Two weeks ago (082410)...

On, Tuesday, August 24th, we arrived early in the morning at a train station in Moscow. We had to wait until the metro opened at 6 o'clock to get to where we needed to go. I'd never been on the metro at that time of day and it was crazy!

Once we got through we had to figure out one of the world's largest metro systems to get to a different train station from which we would be departing that evening.

We wanted to store our stuff somewhere for the day. Even though we were getting very good at maneuvering it wherever we went, we weren't excited about doing that all day long.

I was hoping to catch all the way up today. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave it at that.

However, I have to give a little "real time" update here. I don't like to say good-bye to summer at all, but these are one of the hardest things with which to part.

Talmage's freckles

Sariah's freckles

Bryant's freckles (The mischievous eyes remain, only one of them has a shiner this week. But not the one that had a shiner a month and a half ago.)

And thanks to James's students, when we woke up Saturday morning my kids got to go swimming one last time...in popcorn!



(Continued)
So, guess how silly I felt when I was talking to James last night and said, "Can you believe two weeks ago today we were walking around Red Square?" It felt like months ago. Then we got to thinking and realized it wasn't two weeks ago, it was three weeks ago. So, the title of the last how many blogs should be "Three weeks ago..." not "Two weeks ago..." Oops.

So, the morning we arrived in Moscow we made our way to the train station from which we would be departing, found a place where we could pay to have our luggage stored for the day and then made our way to Red Square. It was really early and so we beat the crowd and walked around in near silence and solitude for the first hour or so. It was a pleasant, peaceful morning, and fortuntely, all the smoke from the historic fires had cleared and it was actually cool.

There were several things we wanted to see, but most of all, James wanted to find the building that President Benson had visited in 1959 as U.S. Secretary
of Agriculture. The story goes that he asked and asked to be taken to a church, but his wish was never granted until he was on his way to departing and expressed his disappointment in not being able to visit a Christian church. He was then taken to a Baptist Church where he was invited to address the congregation. All who were present, including the press who accompanied him on his diplomatic assignment, were touched. This is an excerpt from an in depth link.

Benson’s visit to Soviet Russia was covered by U.S. News & World Report. The apostle’s simple yet powerful testimony to the people gathered in the church was detailed in the magazine’s 26 October 1959 issue:

“Mr. Benson began to talk, drawing on his experiences as one of the leaders of the Mormon Church in America. Watching the Russian congregation, you could see tears welling up in the eyes of people as the Secretary’s words were relayed to them through a translator.”

Mr. Benson continued, “I know that God lives. He is our Father. Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the World, watches over this earth. He will direct all things. Be unafraid, keep His commandments, love one another, pray for peace and all will be well.” The magazine reported open weeping and muffled sobs in the church, with the article’s writer adding, “It turned out to be one of the most moving experiences in the lifetime of many of us.”

At such a time in Moscow, this was a monumental address. Because of this, James so wanted to find this building. As we went about our sightseeing, he asked EVERYONE if they knew the location of the Baptist church. No one knew. In the meantime, we saw...

A cathedral which is now a museum.

The landmark St. Basil's Cathedral of Red Square.

A granite monument with major cities of the Former Soviet Union, the eternal flame, and the changing of the guard. The soldiers marched lifting straight legs straight out in front of them.

Goom. Apparently a famous department store.


A lot more cobblestone.

We stood in line to visit Lenin's Mausoleum
Talk about an eerie place. Lenin has been dead since 1924, and he was a not-so-nice guy. You go through heavy security and then walk past the graves of Soviet leaders including Stalin to the granite pyramid. The you walk down into the dark, cold mausoleum. Interestingly enough, one of the dictionary definitions for "mausoleum" is "a large gloomy building or room" and that's what it was. On the way down I got reprimanded by one of the guards for having my hand in my pocket. There was a guard about every 15 feet it seemed. Once you get down in the depth of the tomb, there Lenin is in a glass box. They move the crowd through fairly quickly and I was happy to go.

. The Kremlin.

Truly a fortress. The outer wall and towers are made of normal-sized, red bricks---oh so high and surrounding several acres.

Entering the Kremlin. Really, entering THE KREMLIN!

Inside, it was a little bit of a disappointment. The Fortress is so monstrous and then inside are several churches (ironic don't you think?)

These church are full on ancient (like 1100s ancient) icons and the tombs of saints.

and, a really big canon, the tsar's canon.

There are also some gardens and the government buildings, but we couldn't go inside those. So we paid a lot of money to get inside when the most impressive thing was the view from the outside.

So we left and walked some more and saw fountains and ate lunch.


This fountain was cool because you could actually walk under it streams of water. Their culture includes the tradition that throwing change into a fountain means you'll return to it. We threw pennies.

When we had seen all we wanted to see at Red Square we set out to find the Bolshoi Theater. It was under construction.



We still had a few hours until we needed to be back to the train station, but we still had no leads on the whereabouts of the Baptist Church.

We sat down on bench in front of the Bolshoi Theater to think and pray about what we should do. We sat for awhile. Over the buildings a few blocks away we could see a sign for the HYATT hotel. We had the impression we should go there. We found an unusually pleasant doorman who took us straight to the concierge. He explained what we wanted to find. The concierge took the time on the internet to find us an address and print us out a map. He told us that on foot it was probably a half hour away. It was a little bit of a maze to get there, but we finally found a building on a very quiet street that had a sign that said it was the Baptist Church.

The exterior of the Baptist church.

We wondered if it was the same church that Elder Benson visited, but the door was locked. Just as we were about to leave, a man from a side door walked onto the street and told us which door to use if we wanted to enter. We walked inside and found a gentleman who was eager to tell us the history of the building, indeed it was the one!

Baptist Chapel which was overflowing upon Elder Benson's arrival and message.

The stained glass says, "God is Love," which we were feeling at that moment.

James standing where Elder Benson stood in 1959.

Interesting KSL news clip of Elder Uchtdorf's visit to the same place.

We truly felt like we had been taken by the hand and led to this place. It made us very aware that Heavenly Father knows the desires of hearts and willingly answers prayers. The feeling in this place was so polar opposite to the feeling we experienced in Lenin's tomb. It was a wonderful blessing and the highlight of our day in Moscow.

To the train station we returned after we had found some more food and water. Our cabin was descent but the toilet was a far cry from the last train. Imagine a completely stainless steel toilet that has a seat made out of the same thing as the foot step on big rigs, you know, tread-looking stuff. It's because Russians stand on the toilet seats!

Approximate total miles traveled: 7550