Sunday 8/10/08 Speaking in Church

Speaking in Church
8/10/08
Speaking in Sacrament meeting is always a little challenging. but doing it while being interrupted by translation of every phrase is a new verse to an old song.

Cindy and I were assigned to speak in the First Branch, that meets second on Sunday, on the topics of Relief Society and Home/Visiting teaching. Cindy's talk was a wonderfully inspirational history and introduction to the importance of Relief Society. We each printed two copies of the talks so the translator could read as well as listen. Hers was translated by a returned missionary from Temple Square, Lydia, and mine was translated by elder McCleary. Mine was a little more complex because the branch president asked me to stimulate the priesthood to doing their home teaching.

When writing my sermon, I found it a little awkward trying to motivate the 8 priesthood holders in the branch to do a better job of home teaching. I was reminded that the entire priesthood of the church in 1832 could sit in one room, so having few men to do the work is not new in the growing parts of the church. However, with 4 times the sisters in the branch, I needed to join the two functions in some way. Otherwise the priesthood was visiting 28 families each.

I reviewed how these functions are the arms and legs of the branch president in serving the members and how they can act together to watch over the families. I sure hope the Holy Ghost was active in that meeting. I felt like I was breaking new ground and needed special help in making it clear. I guess it did something because the branch president decided to have the missionaries partner with the priesthood to start making visits; ostensibly to teach them how to do home teaching and to find less actives or part-member families for the elders to teach. I think he has a good idea here.

I love the branch presidents, but especially this one. He has been a member only a few years and is trying very hard to do what he sees in the Priesthood Guidebooks. It is hard to choose what you will implement in a small branch, and he is very conscientious about his calling.

I am grateful for our assignment to speak and have prayed, and continue to pray, that the members understood and caught the vision. The text of my sermon follows.

What a country
DS

WHY HOMETEACHING?
NOVOSIBIRSK FIRST BRANCH SACRAMENT MEETING AUGUST 9, 2008
THE MOVE
Imagine that next January the entire First Branch was instructed to move to Omsk to join with the members there to build a Temple. There are 100 members of the church already living there and they welcome you into their homes for a few days, but you must find your own homes and jobs. You are a stranger in a new city. You have your Branch Presidency and each other, but you get spread out all over the city and only get together on Sundays.

Who would be your friend? Who would care if you were sick or didn’t have food? Who would help you take care of a sick child while you worked? Who would help you feel better when you were lonely and miss your friends in Novosibirsk?

Is it the Branch President? Is it the other members now in Omsk? Is it someone in Salt Lake City? Is it Heavenly Father?
THE ORGANIZATION TO DO THE WORK
The answer is ALL OF THEM.
First, it is the Branch President. As stated in Doctrine & Covenants 84:112, “And the bishop, [in this case it was] Newel K. Whitney, also should travel round about and among all the churches, searching after the poor to administer to their wants by humbling the rich and the proud.” He has the stewardship, the job, taking care of the Branch members when they need help. How does he do this? He has tools to do the job which include:
• The Home Teachers & Visiting Teachers
• The Priesthood quorum presidencies
• The Relief Society presidency
• The District Presidency
• The Missionaries
• The Mission President
• The Europe East Service Center in Moscow
• The Church Presiding Bishopric
• The Church Humanitarian and other departments
• Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost

As a member of the Novosibirsk First Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints you have the support of a Branch organization that includes a Branch Presidency and Priesthood Quorums to direct the work. The Lord has inspired His prophets to establish these to direct the care needed for the members of His church.

God has also inspired those same prophets to organize auxiliaries, or helping organizations, in your branch to do special tasks within your Branch. The Branch Presidency cannot do everything alone. They cannot visit every member, teach every lesson, train every worker, care for every sick child, visit every hospital patient, or hold every hand of a sick or sad branch member. You have just heard about the Relief Society. You also know about Primary, Sunday School, Young Women, Young Men, Seminary, and Institute here at home. These are the arms and hands of the Branch President to serve the members.

