Moscow, Samara, Saratov 10/22/14

We have been in Russia a week and have been lost three times, once in the Moscow airport after returning from seeing some of the Moscow sights and assuring Lena, the young lady employed by the church in the Moscow office who took us on that great tour, that if she got us on the train we would be fine at the airport; second in Saratov when we made a wrong turn coming back to our apartment and third in Saratov after assuring the MLS couple here that if they got us on the right bus we would know where to get off by the directions they gave us.  As that bus got to the end of the line and we were politely invited to get off with everyone else (7:30ish, dark and a bit stormy).  Mike showed him the address and he indicated across a couple of railroad tracks, a walking path, a couple of more railroad tracks and a one way street busy with cars that we were to get on bus 53 going back into the city.  We did call the missionaries as we had been instructed - their question as is usual for most of us in these situations - "Where are you?"  Had we known, we wouldn't have been lost.  We couldn't give them enough information except there was a large tower with flashing red lights on it, traffic moving all four directions and train tracks all over the place and they couldn't tell by that.  We wandered a bit (it was quite pretty when we were on the walking path with the dark and a bit of wind and big yellow leaves falling quietly around us), asked some questions and were finally directed by a couple of not quite sober gentlemen who had a hard time agreeing on where we should go.  We finally located Bus 53 and made it back into town.  Kind of fun actually.   No surprise when the sisters were assigned to pick us up at the apartment and made sure we made the right bus connections to church Sunday.  
     The missionaries have had several discussions with investigators at our apartment, also district meetings are held here on Friday.  We are across the street from the institute which is held on the main floor in that apartment building.  The first institute is tonight.  The first picture below is on the Volga River in Saratov - you can see the bridge in back, and that is only part, it goes on a lot more, is one of the largest in the world, the next is the Moscow river right close to red square and the last is a Basilica church in Moscow - will post more later.   :)