Hello from Deepest Ukrane 8/7/09

Hello from Deepest Ukraine 8/7/09

We are on our 5th visa renewal trip and by several mis-directions, ended up in Kiev. The most common situation we have found ourselves in any situation we did not plan to be in. In this case, our invitation letter to go to Prague was not processed properly and the error was discovered too late for it to be rewritten for Prague so we needed a place for a quick turn-around (processing a visa) and Kiev was the best choice. It complicated our trip to Prague which was planned and paid for much earlier and has extended our absence from the mission by 5 days. Oh well.

We hired a local lady, Olga, who was a translator for Mark and Cherry Hall for the better part of a year here in Kiev as they gathered church history information for the anticipated Kiev Temple dedication next year. She was a great guide and got us to a lot of interesting places, most of which we had seen in 1990 but had only faint memories of.

While waiting for our taxi to arrive to do our visa business, we met an Iranian extended family in the lobby quite by accident. They started filtering into the lobby by family groups starting with a mother, father and three children. They sat near us as Cindy was watching a video clip from her email which featured cute pictures of animals. The mother caught a glimpse of them over my shoulder and asked in her best, but labored, English if we were involved in the environment. We finally understood that she was interested in the pictures and offered to show them to her children who were delighted.

By then most of the rest of her family group had arrived and we were introduced to everyone with warm greetings and kind words. The result was that they wanted to tell us that they loved America and were so glad that we got involved in the Iraq situation and how much better life is now with Saddam gone. That started some other friendly exchanges and we all parted for the day's sightseeing. Nice people I think. We would see them daily at breakfast and the mom and kids always came over to say hi. Yep, nice people.

We visited the Kiev, Ukraine Mission office in time to meet the local District of missionaries having their weekly meeting and the traditional lunch following. They were all glad to see fellow missionaries, but didn't offer any lunch.

We also got to peek through the fence at the Kiev Temple now about half done. They are just putting on the granite exterior slabs. Sister Cindy did most of the peeking and I got a shot over the top of the fence. It is going to be quite a dominant feature along one of Kiev's main highways.

We later drove south to see the Ukrainian Museum of Folk Architecture and peasant homes display south of Kiev about half an hour. It was quite a walk in the warm Ukrainian sun, but well worth the effort. These buildings and windmills were brought to a large (1000 acre or more) plot of farm land from areas being flooded by a dam on the river that flows through Kiev during Soviet times. It was thoughtful to preserve the homes of the peasants that were displaced by the rising water. Someone in the Central Planning Department had a real eye for historical structures. I wonder if the peasants got relocated too. (Dictatorships are so efficient.) Do you think they relocated this artist too? He looked old enough to be one of the original residents.

Ukraine is a prosperous, clean, pleasant place to visit. We felt welcome and comfortable among its people. Even the taxi driver spoke kindly to us. We're not used to that.









Ukraine, what a country.
DS

Quit whining, Suck it up, & Go Do Your Job 7/31/09

Quit whining, Suck it up, & Go Do Your Job 
7/31/09

Friday July 31, 2009 written that night 5 minutes after coming in the door.

Sometimes it just seems like too much. Working within Russian culture with an American mind set makes Elder Simmons crazy. As Sister Guschen said, they wake up in the morning and expect to have a problem (many self-imposed) that they cannot fix and will have to live with. I wake up and wonder what someone is going to do that will make my day exciting.

This one today was something like the perfect storm; a series of missteps, misstatements, and missed opportunities. There is a YSA Conference in Yekaterinburg starting August 6th for which our mission only had to figure out how to get people to it. My job was ONLY to receive the entry fee and account for it. Finally 3 weeks ago the attendee list was completed and sent to me by the "20-something" young man that was in charge for our mission's effort to do so (he lives in Krasnoyarsk). I was only to give this list to the travel person in our office to buy the train tickets. He complained about the list being late and those tickets might not be available and then waited another week to start buying them.


August 2, 2009

I had to quit writing Friday night because I had to help prepare the table for dinner. The Zone Leaders were bringing an investigator to dinner and a discussion and we were late getting home because of the foul-ups that came to light all during the day.

This is Sunday and I had some extra time and thought I would finish the posting. I sat down at the computer and received another of God's "Tender Mercies" (little blessings); I cannot remember what was so upsetting Friday. I know the general subject, but I cannot write about the details. My mind is a total fog.

