Saturday, November 29, 2008

The importance of Recycling 11/29/08

The importance of Recycling 
11/29/08

Weather:
Snowing
Wind 5-7 mph from the north
Temp -1c

We think long and hard before we throw anything away. Everything is hard to get and some things just are not available either because the stores don't have them, the stores are out of them, the stores don't ever carry them, or we don't know where to find them. Things that we would discard thoughtlessly at home become useful, or even treasures, here. A box, a jar with a good lid, a piece of wood, needles, pins, rubber bands, those wire twisties you get on anything with a cord, broken fans, a dead space heater, assorted screws & nails, or anything that won't rot or stink.

Case in point; the vertical wardrobes in our bedroom, on each side of the windows out to the street, were both leaning away from the wall, more each day. An inch gap at the baseboard translated into a 6 inch gap at the ceiling, making the doors fly open and the shelves not sit right. I decided to shim the bottoms and thus push the wardrobe back against the wall and possibly straighten the whole thing. I made wedges out of a shattered piece of wood from a stool that was broken some time ago and pushed the units back upright. now the doors stay shut and the shelves are straight.

Don't worry Carl, I will cut the wedge to size when I am sure I have the unit stable. It may take some adjusting to get it square. The point is that you never know when you will need a piece of wood or a nail. Here I made a shelf in the Cabo room for Sister Cindy on which to put her food that won't fit in the new fridge. Can you imagine that, a refrigerator over 7 feet tall that cannot hold all of our food?

Here my broken stool supports one end of a piece of plywood I found (the other end is on the landlady's milk can full of powdered milk). The bags are of bread dough you can buy, ready to raise and cook. The glass jug has the cabbage and carrots the RS preserved in brine a few weeks ago, and the pots hold ingredients for the RS "Borsht" project today.


Our friends and family have sent us many boxes of goodies from the states. Those boxes were saved and this week were cut down into smaller boxes and used to send Christmas gifts to young missionaries from the Novosibirsk mission area who are serving elsewhere in the world this Christmas time.

This project came out of a need to do some things with the returned missionaries who live in our city. They come home from 18 months or 2 years of highly regimented, focused work under the daily influence of the Holy Ghost and good companions back into their families, old friends, and old situations. This is difficult for any missionary, but for those who return to the harsh reality of life in Russia it can be more than doubly difficult. We want to bring them together and provide opportunities to forge friendships and a support group to help keep them happy and strong in the Gospel.

We produced twelve Christmas boxes that will bring a smile to those missionaries and a memory of service to our RM's. It is projects like this that we hope to do to bring light into everyone's life. A harsh place needs some softening and these former missionaries have lots to give when they have the chance.

What a country.
DS
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