Settled in

It has been too long ago and we have been too busy so we’ll not try to go back and give you 3 weeks of our work and struggles. We have been very busy with trips, projects, and moving apartments.

First the new apartment. Essentially we looked for a new apartment for 2 weeks. Here you have to use a broker to find an apartment since they are all owned like condos. The fee is 10% of a month’s rent and is paid by the renter. We like our new place even though it is a bit farther away from the places we usually go. We are on the 4^th floor in the middle of the building which means we get a view of the river and sunset from our kitchen and from our living room a view of the city and sunrise. I see a lot more sunsets than I do sunrises!!

We were very blessed on the day of the move because we finished getting everything up to the apartment about 3 pm and the electricity went off at 3:30 pm and did not return until 10:30 pm. That meant no elevator and so we were thankful the outage was after our move. The next day we had no hot water for 2 days and thought ‘wow this is not a good omen’. Since then, however, it has been a great place to live. It is smaller than our other apartment (for the same cost) but nicer. One picture is of our moving 'boxes'. These bags are what folks here use to move stuff. The other picture is our kitchen. Notice the washing machine built into the kitchen counter.

Due to the move we were without internet access for about a week. In this country, only the owner of the dwelling can sign up for services. That means that even though we are renting and pay the bills, all of the bills are in the landlord’s name. We found out how dependent we are on technology to do our work. The Church database we use is online and a lot of our project communications are via email so we felt stalled for the week.

One of the weekly duties we have is to lead part of a Church sponsored English Club. We run the ‘advanced’ group and another American couple direct the ‘beginners’. We are having some fun with our group. Attendance varies from 4 to 10 and is made up of mostly young women. Our activity is not to teach grammar but to help them get more comfortable speaking English. To meet this goal we find some topics that they then have to discuss/describe within the group. They really appreciate this free service since most of them are hoping to be translators or use English in their future career. After the Club hour they are invited by our missionaries to stay for a spiritual thought for about 10 – 20 minutes and then those who have stayed play some games.

Monday and Tuesday of this week we were visited by our Mission President and his wife. They took Viviane and me out to a nice lunch at an Azerbaijani restaurant on Monday and we really enjoyed being with them. On Tuesday he held a District training meeting at our apartment which was very good. Two of the questions we were asked to ponder and write answers to were:

1. When did I need faith?
2. When everything else is stripped away from me, What do I know?

Monday evening Pres. Woolley gave a Fireside about the Book of Mormon and brought with him his copy of an original first printing of the book. This is a recent convert, Nurbek, holding the book. Nurbek is our first convert priesthood holder in Astana.

Last week we were invited to another handicapped children’s celebration. We really love attending these events. It doesn’t hurt that they feed us really good food – this time it was a typical central asian dish called plov which is traditionally made with lamb but was done with chicken this time.

Last but not least we have a new iPhone! It has taken about 2 months to get it here and get it activated but it finally works and it has fed my ‘need for a gadget’ craving that I have had for some time.

Our week is always better when we get to see Mahana and the kids as we did this morning!!!

Make it a beautiful day wherever you are!