It is a miracle for which I am grateful every day. These frustrations caused by the culture clash seem so unnecessary and wasteful at the time that I can barely contain the negative energy they spawn, and yet the next day I am there doing my job as if yesterday didn't happen. It truly is a miracle.


OK, here is the one for today. I just got a phone call from the Zone Leader in a city 40 hours away from here telling me that he has a YSA Conference attendee from Novosibirsk who is visiting her family in that city and wants to know where her train ticket is. She says that a young adult who is in charge of the tickets in Novo said that she could have such an arrangement because she told me what was needed and I agreed to make it happen.

First of all, this young lady in Novo (name withheld) never mentioned it to me, mostly because she doesn't speak enough English to say that to me. She can hardly get out hello and good-bye, let alone explain what this traveling girl wanted and get my approval. Besides that, I am not the one that gives approval for anything on this Conference. I JUST COLLECT THE MONEY. Are you people listening? I AM NOT A DECISION MAKER HERE. I have assiduously referred all questions about tickets to our travel clerk employee who bought them. The fog has lifted for the moment, and I am back to the culture clash, feeling that anger and frustration again.

An hour has passed.

I just had an hour's venting with Sister Cindy about what makes me crazy here and the miracle is back. It is a fog in my mind that prevents me from recalling and mulling over the details of those things that make me absolutely . . . I'm not sure that there is a word for it.

I am angry that things are happening that should not occur, frustrated that I have not been able to correct or prevent them, personally hurt that I have not been able to do a better job in preventing these situations or handle them better, and ashamed at my own weakness in getting angry in the first place. Is there one word for that?

Anyway, the fog's back and I welcome it. It is a protection from all of the things that would cause me to violate the prime directive here which is, "Keep the Church in Russia and do what ever is necessary to keep the missionaries here to find those people who would accept the Gospel if they heard it."


I am ready to get to the office again on Monday and do what I can and what I am allowed to do. God has blessed me with a low tolerance for my own errors and I am praying every minute of every day for him to bless me with a high tolerance of the endemic inaccuracies and fallacies of the world I live in here.

What a job. What a country.
DS

A Patriot's Lament 7/28/09

Just a few rambling thoughts.

As I experience things here I have come to more fully understand why the men who drafted the American Constitution insisted on fragmenting the center of power. As has been said many times by many people, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." As I often do, I researched the quote and found what might be the origin of this thought from Lord Action:

"This arose as a quotation by John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902). The historian and moralist, who was otherwise known simply as Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

The Doctrine and Covenants section 121:39 says it this way, "We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion."

God counseled the children of Israel not to have a king. Nephi counseled the people not to have a king. The founding fathers in America agreed not only to not have a king, but hobbled the executive of their new government model to the extent that he could do very little without the consent of congress and vice versa. Why?

Precisely because they had experienced the tyranny that almost always accompanies monarchy or any other government where power is concentrated in one place. They feared power, they distrusted power, and they knew the world's history related to power. Normal men, natural man, cannot wield absolute power unless they are governed by a higher, more absolute power. The only exception to that axiom is when the absolute monarch is a perfect person; God.

As a perfected man, God cannot misuse his power or He will cease to be God. Isn't it silly to even imagine that a being who can create anything, have anything, be anything would want more of something? That is why Satan became the devil. He still wants more of something. On the other hand, Jesus is the perfect servant of the Father, wanting only what the Father wants and desiring nothing for himself.

That is the key to America's former, and still potential, greatness. Normal men, men of means it is true, but normal men took on a period of public service and then returned to their farms and businesses to continue to be normal men. Undeniably some sought for power, but the majority sought only what the country wanted, or what they thought was best for the country; the public good. It was a SERVICE, not a career, not a vocation, not a personal fiefdom. It was a sacrifice and they made that sacrifice for the public good. At every level of public service there are people doing just that, serving, with no expectation of gaining anything personally from it.

In the whole world, you will not find a more generous, giving people than the American public. They give their money and their sons and daughters for a cause they believe in without regret and without expecting something in return. It is called duty, loyalty, honor, and it is a part of the American heritage; the American soul.

That is what is so troubling about watching the blatant abuse of power. Every country with a long history of monarchy or some other centralized point of power will struggle unsuccessfully to fragment that power base to protect themselves from tyranny. Those people have no model for the righteous use of power. In their history, power was, and still is, an opportunity to gather all you can before the next revolution, or assassination, or invasion. Power was and still is a door to personal wealth and more power. Everyone expected that the leader would do just that. It came with the territory. There was no shame in it because it was part of the job, and everyone down the food chain acted just that same way with whatever little power he/she had.

