Summer Gardens

Some of the fountains (there are many) in the summer gardens. The Clarks and Christoffersons can be seen heading away from the camera.                                                                                                                                                                             

We are having an extremely cool summer, which is fine by us. It rains often, but when there is cloud cover at night it makes it easier to sleep because of the white nights. The sun comes up about 4:40 and goes down about 11:30 pm. It is twilight until 1 am and then it is twilight starting again at 3:30. In between there is only nautical twilight—it never gets completely dark.

The tourists are out enmasse--it is White Nights time again. We stay away from downtown if possible. The pickpockets are also out in droves. One senior couple has been hit twice and another couple got hit the other day. But they are wise to what is happening so the thieves don’t always get anything. They hunt in packs, surrounding their victims when they are trying to get on the Metro and pushing them into the car the last second. Since they are all squished up against them, they take what they want and exit at the next stop. Or they try a similar tactic on the crowded streets. They are pretty expert at hitting you before you know what has happened.

Sister and Elder D. Todd Christofferson, one of our newer apostles, in the gardens.

We had an apostle, D. Todd Christofferson, come out for District Conference on June 10^th. He brought his wife; a member of the Area Presidency and his wife (Schwitzer); Edward Watson, the secretary to the 12; and two cameramen, Jim and Curtis. Since there were too many people to fit into the van, Phil got to drive the cameramen around from place to place.

We picked them up at the airport on Sunday morning and drove them back to the mission home for a light lunch before the conference at 1 pm. While they all ate at the mission home, we fed our friend, Igor the mission driver, at our place. The conference was very well attended. The official count was 615, but that didn’t look right to anyone, more like 700 (they always count really short here for some reason), and they didn’t count any of the people downstairs in the overflow areas.

The group strolling through the gardens.

This was a dry run to show Elder Christofferson that we are ready to be a stake. He might not understand what a great achievement this was for us. June 10^th is a couple of weeks after the start of dacha season. Russians know how to take a vacation. Most of them get a whole month off every year; many get two months. Sometimes they break it up in pieces, and sometimes they just leave for 1-2 months. Many never come to church all summer long because every weekend they go out to their dachas to tend their gardens and enjoy the country life and air. The District Presidency went around asking everyone to please put aside tending their carrots on June 10^th. The majority of the people listened and showed up. It was impressive. Elder Christofferson asked all the children to come up and shake his hand, which they did. A few of those Russian “children” were in their 50s, but it was just fine.

The District President was a great example to them. He is a neurosurgeon, but he doesn’t make as much per year as our mission driver. Doctors and teachers take home the lowest salaries in Russia. To make up for that, most Russian doctors take bribes. There are always long waiting lists to get in to see a doctor or to have a procedure done. To speed things up, you give the doctor some extra money and he puts you at or near the top of the list. This is a leftover practice from Communist days—most business was done under the table then. There is even a special word to describe it—something about a backdoor. ALL doctors do this. It is standard procedure and everyone knows about it and expects it. Yet our District President refuses to take bribes. He doesn’t feel that it right. They are quite poor because he won’t and his colleagues think he is crazy. (His supervisor takes bribes and makes over three times as much each month that our District President makes in a year).

Phil and President Clark chatting--Sister Clark is to the right.

So a month or so ago he was asked to come and speak at a special convention and the speaking fee would be half his yearly salary. He is very well respected as a surgeon here (he would like to come to the US but the AMA would make him start school over from scratch). The date they wanted him was June 10^th. He turned them down, saying this was one of the most important days of his life and he couldn’t miss it, that he would love to come speak any other time. He has worked so hard at becoming a stake he didn’t want to miss the dry run. He is impressive and so was the District Conference.

Another Russian brother who also has a prominent calling decided he couldn’t come to the conference because he had a fishing trip planned with a couple of other brethren in his branch—they had had the trip planned for many months. They went fishing instead. That was not so impressive. Such a contrast.

After the conference, they had a quick dinner while we took the cameramen over to the church’s Institute building so they could set up. Elder Christofferson and group held a fireside for all the young single adults in the District. We had 95 people at that meeting. That was an incredible turnout—not all were members. We hung around with the cameramen while they interviewed some of the young people afterwards. When the Institute director said he would take the cameramen back to the hotel after they finished, we finally went home and ate. (Phil and Elder McArthur went out and bought the cameramen some fast food since they would be there quite late).

Part of the gardens. It was so incredibly peaceful to have that huge garden all to ourselves.

