Dear Family,

Thank you for all the great pictures you have been posting on the internet, We have loved seeing the graduation, wedding, babies, and everything else you are doing. We miss all of you and the pictures and emails keep us from being too homesick.

We had a great trip to Helsinki to renew our Russian visa. We haven’t been to Finland at this time of year before. The flowers and trees were all in bloom, everything was green and beautiful. The flowers at the Temple were especially pretty. We were able to attend a session there; it is strange to be wearing earphones. The session was conducted in Russian because there was a young Russian man who was there for the first time. The Temple workers were so kind and friendly. Most of them spoke English as well as Russian and Finnish.

We stayed in a Holiday Inn in the city center, next to the train depot and the bus station. It was very convenient for us. They had a wonderful breakfast buffet with a great variety of food. The breads were great, also the yogurt and berries.

On the way home the flight from Helsinki to Moscow was delayed for over an hour and we missed our connecting flight to Barnaul. Aeroflot put us up in a very nice hotel near the airport and provided us with vouchers for 3 meals. There is only one flight to Barnaul each day; it leaves at 10:50 PM. So we were there for almost 24 hours. We don’t know the metro system at all so we just stayed in our room and read and slept. It was very relaxing. We arrived back in Barnaul at 6 AM Monday morning, not too much the worse for wear.

Our branch has been planning the open house for our chapel. The remodeling will be finished soon. It will even have a steeple. The building we meet in now looks very bad, it will be nice to be in a new place that is owned by the Church.

Our weather has been in the mid to high 60’s, and today it may get up to 75. The elders are enjoying shirt sleeve weather. Last week was last bell or the last day of school for this school year. The children go to school all dressed up with presents for the teachers. They do the same on the first day of school in the fall. The little girls wear huge ribbons in their hair, they look so cute.

We have more traveling to look forward to this summer. There will be a youth conference in July in Krasnoyarsk. That is some distance from here so we will have an over night trip on the train. Later in the summer or early fall we will go the a young adult conference. We are not sure of the date or the place yet. President Gibbons wants all of the senior couples to be to both. It is fun to go and see all of the other couples and hear what they are doing.

We are well and enjoying our time here, it seems to be flying by. We hope you are all well and that you are having a great summer. Sharon

Bart: Progress is being made on the creation of a Stake here on about a year. The district council has their assignments. There has been a lot of negative stuff on the internet in Russia about the Church. The district councilmen were asked to talk to each of the Branches about how to deal with this. That went over very well.

Some days we get as many as four appointments with the missionaries either for visits in our apartment or to go visit someone in their apartment. We are told ahead of time what the topic will be and are asked to comment about our experiences with it. People are surprised at our age and good health. That has been a great blessing for us.

Yesterday we visited a Sister Black, or in Russian that is (Sestra Chorni) and the topic was keeping the Sabbath Day holy. Her husband came home and we talked about his love of fishing. He had a picture of himself in a large rubber life raft fishing. He wanted to know about my fishing experiences.

Our Branch hopes to move into a new building (newly remodeled) in a few weeks. When I see what still needs to be done I think it may be a little longer. Attached are some photos of the what it will look like. We are very excited about it.

Views from our windows:

Container garden We love you, Mom and Dad; Grandpa and Grandma