Only in America, with our history of divided power, is there hope of freedom from tyranny, but when we give one branch, one party, one man too much power we will suffer like every other country. The difference is that WE KNOW THE DIFFERENCE! We know what happens when one entity gains too much power and it will be tyranny; the tyranny of the poor, the tyranny of the protected classes, the tyranny of the intellectuals, the tyranny of the media, the tyranny of the godless, even the tyranny of the religious. That is why there is no state church in America. It is to prevent just such tyranny, but it has nothing to do with God himself, it has to do with power.

I am angry, I am hurt, and I am deeply saddened about what has happened to my country while we have been in Russia. It didn't start in 2008, but it has come into full bloom. At first I thought that this new president was just an empty suit, but now I'm not so sure. If this is all his personal plan, he should be put out of office. If he is just a front for someone or something else, there is someone behind the curtain pulling the strings and we need to know who that is. We are in a well-orchestrated process of demolishing the America in which I grew up and the America that led the world in righteousness. In either case, you should all be burying your political leaders in protest letters. Don't let them do this to you; please, don't let them do this. You will not be happy living in what Cindy and I are living in and that's where you-we are headed. This is not utopia.

God bless you and God bless America

DS

Pioneer Day Picnic 7/18/09

Pioneer Day Picnic
Weather

Clear after rain the night before

70F

Wind calm

Last week Sasha Ozerelev asked us what kind of food the pioneers would eat. I suggested and described Jonnie Cakes and he thought that would be better than buffalo so he settled on that. Later in the week, not finding anyone to make 200 Johnnie Cakes, he asked Sister Cindy to make SOMETHING, anything because he was getting desperate. She agreed to make corn bread and made four cookie sheets of it, cut into 2 inch squares.

He also asked me what kind of drink they would have. After turning down putrid water and sour milk, he settled on my home made root beer. I made 6 liters Monday and they were finally ready that Saturday.

Sasha was the member of the district presidency in charge of the event and we wanted to help him out so we agreed to make our stuff and come to the event; something we had not really planned to do since no one seemed to know exactly where it was. We kept getting, "Over by Ikea" and "It's not too long a walk from the bus stop." To these people, not too long is about 5 miles.

We got President Yuri Gushchin to take us in his van since we had "sooo much stuff to carry" and we didn't know where it was anyway. With the transportation settled and the food assignments clear, we were committed.

Saturday morning around 9:15 he picked us up, then the Trejo's and we headed to the left bank and the picnic area. This was supposed to be a park. You know, grass, trees, tables, benches, a duck pond; you know, a park. Well, not all parks are created equal and this one was at the lower end of developed. That development consisted of a half mile walk along a jeep road to a clearing with waist-high weeks and two soccer goal frames set in the middle of the absolute wilderness. To make it even more authentic, there were thousands, no millions, of little flying bugs and about half that many mosquitos looking for a meal. I wore my suit and was pretty well covered up, but Cindy and the Trejos were the main target.

We arrived at 10:00, just at the time the event was to start and of course we were the only ones there for about 40 minutes. When the people started to come, we got debugged by the locals. The Russians have a traditional, homemade mosquito repellent made up of powdered vanilla mixed with water and sprayed with a trigger sprayer. Here Sister Cindy gets her "treatment" from Sister Gushchina who took some pleasure in spraying her.

The Trejos were good sports and tried to look like they were having a great time in spite of the bugs. They are kind, and caring people and will soon win the hearts of the people here.

Each branch gave some kind of play or reading about the
American pioneers. Two were very good with costumes and a nice story. The second branch skit involved the writing of "Come, Come Ye Saints" by William Clayton and was both accurate and well played out. As I was asked to tell a story at the last of the skits, I chose to tell the one about the Indians who, some years later, told Brigham Young that this song saved the lives of some Mormon travelers one night because the Indians could not attack them due to the influence of that song.

Here they are singing all four verses as they pretended to be the first group to sing the song. Elder Tanner and Elder Luddington are under the blanket.

