Easter is one of my favorite holidays. Ever since I can remember it always involved 3 key parts. 1st opening my door Easter morning to find my green bunny shaped basket filled to the brim with candy and surprises. 2nd A challenging Easter egg hunt followed by a classy egg decorating. 3rd a wonderful Easter message at church followed by some well appreciated family time, oh and don't forget about the delicious Easter feast. These things have always been essential parts of Easter, and I had no idea how much I took them for granted. Easter was quite different this year. I woke up to no green bunny, no smell of french toast down stairs and didn't find one Easter egg no matter how hard I looked. It was a typical Sunday. We went to church, Easter seemed to be rarely mentioned oddly enough. We came home to an empty kitchen and cooked a unique feast of macaroni noodles and mini hot dogs. Not the greatest, however, I did get some lovely family time in thanks to skype. I haven't gotten too bad of a case of homesickness yet, but in my mother's words, I was getting a bit trunky on that day.
The following Sunday was a completely different story. We were on Easter, round two. Russians celebrate Easter a week later than we do. I woke up to cute Sarah coming to get us for a breakfast surprise. We climbed out of bed and followed her and her huge smile down three flights of stairs to the kitchen. There we found Rauni and Reagan with gleaming faces awaiting our arrival, behind them was a huge sign that says Христос воскрес. We enjoyed a delicious meal of scrambled eggs, toast and unique green hash browns. It was such a good surprise! After, Mindy and I (also having the Easter fever) ran upstairs to hide the candy we had bought the day before. The Easter egg hunt was on, it wasn't quite as good as the ones at home, but it's the thought that counts right? The candy was quickly found and we were off to our rooms to get ready.
Our church was actually cancelled for the day for everyone to watch General Conference so we decided to go to a cathedral to see how the Russians do things for Easter. I chose to go to this beautiful brown cathedral that we always pass on our bus ride to Tushinskya. It conveniently stopped right in front of it and we quickly hopped off. There were people everywhere. We had to cover our heads with scarves before entering the gates, which we being guarded by the military. I have never seen that at a cathedral before so we must have picked a good one. We walked inside passing a windy black staircase and walked into a room filled with beautiful paintings all across the wall and ceiling. There were actually three churches inside this cathedral. They aren't really separate since it is in one giant room, but they have three different areas that you can go to pray I guess. We looked at the first two and watched men, women and children lighting prayer candles and kissing the saints. Then I walked towards the front of the cathedral to the third church which was the biggest ones. It was so gorgeous. The ceilings and walls were covered in mosaic art of the saints and the Savior. I still can't believe how long it would take to put all those tiny rocks in place to make such a beautiful image.
On the way out we decided to take a gander up those windy stairs we passed. So we began our climb. We came to the end of the first set and there was a room filled with flowers, there was another set of long windy stairs and we hadn't been stopped yet so we continued on up. As we came to the top the view was incredible. You could see the city all around. We looked up to find a priest motioning us up one more flight of stairs. We climbed to the tip top and found ourselves in the bell tower. There here huge bells to my left and medium to tiny ones connected to all sorts of strings to my right. Then there was Micheal, a very friendly priest wearing a long red robe with golden designs all through it. He smiled and motioned to the bells. We took turns playing all of them, with the direction of Micheal. He didn't speak much English and laughed at the noise. I don't think our bell playing matches up to Quasimodo, but it was so fun. The big ones were played by a little foot pedal you stepped on. It was such a great experience.
After we climbed back down all the stairs (seems to be a never ending occurrence here) we exited the huge wooden doors to find a line of people standing behind all sorts of baked goods just starring straight at us. We quickly moved to the side, thinking this was some sort of bake sale. Just as we were about to go ask how much a certain cake was, we saw some more priest in long black robes come out carrying a nice looking silver bucket with a cross on the front, and what looked like a big paint brush. They began flinging water at the people and the food, come to find out it's "holy water" so they were all waiting for their food to be blessed, I even got a sprinkle on my boot. Within minutes of the priest leaving the food, people and tables were gone. Micheal came down talk to us again and I guess we were talking loud enough for people to hear cause all of the sudden we were surrounded by a crowd of people. All of them so excited to speak English to the Americans, even if they could only say "hello". It was so great. They were so kind, I felt like a celebrity. Then they all broke out into a little choir singing us their Easter songs. By the end I was beaming with delight.
These two women persuaded us to follow them back into the cathedral where they told us all about their beliefs and what all the symbols mean. They spoke in very broken English and would look at me every few words seeming to think if they starred at me hard enough and continued to repeat the word I would understand. It was so fun to talk to them. They were so proud of their cathedral. They even took us into the front of the big church with the mosaic paintings. It was blocked off, but they just opened the gate and walked on through. Nobody seemed to mind so we followed. Micheal offered to have us join him for a big Easter feast, but unfortunately we had made prior plans to go to the couple missionary's apartment for lunch and to watch the afternoon session of conference. We said our farewells and headed on our way, with memories of an Easter we will never forget.
The Naegle's have to be one of the cutest couples that I know. We hiked up their apartment (I try to avoid using any elevators in Russia, you never know if you will come back out) and found Sister Naegle and the other ILP girls all gathered around the television. President Monson was about to give his talk from the Sunday morning session. Another one of my favorite traditions is General Conference. I really took it for granted when I was younger, but I greatly missed veggin out all day, wearing my p.j.'s and watching with the family. This was quite a treat to be gathered watching it, even if it was a couple weeks late. We had a delicious lunch filled with homemade rolls and we even got a slice, nope not a scoop, of ice cream. So great. It ended up being a not normal, unforgettable Easter.
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