Institute

I don't know if I've ever outrightly explained this before, so now's as good an opportunity as ever. We have Institute here in St. Petersburg. It is taught by the McArthurs, a senior missionary couple. They basically live here at the Institute building (called Fontanka) and supervise/teach every weekday. Mondays they have Family Home Evening; Tuesdays they teach us - an English Old Testament class. Wednesdays they hold an English Book of Mormon class, which serves to invite Russians to come and learn English and surprise them with a testimony of the gospel. Thursdays and Fridays they have other classes, I'm not sure what they are. But the place is always hopping with young single LDS Russians - it's just become a hang-out spot. And I don't wonder why.

See what I mean? A pool table (remind me to tell you about Russian billiards someday), a foosball table, comfy chairs, a stereo, a piano . . . who wouldn't want to hang out here? This is actually the room we have our lessons in, too. We get to sit on those comfy couches and talk about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It's pretty great.

You'd never be able to tell this was an LDS building from the outside. It is just part of a huge complex of apartments and shops, a lot like the building we have church in. But on the inside, I think it has a distinctly LDS feel to it. Something about the nice clean hallways . . .

. . . and the scrapbook wall. (*winks*) These are pictures from a bunch of the activities these Young Single Adults have done. There's another poster on the side that just has a bunch of engagement photos. Do you think there is a single Latter-day Saint out there who could walk into this room and not recognize his own kind?

We were very sad to discover that the LDS love of drinking fountains is not stronger than the bacteria infesting the water of St. Petersburg. (Drinking fountains just don't exist here.) However, we found that the McArthurs and their gang have created a suitable compromise:

ANY freely available water is a miracle to us!  (Trivia: that's Elder McArthur standing behind Clarie.)

So, that's Institute. We meet once a week, usually. We do have an activity coming up on December 3, though. A general authority is coming to speak. We're combining his fireside with a late Thanksgiving dinner and - drumroll, please - a DANCE.

That's right. A dance. I haven't been to a dance in ages, and I'm super excited about this one. I asked Elder McArthur, when he invited us, "If we come, can you guarantee we'll get to dance with Russian men?" and he laughed and said, "Of course! I'm only convincing them to come by promising that they'll get to dance with American women!"

I am sure a good time will be had by all. :)

P.S. This is me with that Lord of the Rings puzzle I told you about. It was ridiculously hard, mostly because pieces were fitting in the wrong places, so we kept having to go back and take things apart, then put them together a different way. As you can see, there are still a few pieces missing. I think they ran when they sensed my skill walking into the room. They knew they were done for.