Family Night Seminar 4/5/09

Family Night Seminar 
4/5/09

Weather
44F
Partly cloudy
Wind 3-5 mph westerly

Many of you know that our first mission was to help develop and promote the Family Enrichment Program book and process. This is simply an adaptation of the LDS Family Home Evening that has been promoted and encouraged for 50 years in the Church and we spent 2 years helping non-LDS organizations to teach that concept to their members. We supervised the translation of the book into French, Arabic, and Kyrgyz and became aware of a Russian translation that was made, but considered too poor to be used. By the end of our mission we had assisted over 300 projects all around the world involving over 87,000 books.

Imagine our surprise when one of our CES couples showed us a FEP book in Russian. That finally resulted in our getting 6,000 books printed in Novosibirsk and introducing it as a missionary tool to our mission. Tonight was the first (for us) of what we hope will be a series of public seminars to teach LDS and non-LDS people about the power of family night and how to start and maintain it in their homes.

The first seminars were conducted by the Bowdens in Tomsk and Kemerovo, north of Novosibirsk, around the first of the year. They are Humanitarian missionaries and Elder Bowden is on fire about the FEP program and how it can help families. He held two seminars in those cities and we took his outline as the basis of what we did here tonight. We owe a lot to his energy and push to get something going in his cities.


The biggest problem with any public meeting is, "If we build it, will they come?" The Zone Leaders here, Elders Bressler and Bindrup, prepared a proposal for President Mickelsen to have the seminar and with his blessing they really caught the vision of advertising and promotion. They developed an invitation to give on the street, asked the missionaries to promote it among the members and encourage them to bring their friends, made announcements in English Club and Institute class that happens at our building (at right), and finally had announcements made in every Sacrament meeting this morning; the people responded.


As we set up for the seminar after the last block of meetings of Second Branch, we were still concerned about the attendance, but we moved ahead as if we would have the room filled. Faith precedes the miracle, right? Here Cindy gives directions to Sasha, the "papa" for our Family Night demonstration skit as Elder Bressler watches an expert at work. Sister Cindy knows how to direct. I even enlisted Elder McBride to make some balloon animals for the tables to set a fun atmosphere. (He is rarely this serious). Elder Olson, in the background here is preparing to video tape the seminar so we could evaluate and modify what we did.


By 6:00 people began to filter in and by starting time, 6:30, the room was packed. "Way to go missionaries". They did their job in filling the room and now it was our turn to do our job. We had spent the last two weeks planning the details and this last week fine tuning the program down to who would talk about what and what that what would be. If it is possible to over-plan, we were approaching that territory.

There were 75+ in attendance including people from off the street. Among them was a woman who was a psychologist who was on her way home and decided to stay around for an hour and come to see what this was about. After the seminar, she sat for half an hour with the Zone Leaders asking questions and showing enthusiasm for the program. The fellow in the white T-shirt at right center of this picture came up afterward and was genuinely excited about everything. He asked me if I was in athletics when I was younger and I said I was a swimmer and scuba diver. He got even more excited and said he was a swimmer and scuba diver too. He grabbed me in a hug and gave me a big squeeze; Strong guy. I relished his excitement.

Among the members present there were the two families that were the subject of my last posting. They sat at the front table and seemed to absorb every idea we offered. It was a joy to see the "aha" in their faces and the enthusiasm during the activity. I love to see the realization in their eyes when they really get it. That is the only real reward that teachers get.

We developed some basic concepts that we hammered all through the meeting. We even had them printed out and stuck on the walls of the stairwell and up on the whiteboard in front. They are: Families are important; Time together creates a bond (I shortened it later to "Time = a bond" and I would slap my hands together like they were glued); and strong families make a strong community which makes a strong nation. Here I am at left doing the "slap".

The family night skit was a great hit and when they did the activity of making a family shield, everyone in the room got to make a shield and when they had a treat everyone got a cookie. It kept them engaged and helped keep the momentum up. Sasha and Lena were believable parents and Anna (5), Mesha (11) and Serge (16) played their parts well. They were the hit of the evening.


Finally, Olga, our office registrar and translator for the night, had the last word and we closed. As we took down the signs and folded up the "Families are Important" banner behind us, it was a magical moment, having brought family night to so many people and touched some of them deeply with the importance of their family relationships.

