January 28, 2012 To Russia with Love

The senior office couple knew we were waiting for the Russian visas.  When our passports arrived at the office on Sat., Jan 21st with our visas they sent us an email entitled, "To Russia with Love".  We were able to take a walk downtown to see Red Square.  I have seen it so many times in movies and pictures.  The first picture is St. Basil's Basilica, the next picture is entering Red Square, then us in front of the Kremlin, and then Lenin's Mausoleum.  The art work statues were at one stop in the subway.  Notice Carl's hat which he borrowed because it was so cold.

January 22, 2012 THE WATER PROJECT

We had been in Armenia about 2 weeks when the humanitarian couple invited us to go with them to the countryside where a water project had been completed.  The countryside looks a bit like Utah in the picture.  Elder Rich, the humanitarian missionary, is in the picture with the mayor of the village and his wife.  Notice the clothes on the line behind them.  The project included putting in the pipes to the village so they don't have to carry water.  We also went to a city hospital where the humanitarian project had supplied medical equipment.  The people were all very appreciative and grateful.

January 15, 2012 KHOR VIRAP

We were able to visit the Khor Virap monastery where St. Gregory was held for 12 years in a well for being a Christian.  A woman who lived in the area lowered food to him through a small hole in the ceiling of the underground area where he was held.  The story goes that King Trdates became insane because of persecuting the Christians.  The king's sister told him that St. Gregory could heal him.  The king was healed and accepted Christianity.  In 2001, Armenia celebrated the 1700th anniversary of the adoption of Christianity as a state religion.  The pictures show Khor Virap and how we went down the 60ft. ladder into the chamber where St. Gregory lived for 12 years.

Yerevan January 7, 2012

The first picture is the view from the living room/kitchen window in our apartment.  The area is named Glendale Hills and we are on the 6th floor.  It is a new area of the central city so there is still construction and the road we walk in on is partly dirt.  The next picture is some of the housing.  The apartments are of 3 types.  Some are the old apartments from the Soviet era,  old apartments that have been remodeled, and new construction.  The landscape was a day trip we took with the humanitarian couple to some villages where they had completed projects such as water pipes into the village.  Big mountains surround the area and a local cemetary is in the front of the picture.  Carl took my picture at a city park with my new hat and scarf from a local market and some flowers he bought me.  We don't know yet what the statue is about, but it is not far from our apartment.

New Years Day

This is a big day in Armenia.  They celebrate Christmas on Jan. 6th and they start celebrating on Dec. 25th.  Today the church meeting was one hour.  We had 40 members last Sunday and today we had 20.  In the afternoon we invited our district (2 sisters and 4 elders) over for dinner.  We used our new crock pot that I brought with me and we were able to find most of the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies so we had the missionaries make them.  We then watched the Christmas broadcast from early December which they had not seen.  On Wed. a new senior CES couple arrive and we are going to show them around on Thurs.  We won't be the new ones anymore.  The picture is our district picture from last Sun.  The couple is Pres. and Sister Carter.  He is holding the majic jack we brought for them and Sister Carter is holding the pot holder I made for her on the flight over.