New missionaries & Apartment

New Missionaries

Sister Dick was transferred back to Russia to finish her mission.  She will go home in early July.  Sister Williams came to replace her.  She has been serving for a year and came from Veronezh.  We love the sparkle she adds.  She is from Alpine, Utah.

Elder Beckh has been serving as an Assistant to the President and has been transferred here to take Elder Jensen's place.  Elder Jensen will stay in Almaty for a week to orient Elder Beckh and then will go to Astana.

Elder Nalimv, who was here for our first week and then went to Astana, has come back to be Elder Beckh's companion.  He is from the Ekaterinberg Mission in Russia and goes home later this summer.

Our Apartment

This is the view as you first come in the door.  It is a custom to take off your shoes as soon as you enter someone's home.  The taller chest on the right is a special piece of furniture designed to have pull down drawers where guests can put their shoes.  The living/dining room is on the left.  The master bedroom is at the end on the right.  The office/spare bedroom is at the end on the left.  The bathroom is the door at the end of the hall.  The kitchen is on the left just before the office.

 This is the dining portion of the living/dining room.  We purchased the flowers at different stores for the arrangement on the table.  We also found the sofa pillows to add some color.  The sunroom/porch door is behind the curtain.  We use it for storage.

The living room portion of this room is large enough for a group of 10 to gather.  We purchased the little table and lamp and added family pictures.

Walking up the hall, past the water closet, we turn to the left into the kitchen.  The cabinet on the right is the one that Alexey made for us.  It has made a big difference to our storage in the kitchen.  We are very greatful to him for this special gift.

The kitchen is compact, but functional.  Anne has done a wonderful job in organizing everything here for the most efficient usage in preparing the many meals and refreshments she is relied on to make.  Notice, no dishwasher.  We do the dishes by hand using filtered water heated on the stove.  The washer works well and we can wash both sheets at one time, unlike our washer in Yaroslavl.

Just past the kitchen, on the left, at the end of the hall, is our office/spare bedroom.  It is a very small room, but serves its purpose.  Our missionaries come here to use our computers and write home on P-Day.

The bathroom has a very small shower stall on the left.  This is the room that had the leak which caused damage to the apartment downstairs from us.  A hot water pipe was replaced which increased our water pressure and gave us more consistent hot water.  The shower head on the wand was also repaired because it was leaking.  It is definitely a one-person-at-a-time bathroom.

On the right at the end of the hall is the master bedroom.  The TV is hooked to a VCR, which we never use.










This is a view of the bedroom from over by the TV.  The chest shown here is the one we bought to replace the one that was there.  We needed to replace it because we couldn't open the right closet door all the way because the chest was too wide.

This is the light fixture in the master bedroom.  We will have limited space to bring things home, but will take orders on a first come, first serve basis. There will be a limit of one per family.

Now that you've had the tour, here's the front door going out of the apartment.  Even though this apartment is smaller than either of the ones we had in Russia, we've tried to make it a place of refuge for us and the missionaries.

Woolley's Last Visit

Elder Romero joined our missionary force in Almaty this month.  He's served in Russia for three months and has added enthusiasm and a fresh spirit of determination.  We enjoy being with him.

One of the neatest experiences we've had was attending this dinner at an authentic Kazakh restaurant.  Since President and Sister Woolley are leaving, they hosted the branch presidency and us.  The evening was perfect for an outdoor dinner, the food was delicious and the company was exceptional!

Sitting next to Rick is President Woolley, Anne, Alexey, Rashid, Sister Woolley, Nadia, Vitaly, Elmera and President Dautov.

President and Sister Dautov are such a sweet couple.  We loved sitting across from them during the dinner.  We learned much about their family and Kazakh history.  They both speak enough English that we can communicate.

Vitaly is a counselor in the branch presidency.  His wife, Nadia, is an English teacher at a university for business.  They became grandparents this year and are very proud of their little granddaughter.

The gazebo we ate in made us feel like we were having a picnic.  The tables were long with benches and the food was served family-style.

There were many places for family and friends to gather.  The tables and benches shown here had stacked stone legs and canvas canopies.  The grounds were manicured with flowers and walking paths throughout the complex.  There was also a large dance area with live music.

