Dear Family and Friends,
It’s taken me a whole week to get this letter written. I’m not sure what my problem is, but I didn’t want to start on a new one so I’ve finished this one and I’m sending it on. (we’re busy, that’s my problem). Hope you all are doing well and are getting ready for the upcoming holidays. It’s always a little different here, but this year we’re going to celebrate a little differently than we did last year. I’ll keep you informed as each event comes. In the mean time I just want to say how thankful I am for all of you. I feel your love and prayers each day that we are here. Thank you! I love you!
OK, here’s the letter:
November 1, 2011. AMAZING! Time is going by so fast!
We got to skype with a lot of the grandkids this morning (Halloween night for you), and see all the fun costumes. Everyone is growing up so fast and Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It made me a little homesick but it sure was great to see so many of you. Happy Halloween to all my little goblins! I Love you!
We spent last week in two different cities doing Neonatal Resuscitation Training (NRT). What a great experience that was and an amazing humanitarian project that the Church does all over the world. The training is to teach doctors and nurses how to resuscitate new born babies who don’t breathe right away. It’s a very simple procedure and has saved the lives of millions of babies all over the world but it’s something that is completely foreign in a lot of countries. The Church has a doctor assigned to different Area Missions throughout the world who takes a team with him and teaches a two day seminar to local medical people. So last week we took our translator, Irina, with us and went to Volgograd with Dr. George Bennett and his wife Marcia from Farmington who brought two other Drs. with them to teach the course. We don’t do any teaching, but as the Country Directors we are responsible for all the legal paperwork that is required before the course can be taught. Then after the project is over we have to enter all that paperwork into the computer. Nothing hard to do, just time consuming. This was our first experience with NRT and it was really great to be a part of it. Dr. Erick Gerday, a neonatologist from Provo, and Dr. Gordon Glade, a pediatrician from American Fork, came to help teach and we spent a very fun three days getting to know them. We also did a little (very little) sightseeing while we were there. Volgograd is where the worst battle of the war in Russia was fought during WWII. After 200 days of continual fighting with the Germans, over 2 million people were killed. We went to see a monument that was built on the hill where the battle took place. It is one of the largest statues in the world depicting the Russia Motherland. It was so big we could hardly get a good picture of it, but it was amazing to see.
For the Europe East Area.
There is a Neuro Surgeon here in Russia and he makes about $300.00 a month. He translated for Dr. Gerday during the seminar and he made more money those two days than he does the whole month as a doctor. So sad!
After Volgograd we flew to Ekateringburg, which is east and north of Moscow. We met with some doctors at a beautiful brand new neonatal hospital where we planned with them to do an NRT project next May. They are so much more advanced in their practice and facilities than so many of the other hospitals we have seen and we were really impressed. Two of their doctors had been to Provo training with some of our doctors there. Dr. Prutkin, Mark, even showed up to meet us wearing a BYU sweatshirt that he was given during his visit to Utah. He said he wanted to be sure that we recognized him when we saw him. After our meeting we went on a tour of their hospital and he showed us where they take care of their very sick babies. Very state of the art, advanced technology – even for the U.S. We were extremely impressed.
After a week of being gone, it’s always good to be back in Voronezh. We walk into our little apartment and with a sigh we always say, “it’s good to be home”. One day I’m going to go back and read my first few letters home to compare the difference in my feelings. That will be interesting. I’ve had quite a change in the last year. It truly does feel like home to us
here and we love it. Not that we’re not looking forward to going back to our “real” home in Kaysville (because we are) but we really are very happy here.
We love you guys! To our children – keep your heads up, say your prayers, live righteous lives and your trials will be much easier to deal with. We love you all and are so proud of all the great things that you do. To our friends – the same! You’re all the best! We wouldn’t be so happy here if we didn’t know that our Heavenly Father is blessing all our lives while we are in His service. Thank you for writing to us, and supporting us, and loving us. We love you all!
The Frosts
