More Adventures

This week was fairly quiet. Phil went with me when I went to the US Consulate to pick up the new missionaries’ second passports. They were processed fairly quickly—in just over a week—and I turned them in to the Russian sister in the office who works on visas and travel. She told me they weren’t signed yet, which was obvious since I’d just picked them up, and she had to have them signed right away, as if I could quickly pull those two missionaries out of my pocket. But both of the elders went to their new areas the day after they got here (last week)—one elder is two hours away and one is five hours away from the mission home. I was a little surprised by her reaction. This may be new for me, but it is not a new event for her. Maybe she was just trying to train me on what needed to be done, but I have no authority to ask them to leave their assigned areas on such long trips. I told her what areas they were assigned to and she said she would see about getting them to come down and sign their passports. She again stressed the importance of having them signed immediately, that she couldn’t do anything with them until they were signed. I am sure this situation is always the same since it takes time to process the new passports and the elders don’t sit around at the mission home until they are done. I also knew I had no place to secure them for the next six weeks until the elders will again be down to the mission home (I had called them previously to see when they might be down next). I am not the one that is supposed to store the passports. Her office is secure; mine isn’t. So I just smiled and played dumb. I was glad to get those passports off my hands.

With the extra time at the office, I have been training Sister Luna on the Church’s genealogy site. She has some information and wants to get into genealogy seriously when she gets home. I have also been showing her how to use the internet for research. She trains me and when we are out of office stuff to do, then I train her. It has been fun for both of us. We should have a fair amount of down time in the next few weeks, especially since I am getting better at what needs to be done and she also still does some stuff. She is MORE than ready to head home—she really doesn’t need to stay until the end of June for my sake, but besides being over the finances, her husband also serves as the second counselor to the Mission President. For that reason, President Podvodov has asked them to stay until he goes home the end of June. It’s good that we can work on genealogy; otherwise I am afraid she might lose her mind. She just has to sit there all day and let me fumble along trying to remember what to do. That must be so hard for her since she could do it so quickly by herself. She has been an office worker all her adult life and she is GOOD at what she does. The same situation exists with Brother Luna. He quietly sits by and watches Phil fumble through tasks that he can do without even thinking about it. He’s got to be getting bored as well. They are incredibly patience people and very good natured.

Sister Luna is SO organized. She has put together a notebook with step-by-step instructions for everything I have to do. Each section deals with a different responsibility complete with copies and examples of everything. She walked into this job without anyone to train her—the other sister had already gone home. There were a few notes left for her, but she said she just started reading every file in the drawers and everything on the computer and taught herself what she had to do. Wow. Glad it was Sister Luna and not me. This has not been easy even with a great trainer and great instructions.

Saturday we went with the Lunas on a bus clear downtown to the main St. Petersburg post office so we would know how to get there. That is the only place from which you can mail packages to the States. They shipped off their books and other such items that they don’t have room for in their suitcases. They can only bring home 88 pounds each, plus a small carry on. This was probably cheaper than paying for extra luggage, but it still cost them $160. After the postal run, we walked around town going down by the river and the Hermitage again, plus through a couple of parks. St. Petersburg is really a beautiful city and it was nice to walk around on such a gorgeous day. It also helped us to get our bearings a little better. Maybe by the time I leave here I will know how to get around.

We are posting some pictures of the sites we saw yesterday. Note the handicap ramp that leads to the Metro by our place (actually, I’m not sure it is really a handicap ramp but we’re not sure what else it could be. One thing is for sure, it would be a wild ride in a wheel chair). In spite of the fact that every Metro car has a sign painted on the window above a couple of seats that says these places are reserved for invalids and women with children, I have seen only one person on the Metro in a wheelchair. He was a young man in Army pants and he’d lost his legs. There are no elevators at the Metro, just an escalator that goes down incredibly deep and then lots and lots of narrow stone stairs. I don’t know how he manages. We have seen him twice, so he must live on our stop, and he must use those rails to navigate the many different staircases. I did see another young man on the Metro who had lost both legs from the calf down. He had wrapped his legs in padding and then thick plastic from just above the knee on down for protection from the dirt, muck and rain water. He then slowly plodded along on his knees, using tiny canes in each hand to steady himself. It would take him forever to get anywhere, but this way he could get around on the subway. His knee bones must be worn down to the nub by all those stone stairs and stone and brick walkways. Russia is full of uneven stairs and steps everywhere you go. You just don’t see handicapped people out and about because it is so darn-near impossible to get around. I don’t know what happens to those people. How do they get to the store for groceries, or in and out of the stores for that matter because there are always steps? How to the carry it all home? You would literally be house-bound and would need friends or family to provide for you. Not everyone has a support net. On TV I have seen poorly funded invalid homes where they just park them in beds all day long. What a life.

Monday (25 May). We went to an office staff meeting this morning, worked for a bit and then went into St. Petersburg to the Church’s Institute building for our district meeting with the young missionaries. They hold the meetings all in Russian so I am usually lucky if I can follow the general flow of things. Then we caught the Metro back towards home and went to the OK grocery store for milk, bread, and cereal, basically. We walked home, ate leftover potato soup (it is always better the second day), and Phil drug me back down to St. Petersburg. He was going stir crazy sitting in the apartment every night and needed to get out. We took the Metro over to one of the islands that are part of the city and then walked and walked over to where the battle cruiser Aurora is permanently anchored. We were too late to go aboard for the tour, so Phil will probably drag me back again. The Aurora is the ship that was involved in the Revolution. On the night of October 25-26 1917, it fired a blank shot at the Winter Palace (then the residence of the Provisional Government), giving the signal to the rebellious workers, soldiers and sailors of the city to storm the palace. That was the beginning of 70 years of Bolshevik/Communist rule.