Here, I am telling my story with Ivon Shmakov as my translator while I used the area we were in to describe the setting. I took advantage of the clearing as being similar to the place where the immigrants were camped and the surrounding trees as where the Indians were hiding, ready to shoot their arrows at the chief's signal that never came. As the chief said, "As we heard the singing of that song, our hands turned to stone and we could not give the signal nor release our arrows. The Great Spirit was in that song and we could not kill people who were friends of the Great Spirit."

Later they played pioneer games and ate the "pioneer" food consisting mostly of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, some breads, Cindy's corn bread, and my root beer. At left, Sister Cindy is setting out her bread and honey-butter.

At left, Elders Gardner and Luddington get read to square off in the stick pull. They were a pretty even match until Elder Luddington lost his grip. They also had the standing broad jump and other games of the period. In spite of the bugs and the wet conditions, everyone had a good time.

If it were not for the bugs, this would have been an ideal spot with the open meadow, the fragrant grass, and the clusters of wild flowers; daisies, bachelor buttons, irus, asters, and lilies. Someone gave me a bug chaser, a branch from a willow, and that made it bearable. Cindy got many bites while I had only two, due to my suit, the vanilla spray, and the bug chaser.

What a picnic. What a country.
DS

The Mean Metro Man 6/20/09

The Mean Metro Man 
6/20/09

Weather
70F and fair--been having thunder storms in the PM but not today
wind calm
High broken clouds

Well, we finally hit a milestone of sorts; being openly threatened by someone. A threat through a translator looses much of its punch, but afterward I felt the full impact of it and it made me mad.

This actually happened over a month ago and I finally decided to write about it. It happened around 9 or so at night as we headed home from the branch building at Zoloni Cupola where the Novosibirsk first and second branches meet. We were returning from a training seminar put on by a senior elder from Moscow who was touring the three Districts in our mission, training auditors in preparation for the August semi-annual branch and district audits. We were traveling with him and his wife, Cindy and I, and the two office elders.

As we got on the Metro in the middle of the first car, I glanced around at the people already in the car and noticed a large, mustached man in his early 40's at the front end of the car staring at us. I'm used to this my now because commonly people are trying to read our name tags and are just curious, but this guy was more than just curious.

I made a point of avoiding eye contact, much the same way as you do with a stray dog, and just conversed with the other couple that was with us. Elder Lynch was next to me, Elder Petersen was on the other side of our companions, and the four senior missionaries where standing in the middle of the car, holding on to the rails. As we proceeded to the first of three stops before ours, this man began to make his way toward us from the front of the car.

As we left that station he leaned towards Elder Lynch and softly mumbled something to him that made his eyes open just a little. I asked what he said and Elder Lynch said that the guy was just drunk. At that the guy whispered something else that opened Elder Lynch's eyes a little more. To my inquiry he said that the man said that we had to get off the train or there was going to be trouble. My first response was to take this guy down before he had a chance to make good on his threat, with the help of 200 lb Elder Petersen of course, but our training is to avoid any conflict and decided to ignore him for the time being.

As we lost and gained passengers at the Plosha Lenina station, the one just before ours, the man leaned forward again and whispered his threat to Elder Lynch again who by this time was getting visibly nervous. I told Elder Lynch to turn away from him and talk to me. As we made our way to the Octobraskaya Station the man continued to glare at us but didn't make a move on us. Finally the car stopped, we all left the train, and it left the station with the Mean Metro Man aboard.

As I pondered the event over the next couple of days, I decided on a different strategy if confronted in a confined space again. We are instructed to get away from any threat if possible and I know that is the right action. However, when confronted in a place you can't leave, I am considering a different strategy, but am still mulling.

First, it is obvious that the Mean Metro Man didn't want others around to hear his threat. He whispered it to Elder Lynch, all 140 lbs of him, and waited to see some reaction. We didn't react at all and that confused him; good strategy. However, I think another is equally effective. I would have the elder translate, at the top of his lungs, something like the following.

"Sir, we don't know you. We don't know why you are threatening to harm us and we think you should just go about your business and leave us alone." If that doesn't do it, we might escalate the confrontation to the following, "Ladies and gentlemen, this man is threatening to harm us. We do not know him and do not know why he hates us, but please understand, when the police drag his lifeless body off this train, we have nothing against him and wanted nothing more than to be left alone. We hope that some of you will stay around and give your statement to the police."

