Doldrums

You may have been thinking – Wow, the Maxwell’s are really busy! Too busy to even update their blog. – Wrong! We have not updated the blog because there really has not been much to talk about other than the cold (that gets boring even for us) and staying home a lot because of the cold.

We did, however, have some excitement this past week so we’ll use that as a reason to update everyone on everything else as well.

Friday and Saturday of last week we spent with our Mission President, his wife, a counselor in the Area Presidency – Elder Bennett, and his wife. They came to Astana as part of the Russia Moscow West Mission tour and spent Friday morning with the missionaries here, spent the afternoon touring the city, and Elder Bennett did a ‘fireside’ (informal talk) at the church for members and non-members. It was a nice, clear, sunny day which also means it was very cold. We were glad they got to see the city in the nice sunlight AND experience the cold we have every day – give them some good context for our situation here. That night they and we flew to Almaty for a Zone Conference on Saturday.

Saturday started by getting to our hotel, from the flight to Almaty, a bit past mid-night. We got up ready for the 9 AM meeting and arrived at the building only to find that the time had been changed to 10 AM and they told everyone but us. [Side note: we are not sure how often we are left out of the ‘loop’ since sometimes we don’t even know there is a ‘loop’ to be left out of.] The meeting was very good and we headed home to Astana arriving at 9 PM. Lunch was great because it was American style Pizza Hut pizza!!! Once you have been gone for a year it is the little things that make your day!!

Our new members here are making good progress. The two men who were baptized Christmas eve have both received the Aaronic Priesthood and blessed the Sacrament. One gave a talk in Sacrament meeting a few weeks ago and the other will speak this Sunday. One of the ladies has spoken in Sacrament meeting and is preparing our Twig Family History activity and the other two have been very active.

Viviane has been given two fur hats!!! She looks great in them. She likes the simple one better because it is not so heavy (it is made of Russian mink).

We continue to have problems with obtaining Kazakh visa’s and permissions to do missionary work. The new religion law is still being figured out by the government bureaucrats so they will not make any decisions about visa’s or permissions. Our 6 month visa expires next month and so far it looks like we will only get a 1 month replacement. Your prayers would be appreciated to help get this fixed.

Last evening we were invited to Alina’s apartment to spend time with her and her Mom. It was very enjoyable. Her Mom made this ‘pie’ that has shredded carrot and raisins as the filling. VERY tasty!!

Finally - There is a young lady, Zhanara, who would like to be baptized but her Muslim parents have asked her to stay Muslim. It has been interesting to watch her change over the past 5 months as she has embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the changes has been her attitude about her family. When the missionaries first started to teach her she did not want to even go see her family who live about 1,000 Km in Shymkent, KZ. Now, even though they have stopped her from being baptized, her love for them has grown. As we have watched this happen it has been a testimony for us of the love that our Savior’s teachings, if we live them, brings out in us and eventually our love expands to include all people.