God has also inspired the priesthood leaders in Salt Lake to create General Church helping organizations to train and encourage your Branch leaders with books, manuals, teaching aids, Fast Offering and other social service. The Presiding Bishopric administers Fast Offering and Tithing funds to help the Branch President serve the members.

THE TOOLS
But let’s go back to the beginning of that list of tools that the Branch President has. The first one is the Home Teacher and Visiting Teacher. They are the Branch President’s eyes, ears, arms and hands to help him take care of the branch members. When someone needs help, whom do they call? NOT THE BRANCH PRESIDENT! Their first call is to the Home Teacher or Visiting Teacher. If possible, the Home Teacher and the Visiting Teacher should talk together about the problem and plan how to help. They will then do all that they can to help the member. If they can take care of the need . . . job is done and the Branch President only hears about it afterward.

The Doctrine & Covenants first mentions Home Teachers in verse 111 of Section 84:
109 Therefore, let every man stand in his own office, and labor in his own calling; and let not the head say unto the feet it hath no need of the feet; for without the feet how shall the body be able to stand?
110 Also the body hath need of every member, that all may be edified together, that the system may be kept perfect.
111 And behold, the high priests should travel, and also the elders, and also the lesser priests; but the deacons and teachers should be appointed to watch over the church, to be standing ministers unto the church.

If the need is greater than they can take care of, they contact their quorum and relief society leaders to get the help of others. These leaders will inform the Branch President about the need and what they are doing. They might ask him to try to get more help from his other tools like the District Presidency, the missionaries, the Mission President, or the Eastern Europe Service Center in Moscow, but the Home Teacher and Visiting Teacher are the ones who do the work with the family to take care of the need.

I know that the branches do not have many priesthood holders to be Home Teachers. I know that there are more sisters to be Visiting Teachers than there are priesthood holders to be Home Teachers, but there are still very few. I also know that we think that we are short of priesthood, but at the time that Section 84 was given, the entire priesthood of the Church could be seated in one room. If the active members in this branch do their duty it will be as the 110th verse states, “110 Also the body hath need of every member, that all may be edified together, that the system may be kept perfect.” If we do not do our duty as Home and Visiting Teachers, the whole organization will fall down and we cannot serve our brothers and sisters nor be called “Good and faithful servants” by Jesus Christ at His coming. He expects us to do our duty, for He said to Ezekiel the prophet, “Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that … feed not the flock.”

This Church is a church of workers. This is not a club of nice people that meet on Sunday to socialize. This is not a church where we come once in a while on special Sundays to watch someone else worship God for us. This is not just a nice club; this is the CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST, restored to the earth through the sacrifice and labor of many who came before us to:
1. Serve and perfect God’s children
2. To save all those who lived before or in a place where the Gospel was not yet established
3. And to share the Gospel with everyone.

We are all called to be laborers in the kingdom. None of us can say that it is enough to be baptized or even come to church. THAT IS NOT THE WAY CHRIST HAS RUN HIS CHURCH SINCE HE STARTED IT.
Peter, James and John were not paid ministers, Paul was not a paid missionary, and there were very few of them to do the work. Every congregation that they organized had a leader who had to make a living as well as watch over that group of Christians just like you have to do in Novosibirsk, or like you would have to do in my little story abut OMSK. It has always been that way until men decided to make it a paying job and take away the blessings of service from the people. It is by serving that God blesses us. It is by working that we obtain the honorable title of “servant of the Lord”. You and I are the workers in the field. You and I are the Ten Virgins that came to meet the Bridegroom. You and I are the 5000 that he preached to on the hillside, many of whom became his disciples. You and I are the 70 that he sent two by two to spread the gospel. You and I are all that God has to labor in his kingdom. He said to us in Doctrine & Covenants 31: 5 “Therefore, thrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are forgiven you, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your back, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Wherefore, your family shall live.”

