Rainy Days and Sundays...

Sunday, September 14, 2008 - Before you 70's Carpenters buffs get on me about the title, I know it's supposed to say "Rainy Days and Mondays" but it's Sunday and it's rainy. Got up for church this morning. Last week there were only about 20 of us there. Today, the place was filled. A lot of Americans and Natalie brought 5 boys from the school. Sergei who was baptized yesterday showed and several inactives showed up today as well. I'd guess there were about 50 people today. Great to see so many in the attendance.

The boys were pretty restless by the end of sacrament meeting and wanted to leave but we asked the missionaries to tell the boys about their experiences growing up in the church and specifically around the Young Men's program.

After church we came back to our apartment and Arri and Lucinda fixed a nice meal of Soup (Top Ramen with potatoes and carrots), liver-filled dumplings, bread and fruit. The boys ate everything we put in front of them -- and then

some! They found our stash of candy and kept running to that room to get more. It's AMAZING how much they can eat. After dinner, we were playing cards and Arri cut up a couple of peaches and a banana or two and placed it in front of the boys. Without exagerating, the bowl was gone within 30 seconds! We couldn't believe it! Then they found the cans of cheese whiz that I brought. They were piling it on crackers as high as they could and then eating it. Not too healthy...

The Milne's gave Austin (Ruslon) his birthday gift (a nice digital camera) and then Lucinda and Arri talked a few of the boys into getting their hair cut. They especially wanted to cut Yaroslov's (Hatch's son) because he was growing the beginnings of a mullet. He was reluctant but they shamed him into it as only mothers can do.

The boys didn't want to go home but Natalie our translator took them home at about 6:00pm. I was thinking, maybe we should bring Natalie home with us to translate and every evening we could hand off the kids to her at about 7:00pm...