This is the chapel in Tomck. The young elders tell us it is the prettiest of all the chapels in the mission. We really haven't looked around inside yet, but we have held an institute class on the ground floor.

This wonderful girl is from Mongolia, came here 4 years ago to go to university. When she enrolled in classes she did not speak Russian. She is a marvelous girl, has a strong testimony and understanding of the gospel. She is a great strength to the branch and wants to go on a mission herself, next year after her graduation. We love her already! She speaks Mongolian, Russian and English, very well.

As we left the big city of Novosibirsk, where one and a half million people live, we were told to watch for these little huts and garden spots. We were told that the government gave families these garden spots so they could grow food. The people build small houses on their garden spots and then look froward to coming to the country during summer vacation from school. Sounds like even grown-ups have summer vacation from work. There the family live and work in their gardens during the warm summer months, then they are back to the city for the long cold winter. Everyone loves these long summer days at the "Dasha", the summer home, except the teenagers who would rather be in the action packed city.

We saw a few of these cemeteries along the road. There are fences around each individual grave. We need to learn more about cemeteries, they are all outside of the city and there are strong beliefs about where to have them. We"ll have to say more later when we understand better.

Lots of beautiful farm land between Novo and Tomck. The soil was a rich black color that looked like it could grow anything in abundance, weather permitting of course.

This is the bridge coming into Tomck. So far we have seen very little of our new home, but like what we have seen so far.

After two days of training it was off to our field of labor which is a city of 500,000 people about a 4 hour drive from Novosibirsk called Tomsk.  Tomsk is a university town with a small branch of the church.  This will be our home for the next year.  We are excited to be here and are looking forward to meeting the people in this area.

The next day was Monday and the senior couples were invited to attend some training which included going to the opera.  Ten senior couples are now in the Novosibirsk Mission, the most they have every had.  After checking our coats it was into the theater to find our seats.  The place is made of wood back in the 1930's.  We had a great time and enjoyed being with the other missionaries.

Our first two days in Russia was in Novosibirsk and we attended a District Conference.  A district is like a stake only smaller.  Russia is very spread out and most of the branches attended the conference by Skype.  Most was in Russian but some was translated into English, yea!!!  So between listening to Russian speaking conference and jet lag it was a rough two days.

The small gold domed church is, or was, the center of Russia at one time, it probably still is from east to west.  In Novosibirsk there are old looking buildings and newer ones all mixed together.  This new one is an apartment complex and is the mission home on the 4th floor.

We flew from SLC to Chicago, then on to Istanbul Turkey on Turkish Airlines, then on to Novosibirsk Russia.  It's 13 hours difference where we are in Russia from our home in Idaho.  We spent two nights on the plane that is 20 hours in the air, not too bad, sort of.

This was the night before we departed for for Russia.  We stayed with our niece, Michelle Neff in Centerville, UT.  We stayed with Michelle when we left for Africa in Feb 2011.  This is getting to be a tradition.