My Adventures Where in the world is ….

Once again all is coated in white as of 8:00 not much is moving.

This man was bringing his son (I believe) to the day-care/kindergarten downstairs. They were struggling to get through the snow.  The boy fell once and struggled to get up until his Dad went back to help him.

You might remember the parking lot across from our apartment where they shoveled around a pile of snow last storm. So far no one is working there. The man standing there is just passing by and perhaps stopped for a rest after climbing through the deep snow.

This van was stuck and it took several people, a lot of time and lots of shoveling to finally get it out and back on its way.

An unusual sight – a snow plow on our little road.

He was kind enough to pull this car out of the snow pile it was stuck in.

One man is starting to move snow in the parking lot across the road.

Later, some more came to help shovel. They shoveled in the middle to the sides – including the side that is the entrance.

The view out into our complex from the stairway. The roads are not any better over here.

The two cars are in the entrance to the parking lot. Question? How many does it take to shovel out a parking lot? In the end they only left the small entrance where the one car is then had to move the cars in to allow another car or two to enter.

Are they done?

Long before they finished the parking lot two men had shoveled parking places for four cars in this area up the road.

Room set up for the celebration.

Hint of the upcoming video. Mohammad is the first person on the video which came later. This is a tradition, at least since last year. Each of the brothers in the branch give a message in Russian. Elder Morgenegg’s message was “? ?????.” (I love you.)

Container of roses which were later moved to the top of the podium.

Brother Igor is in the back (the Elder’s Quorum President). The brother in the front often wears this beautiful shirt of vyshyvanka embroidery.

Some of the members

More members

Our branch president introduced the meeting and welcomed everyone.

Elder Morgenegg was asked to start the meeting with a spiritual thought. The young man next to him is our branch mission leader, who translated what Elder Morgenegg said. Elder Morgenegg talked about how we met and the revelation he had that he was going to marry me before we had even met. He also shared that next week we will have been married for 48 years – amazing where revelation can take you.

Than our branch president came in wearing a police man’s uniform. He is so funny.

He got this good brother to come up and play his guitar and sing. It was very good. I didn’t understand the words but the music was beautiful.

Here our branch mission leader, Kostya (“coastya”) is trying to teach the brothers to dance.

Still trying.

Still trying.

He is kicked out.

They know how to dance.

This young woman dances solo – she used to dance with her brother but now he has another partner. She is very amazing but it was hard to get pictures.

This was a skit kind of like telephone only the first person was given an action and had to pass it along. Like telephone it changed a lot at the end.

Passing it along. It was very fun to watch and the sisters were such good sports.

Igor and his daughter did a skit about a cave man and a cave woman. It was very funny.

His daughter.

Turns out she fought the bear and won.

This was a wonderful surprise. This brother sang a lovely love song and he has such a beautiful voice.

He invited his beautiful wife to join him for a dance and he sang just to her. Lovely.

Kostya dancing to Michael Jackson’s Beat It. Pictures cannot capture all he did.

Our branch president enlisted the help of three young women to pay back up for his trumpet. He is a professional musician and he is amazing. Truly gifted. It was a pleasure to listen to him play and the young women were a good back up.

Our brethren have a great sense of humor. the one on the left is selling roses. The one on the right want koses (I think). It is quite a discussion and he is sent off.

Then the second man wants loses. No.

Finally, this man wants noses. In the end they decide to give all the roses away and each woman of what ever age gets a long stemmed pink rose. What a lovely gift.

After, the counselor in our district presidency and Igor were joking around with the wigs from Igor’s skit. So silly.

Truck parked and getting ready to work

Close up of the truck

Raising the basket

Finished except for the clean up.

Close up of the sad tree and man sweeping the debris.

Looking down into the parking lot of the passport center across Polia from our apartment there are some men moving snow and actually using shovels – often here they just use a broom – that is if the move the snow at all.

Here is a close up and you might be able to see that there is quite a bit of drifted snow in the middle pile.

The quit and left a pile in the middle – they had added to it as they shoveled so it is higher than it was and the cars have to drive around it since there are fences keeping them from driving in or out any other way.

This is looking down on the day care parking so you can see there are still places with virtually no snow.