Two Weeks Ago (081910)...

Before I jump into the events of Thursday, August 19th, I thought I'd give a little background information. The temple in Kiev, Ukraine was announced when James and I were still serving on our missions, the autumn of 1998. I remember exactly where I was in the schoolhouse that we rented for sacrament meeting. The excitement was tangible.

After James and I met and were married, we decided to start saving money so that we could return to visit the people of our missions and attend the temple dedication. Years past, babies came. We hoped that the dedication would fall between pregnancies and newborns.

Time has a way of making realities seem like dreams. Although the people were close to our hearts, the buildings, roads, food, smells, transport and all of our experiences seemed somehow very distant. As people moved, and even the zip codes of Ukraine changed, we lost contact with many of those we loved.

When it was announced in April Conference that the Kiev Temple would be dedicated sometime in the fall, we got our passport pictures taken and submitted our renewal applications. It didn't seem possible that we would actually set foot once again on the streets we trod as Elder Hales and Sister Wells. We began to pray that we would be able to find the people we loved, and somehow help to strengthen the saints in these nations pioneering the gospel.

So, Thursday, August 19th, we woke for the third morning in a row to catch a plane. We had a few hours to spare so we decided to go and see the Kant Cathedral.



Although the cathedral has been built and rebuilt over the centuries for different reasons, original construction began in 1333!

James and I love to just gawk at historic architecture. Doors like these get us excited:

As we were standing near this door, a window way up opened and someone shook a rug out of it. For some reason it is just cool to see contemporary life going on in ancient buildings. You can still see the rug on the window sill in this photo:

We walked around the building to find the mausoleum (new word for me on this trip) of Immanuel Kant who had been a teacher in a university building which had been near the cathedral after WWII. The cathedral is surrounded by acres and acres of forested park. We were able to take a leisurely walk on the beautiful grounds.

We were intrigued by the construction of this low wall:


And James tried out a photography trick he was taught by a native Russian on his mission:



Then we were back to the bus to catch our taxi at the hotel. James insisted we see the sauna of the hotel before we left. We were really wishing we had just a little more time when we saw this:


Darn!

But, the plane wouldn't wait (or so we thought) and we were off to the airport at about Noon.

Mind you, every time we go to an airport we have to stand in a line to check-in, stand in a line at passport verification, stand in line at security, and then wait to board. After you pass by boarding patrol you wait on a bus to be taxied out to the plane. By this point, we were ready to be done with airports for awhile. (My empathy for those have to travel for work often was greatly increased.)

While in one of those lines, James recognized a young man from the branch who was waiting for an incoming flight. The man's name came to James, and he went to talk to him. He found out he was no longer active. James told him he didn't think it was coincidence that they ran into each after all this time and encouraged him to go back to church.


After all the lines, we finally boarded.

I was in the window seat over the wing but before we ever budged I was out cold from exhaustion. Nearly an hour later, I was abruptly awakened by a yelling Russian, "What's going on? At least tell us why we aren't going!"
And, a few minutes later the captain announced that there was a technical problem and we would have to get off the plane. (Actually this had happened in Moscow just the day before, but I didn't mention that.) Since we had only been delayed an hour and a half or so the previous day we simply repeated the routine---retrieve our carry-ons from the overhead bin and retrace out steps to the boarding area.

Once we were all off the plane, the on-site airline director came to tell us that there was something wrong with the wheel and that we would have to wait for the night plane to bring a spare and then for them to repair it before we could depart. Now there wasn't just one angry Russian!

Of course when people are upset they talk louder and faster and all of a sudden I couldn't understand anything. We started following the crowd...back through all the places we had waited in line to the main entrance of the airport by the airline offices. The area was limited on a second floor cat walk so I stayed by the luggage while James tried to go gather pieces of information. We waited for hours. We thought if we had the movie Terminal it would have been a good time to watch it. It is kind of funny how after several hours, more or less "together," you learn the personalities of people even when you don't know them.

We found our way to a "complimentary" dinner for the delayed passengers. While in line, James recognized another branch member walking through the cafeteria. Again, the name came to him and he went to talk to the man. He sat down with us and he and James talked at length about how he had been offended and fell away. James bore his testimony and tried to help with his concerns and encourage him back to church. It was a positive reunion. Again, in a city of a million people, what are the chances?


At about 9:30pm we started the whole process over again. All the same lines. By this point, there were those who were drunk enough and angry enough that if anyone looked like they were trying to cut in line there was an uproar. As we taxied out to the plane on a bus we could see what appeared to be a welding torch working underneath the plane with a lot of men standing around the wheels. We said a few more prayers.

When we landed in St. Petersburg the plane erupted into applause and cheering as though it had been the winning home run in the world series.

We knew the taxi drivers had the best of us by the time we arrived at St. Pete at 1am. There would be no public transport. The vultures, as we called them, descended but James was not to be devoured easily. We made our way through the first mob and he proceeded to go car to car until he was sure he had found the lowest offer.

Even though it wasn't the way we would have planned it, driving into St. Petersburg at that time of night was absolutely gorgeous.

St. Petersburg is a little like Venice in that it is a city of canals built on the inlet south of Finland.



The downtown and bridges were all lit up, wall to wall classic construction. Like this:


The taxi driver drove us right down a cobblestone road on a canal and dropped us off at the foot of one of these buidings. At a locked gate, at 2am. I was a little concerned. Within a few seconds the gate opened to a refreshingly pleasant young lady at the front desk. Even though our room was on the sixth floor and the elevator only went to the 4th, we found our room to be a clean and cozy little loft, with an amazing sight.

(Our actual view)

Which is this:

Spilled Blood Cathedral

And after another LOOONNNGGGG day, I slept very well.

Total Approximate Miles Traveled: 6978