Dear All, (this letter took me three days to write and finish... sorry for the delay)
Well, it’s over! All of our big events have culminated as of 11:30 last night! We finished our Institute Fall Kickoff last night. Here is how that event went down.
Yesterday around 12:30 we left our weekly baptism for the mission. We had 4 this past week, 2 of which were young men who we had been involved teaching in our home. All 4 of them were men who in the next week will have the Aaronic Priesthood. What a blessing. Anyway, we left the baptismal service and headed back home to begin the rest of the day’s events to prepare for our Kickoff. We arrived at the house and bagged up everything we could… (3 large crock pots with beans and ham still hot! 5 large quilts, utensils, 4 pans of corn bread, plastic plates, plasticware, and cups, as well as table cloths, napkins, and fresh flowers for the table settings). Now I have told you that we live just a three-five minute walk from the church and being true to the Russian way of doing things, we made several trips to and from the church walking with all of these items in bags in our hands. These items listed don’t include the 8 other batches of food that we took over the previous two days and put in the freezer at the church. Needless to say, this young man is not so young anymore and I am beat! Up and down 4 flights of stairs with or without an elevator, then walking to the church and back got old real quick, but, that is how we do things here and how virtually everyone else does it too. No cars for most of us… a lot of carrying things and walking.
In addition to what we were doing, we had help from several senior couples with regard to cooking the food and transporting it all to the church via the Metro trains. (Interestingly enough Saturday was the City of Moscow’s Holiday, so major streets were shut down and so all of our participants, including our Area Attorney for the Church and his wife, as well as our Area CES Coordinator and his wife and family came by Metro train into the Center of the city. We had over 120 people (100 Young Single Adults) show up for the event.
We started out with Dinner which we set up where we normally have our Sacrament Services. We had a bandana for each young man and a sash for each young woman. Our pioneer theme was complete with decorations and background western music from some of the older Western Epic films of days gone by. After dinner all of the students went up 3 flights of stairs to the Institute room and we had a Spiritual Program prepared with special guests from Pioneer Church History. We had 9 guests in costumes and told the stories of Parley P. Pratt, Eliza R. Snow, W.W. Phelps, and others. Following each of their stories they stepped out of their characters and introduced themselves and told the young people their own brief story of how they found the gospel of Jesus Christ. They then bore their testimonies of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel. It was wonderful.
Following the spiritual program it was back downstairs to where we had dinner but thanks to all of the help of our other senior couple missionaries, the room was now a dance hall for all of the kids to learn the Virginia Reel and the Patty Cake Polka. It took about 10 minutes or so of hearing the music and seeing Sister Packard and I doing the dance (more of just watching Sister Packard), that they started to get the hang of it. We ended up turning off the music and just counting it out for a while as they learned but when we turned on the music the kids went nuts! They had such a great time with it.
Following the dance we prepared to watch a pioneer movie (The Work and the Glory). Most of the kids had not seen that movie so we had great participation. They loved eating their dessert too… we had prepared Apple/Pear Cobblers…. They were awesome! If you want the recipe, write back to us…. It is really good.
Tearing down everything was easier than setting up but washing all of the dishes including the crock pots was no easy task. Each of you who have ever cleaned up after an event at the Stake Center know what I am talking about…Now take that experience and three of the sinks out of the kitchen and with the remaining sink divide it into 4 sections, take one of those sections and that will be the size of the sink we have in our building. Do the same thing with regard to Counter Space. Needless to say, it was difficult and challenging but we got through it. By the time it was all said and done, it was 11:00 p.m. and we had 6 heavy bags of goods, pots, pans, quilts, computers, and speakers, and just three of us left to carry them all home. This third person, a young man (Pasha), received a prize gift from us for helping so much. It was a much coveted King Size Reeces Peanut Butter Cup. He had never had one. What a night. We were glad to be home finally.
Last weekend was just as, if not more exciting and that was the Kiev Temple Cultural Celebration and Dedication.
What an extraordinary event that was. We took off Thursday night on an overnight train from Moscow to Kiev and that ride, in and of itself was a very interesting experience. If any of you have ever traveled by train overnight in Eastern Europe you know what I am talking about. Because we were traveling from one country to another, the train not only stopped at a few locations during our travel, they stopped and check everyone’s passports and immigration status…. On Two Separate Ocassions! So we began our trip around 6 p.m. that evening, then we stopped around 1:30 a.m. for the first Passport check. This check lasted just over an hour as several officers checked each and every traveler’s passport. They took a particularly good long look at our passports since we were the only ones on this 30-car, 60 passenger per car train that were Americans. With the language barrier but with the help of one of our two fellow berth guests, we were able to get through it. The train took off and things were back to normal until 4:30 a.m. when we were stopped again and checked again for passports and immigration paperwork. What an experience.
