LIFE IS FULL OF SURPRISES!

These are most of our missionaries that serve in Moscow.  3 companionships had meetings :) and couldn't come to our "sloppy joe lunch/training meeting" that we had with them yesterday.  This was the 2nd time Dad scheduled this meeting with the purpose of telling them about the huge changes in our mission that would affect all of them.  But for the 2nd time the telling of the changes (which had been kept top secret for the last 3 weeks) had to be postponed because our area presidency hadn't gotten the word that the changes had been approved by the 1st presidency and the quorum of the 12.  We thought for sure yesterday everything would be in place--so sure that we bought all of the food.  Thursday night we found out that the approval wouldn't come until Friday night.  Dad decided to have them over for lunch anyway and tell them that the training materials for the meeting didn't come through.   They had a great time being together and loved the food.  I told them that I thought we ought to "DO LUNCH" more often.  They agreed.

back to front Elders:  Baxter, Aitken, Rosenhan, Whitney, Brandenburg, Armstrong, Jouttenus, Craven, Ficklin, Blatter, Terrill, Despain, Heath, The President, Westbroek, Malanin, Harker (poor thing--he had an accident when he went to get the juice out of our car.  We did our best to clean him up, but he had mud all over him.  He's a Canadian and a great sport)

7:00 last night Dad got the call from President Pieper.  These changes are now official:  the MWM will no longer have any missionaries in the city of Moscow, Podulsk, or Lotoshino.  We will keep all of our other outlying cities and pick up two more outlying cities from the Moscow mission--Nizhnigorad and Yurosloval--we will keep the country of Belarus and pick up another country-- KAZAKHSTAN.  
                                                                  Kazakhstan Flag

                                                                   
The only place there is a branch in Kazakhstan is in Almaty.  We do have a Sr. couple doing Humanitarian work in Astana.

We are very excited about these changes.  I am so grateful that my prayers have been answered and that we are able to keep every one of our missionaries.  I couldn't bear the thoughts of losing any of them.  Monday the changes start.  We will leave one of our missionaries in each area in Moscow to work with missionaries from the Moscow mission.  They will leave one missionary in each of their areas in Kazakhstan, Nizhni, and Yuroslaval, to work with one of our missionaries.  Then two weeks from Monday--on the 9th of February--the final switch will take place and both missions will have all of their missionaries back working in their missions. 

The Moscow Mission will consist of only the branches in the city of Moscow and Podulsk, Lotoshino, and Zeleningrad (which are on the outskirts of Moscow).  President and Sister Cranney will never have to travel beyond Moscow again. 

Dad and I will be on the road every Sunday.  There will be no branches in Moscow that belong to us.  It will definitely require lots of travel.  We begin tonight.  We are flying to Nizni late tonight to attend both of the branches in that city tomorrow.  President Pieper is going with us to introduce us to everyone.  We'll be back Sunday night.  

Life is full of surprises.  Life is good.  We need extra prayers from all of you as we make the transition.  I hope our new cities will love us.  I love them already.