Russian parents love their children as much as anyone in the world. It is just that life is hard here and it is easy to lose sight of your kids and their needs, but Family Night can bring the family together within a new bond of love and fun that may have been missing. We will follow up with another seminar on the 26th in hopes of building on the relationships we have established tonight. We hope that those who attended will bring their friends and family and we can have as many or more people. Faith precedes the miracle, right?

What a program. What a country
DS

Meet Tatyana & Yana 4/4/09

Meet Tatyana & Yana 
4/4/09
Weather
43F
Wind 1-2 mph westerly
High clouds but generally clear

Tatyana (the mom) and Yana (8 years old) were baptized last Saturday in a wonderful service (pictured here with Elder Ditto on the right and Elder Kolpakov), but the story doesn't start there. Before I get into their story, let me point out the lady in gray in the center of the picture at left. She was baptized about 5 months ago with her friend who is about the same age. One of them, I don't remember which one, had not been out of her apartment for 5 years and the other was also tied closely to her home. It was a miracle that they could get to the church to be baptized. Now look at her, attending a baptism and mixing with the Saints. What a turn around.


Tatyana's story started months ago when I heard the Snegeri Elders report that they had a couple who were wanting to get baptized, but could not because of some legal problems with their marriage.

I didn't think much about that until I saw Tatyana and Yana in church several weeks ago. Tatyana was obviously very intent about everything at church and looked very strong. I met both of them and felt good, strong spirits there so when she had a baptism date, Cindy and I wanted to be there. At dinner recently we learned more about their situation.

According to her, the "husband" had left suddenly over a month ago and no one knows where he was. In doing so, he had left Tatyana, Yana, an older (18 year old) brother and a granddaughter "Lena" without any means of support. They were to lose their apartment and be quite homeless when Elder Kravchenko told her to pray for a job and a place to live. They all prayed and the next day she was offered a position cleaning an apartment building. The job included a small (10x12) one room apartment. With the common-law husband out of the picture, she was then eligible to be baptized

These large apartment buildings each have such a job for a person or a family to clean the public areas of the interior (stairs, elevator, entry) and to care for the exterior by picking up trash, shoveling snow, chipping ice, etc. The living quarters are usually one room in a half-basement near the entry. I have seen the door on our building and thanked the lady that performs these duties for our building. She usually smiles when we meet and I think she knows we appreciate her work.

Listening to Tatyana talk about her situation, I saw that she was grateful to have work, a place to live, and to be in the Church. It is hard to imagine being in her place and living in those close quarters with a toddler, teenager, and 8 year-old. Just finding room for the four of them to sleep must be a real trick. Never-the-less, she is grateful to be there. She did say that occasionally she speaks to people who park across the walk-way or block access and sometimes they are not kind to her. They have even complained to the building manager about her speaking to them and she has lost some of her pay as a result. To hear her tell her story is heartrending.

Yana is a bright, intelligent child with a quick smile and a gentle manner, and when you look into her eyes you see that someone special is in there. She answers gospel questions quickly and accurately as the missionaries talk to her. She seems to genuinely understand the concepts and is anxious to talk about God and Jesus. Underlying it all is a deep sadness born of things she does not fully understand. We hope to spend more time with this family and be of some emotional and spiritual support to them.

Here is another bright spot on the baptism day. The man in the picture to the left was just baptized about a month ago. His wife has been less-active for some time before his baptism. Here he is with her (on the right) with their child and a friend. He was so pleased to be able to baptize her as a newly ordained priest. Isn't the Gospel wonderful? It gives us hope and a place to belong. In this case, a previously less-active sister is supporting a newly baptized husband doing his priesthood duty and establishing his position with his family in a righteous way. She gets a stronger family, he gets the love and respect of his family, and the daughter gets her daddy's love as he baptizes her.

What a Church. What a country.
DS

Highland Cathedral 3/28/09

Highland Cathedral 
3/28/09

Bagpipe music is unique in all the world. It is something that you either hate or love without reason and without excuse. For me, bagpipe music is a direct link to my inner-self, to my most primitive being. It reaches into my chest and grabs my very soul, bringing a familiar burning to my nose which is a prelude to the tears running down my face.