Monday morning we were up early picking up the cameramen and going with the whole group over to the Summer Gardens next to the Hermitage  (Winter Palace).  Our Public Affairs lady had made arrangements with the Summer Gardens people to let us in a half hour before the gates opened to the public. The Summer Gardens are very special to the Russians and especially to Russian Mormons. The Gardens have been closed for over three years for renovation—they were trying to return them to the original design as much as possible and only opened them up about the first of June. It was in the Summer Gardens in 1903 that Russia was dedicated by Apostle Lyman for the preaching of the gospel. It took almost 90 years before the Church was able to begin to get a real foothold in Russia.

 It was so peaceful to be able to wander around the Summer Gardens with just our small company, and the company we were with were wonderful people so that made it that much better. There was a great spirit there—we loved it.

After the Gardens, we drove back to the church were Elder Christofferson held a special 2-hour meetings with all the missionaries. At the end, he opened it up for questions and it went very well. When the meeting was over, the group headed back to the cars where Sister Clark handed everyone a sandwich and a piece of fruit—we had water in the car. We drove them back down near the Hermitage where they got a hydrofoil boat to Peterhof, Peter the Great’s massive home and gardens on the Bay of Finland that are modeled after Versailles, France, only twice a big, naturally. One cameraman stayed in town with another driver so he could get shots of St. Petersburg and the other one went on the boat with Elder Christofferson’s group. We followed Igor in the van and drove to Peterhof to pick everyone up down there. Igor took up through parts of St. Petersburg we had never seen—it was a lovely trip.

It takes so long to get down there when there are a couple of accidents on the road. Russia doesn’t allow the cars involved to be moved out of the way until the police arrive, so it can cause a nightmare traffic jam trying to get around them. By the time we arrived by car, the group was finished touring around. The palace was closed since it was a Monday, but the grounds are wonderful. Sister Clark and Sister Christofferson had a hard time in their high heels since all the paths are dirt/sand and tiny gravel, but I think they enjoyed it. And it was a nice drive through the country and southern part of the city to give them a taste of Russia.

One of the walk ways.

Some of the many statues you find everywhere in the gardens.

We dropped them off at the hotel and were going to head back home to eat, but Elder Christofferson invited Igor and us to dine with them at the hotel and we are told that you don’t turn down an apostle’s invitation. The meal was very good and it took forever for it to be prepared (very common in Russia), but that was OK with us. We sat at a long table across from the Schwitzers, kitty corner from the Christoffersons, and next to the cameramen. We had a wonderful time chatting with everyone. I really noticed a difference in how I felt around them all—very calm, peaceful and with a great desire to be better than I am now. Their spirits uplifted mine in a very obvious way that is hard to describe.  It was incredibly pleasant and enjoyable. Sister Schwitzer is just a Utah mom who is so easy to talk with and a lot of fun. Elder Christofferson is really quite personally shy, but lovely and very humble. He does not come off in person like he does while listening to him give an address in General Conference. He has a nice sense of humor and tries very hard to always conduct his life in a manner that does not offend the Spirit, which is very obvious.  We had a wonderful evening with them all.

We got up early the next morning and took the cameramen to the airport several hours before their early flight. They have a lot of photographic equipment that has to pass through customs before boarding the plane, and it took several hours to get it all the paperwork completed correctly. Igor brought the rest of the group later and they all flew out together to Turkey for a few days to tour the new mission there and then head back to Moscow for more meetings. Such a wild pace of life they live.

These rocks were painted by the grandmother of two of our new converts. She has passed away, but she did many of these rocks. She felt like she wanted to help the rock express who it really was, using the natural contours of the rock to create faces and animals. These sit at my desk area for people to look at.

This is a "temple" on the way to Peterhof, Peter the Great's famous Summer Palace.

This is an old building also on the way to Peterhof. This was painted around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, dating from the attire the people and the words, which are written in the Old Slavonic alphabet and say "Workers of the whole country, Unite!". It also has an angel holding a cross in the picture--definitely an early depiction. When Stalin came to power, he got rid of the church and simplified the alphabet to its current status.

Regina & Phil at the doors to the Helsinki Temple. We went to Helsinki with the President and Sister Clark for our visa trip. We spent the night in the dorms there. The bunk beds are quite comfortable, but since it was a Monday night and no one was visiting yet, both couples got a room of 6 bunks to themselves. But we never got to go to a temple session as we had to leave early the next morning because of an emergency with a missionary back in St. Petersburg. So we all went up and had our pictures taken in front of the doors since we didn't have time to stay.