Smiths Russian Reflections: Dasha and Ploy Come to Visit

This is the Central Train Station in Novosibirsk - it is 5:00 am on January 5th and we are coming to pick up Dasha and Ploy from Irkutsk - they have been traveling for three days on the train. We left home around 4:30 and didn't know the subway doesn't run that early - luckily there was a taxi near - we had to wake up the driver but we arrived in plenty of time!

On the subway - Metro... aren't they beautiful? We met Dasha in November 2017 - when we did an audit training in Irkutsk ...not knowing we would have the privelege of living there in December! She guided us on a tour of the Lake Baikal region and was darling! She had been investigating the church for about one year! Ploy is a student from Thailand - the sister voluneers met her on the street in her second week in Irkutsk - both are lovely and fun and we planned this holiday trip since September when we left Irkutsk to be the mission office couple.

Because of the Russian Holidays - Jan. 1 - 10, our mission invited the next mission to the west - Ekaterinburg Mission - to a YSA and Seminary student conference. We missed the Friday evening Winter Ball at one of the fancy hotels, but went to the Saturday events at the Left Bank Building. After the long train ride, the girls slept a few hours and then we got back on the subway to attend the Saturday parts of the conference ..on the subway we met Slava, a member from Irkutsk who had come also.

Dasha and Slava walking from the subway station to the church building - they are good friends. It was good to meet Slava, he was baptized before we were in Irkutsk and left for a job in St. Petersburg. Then after we left to live in Novosibirsk, he came back! He is preparing for a mission.