Hodge Podge

Founder's Meeting

The Church's charter as a religious organization expires at the end of October,  therefore, we got involved in a rechartering process.  This involved getting 50 Almaty citizens, members and non-members, to sign a document saying that they favored the Church being in Almaty.  A Founder's Meeting was held with an announcement of officers and people came up afterwards and signed the document.

Imangaziev Family to Dinner

Myrat was the branch president here before President Dautov.  He now serves as 1st counselor.  This family was the first Kazakh family baptized.  Maxat, back left, is a returned missionary and going to school at BYU Hawaii.  He was just married here and then sealed in the temple in Hawaii.  Sabina, back right, goes into the MTC on Sept 4th and is going to the Temple Square Mission in Salt Lake City.

Sisters Help Bake Pinch-Me-Cake

Sisters Talakh and Williams wanted to come over and learn to make rolls.  After the dough was ready, they decided to make Pinch-Me-Cake instead.  Since it was P-Day, the Elders came also and it was all gone before they left for the day.  Wow, it was good!!!

Our Morning Walk

As we start out our morning walk, we are often greeted by one or the other of the security guards for the building.  Sultan (pronounced Sooltan), left, is the head guard and Islam is his assistant.

Next we see the maintenance man who sweeps up the street in front of our building.  He is very good with his long, straw broom. He always has a smile and is tickled to see us.  He often giggles when we talk to him.  We gave him an English Club flyer.  We hope to see him there some day.

Next, just on the corner, before we cross the street to Ramstore, is a dedushka (grandpa) who is selling his home-grown produce.  We buy from him frequently.  He also always smiles and waves to us.

This is one of our favorites.  This little babushka (grandmother) sells apples, flowers and booties that she knits while she sits there.  You can see them on the sidewalk.  We have bought several pair for baby gifts to be given in the branch.  We bought apples from her once and Anne baked an apple crisp and took her a serving.  She was very tickled and shared it with those that sell around her.  She waves at us with both hands and has a big smile for us when we walk by.  She tells us, "Thank you!" in English.

On the other side of Ramstore, as we walk down the street toward the park, we greet the grounds keepers, Ngman, left, and Balzhan.  Balzhan always shakes Rick's hand, both coming and going to the park.  We are only able to exchange greetings.  We alternate between Russian, Kazakh and English.  They were surpised the other day when they asked us in Russian, "How are you?" and we replied, "Jzuksa!" (Kazakh for "good").

On August 3rd, Balzhan stopped us and pointed to his passport with the date of August 3rd on it and saying something about Anglieskey Klub.  We weren't sure what he was saying.  So he pointed down the street and said Anglieskey.  So we followed him and met three ladies (two of them are pictured to the left).  The young one on the right graduated from university a short time ago and knew some English and was interested in coming to English Club.  She asked if she could bring her sister.  We told her, "Of course!"  She then told us that August 3rd is Balzhan's birthday.  We laughed and told him, "Happy Birthday!"  Later that day, we took him some dessert to celebrate.

After we leave them, we walk down through the park which we pictured before in the City of Flowers post.  At the bottom of the park is the entrance to the underground, brand new Almaly Mall.  It is beautiful.  As part of an opening promotion they displayed several trash art sculptures.  This one is a warrior on a horse.  If you look closely you will see that it is made out of old machine parts.  It is pretty cool.

Then, a little further on is this wire sculpture that is also neat to look at.

On the Way to Metro

One day, we missed our turn going to Metro supermarket (like Sam's Club).  No big deal, we decided to take the next turn.  It was just taking two legs of a triangle to get to our destination, instead of one.  Big mistake!  We had to drive through about 4 miles where rennicks lined both sides of the street.  This hadn't been a problem before because it was on a week day.  It was Friday and it was jam packed one both sides of the road.  It took us 30 minutes to make it through this area.

New Sisters

Two new sisters arrived in Almaty on August 2nd.  This is Sister Blomquist and she is  Sister Williams' companion.  She is from Holiday, Utah, and is excited to be here.

Sister Nelson arrived also and is Sister Talakh's companion.  She is from Riverside, California.  She knows Hebrew, is majoring in Ancient Near- Eastern Studies and minoring in archeology.  She has been on a dig in Israel and unearthed a jar herself and helped with an alter.

We feel like our family is now complete with 8 missionaries here in Almaty.