From Russia With Love...

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

Letter #72: From the Mission Field in Russia

Subject: #72
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 17:48:32 +0600
From: Shirley Lynes <gma@jacklynes.com>
To: jlynes@jacklynes.com

Greetings from Cool Russia!
It has been cool all week, with a little sprinkle of rain yesterday afternoon. The wind right now is blowing and the sky looks like it may storm. The temperature when I got up this morning was a cool 9 degrees. It hasn't been over about 16 all day. I don't know exactly what that figures out to be, but for me it is sweater weather!! I have learned that the weather in Russia is very unpredictable. I'd hate to be a weather forecaster in this country! I've also learned that you don't pack all your winter things away for the summer, either! Now it has started raining. I can hear it hitting the windows on the balcony. I had something happen with my computer this week. I don't know why, but it decided that I didn't need my "sent" mail, and erased it! I usually reread what I wrote last week, so that I don't repeat myself too much, but this week I don't have it to read! I do hate to be so computer illiterate! The district held a picnic today, but at the last minute I had some stomach problems, so we didn't go. I have heard from one of the elders that it was well attended and they had a good time. I would have liked to have gone, but oh, well. I'm fine now! I must have eaten something that didn't like me! We went shopping this week for some fabric to make me a skirt. There is a lady in the branch who is an excellent seamstress. I really would just like to have the skirts I have taken up, but they are lined, and it would probably be easier to make a new one! We also bought a blouse. Trying to buy clothes is difficult because they don't use the sizing like we do in America. I don't know what they call their sizing, but American women would never put up with these kinds of sizes. I think it is based on centimeters. But to be told you wear a size 52 blouse wouldn't go over too well there! And I, at home, wear a size 8 shoe. Here, it's about a 38! Everything I own is too big! Wah, wah!!! Even my shoes are too big!! We tried to find a pair of shoes for me, but were unsuccessful. We haven't given up, just unsuccessful at the moment. They were either just a little too short, or very much too wide! I wish we hadn't lost that bag the last time we moved! I had a good pair of Easy Spirit shoes in that bag! And they were almost new! These Easy Spirit shoes I'm wearing have gotten big enough that they slip on my feet, and I have them tied as tight as I can get them! So I thought, "I'll buy some innersoles and that will fix it!" Wrong again!! I have tried two different pairs of innersoles in them, but they won't stay in place! Before I have walked very far, the things start climbing out of the back of the shoes! It looks so funny, with these navy blue shoes, and these white "things" crawling up the back of my heels!! So I had to find somewhere to sit down and take my shoes off, and take the innersoles out! Before they climb right out completely!! I guess my feet are still slipping in the shoes and just moving them right on out!! It's not easy to find good (what I would call) walking shoes. Most of the Russian women (except the babushkas!) wear heels. I don't want heels, just good walking shoes. I haven't worn heels since that camping trip when I sprained my ankle, 15 years ago!! So the adventure continues!! At least my feet don't hurt. I can still walk in those shoes with no problems. They just feel big. The store we went in was a very large building. It was a department store, I guess. It was so clean even Sis. Burlena commented about it! And shiny looking. And they had escalators! Those are the first escalators I've seen in any stores here. (They have escalators in the metro in Moscow that are very long, going down about 3 or 4 stories.) I wasn't looking to buy "stuff" but looking was fun! I hope it doesn't get really cold before I leave the country. I may have to buy some warm clothes, but that's not a big problem. I have plenty of Russian money. I never use all I get each month, and I can't bring any of it home. I'm planning to give any surplus back to Pres. Gee before I leave the country. I'm not supposed to be making money! I just don't have a lot of needs. And eating like I do is a lot cheaper than buying meat, and especially cheese! I wasn't buying much meat anyway. And the milk doesn't taste right. It's different tasting than what we are used to in the US. My food bills are about 40% less eating this way. The other missionaries are always running out of money close to the end of the month, but I usually have about half of mine left. Of course, the elders eat out more often than I do. I'm home more and can fix food whereas they are out on the street and have to have something to eat. We just have to be very careful what we buy, though. Usually, bought prepared food doesn't give us any trouble, but we aren't allowed to eat in the Russian homes unless we help fix the food. The biggest problem is the water. We all have three-stage water filters, but the Russians don't. Since Pres. Hall made the rule about not eating with members or investigators, there has not been any trouble with missionaries having to be in the hospital because of stomach problems. Before, there was usually someone somewhere in the mission in the hospital almost every week. Our delicate little systems, don't you know!!! And I sure don't want to be in a Russian hospital!! I'm sure if the Russians came to