Some people think that when they die they will sit around heaven and rest for eternity. The only ones who will sit around will be those in Hell who will be tortured by their own guilt and prevented from being near God and serving Him. Our destiny is not rest. Our destiny is to labor and progress. In chapter 18 of the Priesthood manual “Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young” we read, “The Lord directs His work in heaven and on earth through the priesthood.”
Satan promised us that we would not have to work, that he would do all the work for us, and we rejected that plan. God has a work for each of us to perform and we must do it or Satan’s plan will succeed for us individually and as Nephi warns against deception in 2 Ne. 28:21 “And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell”).

God trusts us to do the work. He wants us to learn to be like Him by doing things that He does. God does not go to His Dacha on Sunday. He does not neglect his children’s prayers because He is on vacation. He is not too busy to listen to our complaints and send help. God is working for us every moment of eternity and if we do not want to be like Him, whom do we want to be like? As the apostles said when Jesus asked if they too would leave him, “Unto whom shall we go?”

Brothers and sisters, Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching are two of the important things God has asked us to do and what excuse do you think He will accept for our failure to do it. I think it is a very short list. Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching are the foundation labor for the welfare of the members of the Church, and to the extent that we do them, your Branch, the Russia Novosibirsk Mission, and the kingdom of God in Russia will grow and strengthen, or it will not. You and I are the workers and that is our joyous task.

What is in it for you and I? What do we get out of it? He has promised us everything that His Father has, but one very important thing that I want right now in this life out of my service to God is for Him to hear my prayer and honor my cry for help. When I am standing over my sick child, or my injured friend, or my kitchen table full of bills I cannot pay and I raise my voice to God, pleading for His help, I want to know that He honors my service, my sacrifice, my labor in His behalf, and that He will answer my prayer with a blessing on my head if it is for my good, and not do as he says he had done to the Saints in Missouri in Doctrine & Covenants Section 101: 7-8
“7 They were slow to hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God; therefore, the Lord their God is slow to hearken unto their prayers, to answer them in the day of their trouble.
8 In the day of their peace they esteemed lightly my counsel; but, in the day of their trouble, of necessity they feel after me.”

Finally, when I am dead, I want to stand before Jesus Christ and say as Paul said in 2 Timothy 4: 7
“7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith”
and have Jesus say to me, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

This is the Church of Jesus Christ, restored to the earth because wicked men corrupted it soon after the apostles’ death. This is the Kingdom of God on the earth and it is correct and true here in Russia as it is in every part of the world where it is established. Jesus Christ is the head of this church and Joseph Smith was the one he chose to restore it and Thomas S. Monson is his prophet today. I love you. I love this wonderful work. I love my wife and missionary companion. I love these young missionaries and the sacrifice they are making for you.

August 10, 2008 No Hot water for a Week

Noon no Hot Water For a Week
8/10/08
A western movie I once saw had a recurring line something like, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." I feel that way everyday when I discover something that everyone else knows but us. It happened Friday when I overheard one of the Novosibirsk elder's conversation with one of the transferring elders passing through the mission office. He said, "Our hot waster should be back on by the 12th." I asked how long his water had been off and he said, "since last Saturday just like yours. We are all on the same system and the notice in our building said that they would have it back on line by the 12th."

I knew it was a central system and that I had been out of hot water since the previous Saturday, but I just didn't think about EVERYONE being shut off. We were commiserating with eachother about the water, but neither of us hit upon the fact that everyone was taking cold showers (or none at all) for the past week.

I, on the other hand, had decided that being out of hot water was not a noble sacrifice. It was just an inconvenience that had done nothing for my character and that I was going to do something about it. Thursday morning, my third without a shower, I began to consider alternatives. This called for a two-pronged approach. One was to solve the immediate problem and the other was to be prepared for the next episode of missing comfort that would surely come.

Working backward, preparation for the future took the form of either an electric "on demand" tankless water heater installed in the bathroom under the current sink next to the tub. The Research Department brought in a bid of $650 US for such an animal, not counting the shipping from Peoria. I sent it back to Research for another source closer to home. We also have the wiring problem, considering that the walls are 12" thick concrete and there is no electrical outlet in the bathroom. This whole idea needs more work.

