October Activities

 Priesthood Activity
The priesthood decided to go to the mountains for a social.  We had one false start when the first place selected, out on the plain, turned out to not be acceptable.  We then, headed for the mountains close to Talgar.  We found a spot next to a stream up  a narrow canyon.  It took us two hours to get there.  Andre cooked plov again in the big pot you saw on the beach trip we took a while back.  We had one investigator there, Deema, an amazing young man.  We can't wait for our
permissions to preach so we can teach him.

Our New Friend
Nurlan is a maintenance man for Ramstore across the street from us.  We see him every morning when we walk.  He is always so happy to greet us and warmly shakes Rick's hand.  Anne baked him some banana bread a couple of weeks ago and he has been warmer ever since.  Last week, as we finished our shopping at Ramstore, he was right there to take our cart from the checkout stand and he pushed it all the way to our apartment building where he helped us unload it.  Anne says he will make a wonderful branch president some day.  The little dog on his right is a "neighborhood" dog.  He stays close to the store so people will feed him.  When we had our windows open at night, he would keep Anne awake with his barking.

Another trip to the mountains

 We decided to take another trip to the mountains to see if we could see the leaves changing color.  On the way up we saw this statue of a deer.  The man at the lower left is filling 5 litre jugs with water coming out of a pipe.  He had about 20 or so he was filling.  Many do not have running water up this far on the mountain and have to rely on fetching their water.

This collection of yurts along side one of the roads is probably for recreational use for overnight campers.  The leaves were just starting to change color and it was pretty hazy, so it's hard to see how vivid it was.

We didn't see very much color on this trip, so we'll have to go again in a week or so.  Since our trip, we've talked to some residents and they said there isn't much color when the leaves turn.  Mostly yellow and brown and then they fall.

Dinner with Kabdigaleev family
Nurzia and Djastalap invited us for dinner, along with President and Sister Gibbons and Ken Harvey.  Nurzia and Djastalap take care of our branch building and landscaping and she drives missionaries and visitors to and from the airport.

This is Besbermaak which Nurzia prepared along with, what we call, scones.  There were also several salads to accompany the meal.  Besbermaak (means 5 fingers and is usually eaten with the fingers) is the national dish of Kazakhstan.  It is usually prepared with horse or mutton, but was made with beef for us.  It is said that if a woman can't make it, a man may refuse to marry her.

Mira, at top of the picture, is the oldest daughter and wasn't in the picture above because she was taking it.  Also included is Mira's daughter, Merey.  Their youngest daughter was recently married in the Salt Lake Temple and is attending LDS Business College.

Ludmilla from Talgar
We take our sisters out to Talgar to visit Ludmilla almost weekly.  Ludmilla was baptized just before we got here.  Her 2nd son joined the Church first and is attending BYU-I at the present time.  Her other son, Alexey, is active in the branch and lives with her.  She teaches in the geology department at the Talgar University.

Dinner with Unbayevs, Vova, Nastia, Tamara and Marianna.
We invited two couples along with one of the couples' two mothers over for dinner.  Pictured to the left are Rashid and Christina Unbayev.  She is expecting a girl on October 15th. He is a returned missionary, math teacher, branch clerk and is studying for a masters degree.  She is from California and they met when she came to Kazakhstan with the Peace Corp.

Tamara Nazina (left), is the branch Relief Socity president and teaches finance at a local university,  Nastia Nazina (Tamara's daughter-in-law) and Marianna, (Nastia's mother).  Marianna is a famous journalist, TV show producer and first member baptized in Kazakhstan.  As we finished dinner, Vova's brother called and needed his help so he left before we took pictures.  You may remember this family from the wedding pictures we had of them in July.  Yes, Nastia is expecting with a due date of April 18th.

Mug Cakes
Anne had the missionaries do mug cakes on the last P-Day that Sisters Talakh and Williams would be with us.  They have been transferred to Novosibirsk.

Our zone leaders, Elders Anderson and Beckh, can't wait to dig into this scrumptous looking treat.

Sisters Blomquist and Williams are also anxious to dig in.  Sister Blomquist told us later that she was very surprised at how good the cake tasted.  She wasn't expecting it to be that good.

Sister Williams is going to be training in Novosibirsk.  The mission just received a lot of new sisters and trainers were needed.  She will also be orienting other missionaries in Russia to the Kazakh language.  She will go home in December.  We will miss her.

Elder Hansen mixing his mug cake.  Anne had all the directions put on slips of paper and the missionaries grabbed a mug (they got to take it home) and went around the table putting the ingredients into their mugs before microwaving them.

Elder Brinton is enjoying his mug cake and ice cream.

The last picture of our full district before the sisters left.  We had Islam, one of the security guards downstairs, come and take the picture.

Sister Talakh is going to Novosibirsk and will be companions with a mini-missionary from Almaty, Elena Obchenikova, for the last three weeks of her mission.  Her financee was released from the Novosibirsk mission two days before she flew up there.  They were engaged before they came on missions.

Construction in the Mountains
This was wild!  We took the sisters up the mountain to visit the Vardanians.  On the way up, there was some construction.  The road was cut down to one, very narrow lane for about 150-200 yards. The right side lane was dug down about 6 feet.  The wild thing was there was a bend in the road which made it impossible to see if anyone was coming toward you.  There was a guy in the middle trying to direct traffic.  However, it was getting dark so he probably would not be there long.  I wouldn't want to be on that road then!