America they would have gastric problems too! One of the young Russian sister missionaries went to England for her MTC training, and spent time in the hospital there with gastritis! I guess it's all according to what you get used to! I'm going to have to get new glasses when I get home. After about three years of wearing these, I discovered the other day that the bifocal part in the glass for the left eye isn't straight. It is cut into the glass sloping down toward my nose. The right one is straight. Isn't that odd? And that it would take me so long to realize it! I knew I couldn't see as well out of my left eye, but I didn't know why. After I read for a long while, my vision gets blurry, and I have to stop and change the distance I'm looking at for a while. Sis. Burlena has talked Pres. Gee into letting her be finished her mission at the end of August. She shouldn't actually be finished until sometime in September. Pres. Hall had told her she had to stay until I go home on the 25th. I think Pres. Gee knows she isn't doing that much work anyway, so why not! But now he has to figure out what to do with me!! I had an interview with him last Saturday, and he told me about her going home. He said we have several options. I can stay here in this apartment and have the young sisters come stay with me; I could go stay with them; or he can move me back to Yekat for three weeks, and then send me home. I told him that whatever he decided was fine with me; he's the boss! I felt like he was leaning toward Yekat, but I don't know yet. Sis. Burlena told me to talk to Pres. Gee. She said "he will let you go early!" I told her "no way! I'm staying until I'm finished!!!" I'm looking forward to coming home and seeing everyone, but I'm not ditching the mission to do it!! That's just not the way it's done!! So I'm waiting to hear what he decides for me. It really doesn't matter to me. I need to be out of this apartment by the 18th of September anyway. Our lease is up then, and the people who own the apartment are expecting to move back in then. So we will see! Russians can't understand Americans smiling all the time. I try to tell them that we are a happy bunch, that we have lots to be happy about! Especially those of us wearing the "black name tag"!! They think it may just be phony! They ask why Americans smile all the time! Their lives are such that they sometimes don't have a lot to smile about. I have found that when I'm not particularly happy, if I will smile anyway, I start to feel happier. When something is getting on my nerves, I make a point of smiling and it keeps me from feeling down! You sometimes see someone who looks so frowny that you think if they smiled their face would crack!! I saw a man like that on the bus the other day. I really felt sorry for him that his life has been such that his face was in a perpetual frown. Life is hard here in Russia. But frowning doesn't make it any better!! I know everything in America isn't a bed of roses, or peaches and cream, but we do have a lot to smile about! I don't know why just putting a smile on your face, when your mind knows you're not happy, helps! It looks like your mind wouldn't let it change you! So there must be something inside of you besides your intellect that's in charge!! I will keep smiling and let the Russians try to figure out what I've been up to!! In class the other night, I gave them an opportunity to talk about anything of their choosing, but I had no takers. So I told them if they didn't have something they wanted to talk about, then I would choose what we talked about. So I told them I had a list of "wise sayings from the old world" that we would talk about. They couldn't understand what I was saying, so I wrote it on the board. We never got to the first one! Somehow, they started asking questions about the church. Someone asked isn't our church rich? That led to a long explanation of tithing. Now that's something I can talk about!! They just kept asking questions, and I kept talking! Before you knew it, it was "time's up"! One young man said he hated to say it, but it (tithing) didn't sound fair. I told him, "Oh, it is infinitely fair!" He thought that if you didn't have much money you shouldn't have to pay it. I tried to explain that if you had no money, you didn't pay anything, and if you did have money, you paid 10% of whatever you had. I tried to explain how you can't figure it out on paper and understand it, but when you pay it, what you have left goes so much farther! The Lord blesses us so much. I don't consider it a difficult thing to pay tithing. The blessings so far outweigh the small amount you pay. As you can tell, I'm a firm believer in tithing! (If you didn't know before!!) I'm really grateful for all the time I have to study. And the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know!! We were talking about that in class one day, and someone in class explained it to me. He said that when you don't know much, it's like what you know is a little "o". The circumference is very small. When you know more, it' like a big "O". The circumference is bigger, and if outside the circle is what you don't know, then the more you know, the more you realize how much more there is to know! I hope that makes sense to you. It's not always easy to explain things when you can't use you hands!! I went with the young sisters Thursday night to an appointment they had to teach a little boy and his mother English. They have already given her and her mother the first discussion. After the English lesson (I think sometimes the kids don't really want to learn English, but the mothers do, and it's easier