Once we arrived in Kiev, we had a great time and got to the Church and began to practice and practice and practice. The kids were tired of dance practice for all day and they were happy to be finished that night as we traveled to our hotel. The next day was Saturday morning and we were off to the Event Hall to practice on stage and show the rest of Eastern Europe how great Russia really was going to be. Well, our first mishap happened just after we arrived. We were scheduled to have the stage at 9:30 a.m. for an hour of time to practice (the show was to be performed that evening at 7 p.m.). We were told that we would not be able to practice at that time but that some other countries would be taking our place and that our time would be at 12:30. We were fine with that but it turned out that we got bumped again to 3:30 p.m. The show was divided into segments of time and each country was allotted a certain amount. Since Ukraine was hosting the event and the temple was in their country, they were allotted the bulk of the time (13 minutes) in the program. Russia, due to its size and the number of participants coming from 5 separate missions throughout Russia, we were also allotted the same amount of time as Ukraine. The other countries were each allotted 3 minutes making the total time for the program about an hour. As the time for our hour on the stage arrived, we were notified that we would not get an hour… we were not just shocked but stunned. We had never practiced on this stage and we never even practiced on any stage all together. Remember, we had 5 other missions that arrived just the day before that we had never practiced together with until that time. That was a huge challenge in and of itself, so we were running scared now since the show was to begin within just a few hours. Needless to say our directors were fit to be tied and very nervous for our kids. We had 80 kids all wanting to practice their parts, in costume at least just one time. Once we got on stage, the final mishap happened… our music was on an MP3 format instead of an Audio format. This sent chills through all of us but it didn’t take long to change things and get it all together. When it was all said and done, the technicians didn’t get our slide show presentation coordinated with our music and it was all a mess. The directors wanted us off the stage and the next group on but we demanded the chance to at least go through our entire portion at least once… emotions as y’all can imagine were high and stress levels created some other challenges with some of our personnel. All in all, we got just about 25 minutes of time on stage and were nervous for the forthcoming show time. We did our best and prayed not only that we would perform well, but that the stage crew and technicians would somehow know what needed to happen on our portion since they never had a chance to go through our program once!
The time of the show arrived and makeup was frantically put on all of our participants, including our young men, which didn’t go over too well with them and gave the girls plenty of things to chat and giggle about.
About 15 minutes prior to showtime, the Prophet arrived with Elders Uchtdorf , Nelson, and their wives. The Area Presidency and their wives also arrived and the place began to settle down and prepare for the show. President Monson spent some time back stage visiting with members of the cast from different countries as well as with the Choir who spent the entire time on stage. He also went to the piano and played a little and got the attention of the audience and everyone else. Then he spent some time waving to us in the audience and then sat down. There was a make-shift rostrum set up and a short program with President Monson speaking to begin the festivities. Once that was finished he and the rest of them went to their seats in the Loge and the program began.
The program went very well for virtually every country. Those represented were: Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, Khazakstan, Armenia, and Russia. The costumes were very colorful and the dances varied. As our kids went on stage we were all so very nervous. Our prayers were answered and the kids did just great…. Our portion wasn’t perfect technically but we did well and the audience loved their performance. We had a few “snaffoos” but all in all, things turned out fine.
The bottom line to it all was that our young people had a wonderful experience as they worked together these last 3 months. That part, the preparation, the journey, is what it is all about.
We took so many photos and if any of you are on facebook, you have seen plenty. We will post more soon, but there are hundreds of photos of every aspect of the Cultural Program.
The next day was the Temple Dedication. This part of our trip was spectacular. What an opportunity we all had to be able to go to the House of the Lord and participate fully in this historic event. This temple in Kiev is the first temple in an Eastern Area (Block) country. The temple was officially announced 12 years ago (that is not a typo) in General Conference. From the time they officially announced to the time that they were able to break ground, to the time they were able to finish, to the time they were able to open, was these 12 long years. The adversary was working double overtime to keep this temple from opening but now it is open and ready to bless the lives of the people of the Eastern European Area. People from all over this land will come to Kiev and receive the blessings of the temple. A young couple from our area who were married civilly just a few days before and participated in our portion of the Cultural Show were the first couple to be sealed in that temple just the next day (Monday) at Noon. They are just a wonderful, beautiful couple. He returned from his mission just about 8 months ago.
The Dedication ceremonies were wonderful. Our tickets allowed us to attend the Noon session which was in Russian. The other two sessions were in Ukrainian. Our kids all had tickets to attend and what an experience it was for all of them. 3 members of our branch here in Moscow participated in the Choir which was asked to sing during that session. The bulk of the rest of our group were able to sit in the temple, two in the Celestial Room and most of the rest of us in the two Sealing Rooms. What a privilege it was to sit and participate in that glorious ceremony. President Monson a few minutes prior to the session walked into both small sealing rooms and spent just a short moment and thanked us for coming and asked that we remember this day. He also came back after the session and spent a little time in each sealing room and shook hands with a few people. One of those young people was a young man in our group whose name is Nikita. He is a big boy… really big. He is the Silver Medalist in the Shot Put here in Russia. President Monson went to shake his hand and Nikita touched President Monson’s arm and said… “You are really real.” Other kids had all sorts of things to say about their experience. All had a wonderful experience.
We took lots of photos of the grounds and the Temple. It will be a light to all in that area. Soon we hope to hear of another temple to be built in Moscow. It will be interesting to see how long we wait to hear about it…., then to see it come to fruition. Hopefully we won’t have to wait 12 more years.
.jpg)
.jpg)
The trip home was a little nicer, just a little. We were still interrupted twice in the middle of the night but we paid a little extra for our tickets and came home with just the two of us in our berth. It was great.
These past 3 weeks have been extremely busy , hectic, and trying. Luckily enough we have remained healthy and “sniffle” free. Many others are sick and having health challenges. The Lord is taking care of us. We sincerely appreciate all of your continued thoughts and prayers. We need them over here. This part of the world is special. The challenges here in Russia are great but its people are great too. The work is rolling forward. As I mentioned we had 4 baptisms this past Saturday and we had 2 others the previous week. More and more people who read, ponder, and pray about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon are sincere enough to receive answers to their prayers.
I will attach a few photos for your viewing… but if you want to see many more photos… just go to our pages on Facebook.
Sincerely,
Elder and Sister Packard
