Family -
I have Pete's compuer in Arizona with us and it's old school so I can't post the pictures Mom put in her letter until I get home to "real technology". If you didn't get the email from mom, text me and I'll forward it on to you so you can see the pictures, but here's the body of the email.
Love you all,
Merry Christmas,
Lanae
Dec. 25, 2010
Dear Family and Friends;
Merry Christmas to everyone! This is a very different Christmas for us. No tree, no lights, no decorations, no presents, no family. But I’m looking straight ahead and on the wall is a beautiful picture of Christ next to a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. That’s the true meaning of Christmas – the atonement of Christ which made it possible for us to have eternal families. I am so grateful for my testimony of Our Savior, the restoration of the Gospel to the earth by Joseph Smith, and that we have a living prophet on the earth today, Thomas S. Monson, who continues to receive revelation from the Lord to help us return to live with Him again. I’m thankful to be a missionary in Russia. We are quickly learning to love these people. It’s exciting to be able to share our testimonies, our knowledge, our culture, and our experiences with them. It’s also fascinating to learn about their culture. We have a long way to go in our learning, but we are enjoying the journey.
This is a picture of our Chapel in Voronezh. It is a beautiful old theatre that was restored by the church and is the only “real” chapel in Russia. Norm took this picture one night as we were walking into the Branch Christmas party.
The Relief Society sisters cooked the dinner in the kitchen (above left), the branch members decorated thetree, the sign above the three women on the couch says “Merry Christmas”, and a little over 30 people came for the party. It’s not quite like the parties we’re used to, but the food and the company were excellent.
For a little Christmas missionary activity, we went downtown and did some Christmas Caroling in the underground shopping area. Norm and I stood there and either hummed or sang the words in English. The other missionaries sang out with gusto while they took turns handing out pass-along cards. A few people looked our way, most kept their heads down and kept walking, and a couple guys yelled at us and told us to go away. It was quite the experience.
These pictures show the front of our apartment building and the three doors we have to go through to get in. First the top door gets us into the building. We walk up two flights of stairs and get to the outside door (bottom left). We open that door which takes us to our apartment door (bottom right). The apartment door has three deadbolt locks on it, so needless to say, we feel very safe here. Notice the pink bag in my hand. We have to walk and ride the bus where ever we go and carry our groceries. We learned real quick to shop lightly.
Last night was our first experience with “English Club”. People come from all over the city who want to practice speaking English for free. There are three groups – the beginners (who know almost no English) with one set of Elders, the intermediate (who speak a little English) with another set of Elders, and the advanced group (who speak English very well) with the Senior Couple – that’s us! We spent our first night introducing ourselves and getting to know the people there. Right after English club is another hour where the men go play volleyball and the women have a Gospel discussion in English. I thought I wanted to play volleyball with the men, but nope – the women wanted me in there helping then read English. They are working harder at learning English than I am at learning Russian. They are an inspiration to me to get busy.
Our Christmas present today was the baptism of Olya (on the left) and Anatolli (on the right). These are the four Elders that are living here. The Sister Missionary came back just for the baptism. Starting on the left the missionaries are: Elder Tanner (from Carlsbad), Sister Gorkavenko (from Russia), Elder Erickson (from Las Vegas), Elder Mellor (from San Diego) and Elder Borodine (from Russia). The Russian missionaries speak pretty good English and the English missionaries speak excellent Russian. They are all darling, with so much excitement and enthusiasm. They came over this morning singing Christmas Carols as loud as they could.
O
On our way home the apartment complex was having a little Christmas party at the playground. I love seeing the little kids all bundled up in their snow suits playing outside. It’s freezing, but they are out every day. Their moms pull them around on little sleighs instead of strollers.
We had Christmas dinner here at our apartment for all the missionaries and the new baptized members. It’s pretty tiny in here, but they said they’ve had lots more than this in here at the same time. We had a Christmas toast, and Elder Tanner and Erickson made dessert – a chocolate chip pie. It was delicious.
Well, that’s our week. It’s been fun, tiring, and very eventful with lots to learn. It was hard to be away from family, but our new family of missionaries is filling in quite nicely. We still get to have our phone call with Eddie – a conference call with the whole family. That will help to make our day complete. We love you all and we miss you, but we’re praying that this will be a very special Christmas for all of you with a New Year filled with love and peace.
With love,
Elder and Sister Frost
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