The immediate problem was a hot shower, or a close approximation of one. I considered a remodel of the 5 liter plastic water storage cannister with a hose and sprinkler can head. The problem was the only part of that aparatus I had was the plastic bottle. The rest was in my shop in Sacramento. OK, the sprinkler can shower would wave to wait for a trip to the hardware store. The immediate need called for something I DID have available; what was it?

I suddenly (well, about 40 minutes is suddenly for me these days) remembered that we had seen an extra Chainik (those electric tea pots we use) at the "Palace" (the Soviet-era palatial apartment that had been sub-divided into several strange shaped smaller apartments, in one of which our AP's and a companionship lived) had an extra Chainik in the pile of discarded household accouterments they had accumulated over the months from senior couples going home and emptying their apartments all over the mission. That could be the hot water source, but it was a bit primitive. Finally I settled on the big, old porcelain pan I had found in the closet would hold enough water for a "pour over your head" shower until I could get more parts.

By Friday we, I, had a hot shower and was grateful. Cindy thought it too much trouble until I told her the hot water wasn't coming on for another week. Today, Sunday,. she tried it out and gave it her stamp of approval. We had hot water and we had a hot shower before church and it was just fine. I'll work on the shower-can project next week when we go shopping.

What a country
DS

August 9, 2008 Report to Pres

Report to Pres
August 9, 2008

President Mickelsen:
The week of August 3rd was very exciting because it was our first Transfer Week in the mission. We came on a transfer week, but were part of it, not affected by it. We got away a little late last night after taking care of all the last-minute needs and challenges. This was the view at the end of our driveway as we turned into it from the office.

First, I am amazed that anyone, you or the Assistants, could organize such a complex logistical event and not loose someone or something in the process. Getting missionaries from city to city is quite a job, but it is complicated by the need to keep each missionary in a companionship and the fact that traveling companions may not be going to the same city. The Visa Trip schedule and the missionaries that are going home or coming into the mission further complicate this. And this is all contingent on getting the right missionary in the right town for the Lord’s purposes that may not be clear at the time of planning. WOW. Who ever plans these sure has my admiration.

Second, I am constantly surprised and delighted by the missionaries themselves. They are among the most intelligent, confident, insightful, and genuinely nice people I have ever met. The office elders’ skills and strength surprise me constantly, but I get used to it. Finding that all of them qualify for that accolade is most surprising and delightful.

Third, I want to specifically praise elder Fry. At first he seemed just quiet, competent, and skilled. As I worked with him over the transfer, I saw depth of thought and kindness that I had overlooked. I overheard his reply to someone over the phone one day that startled me. The caller had apparently used the current phrase, “You’re lying”, to which he said with some sternness, “I never lie.” I believe that. I think he has the depth of character required to make such a statement, and I shall miss him very much.

Our apartment is becoming home and with a couple of exceptions, it is very comfortable, if a bit beat-up. We are investigating a larger refrigerator. The one we have now is 60x60x130 cm and is just too small for the food we have to buy to keep feeding the missionaries. Besides, it needs defrosting every 2 weeks and is iced-up again already. We are considering buying our own and donating it to the mission. That will require our returning the small one to the landlord or storing it in the sunroom.

I have been doing some repairs for the missionaries that came out during our apartment inspections this week. I repaired two fans and ordered the new wooden slats for sister Cropper’s bed from President Gushin so the mattress won’t sag. I can do other repairs, but I need a source for parts. I’m on the lookout. I hope the zone leaders are actually doing apartment inspections. There is one apartment in another city (can’t remember the name) that has an inoperable stove and refrigerator that stops regularly. These need to be addressed by those zone leaders.

We have been feeding the missionaries, including those passing through and our record for bodies around our little kitchen table is 8; 6 missionaries and two of us. We also hosted the zone meeting this Friday and enjoyed the 19 elders and sisters in our home. They were all fed with an old Hawaiian recipe meatball soup, veggies, coleslaw, and jello-lemon cake. They all seemed well fed. The lesson was on using the Questions of the Heart to contact and find the elect. Well done. The video is the opening song of the meeting. It will make you cry.

We are happy in our assignment and working hard to be of service to the Lord, you, and the missionaries. We hope that you will tell us if there is more or something different that we should do.