This is a totally irrational response to a noise that can drive normal people out of the neighborhood when a piper is practicing. I have no excuse for this behavior nor any apology. Somewhere in my DNA there is a Scottish gene that was introduced to, or reminded about, this music. It is that gene that controls this response and I thank God for it.

When I was young, my grandfather told me that our name was not always Simmons. He claimed that it was McSimonds and that we were descendants from a family who escaped into southern Scotland, fleeing the taxation and tyranny of Edward Longshanks, King of England. They became septs of the Fraser Clan. The Frasers later joined in the rebellion against England and were instrumental in driving the English out of Scotland.


Edward I (17 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), popularly known as Longshanks, the English Justinian, and the Hammer of the Scots was a Plantagenet King of England who achieved historical fame by conquering large parts of Wales and almost succeeding in doing the same to Scotland but failed, partly due to William Wallace's uniting the clans against the English invasion.


Whether or not Grandpa Simmons was right, I cannot tell from the records we have at present, but the signs are there. The last relative I can track in America was born in Ireland and that matches the history of the Frasers who migrated to Northern Ireland during the time that England offered cheap land to the Scots to colonize Northern Ireland and make it a Protestant enclave. The pictures here are of the red "dress" tartan and the green "hunting" tartan of the Frasers and the ruins of the ancestral home and abbey. The coat of arms uses the six strawberry blossoms and crowns of Simon Fraser, the most famous clan chief of the Frasers.


For LDS people, they owe one of their most sung hymns to a Scottish tune, "Scotland the Brave". That hymn is "Praise to the Man" dedicated to Joseph Smith, his life and martyrdom. It is a stirring melody, especially when played by passed pipes and orchestra. It is also the Scottish National Anthem. The link to that is here. 

However, my favorite is the final link. The link below will take you to a 4 minute version of "Highland Cathedral". I once tried to write new words to this melody, but they never came. Maybe another time. The link below takes you to a performance of this beautiful song by the massed pipes and orchestra of South Australia Police Band, German Army Band,

Owl Town Pipe & Drum Band (Germany), Koninklijke Militaire Kapel, Upper Austria Army Band, Portuguese Navy Band, Royal Swedish Army Drum Corps, The Vanda Miss Joaquim Pipe Band Singapore, The South African Navy Band (bet you didn't know South Africa even had a navy), US Army Europe Band, and the Belarus Army Band.

The fact that all of these bands are massed to play this tune is a tribute to it's popularity. Interestingly enough, Highland Cathedral was written by German musicians Ulrich Roever and Michael Korb. In this performance the Conductor is Captain Lutz Bammler, director of the German Navy Band "North Sea" and the 10 year old drummer boy is Kes Kunze from the Owl Town P&D Band.

Now you are asking yourself, "Why in the world did this guy write this blog?" I'll tell you, I have been trying to convince the young adults who come to a Fireside at our home each Sunday how music is all around them, how it influences them, and that music can transport them to a new place. I have been showing and playing for them different forms and strengths of music. Tonight I played some Handle and "Scotland the Brave" because they chose "Praise to the Man" as the opening song tonight. After playing that one bagpipe song, I was hooked for the whole night on bagpipe music.

Sorry for the diversion.
DS

This is the link

Job among us 3-24-09

Job among us 3-24-09

Yesterday we received an email that reminded me how much parents are tied to their children as much as children are to their parents. Sometimes that bond is one of anger and hostility, but in healthy relationships that bond is based on love and sacrifice.

In the beginning it is the parents who make the sacrifices. Babies and even toddlers absorb all that you can give them and think they fully deserve it. Being the center of their universe they can easily dismiss any offering and rebel at any counsel.

In those children's middle age,they seem to move in their own orbit and consider their parents as pleasant planets whose orbit occasionally crosses theirs, but think there is little gravitational effect. Oh there are the birthdays and holidays, but grown children have their own little worlds to tend to and the grandparents just swish in and swish out from occasion to occasion, and it should be so, but they are so used to the gravity that they don't feel it.

