Sisters helping clean!

 Wonderful volunteers, Sister Wilkinson and Sister Van den Herik offered to come over and help me pack to go home ... except you only pack your suitcases!  not like moving a whole household of stuff.  I told them I could handle the packing but they could come over and help me clean the apartment!

 They came over in minus 40 degree weather - bless them!  Nice to have their height for the tall shelves!  Love them to pieces!

 After cleaning for a couple of hours, they bagged up

That's real service - the best ministy kind - love them so much.

Last Zone Conference Novosibirck January 31st, 2019

 Our last Zone Conference in the mission home in Novosibirsk - these are some of our best volunteers - and we love them all!

 Sister volunteers are awesome!  and beautiful and smart and we love them also!

 Some of the wonderful voluneers who we served with in Irkutsk - special place in our hearts!

 Sister MacCabe plays the ukuele - they both sang a hymn - loved it!

 A few of the newest volunteers - their language skills are amazing - Russians can't believe how soon they are pretty fluent in a very hard language - we know!

Cute Sister Blanchard and Sister Richardson doing dishes at the mission home - such wonderful girls!
Pretty also!

On the Street

 When the weather warms up a little bit this is the floor of the small store in front of the mission office - so muddy! 

 Even worse the next day!  I only get there in the afternoon and I assume they clean it after closing - but upon opening the next day it goes back to this!  As an old janitor - wow - glad I'm not trying to keep it clean!

 All the heat in the city is piped to buildings in big pipes underground.  This is the street we cross on our way to the office each day - apparently there was a leak in a hot water pipe and it melted the ice and snow above it.

 Closer look at the river running down the street under the ice!

 It was only a day or so and they fixed it - but interesting to see until then.

 Also interesting is the layers of black stuff in the snow - polution in the air.

 Where it has been shoveled and stacked - showing more layers of snowstorms between the black stuff.

Steps carved out so people can walk up to the sidewalk from the road - they keep the roads pretty clear but let the sidewalks get higher and higher!!

Relief Society Quilt Project

 The Relief Society - through the sister volunteers asked me to help them learn more about quilting .. I enjoyed sharing what I know - translated to Russian!

 Different kinds of quilting.

 I used old scraps of fabric from Christmas PJ's for quilts for the Fromm granddaughters!

 These are squares from those quilts showing the sisters how to piece things together.

 I used simple steps to show them.

 In our apartment I had to quilt without frames - so here I used the backs of two fabric chairs - the piins would hold the quilt a little bit tight - tight enough to sew on it!

 How the RS Room looked the night of the Quilting project - January 25, 2019 - they asked if they could keep the posters - of course!  I'm not going to take them home!!

 We started with cutting out the squares and then sewing them together and then tieing the baby quilt and then a sweet Russian sister did the binding - all in one evening!  Elder Smith found the boards and C-Clamps for us at a lumber store... used the back of the chairs for stands.

 Happy RS Sisters - new baby quilt for the District Presidents family - expecting their third boy in the spring.

 This is one I mde for them also - much smaller.  Sister Riskova wanted to learn how to applique - so we did the elephant together and then I finished this for her...so fun!

Another way of tieing a quilt without frames - this size fit between the arms of the overstuffed chair in the apartment!  I left a couple of 'pink' ones and 'blue' for future babies!

Last Sunday of our wonderful visit

 On Sunday, January 13, we rode the subway over to left branch - here is Sister Blanchard with Ploy and Dasha.

 All of us at the 2nd Branch Building.  Dasha was impressed because all Russians did the service - leading the singing, playing the piano, officiating in the Sacrament, giving talks, etc.  In Irkutsk they have the missionaries do several of those things every week.

 We shared our left overs of our Thai dinner with these wonderful young volunteers - love them so much and they were very grateful for the great food!

 Picture of old senior couple - who have loved serving the Lord full- time in Russia Novosibirsk Mission. 

 Blurry picture because we were all sad to see our vacation come to an end - cute bags we gave them filled with treats for the long train ride back to Irkutsk...love these two so much and afraid we won't get to see them again until life on the other side of the veil. 

 Sign in the train station - shows all the dns shops throughout this huge country - much more population in the west of the Ural Mountains. 

The snow and ice pile up on the sidewalk - so much that it ends up about four feet higher  than the roadway - they crave 'steps' up to the sidewalk from the roads!!

Another Ballet and Yummy Thai Dinner

 Wonderful Dasha and Ploy in front of the Novosibirsk Ballet Theater - aren't they cute?

 Inside the wonderful theater - red carpet, Christmas decorations, etc.

 Checking out the orchestra pit and the live musicians - very inspiring.  The Ballet Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty had live orchestra, the other one was a modern type rendition of Romeo and Juliet - called Radio and Juliet - kind of weird but wonderfu dancing and canned music. 

 Love that they left this Natavity Scene on the main Plaza after Christmas!

 Walking back to the subway, we all stopped at a nice older lady's sock shop.  Dasha and Ploy and I all bought socks - later Dasha and Ploy gave these to us as a 'thank you' gift - love them and the socks!

 Ploy and Dasha cooking us an authentic Thai dinner.

So many dishes and so yummy!  Ploy is a good cook - and Dasha was a good helper!
We also saw the famous Ballet - Sleeping Beauty - on Saturday, January 12th - so amazing and fun.

Ice Sculptures

 After dinner we walked a short distance to the City's Annual Ice Sculptures festival.  The skating rink was a part of the fun.

 This huge ice bowl is so much fun ... kids can't get out without their parents help!

 Many wonderful ice sculptures - Dasha taking pictures of some of them.

 Dasha and Ploy with ice horses in the background .. it was cold but not too bad.

 Elder and Sister Smith at the festival - we enjoyed it a lot.

 Beautifyl Ploy and 'Year of the Pig' sculpture - we are close to Asia and have lots of Asian influence around us.

Fun decorated train that whizzed by as we were walking back to the subway to get home.