Minsk

So we are finally home. By the end of the trip I was really ready. I was tired of eating out 3 meals a day and washing my clothes in the sink and traveling on a bus. Our kids were glad to see us. Collin's reaction was surprising. Everyone had geared us up to have Collin mad or upset with us for a while. But he just looked at us and smiled and then I picked him up and he looked at me with a look like, I know you. And then he was fine. Anyway. We didn't have great internet the last few days so this is an account of our last week in Europe.

A quick note on Warsaw that I thought was funny before we move on to Minsk. The second night we were there we had a fireside and a workshop at the same time. Mark and I got sent to the workshop so he could set up sound. Ed, the director, and a few of the dancers taught a group of people some American dances. A lot of the people were from a local Country western dance group. They were hilarious. The came in their cowboy boots and belts. Some had hats. Then the next night at the show they came in full dress, including their fringe coats. One of them had a Confederate flag that they would wave periodically throughout the show. A huge flag. We were laughing so hard.

So on Friday, May 16th we left for Minsk, Belarus. They had prepped us for a long day because we didn't know what the border would be like. Belarus is one of the only countries still holding on to their Communist links to Russia. They have a very strict government. Most of the borders we have just gone through but this one has a gate complete with barbed wire and guards. When we got to the border they didn't know what to do with our carnet (the list of equipment) so we sat and waited, and waited. We were at the border for 6 hours. Mark was the one who had to deal with them. He was translating through our extra bus driver Andreas who only speaks Russian and German. So Mark had to tell him in German. It was a long day. We got to our hotel about 2 a.m. Minsk is an interesting city. It's very communist looking and the people there don't like Americans. Most of the countries we've been in like Americans, at least the older generation does. They remember when America helped them in WWII. But America has a shaky relationship with Belarus and has issued a no trade sanction with them. The economy there has suffered and they blame the Americans. The American Embassy has basically been forced out and now only has 5 people there. The church had missionaries there starting in 1992 when the iron curtain fell but they were pulled out in 1998. There has been no active missionaries there in 10 years. They do have 2 senior service couples but they are not allowed to do any teaching. The government has this weird rule that anyone from a foreign country cannot preach or speak in a religious gathering. So we were able to go to church but not able to participate. The church got special permission from the religious ministry to allow us to do our fireside for the members. But we were not allowed to speak on anything related to our church, ie. Joseph Smith, Restoration, living prophets. We were allowed to speak on general topics like love and prayer. One of the counselors from the Area presidency was there and he says we were allowed to do more than they have ever been able to. Despite all of these restrictions, the church is fairly strong there. We had a nice time visiting with the members. And our show had the best audience by far than any other city.
I didn't get any pictures of the city because we didn't have much time to sightsee. Honestly there's not much to see there. Like a lot of cities, a lot of it was destroyed in WWII so it has been rebuilt mostly in the blocky communist style. We did get to walk over to a monument that was interesting. During the war, the Nazi's came into the city and started capturing and killing the Jews. They took about 500 of them and marched them down into this pit and shot and killed them and then buried them in the pit. This monument is on the actual site where this happened and it depicts the Jews being marched down into the pit. It's very striking. It feels almost hallowed when you are standing in the pit where such horrible things happened. It was a weird feeling. That's all for Minsk.