for them to have their kids learn, while they sit in on the lessons!) they had a gospel discussion with the mother and grandmother. They had planned to show them the video Legacy (in Russian), but found that they don't have a VCR. They thought they did. So they just talked with them. I couldn't understand anything being said, but they seemed to be really interested. I don't know if there is a father in the home. A lot of homes don't have fathers in them. A lot of the Russian men become drunks, and the women put up with it as long as they can, then separate. They don't always get divorces. So I don't know what the story is in this family. The sisters have been very good at trying to take me on appointments. (The elders aren't too sure what to do with me!! I do have an appointment with the elders for Tuesday after English class.) I went with the sisters back to the children's hospital on Monday. We just walk in and look for a room with kids who look like they would like some company. Then we play Uno or this time we also had Skipbo cards too. The kids always seem glad to have something different to do. And there is usually at least one parent in the room. So after a little while, Sis. Behling "gets tired" of playing and will go sit with the parent and talk. The parents get tired of just sitting there too. There are no tvs so there isn't much to do. Some of these kids look really healthy, so I don't know what kind of transplants they are waiting for. I've never seen kids who need transplants, so they may just look normal. I don't know. Car traffic isn't much of a problem in our area. Most people don't own cars, though there are some who do. So the most of the traffic is transport. They have buses, small vans they call taxis, big buses with hinges in the middle, trolley buses that use overhead electric wires, and small buses that look like they are from M.A.S.H. Those small buses get so crowded it's hard to fight your way off! I get on at the beginning of the route, and I try to sit in the front seat, so that I won't have so far to fight to get off. If you can speak Russian, you can at least ask them to let you get by!! And it doesn't seem to bother Russians to be so cramped together. Most Americans don't like our "personal space" invaded like that! Most of the cars you see look pretty good. I don't think very many people had cars before the fall of communism, so there aren't a lot of old clunkers. We have been without hot water for over a week now. You really don't think about it until you have to do without it! I hate having to heat water to wash my hair and bathe. The bathing isn't so bad, but washing hair like I used to way back when I was a teenager isn't any fun!! I never feel like I've rinsed my hair enough. Sometimes, I just think, well, it's better than it was!! Class the other day was a little difficult. Only two or three people are truly advanced. The others range from beginner to middle. But they want to be there. I'll have to come up with something else to do besides having a conversation. Some of them just can't handle a conversation. That day I taught them a song from my school days, "It isn't any trouble just to s m i l e". I knew I was in trouble when then didn't understand the word trouble, and they didn't know what a bubble is! And I didn't know the Russian words for those things. I had decided to teach them a song because I was reading them something about Noah, and then Moses, and one man in the class had no idea who these men are. I think he must be Muslim. A real nice man, but he couldn't understand what I was reading. So I thought I'd teach them a song, but that was hard for them too. So I taught them "there was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name, oh!" They didn't understand the "oh" part! But they love coming! So I'll have to come up with something they can understand. I always welcome them to the advanced conversational class, but I sometimes think that goes right over their heads. I know they love being there, and I'm sure they feel the Spirit and feel happy when they are there. Sometimes they just sit there when class is over like they don't want to leave. Here comes "the question"...... How's your reading going? You knew you couldn't get by without me asking that, didn't you?! I'll report on my reading. I finished the BOM again Wednesday, and have started over again. I'm in 2 Nephi 10. I'm also reading the D&C, in section 128, so I'm almost finished it again. I really want to read the New Testament before I come home. I read Jesus The Christ, and it really helped me to understand the New Testament, and has given me the desire to reread it. I guess most of the kids have gone back to school. I'm sorry your summer was so short! Maybe they'll change things before next year, and let you have more of summer! The other day I saw some little girls jumping rope, just like I did when I was little. And I saw some playing hopscotch, just like I did! Half a world away, and the kids play the same games!! Amazing!!! I didn't realize I had written such a long letter. I hope you are still reading! It's nice when the writer gets tired of writing before the reader gets tired of reading!! I hope we came out even today! I love you all and pray for you every day. I hope everything is going well for everyone. Write when you can. You have no idea how much email means to me!! Till next week! (By the time I got through writing, the "storm" was gone, and the sun is shining again!!

Love,
Mom, Grandma, Great Grandma, Sis. Lynes, Shirley, sister, aunt, cousin, friend, acquaintance, email pal, babushka wishing for hot water!! (choose one!)