Picnic, District, Rabinsk

Branch Picnic
On Saturday, July 26th we went on a picnic with the local members of our Yaroslavl branch. We played Americanski footbol, soccer and tossed the frisbie around. There were about 20 in attendance, including four who were investigating our church.
There was also plenty of time to visit. Here Rick is visiting with Elder Pierce from Rexburg, Id and Natasha, one of our investigators.
Medina, the daughter of the 1st counselor in our branch presidency, is showing off a doll she made out of the local fauna.
Sasha, a convert just baptized last October, is preparing hot dogs for our lunch. He is 18 and organized this activity. He was sustained the next week as the branch Activities Chairman. Marat Vaneev, the first counselor in our branch presidency, is looking on.
The food is all layed out for us to eat. We had hot dogs, sliced tomatoes, sliced up cucumbers, bananas, cheese, cookies, filtered water and Anne made some banana bread which all enjoyed. Everyone had a great time.

District
All the missionaries in Yaroslavl gathered at our apartment to celebrate Elder Barney's birthday on Monday night. We had a cultural night and watched a couple of Russian movies made in the 50's. We didn't understand much, but the missionaries enjoyed them. At the top are Rick, Elders Morgan, Angelo, Pierce and Barney. In the first row are Anne and sisters Shevyeko (from Ukraine) and Brown.

Dinner with Chernikov Family
On Thursday night the Branch President and his family came to dinner. Kristina, the 15 year old in the middle, leaves on August 6th for Burley, Id and will be an exchange student for the school year. They have one more daughter who was staying with her grandmother who wasn't included in the picture. Kristina has been tutoring us for the past couple of weeks. We appreciate her very much.

Trip to Rabinsk
On Saturday we took a 2 hour train ride to Rabinsk to visit 3 members who lived up there. The train stopped many times to let people off to go to their datches (summer homes). The picture above is of one of the train stations along the way.
While in Rabinsk, we visited with one older sister and then with a mother and her son. While walking back from their apartment we saw this very cute home and decided to take this picture. The members there were very welcoming and we had spirit-filled visits in both homes. On the way home we decided to take a taxi which took us only an hour and only cost 800 rubles for the four of us ($34).