Elder & Sister Simmons

8-5-08 YSA Wrap-up

YSA Wrap-up
8/5/08
I had this article finished two days ago and the darn internet quite as I was saving and I lost the whole thing. I was so disgusted that I couldn't even think about trying to rewrite it that night. Here is another try at it.

The YSA conference had a costume dance on Friday night and it brought out some interesting dudes. There were ethnic costumes, lot of Hawaiian shirts and paper leis, and an assortment of other stuff that I would not have imagined.

One young man even brought an extra costume for someone else to wear and ended up giving it to one of the senior elders. It was his grandfather's riding outfit. He retired as a general in the Soviet army and this looked great on elder Palmer who was in our class at the MTC and is serving in the Yekaterinburg mission.

During the evening there were several specialty numbers from different groups. Two groups sang, two did special dances, and one young lady did a Mongolian dance. They did line dances, grand marches, the usual circle dances, and even did the limbo. It felt like a 1950's sock-hop in the gym without the bunnyhop or the hokey-pokey. They had so much fun that it was easy to forget that most of them didn't know people outside their own city before they came. The unity and camaraderie was phenomenal.


On Saturday they had field games that focused on water balloons. There was water balloon volleyball, "water balloon egg-toss", and just plain water fights. After displaying my left-curve slider and high suspension Frisbee technique, I was invited to join an Ultimate Frisbee game. Remember, I am in missionary dress (white shirt, suit pants, and tie) and trying to keep some semblance of dignity in this whole thing.

Everything went well until the score got close. At one point I was in the clear and a teammate flipped the Frisbee to me a little high. I stretched myself to my full (now) 5' 8 1/2" (I used to be 5'10") and jumped with all the force my 65 year old legs could manage (about 3 inches) and almost had it when a 6'4+ 20-something guy who was taking this game waaay too seriously crashed into me and took it right out of my hands; well, I almost had it in my hand.


At that point I demonstrated my safety roll technique, tucked my left shoulder under and rolled to a stop on the very uneven turf. After he scored, he graciously came back to give me a hand up from my still horizontal position, looking up at the sky without the Frisbee. What a sport.

Later in the day, after the talent show (more like a series of boy scout skits) they showed a slide show composed of pictures taken by various participants. I was enjoying the show until I saw THE picture. It was of an athletic 20-something stretching to catch the Frisbee with a somewhat chunky white-shirted player was suspended in air at his knees, about 2 feet off the ground. There was no head to the nameless player in the picture, but I knew it was me, demonstrating my prowess on the field and my famous safety roll that nearly cost me a trip to the hospital.

I don't think I actually broke the rib, but I definitely bruised it along with several of its fellows. I got up smiling and said, "Nice catch" when I could catch my breath, and found that I had a previous commitment and left the field of honor, holding my breath to reduce the pain. I think my Ultimate Frisbee days have gone the same place as my snow-board days; over the hill. Without a doubt, these 65 year-old muscles are not holding these 65 year old bones together tightly enough to endure much more of that. I am better now after almost 10 days. I can even tie my shoes without holding my breath.

The conference ended with a "Romantic Dance" on Saturday night, complete with dance cards. More specialty number, line dancing, and even a conga line with the the girls dressed in many of the most elaborate dresses I've seen short of the junior ball. They were beautiful.

Sunday brought a Sacrament Meeting and Testimony Meeting that lasted 2 hours+. The Holy Ghost was strongly manifested in that auditorium and I was impressed with the depth of commitment from these young people, many of whom were members of only a few months. These are truly exceptional, honest, spiritual young people and I was grateful to have been there.

What a country.
DS

8/3/08 Found out Liam

Found out Liam
8/3/08
We discovered who Liam (Alexandrov) is. You may remember a few articles ago we asked the question "Who's Liam?" Well, he is one of the elect that our missionaries have been searching out here in Russia. If you don't know about Liam, go to the blog for July 20th where I explain how we met him.