The reason for this dialog relates to my prior blog. People who whisper threats are powerless people who want to keep their aggression under-cover, much like the old enforcers did in years gone by. They are trying to scare and threaten in their powerlessness as a grab for some particle of power over a perceived weaker person. They don't want to be in the light. They do their work in secret, in the dark, under their breath, away from public scrutiny. The best counter to darkness is light and bringing this behavior into the public eye seems right now to be the best way to diffuse it. Maybe I'm wrong, but it is my thinking right now.

As missionaries, we must avoid conflict, even with powerless bullies, and we must even run if necessary to avoid a problem. However, when you are trapped and have no route of escape, we have to do something to disarm the offender. This will take more thought; I'm considering.

What a country
DS

Power 7/20/09

Power 
7/20/09

As I was walking home the other night, I saw a car, no, I felt a car, whiz by me at high speed and then saw it come to the intersection ahead, force two pedestrians to retreat to the curb, and then pull into traffic without hesitation or deference to the cars coming in either direction. As I reflected on the oft-repeated scene, I thought about how that driver felt in his/her 2,000 pound steel cocoon as he/she careened down a side street and veered into major traffic without slowing or so much as a look in either direction, forcing pedestrians and responsible drivers to avoid him/her; feeling powerful.

Power is a core element of life in many places. Those who have it protect it at all cost. Those who don't have it seek it. Those with it benefit personally from it without conscience as a matter of right, those without it endure their condition. Whatever particle of it one possesses is used as though it was absolute. Those with some fear only those with more. Those with more power fear only losing it to those with less who are seeking more.

To the extent of my limited experience, power is evidenced in every facet of life; at work, at play, driving a car, walking on the street, riding the Metro, buying at the Renik, selling at the Renik, crossing the street, paying a bill, business deals, social interactions, school and university, getting medical treatment, crossing the boarder; it's all about power. Those with it wield it like a club and those without it duck. When someone has a bigger club, you smile and say thank you for whatever they do or say. When two have the same size club, they acknowledge one another's power, step to the right and avoid unnecessary damage.

It is like two dogs we see meeting on the street below us. They may both strike a dominant pose, but eventually one will drop its head and acknowledge the other's dominance and further conflict is unnecessary. The only time two dogs fight is when neither is willing to "roll-over" or when the dominant one leads a pack that requires it to show its power to maintain it; much the same with humans. Young powerless males with enough alcohol and enough friends will inevitably have to prove their power by attacking some less capable or numerous person(s) or thing to prove that they are not powerless.

Wait a minute, that sounds like urban, ghetto America or even a gang of powerless high school, or even college, boys after the Friday night football game in a middle-class neighborhood looking for a lone victim upon whom they can prove their manhood. Well, powerless people have to prove themselves to their peers all over the world, I guess. That's not so much of a Russian thing; that's a "powerless attempting to exercise power" thing. Maybe I'd better rethink this whole scenario.

I'll get back to you on this.

DS

Lelia & David going to Sain Petersburg 1/11/09

Lelia & David going to Saint Petersburg 
7/19/09

This is an email we got from Lelia some days after they left us on 7/6/09. As you can see, they had a REAL Russian experience with the airports. This is unedited, but with some inserts [ ] for clarification. This is a picture of one of the airline's early planes. Below is one of their current ones.

"Dear Cindy and Doug,

We got here as planned but had a couple of glitches. First one – the ticket agent for our flight [from Novosibirsk to Moscow to St. Petersburg] would not book us through to St Petersburg and of course we did not understand her explanation just that we had to pick up our luggage and go through the whole process of security and ticketing when we got to Moscow. When we tried to board the plane in Novo the boarding agent told us we did not have a ticket even though we are standing there with boarding passes. She had to call someone who approved our boarding. [This is the Novosibirsk Airport entry and the Aeroflot logo]

In Moscow we stood in line at the proper security point, went through without problem, but at the ticket window she said we were not listed on the flight so we had to go back out to find an Aeroflot agent who didn't seem willing to help us - she called another agent who told us to go through the line again and we would be ticketed. This after only looking at our paper confirmation so David demanded that she go with us to which she reluctantly agreed but we had to get into the long security check line again. In a few minutes we saw her go and talk to the ticketing agent and when we got through security we were given our boarding passes and from there everything went smoothly.

We did have some concerns about missing our flight. We slept all the way to S P and took a taxi to our B and B - finally was able to go to bed and instantly asleep."

Welcome to Russia
What a country.
DS