bad character and reputation is called a snake! And they tell the same story about the two frogs who fell into a bucket of milk. Let me know if you don't remember that one, and I'll send it to you!! I read something a while ago about pride. It was in a conference talk by Marlin K. Jensen of the Presidency of the Seventy, in the May 2001 Ensign. The opposite of humility is pride. He quoted Pres. Benson's talk on pride. Pride is essentially competitive in nature and made reference to this quote from C.S. Lewis: "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, cleverer, or better-looking than others. If every one else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone." So taken in that context, I think most of us, most of the time really mean grateful when we say proud. Or at least, I hope so!! Pride is a terrible thing that has ruined a lot of people, and lots of civilizations. Look what it did to the Nephites. We need to be careful that we don't become prideful. We should be able to be happy for someone having something without feeling that for them to have it somehow makes us less. When I've been reading the BOM, I have marked the words "pride" and "proud" in a way that it is easy to spot them. It's amazing how often those words are used. We need to beware of that kind of pride. In zone conference today, the theme was on putting on the whole armor of God. References were from Ephesians chapter 6 and D&C 27:15-18. The talks were so good. I hated for it to be over. Speaking of something being over, I think this letter is about over. It has gotten late, and I won't make it to bed on time! The young missionaries have to report their statistics, including getting up on time, and going to bed on time. I don't have to report! I haven't been very good all week about getting to bed on time. Two nights I was out late, too! Tomorrow is the Sabbath again. I'm grateful to be able to go to Sacrament meeting and partake of the Sacrament, and renew my covenants I made at baptism with the Lord. If you don't remember the covenants you made, you will find them in The BOM in Mosiah Chapter 18. Look them up and remember what you promised to do, and look at what the Lord promises you in return! I love you all and pray for you every day. Yes, I know I've told you that before, but I'm still doing it!!! I appreciate your prayers for me and all the other missionaries. As the church grows and becomes stronger, Satan's team works that much harder! Don't let him get to you. There was a speaker where I was at the MTC who called satan "old no face" because he doesn't have a body, and never will have. That's why he tries so hard to get you to ruin yours. He is miserable and he wants everyone else to be miserable too. DON'T LET HIM WIN!!!!! Till next week!!

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