Istanbul

September 1st was the first day of school. As we were walking we saw a lot of children in their school uniforms and carrying flowers. The tradition here is to bring flowers for your teacher the first day of school. Most of the boys wear dark blue or black suits to school every day and the girls a wear white blouse and dark blue or black skirt. Here are some pictures that I took that day. Notice the little girls and the bows in their hair. These were not even the largest bows we saw!

On Sunday evening we flew to Istanbul, Turkey and arrived at about 1AM local time. When you arrive at the airport you go to a visa window and get a 30 day visa for $20. They will not take anything but a nice clean $20 bill – not two $10 bills or any other combination. As we walked to find a taxi we were accosted by a shuttle service and decided to take the easy way and go with them. Everything was fine until we found the driver going in circles. I offered him my map but he finally called someone and stopped to askdirections – he didn’t know where our hotel was located! He did hit the general area OK and we were at the hotel by 2 AM.

Around 7 AM our friends, E/S Reese, from Tbilisi, Georgia arrived but could not check in until 2 PM so they hung out with us in our room and I started the process of rebuilding their laptop that was having serious problems. That afternoon we went with all the Senior Missionary couples (15) and our leaders from Moscow for a cultural event. We all hopped on the tram and toured the Sultan’s Palace. It is a huge place and grounds – almost a town within its walls with places for the physicians, soldiers, and 300 wives (I did not read anywhere how many children came from these wives). We also walked a bit on the edge of the Grand Bazaar and I bought a couple of pairs of pants and had them hemmed. Picture on left is a tea vendor in the Grand Bazaar and on right is lunch with E/S Reese at the edge of the Bazaar.

Each evening at 6 PM everyone at the conference had diner together at a nice restaurant in the city. Monday we sat outdoors, Tuesday we had diner in an old cistern, and on Wed. we ate outside again. Each diner was a bit unique both for location and the food we ate. All the food was fantastic!!! The first evening I ate lamb and walnuts in a pomegranate sauce and Viviane ate lamb and mushrooms with black currents.

The picture above is a meal - lamb or chicken stew - cooked in a clay pot and brought to the table where they break the pot a the line you can see to get all the stew out. The picture on the left is of our diner in the ancient cistern.

Tuesday and Wed. were the days of the conference. All of the Senior Couples called to do Welfare/Humanitarian missions in the East Europe Area plus our Area Welfare Manager, our Area Director of Temporal Affairs and his wife, and Pres. Lawrence who is a Seventy and first counselor in the Area Presidency and his wife attended the conference. It was a great conference and we were taught from the scriptures and given instruction on the direction our work is to take in the future. Sister Lawrence gave us a fireside on Tues. about the gathering of Israel. One of the stories she told was of the experience of the first patriarchs sent to give blessings to the members across Russia. As they turned in their first 100 blessing each for review by the Area Presidency, all were amazed that the blessings pronounced lineage from every tribe of Israel. She then asked how many of us were of the tribe of Ephraim and all but 2 raised their hands. The other two, who were two of our Sister Missionaries, were of the tribe of Manasseh. She then asked the only ‘native’ (meaning non-American/Canadian) what his tribe was and he said Ephraim but that his wife is of the tribe of Zebulon.

Thursday was a day for ourselves and we spent it with E/S Reese and then took a short 1.5 hour cruise on the Bosporus with most of the couples. Most of the day was spent in the Grand Bazaar and for me the best part was the time in the Spice Bazaar which is a part of the Grand Bazaar. We had lunch at Burger King! I absolutely wanted a burger, fries and a chocolate shake while there was a chance to get it. No chance for a meal like this in Kazakhstan. Truthfully, it was not that great but it was better than not having it at all.

These are pictures in the Grand Bazaar ....

The cruise was very nice but not really spectacular. Istanbul is the 4^th largest city in the world and so much of the cruise was viewing hill after hill of houses and apartment buildings. There were some mosques, an old fort, and some palace like buildings. The best part of the cruise for me was to be on a boat with some salt air and wind on a beautiful day!

We headed for the airport with E/S Reese about 7 PM. Our plan was to take the tram to the airport. However, the trams were so packed with people that we decided to get a taxi instead. The flight home was non-stop but we did not get much sleep. We arrived home at 8AM and then slept until 2 PM to catch up a bit.

Saturday we held another convert baptism. This time is was a young Kazakh man (25 years old) named Nurbek. He will be our first local priesthood and we are very excited for him. He is a very thoughtful young man and was not making much spiritual progress until he finally started to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. As soon as he started that process he was given a very sure spiritual experience and was ready to be baptized. Today he was confirmed and given the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We expect that he will receive the priesthood next week.

We have been very blessed this week to see and experience a new country and city, have a wonderful experience at the conference, and then have it all topped off with a baptism. We are not able to count our many blessing – He has been so kind to us!