This time of your children raising their children is a gift from God, a time for the grandparents to rest from their labors and enjoy the fruits. Occasionally that rest is short lived or even denied them altogether. We know one couple who have had to raise several of their grandchildren into the couple's 90's. We all know of such situations and some will claim that it is a blessing, but I believe that it is also a great burden for people beyond the normal child rearing age. Physical and emotional strength in one's 60's are not what they were in one's 30's .

This brings me to one couple that we know who are dear friends. They are examples of parents who have reared healthy, productive children and who allow them to spin in their own orbits. However, they are also examples to me of how closely and how quietly parents are bound to their children and grandchildren, enjoying their successes and grieving with their sorrows. Grown children cannot, and should not, know how their lives can and often do impact their parents. If they did, it would intimidate them and cause them to have unhealthy second guessing about every move and yet, it is still true that we as gray-haired parents are still emotionally and spiritually bound to these spirits that we nurtured and sent into their orbits.

I have been especially touched by the string of heartaches and disappointments of this couple whose children have run a string of missteps and bad luck that have caused both of these good people to groan mightily under the load. The husband is surely suffering with the emotional burden of his children's difficulties, but few men suffer like a mother when her children cry out for solace and relief.

This dear woman is a well of empathy and compassion that knows no limits. Her children have suffered some of the greatest challenges of our times and great personal tragedy. As they have done so they have come to this mother for the same comfort and solace that she has always given them. She is for the thirsty, a well of pure water from which they drink and drain the source before they go their way refreshed. How much can she give? Where does it come from? How can she continue to give?

Her well is dug deep into the rock of Jesus Christ. That is the source of her strength and the source of the water that she freely gives. Her faith in Him and our Heavenly Father are the anchors for her in the current storm and she it tied to them without question, much like Job of the Old Testament. She has given of her water until the well seems to be dry and then finds that it is filled again by her faith from the Rock of her Salvation. Surely she is as Job, a righteous and dear daughter of Heavenly Father who will endure to the end without blaming Her God for her burden.

She recently had an opportunity to receive care and love from those same children as she was injured far away from home. That care and that service by children who love and respect their mother were an opportunity to selflessly show that love, and they all performed admirably. Dear sister, that was just a small sign of their great love for you and I know that you recognize God's tender mercies in giving them that opportunity to care for you, giving you that small glimpse of their devotion to you.

I know her. We know and love her. She will endure to the end and will receive that most precious accolade from the Savior, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of thy Lord." God bless you dear friend and get well soon.

What a woman. What a mother. What a friend.
DS

When Will We Ever Be Real Missionaries 4/3/09

When Will We Ever Be Real Missionaries 
4/3/09
Weather
Temp 58F
Wind 9 mph
Clear & sunny

Because we work in the office 6-12 hours a day, I have sometimes wondered aloud, when will we be real missionaries? When will we teach the discussions? When will we have the thrill of seeing an investigator (someone learning about the Church and God) suddenly have that "Aha" look and see them realize it is all true. When will we baptize someone?

Finally, I have come to the conclusion that we have been doing "real" missionary work without realizing it. A typical week goes like this for example. We averaged 7-8 hours a day in the office, not counting the shopping for food to feed the missionaries and their investigators, then we have two families and the Elders over for Family Night to teach them about the Family Enrichment Program (Family Night),

Tuesday night we have another companionship over with their investigator, Wednesday we shop and I spend 3 hours washing produce so we can feed everyone. Thursday we feed two companionships and try to give them a little comfort, a home-cooked meal, and friendly faces to balance with the rejection they face all day. Friday we serve 14-16 missionaries at District Meeting at 12pm and get to the office by 3 and home around 7 pm or later.

We sometimes have an evening alone at home to soak our feet and relax. Saturday I clean the apartment and do the laundry while Cindy cooks stuff for the weekend or early next week. If there is a convert baptism, we will attend, usually at 1 or 2pm. Then we go home to finish our projects and prepare for Sunday when we will attend one or two branches and have 20+ Young Single Adults for a fireside where I teach the lesson and Cindy provides food (of course). After they all go home we get ready for Monday and start again.

So when do we do the real missionary work? In all reality, we are doing it every day. All of these things we do are the real missionary work for senior couples. When talking to other couples, we found that we have less time than any of them to do the basics, prayer, language study, gospel study, and inviting people to listen to the gospel message.


