July 18, 2012 Estonia

We arrived back in Yerevan on Mon., July 16.  The cities we traveled to in Estonia were Tartu, Parnu, and Narva where the branches were located.  Carl has been taking pictures of the unique statues in some of the cities.  The pig was in Tartu.  The "flower trees" are circular planters stacked on top of each other.  The little green building is the church in Parnu.  The fountain with the children sitting under the umbrella in the rain was in Tallinn.  The woman resting was a favorite and looked similar to someone being partially covered with sand at the beach.  Carl sat by the cow to rest for a few minutes.  I really enjoy the colorful flower markets.  We used a hotel in Tallinn as our base and took buses to the branches.  The rides were 3 hours each way for one branch and the others were about 2 1/2 hours each way so the bus travel and teaching took most of the day.

July 13, 2012 Latvia

Winters in the Baltic countries is very harsh so the people really enjoy the flowers in the summer.  They use planters along the streets with graduated layers of bright flowers.  The city of Daugavpils had the bright begonias.  The locks were along a bridge in Riga.  The locks are placed there by couples in love!  The building is called Blackheads and is in Riga.  The Freedom Monument is in the main square in Riga.  The church that reminds me of a wedding cake is in Liapija.  The girls in native costumes were performing in Riga.

July 8, 2012 Lithuania

We were asked to travel to the Baltic countries so flew to Vilnius, Lithuania on Friday, June 29th.  The first picture is St. Anne's in the old city.  The white cathedral is one of the Catholic churches.  After the training on Saturday we took a train to Traika to see the castle/fort.  Carl tried out the box punishment treatment in the courtyard of the castle.  The fort is on the hill overlooking the city.  The McDonald's was decorated with balloons.  I asked why they had the decorations and they said it was for the grand opening.  I asked them when the store opened and they said, "Today is the first day!"

June 24, 2012 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

One of the sites in Nizhy is The Kremlin.  The city is where two rivers converge.  In Moscow we had a meeting with the auditors in Europe East.  On the Moscow River cruise we saw the Peter the Great statue.  We had lunch with Elder Hamp from Placerville, California where Rick & Alicia lived.

June 17, 2012 Yerevan to Moscow

We leave tomorrow for the week in Russia.  We will fly to Moscow and then take a train (4 hours) to a branch in Nizhney Novogorod for training with the leaders.  On Thurs. and Fri. we have meetings in Moscow.  The first picture is me practicing Armenian with a lady on our trip to Georgia.  On Sat. we walked up the Cascades (big set of steps) in Yerevan.  I counted 600 steps.  You can see Mt. Ararat in the distance.  The day was not too clear.  The rabbit sculpture was on the walk.

June 10, 2012 Tatev

On Friday, June 8th we went on a trip with Sister Bailey who completed her mission that week and her father and brother.  The first picture is the Tatev Monastery.  On the drive we saw some stork nests on light poles.  Sister Bailey's family is standing in front of the Jermuk Falls.  The Noravank Monastery is in a canyon which looks like it could be in Utah.  You will notice the unusual stairs on the outside of the build front.  The stairs were about 18 inches wide with no hand rail.  The roads were SO bumpy!

June 4, 2012 Last week in Georgia

On the drive to Georgia as we came through one section of mountains we could see the border of Azerbijan on the other side of the river.

The statue of the horse and rider in the lower left hand side of the picture by the river in Tbilisi was the site where Elder Holland dedicated the country of Georgia for the preaching of the gospel in 1999.

We went to the bazaar market and this was a candy section.

Tbilisi is beautiful at night with all of the lights around the buildings.  The last picture is the memorial in Spitak, Armenia, at the site of the 1988 earthquake.  One source states that 25,000+ people died.  It was after the earthquake that Jon Huntsman and Armand Hammer built a cement plant to help with the rebuilding.