President Mickelsen read the instruction letter that came with the letter announcing the reassignment of American and European missionaries to countries other than Russia. In it our missionaries were specifically directed to find men 18 to 26 who would become the missionary force for Russia and it defined the "elect", sometimes known as the "believing blood".

Bruce R. McConkie in "A New Witness of the Articles of Faith" defines believing blood as: "What then is believing blood? It is the blood that flows in the veins of those who are the literal seed of Abraham-not that the blood itself believes, but that those born in that lineage have both the right and a special spiritual capacity to recognize, receive, and believe the truth. The term is simply a beautiful, a poetic, and a symbolic way of referring to the seed of Abraham to whom the promises were made. It identifies those who developed in preexistence the talent to recognize the truth and to desire righteousness."

The term has fallen into disuse today. Maybe it is just not PC. However, If we believe that who , what, and where we are in this world has some connection to who, what, and where we were i the pre-mortal world, then it is not so difficult to accept. For-ordination is a correct principal and I have no trouble with it extending to the ability, and even the willingness, to believe the true gospel when first heard.

The letter defined the elect as those who are searching, willing to read the Book of Mormon, willing to keep commitments, and who receive a testimony of the truth without a lot of resistance. The are the elect.

Anyway, We heard the rest of the story on Liam and it clearly identifies him as one of the elect. He went home to Barnaul, the city where he attends university, sought out the missionaries and asked to be baptized. His date is mid August, maybe the 16th. We don't know any of the details as yet, but we do know that he had a spiritual experience in our Sacrament meeting and during the conversation at our dinner table and he got his witness.

Missionary work is more exciting than I had anticipated. Even though we are not primarily seekers, we are involved through the missionaries that we serve and it is the best. I envy Cindy in her "role" because she can hug everybody. I am so filled with the spirit of love for these people that I just want to hug them all; but it's against the rules for me. I'll just be satisfied with a good, firm handshake I guess.

It is easy to love the elect. We are working on loving the others.
What a country
DS

8/2/08 Cookies, Rolls, and Roles

Cookies, Rolls, and Roles
8/2/08
Today is "P" day. For the uninitiated, that's preparation day, the day that you do your non-missionary stuff like shopping, cleaning, laundry, writing letters, etc.

As I was doing the laundry, I had to smile at how we have worked our way into roles here in the mission. I am in charge of world peace, laundry, house-cleaning, garbage, repairs, and answers to computer questions about new pop-up messages that occasionally flash on Cindy's screen. She has become quite proficient at her email, organizing her 398 contacts into groups for mass email broadcasts, which is one of her biggest roles.

Cindy is in charge of the calendar, the schedule, feeding the missionaries, learning to make things from scratch (I treated this in a previous blog), her email, and the individual, personal welfare of all of our friends. I am so proud of her for learning so much in so little time with so few resources for so many hungry young missionaries and so many friends. Yesterday she made rolls from scratch and today she is making chocolate-chip cookies from scratch for the YSA fireside at our home Sunday night (I'm the lesson) and today she answered 26 emails and SKYPED an hour with our daughter . . . all on her own. Impressive.

The smile came while I was hanging up one of the 6 loads I washed this morning (they are small because of our washer's limitations (see previous blog), but it allows me to dust, polish the credenza (which is in need of new varnish. . . maybe next week), wash windows and sills, vacuum, mop the linoleum which is not glued to the cement floor, repair the digital thermometer, clean the toilet closet, and work on world peace in between wash cycles (fill, wash, drain, spin, fill, rinse, drain, spin, and hang up). While working on world peace at the dryer rack, Cindy brought me another spoonful of leftover pink-yogurt & fruit jello she made from scratch last night for the missionaries and their investigator family. It was funnier then, thinking about it, than it is writing about it hours later, but I just had to put it down on "paper" so to speak. Here I was in my role and she in hers.

Just as a side light, I want to mention for the record that both of us are loosing a little less than 1/2 pound a day with remarkable consistency. I have lost 23 pounds since leaving Sacramento and Cindy has lost almost as much. If this trend continues, I may have to buy new suits by winter and she will be able to get into the coat that was given to her by a departing senior missionary. I hope to taper off at 180 and hold for the winter. I feel better and I can tie my shoes without having to hold my breath. How about a little encouragement from the audience?