Anne especially liked the design of the large chandelier in our gazebo.  It had short, cut twigs tied in lines ending with a hoop of flowers and greenery.

Our last zone conference with the Woolley's was bittersweet.  They have worked tirelessly creating a vision and direction for the missionaries.  He told us that our mission leads all Russian missions in many of the key indicators.  They are dearly loved by all who know them.  In the picture on the front row starting left are Elder and Sister Maxwell, Sister and President Woolley, Anne and Rick.  In the back row are Sister Talakh, Elders Nalimov, Romero, Jensen, Harrison and Sister Dick.

The branch had a special farewell party for the Woolley's.  The Primary sang "I Am A Child of God".  There were only three children there at the time, but the Primary is usually larger.  Those little boys sang beautifully.

Sisters Dick and Talakh and Elders Romero and Jensen lent their talent to the evening.  They really sound nice together.

The Wooley's were presented authentic Kazakh costumes and a darling felt/camel hair camel.  They were told the camel symbolizes wisdom and patience.

President Woolley was presented a camel whip for his next camel riding adventure.  He seemed to know exactly how to use it.

Pictures were taken after the program, but several of the sisters had already gone to finish preparations for the meal.  In the back row left is Elder Reshetnikov, the area authority seventy who was visiting for the weekend.  He had presented a fireside before the farewell party.  Many of the members of the branch took turns thanking the Woolley's and presenting gifts.  It was a wonderful evening for all.

City of Flowers

As we have said before, Almaty is a very beautiful city.  We want to take you on a couple of our favorite morning walks.  Almaty was the capital of Kazakhstan until 1999 and is still the largest city with about 1.4 million people.  Astana is now the capital and it has about 300,000+.  We live close to the buildings that used to house the country's government.  The buildings are very impressive and the area around them is kept manicured.  This building is at an intersection just south of us.  We have never seen flowers inserted into the side of a building like this.  The horizontal brick/column areas are actually banners.

Turning just a bit to the left, we see this beautiful mountain landscape.  Notice the flower containers hung over the guard rails of the street.

Here is another shot of the flower containers hung over the street guard rails.  Our branch building is just 2 blocks back up this road behind us. When we haven't had rain for a while, we  see water trucks with special sprayers for watering these flowers.

Just a little further on our walk is this garden and lawn in front of a business/apartment building.  Notice the electric lawn mower in the lower left corner.  We didn't see that at all in Russia.  Normally the grass and weeds were just left to grow however long they could.  It was very typical in Soviet countries to have businesses on the ground floor of a building and apartments for several floors above it.

On the street corner pictured above, kiddy corner from the building with the flowers in its side, is this clock.  The solid green is astro-turf and the flowers are in pots inserted into holders in this structure.  They also have some very beautiful new office buildings here in Almaty, as you can see in the background.

Another route we take on our walks is to the north (or downhill) from our apartment building.  This flower display is just on the other side of the Ramstore mall.

We walk down the street about a block and then turn down this street which goes behind a big government building.These beds are mostly marigolds, petunias and salvia.

When we get to this point, the fragrance is  almost overpowering, especially if there is a little breeze.  The rose gardens are huge all along this walking mall in front of the government building.  We can also hear the sound of the fountains behind us.

This is just one of the beautiful rose gardens with several brilliant colors.  The roses are the largest we've ever seen.

We should have put a hand beside these to give a perspective of their size.

A little further down in our walk is this park area with several statues and flower beds.  The park and the dome in the background are part of the roof of an upscale underground mall.  At night, different colored lights illuminate it and another dome to attract people to come shop.

This is one of the main government buildings.  It is the one we walk around.  The beautiful circle flower planting in front of it mimics the large crest on the building.  The wonderful water fountains we posted on a previous blog are on the left and right side of this building.

There are more flowerbeds and pots planted all across the front of the building.

After we walk up the right side of the building, past the water fountain, we come to another part of the street we turned down earlier.  Here we are greeted with more wonderful, fragrant roses.  Notice the street sweeper, on the left, out early to clean up the litter.

After walking behind the government building, we come to the other end of the street-side flower plantings we showed you earlier.  The fragrance here is also very pleasant because of the flowering trees and bushes.  Across the street is another government building which is completely fenced, but we can see through the fence to the lovely gardens and fountains around it.