Peterhof

June 2, 2011

Peterhof

They are replacing the furniture in our office so everything is all torn up. It is almost impossible to work so we took our Preparation Day with the Lunas and the young missionaries on Thursday and went to Peterhof— Peter the Great’s big palace down on the coast. He modeled it after Versailles in France only he made sure it was exactly twice as big. I would estimate the grounds are at least the size of Central Park in New York. The palace was left a burned-out stone hulk at the end of World War II (why the Nazis felt they needed to pummel an ancient, empty palace I do not know), but as soon as the war started, the pictures and much of the furniture were all removed and hidden in St. Petersburg somewhere. The huge gilded fountain statues were taken to St. Petersburg and buried for the duration of the fighting. Not all of the fountains are working, but most are and they are an amazing engineering feat. Since there was no electricity in the 1700’s, all the fountains function without the assistance of pumps. They are beautiful. Not all of the palace is restored for public viewing, but it has a beautiful shiny new copper roof. The outside looks great. The chapel is still being redone and you can’t go in, but we went through the palace anyway. You have to pay to visit the main gardens (the gardens out front are open to the public) and then pay again if you want to go into the palace.

We got there by taking a hydro-foil boat from near the Hermitage down to Peterhof, about a 50-minute trip. You can get there by bus, but that would be a long, hot bus ride (Russians won’t open the windows and there is no air conditioning) so we and the Lunas opted for the much more expensive boat ride while the young missionaries came later by bus. We left our place about 9:30 am and got back home about 6:00 pm. It was a long, tiring day, but it was great fun. And we actually did some missionary work on the boat.

I sat down across from a man sitting alone by a window, and Phil came over later. That spot was the closest I could get to a window for a view of the gulf. The man obviously spoke English, so Phil just started chatting with him; his family was sitting on the other side of the boat by the opposite window. He was from the Vancouver area and asked about our Russian names tags. Phil told him we were missionaries and he asked which church and Phil told him. We didn’t say anything more about our church or religion, but he told us how he used to teach Sunday School, but he doesn’t bother any longer. As a teenager, he loved going to church and hear the sermons. He always hoped to come home from church and have a theological discussion with his family about the sermons, but they were never interested. They just went to church on Sunday and didn’t bother with religion again except for the time they were in church on the next Sunday. He felt that most church goers were like that and he got very disillusioned with church as an adult and doesn’t attend anymore. His current wife is a photographic artist (Sister Luna chatted with the wife and found out that some of her photos are currently on display downtown) and he said they live in an island community that is made up of retirees, artsy folks and hippies. I got the drift that church is not part of the life style up there.

This was all volunteered information; we just sat and listened. Then he excused himself just before we docked so he could use the restroom. I doubted he would come back, but I hoped to see him later. I didn’t think we had any church-related information in English with us, but then I remembered my personal tiny copy of the Book of Mormon that I carry in my purse, so I pulled that out, took off the protective cover and put our stateside address in it to hopefully give to him later. But he showed back up on his own just before we were about to stand up to get off the boat. He emphatically told us, “Your people need to do something to help the First Nations (the Canadian Native Americans). They really need you up there.” I told him we tried, but there were huge cultural barriers that made it difficult. I then handed him my little copy of the Book of Mormon. He was surprised and weakly protested that he didn’t want to take my personal copy, but Phil said we could easily get more, so he took it and put it in his vest pocket. Then he said something about being on the same page with us concerning the teachings of Christ and I told him that that little book was another testament of Christ. He nodded slightly and left with his family. Phil chatted with him again briefly after we were on the dock. Unlike so many others, he must have already known that we are Christians because we never said anything about our beliefs to him. Now we just pray that he or someone in his family will read that little book.