I'm feeling more and more that we really ARE doing real missionary work and I'm so proud of Cindy for getting out of her comfort zone with people she cannot talk to. She just smiles and gives them a hug. The ladies in the two branches we go to most often seem to really like her and the Relief Society has been to our house for classes a couple of times. She is a real inspiration.

We are grateful to be here doing real missionary work and supporting the missionaries. We love them and want to do all we can to help them find the elect and the lost tribes in this frozen land.

What a work. What a country
DS

Why Siberians Hate Spring 3/26/09

Why Siberians Hate Spring
 3/26/09

Weather
Temp 39.9 F
Wind 1 mph from the west
High overcast but clear horizontally

I don't know every Siberian, but the ones I know make no bones about hating spring. At first I thought that peculiar, but as spring creeps up on us, I have become a believer--hater as well. Spring is to be avoided if at all possible.


This video was taken slightly more than two weeks ago and we thought winter was going to stay around for a while. We couldn't have been more wrong. This storm only provided more snow to melt now that the temperature is above freezing 24 hours a day.


The end of February when we returned to Novo, I went with the Elders to get a hair cut and we saw the first signs of "pre-spring" There were crews of men, and women, clearing the snow off roofs and chipping the ice from walkways. The Elders said that they clear the roofs because during the early melt the icicles get very big and are a serious hazard to pedestrians. The chippers are hired by businesses and apartment buildings to clear the walks in their front.

I decided to make a bit of a study of that and here are some pictures of various ice removal efforts. The one on the left was on the drive along our building's south side. The piles of broken ice were sometimes serious navigation hazards on our way to the office. You can see the strata of ice, sand, and other debris as these piles begin to melt.

More and more piles of broken ice appear while the temperature is cold, but the roads now become covered with dust; yes dust. Clouds of dust follow each car from the dirt that was used to give traction on the ice during the season and now is dried and swirling around the city. Now we have ice piles, dust in the air, and cars with studded tires chewing up the road and throwing gravel at following cars.


Eventually the mechanical snow and ice removal reached our office area and we watched as they broke and scrapped the ice from the driveway on our south side and piled it in the roadway, allowing just enough room for a small car to pass. During this time, while shaving one morning and looking out our ninth floor window. I watched a guy on a roof across the street shovel snow from one part of the roof onto another part of the roof. I finally decided that he rented only one portion of the building and was shoveling the snow off HIS portion to prevent leaking from the melt and wasn't too concerned about his neighbor's problems.


This week the temperature has climbed into the mid 30's, people are commenting on how warm it is, and the melt is in full bloom. Now I understand why Siberians hate spring. Imagine what all of the refuse that has been dropped, both man made and animal produced, has been saved by some cosmic force and dumped in one spot on a particular day; that is spring. Combine this with the mud, the slush, the running water, and the puddles (sometimes lakes) in streets with serious potholes of unknown depth.

We were the recipients of some of that melt yesterday when we were waiting to cross the street headed to our house. A courteous, cautious driver came down our street and veered slightly to the right, just enough to hit the pothole in front of us and give us a bit of a bath. It was our own fault I guess. If we had not been waiting for traffic to clear out, we might have been across the street before this bozo showered us with last November's snow and dirt.

So here is the refuse beginning to really make an appearance. I decided to not show you all of the pictures of the junk and trash beginning to appear in the melting snow. Not that I have all that much good taste, I just don't want to have to absorb the abuse from Cindy for my lack of it in showing some pretty distasteful pictures I've taken. Suffice it to say that the junk, trash, dead bodies, droppings, muck, and some as yet unidentified things I've photographed are absolute proof that spring in Siberia is worthy of the darkest, deepest, most hateful words Russian can produce.

Even in spring the dogs can make a silk purse out of this sow's ear. Here one of the neighborhood's nocturnal singers has found a home amidst plenty of food. You all know how dogs love to get on the couch. This one has his own couch, but since it is up-side-down, he has a man's red jacket for extra padding and warmth. It's a dog's life in the spring.

The Siberian spring is like a young girl impatiently waiting for her body to catch up with her mind so that she can get on with the business of being a woman. The blossoms are buds, still not ready for the bees, but Siberia has to endure this awkward time with only the promise of summer to make it all worth the enduring.

