Potpouri

This week has been very stormy! Every day we have had thunder and lightning storms with some very strong downpours of rain ... and, as usual, we always have wind/breeze. We are loving it! The air smells fresh and the flowers are in full bloom. Even though they are indoors on our patios, our tomatoes are doing very well. The plant in the large pot has 8 small tomatoes and the plant in the 'this is too small for tomatoes' pot has two.

Since the water is questionable coming out of the tap, we have been boiling it to use for washing dishes and brushing teeth etc. For drinking water we have been buying bottled water and we use about 50 liters a month. This week we decided to buy and have installed a water filter system. Even with the boiling of the water I worried about metals and chemicals in the water since they are still running the old Soviet water system. Our new water filter system will process 7,000 liters before the filters need to be changed. It only works on the cold water in the kitchen so we will still have our occasional orange water showers (not that we only shower occasionally but that the water is occasionally orange).

On Tuesday we participated in our first Humanitarian Missionaries of the East Europe Area conference call and using Cisco Meeting Place to see shared PowerPoints. Getting all these ‘old’ couples connected via phone (cell or land line) and connected via internet to the hosted Meeting Place in Salt Lake City took the first 45 minutes of the 2 hour meeting. For me it was quite humorous to hear their questions, frustrations, and the occasional complaint about the technology. Overall it was successful for a ‘first try’. It will be interesting to see if it is any better next month or if all the ‘how to’ will have been lost. Short term memory can be an issue!

Thursday the other Senior Couple in the country who were serving as Leadership Missionaries finished their mission and returned home. Even though we only spent a short time with them, we have grown to love them. Elder and Sister Moore will be missed in Almaty. The couple who were to replace them cannot come due to sudden illness in the family so another couple will not be in Almaty until October. This means that we will make monthly trips to Almaty for a week at a time to cover some of their responsibilities.

Late Friday we were informed that the landlord of our Church building will not renew our rental agreement and we have to find a new place to meet and move by August 10. Apparently they want to use our rooms for a new commercial venture. Our young missionaries were a bit upset, but we feel that everything will work out for the best and the Lord will provide … we just have to get out there and find what He will provide.

The best part of the week was helping a member of our group (Zhana) prepare herself to attend the temple in Kiev, Ukraine. This will be her first trip to a temple. She is very afraid of traveling by airplane – it will be her first plane ride. If she could afford the time off work I’m sure she would try to take a train (probably take a week to get there). For the members in this area the Church pays the airfare for their first temple trip. It will still be a significant financial sacrifice for her but she is undaunted. She will get to be at the temple for 3 days. This may be her only trip to the temple.

Zhana rents a room in a house that has no running water. She does not have access to a refrigerator and so has to buy her food each day. Her family lived in Mongolia for many years and she joined the Church there. Her parents are very active Muslims and were very upset at her decision until her father prayed about it and got a good feeling that his daughter would be OK. Since she and her parents are Kazakh, they decide to move back to Kazakhstan when the President invited all Kazakhs to return to their homeland. For 3 years she was the only non-missionary member in Astana. She has been a great example to us of faith and humility. This is a picture of her at one of our Activity Evenings.

This week we celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary. What a fabulous adventure it has been!!!