My big adventure today was going, all by myself, down to the dumpsters on the street with my 4 bags of garbage. I made it there and back without mishap, although I did linger to evaluate a wooden window frame that was leaned against the dumpster, minus the glass. I was thinking how I could use the wood for project raw materials until I recognized the 1966 vintage of asbestos hanging from it's posterior and thought better of it. When I got upstairs, Cindy was waiting to give me a big "well-done" hug. First for making it down and back, and second for not bringing the window frame (62" x 48") back with me. She had been secretly watching me like mom's do when their charges are doing something challenging (another of her roles). I enjoyed the hug and the praise.

One of my garbage bags was the usual household assortment of stuff, but the other three were the result of cleaning out the last vestiges of the landlady's personal junk. The closet, just to the right of the last of the three security doors (as you enter) was a black hole, sucking in everything that wasn't nailed down that she didn't know what to do with but couldn't throw away. It is now clean (moped) orderly, and sans 3 bags of stuff she couldn't part with, but I could.

I am now eying the doorbell as my next project. I think the problem is a broken wire, but I'm not sure. The original doorbell button in the hall was set afire by some vandals, probably early teen boys with bics, during a former missionary's occupancy and a new one was installed, but it never worked. I'll get on it next P-day while I'm waiting for the wash to spin and working on world peace.

What a country
DS

August 1, 2008 The Total Eclipse Day

The Total Eclipse Day
August 1, 2008 
Today we came home to supervise the installation of our screens (yahoo) and watch the total eclipse of the sun, the first in Siberia's recorded history.

The total eclipse will have a width of about 250 km and will cross Western Siberia from the north to the south, then will cross the Altai Mountains and then regions of China and Mongolia. The maximum eclipse will be at 10:21:08 UT, which is about 5:47 in Novosibirsk, when the maximum time of the total phase will last just under 2:20 min in Novosibirsk region.


For a full discussion of the eclipse phenomenon go to http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=7225. It is a great site. One of their diagrams is at right showing the path of the eclipse.
The city is preparing to host thousands of tourists and organizing some free areas for watching the eclipse. About 100-150 telescopes will be set around the city. President Mickelsen was out today and saw many people selling "Solar Eclipse Glasses". The first he saw in the morning were 4000 rubles, then at noon they were 2000 rubles, and by 3:00 they were 400 rubles. I'll bet they get real cheep about 7 pm.

The picture above at top left was taken just as it was starting to darken. The next is about 20 seconds later. At 5:45 it was starting to get a little twilight. The sun is behind a small cloud which makes it easier to see it without the "eclipse glasses" but I have set a paper with a hole to project the shadow on the window sill and it is working well.

The light outside is now totally twilight. In 20 seconds it was dusk. In another 20 seconds it was totally blocked and you could see the black center of the solar disk as it was blocked by the moon. The picture at the right is exactly what it looked like; a black disk surrounded by fire. The total eclipse lasted about 2 1/2 minutes and just as suddenly it began to get dawn, then it was full daylight again.

What an amazing experience. We have just seen something that only a handful of people have seen ever in history. Traffic stopped in our street with headlights on and people got out to look. One of the workers on the building across the street got on the roof with his welding hood to watch it. Others shot off skyrockets (they love fireworks here) just as the eclipse was total.

The last series of pictures were shot from our north-facing windows that look out on the street. They show the total, waning, and almost fully completed fazes but are shot through the newly installed screens so they are a little grainy. What an experience. We commented to each other what a powerful experience it must have been for early man to see this and wonder if life was over; if this was the end of his existence. Even for us it was a bit unnerving to see this black disk covering the sun and seeing people's reaction all around you. Even the trains stopped.

We have a family coming for dinner (mom, 20ish daughter, and 13 yr old son) with the missionaries to challenge the son for baptism. The mom's a member I think. Anyway, we will have lots to talk about and getting 7 around our table will be the miracle of the week.

What a country and what a time to be here.
DS