What a season. What a country
DS

Stress 3/21/09

Stress 
3/21/09
Weather at 9:30 PM
Temp -4.8 c (26F)
Wind westerly 1-2 mph
Clear Skies

What is stress? For me, it is not being busy so much as it is having more to do than you can possibly do and lacking the skills or resources to even do what you could do. Stress is a state of mind, not the size of your "To Do" list. Stress is having barriers to your success that seem insurmountable.

Stress cannot be laid on you from without. It is created within. Our mission is a case in point. First, we had the reality that we were going to a place we didn't understand. We had been in Russia before, but that was as a tourist for a few weeks. Even with that little experience, we knew that our way of living would be greatly changed and much of it would be out of our control. We were full of anxieties about the living conditions, the controls, the jobs we were assigned, the hostility of the people toward Americans, and the language. Most of those anxieties turned out to be well founded.

We had heard from every senior couple who reported on their mission what a great experience it was and what a spiritual high it was. Well, for the first two months here we were buried in the muck of our own making, trying to learn the jobs we had not the native skills for nor training for and were completely unprepared for, feeling the isolation of the language barrier, feeling the depravity of the housing situation compared to the home we had left behind, cleaning the accumulated grime from our apartment, sewing up the couch so we could sit on it without getting batting all over, and generally coming to grips with the entire situation physically.

In the next two months we began to deal with the spiritual issues. Church was a challenge because we didn't know what was going on most of the time and without a missionary or native translator church was a total loss except for the Sacrament. For me, I suffered from lack of reputation, lack of identity. These people didn't know who I was and once more, they had no reason to care. I was coming into THEIR lives, not the other way around. I was the "stranger in a strange land" and I felt that they had no interest or need for me. At home, when I walked into a meeting or even another ward in another stake, I had status, I had a reputation, I was known and as such, I was respected. Here, the people were nice enough, but I was nothing to them.

Humility is not always something you willingly put on yourself and in this mission, it was slammed down on me and I didn't like it. Now I had to decide what to do about it, and I took Ammon's example to heart; to be a servant. I prayed for opportunities to serve. I asked for advice of the native Russians in our office, I offered to teach the YSA fireside lessons, I worked with several of the Branch Presidents to help them with their finances, I did the local unit audits myself with a member of the District Presidency. I kept a low profile in classes where the discussion was elementary and made only rare and circumspect comments. I attended whatever class the missionaries directed us.


By the beginning of the 5th month, we were both beginning to feel some Spiritual awakenings and I was becoming aware that I was being asked to do things; to pray, to speak, to sing. I realized that I was beginning to earn the members' trust in ways that would allow me to serve them better and would in turn begin to define me in their eyes. Once more, I had lost the need to be known for who I was in Sacramento and just focused on serving in Novosibirsk.


By the end of that month we began to celebrate the American holiday of Thanksgiving and making preparations for Christmas. Making the stockings for all 60 missionaries was a stroke of genius by Cindy. It gave us a real feeling of being needed and that we had contributed something meaningful to our missionaries. Spiritual feelings became stronger and I wrote about several things that had touched me. Finally, the muck was beginning to clear and I was able to look to the heavens.


After Cindy's "Fall in the hall", my hernia repair in the states, and our Kazakhstan trip, we have again settled into our roles as servants to the people in whatever way we can be. Our stress level is much reduced and we have begun to feel more of the spirit and less of the stress. I am beginning to dream dreams again. Last night I had a dream about how to present the FEP to people. At the District Conference meeting the Young Singles sang and I had a vision of a choir that would touch hearts at Christmas, and tonight we had a powerful lesson on music and I think they are ready for that choir.

The Spirit is now dominant and the stress is much less. I pray that this trend will continue. I no longer see the setting sun over the coal-fired generation plant and think of the pollution; only of the beauty. I love the young people of our District. They are the hope of the future. They ARE the Church of the future. They are strong, spiritually sensitive, and they love each other. I hope to be accepted by them to the point that I can teach them how to love music and to use it to introduce people to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to serve them and pray for the chance to do so.

What a mission. What a country.
DS