Kazakhstan

On November 17th Ron and I went to the mission office where we were given instructions for our trip to Almaty Kazakhstan. We were leaving that Monday afternoon, flying to Moscow , then on to Almaty -- we were scheduled to return on Saturday. Almaty is a beautiful modern city. It is the largest city in Kazakhstan with 1,348,500 people. The word Almaty comes from the Kazakh word for apple.

This building was made of glass -- quite beautiful.

We know some of you think that our visa trips must be wonderful -- we get to visit many different parts of the world and see new cultures every three months. Their are a few advantages, like traveling with great young people and having adventures that the 'normal missionary' would never have. However, they are also filled with hours spent in travel, going without sleep, eating strange things, and some anxious moments concerning how and when

you'll return, and who will take care of your responsibilites while you are away.

Some of you asked what we did while visiting Almaty. This is what we did --

We Went Shopping:

Everyone who visits Almaty, and the 'natives', like to shop for fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, or almost anything at a place called The Green Bazar. On the way to the 'Green Bazar' Ron and I walked past the Central Mosque of Almaty. Quite an impressive building, but I am sorry to say I know nothing about it. Also, while on our walk we saw an interesting thing -- A man backed his station wagon up to the curb opened the back, and inside on the floor of the car was a dead animal. People came over with bags, they cut off pieces of meat, paid for it with Tenge (their money) and went happily home to cook a 'nice dinner'. Not your ordinary butcher shop. You can find almost anything at the Bazar - light bulbs, kitchen tools, paint supplies, all kinds of clothing apparel, and Ron even found power tools. We didn't purchase any souvenirs because our bank card was not working and we had concerns as to when it might start functioning again. But the missionaries found some Kazak slippers that reminded me of Aladdin, Russian ties, gloves, and hats.

Dried apricots, cashews, dried plums, chocolate covered peanuts - called Hedgehogs (yummy), almonds, and much, much more. The sight was beautiful and the room smelled wonderful.

We were all attracted to this vendor because he let us taste everything -- a good salesman -- we all purchased things from his booth. We Got A Little Culture: We were invited by the Moscow Mission missionaries to attend a cultural night at the opera with them.

During one of the intermissions I went to thank our hosts for the nice evening and was introduced to a man by the name of Gary Despain. I said, 'Not the Gary Despain that graduated from Granger High School?" He said 'yes', but neither of us recognized the 60+ faces, we only remembered the 17 year old faces. What a treat! He is a pilot for Air Astana and is living temporarily in Almaty. Imagine going to and opera in Kazakhstan and running into a friend from high school!!!We Did Some Sight Seeing:

We went to the mountains to visit a very famous outdoor speed skating rink called Medeo, which sits 1,691 meters above sea level. The rink was closed and in need of repair so we climbed the stairs to the top of the mountain (850 stairs). Whew!!! I was the last to arrive at the top, but I was glad I went.

Looking back down all of those stairs we had just climbed was spectacular.

Coming down was much easier. Elder Magleby found slick way to slide down the railings, although I think it must have been pretty cold. I was a little nervous -- then Elder Sorensen tried it and couldn't stop (a street lies at the bottom). I could see one of them ending up hurt on top of a mountain, with no cell phone, in a strange country -- and I said, 'Enough"! We walked down the rest of the way.

One day we took an aerial tramway from downtown Almaty to a popular recreation area on top of Kok Tobe, which means green hill. (This is the same hill where Kazakhstan was dedicated to the preaching of the Gospel)

The city television tower is up there along with a variety of amusement park type attractions. We were there in the middle of the week, on a cold day, so everything was closed. We did enjoy the tram -- everyone, except Elder Nuzman who is a little nervous about heights.

These five characters are 'our guys', the group that we will/have taken our visa trips with. They are a lot of fun -- this is the last trip for Sister Borchardt, who will go home in January. The Beetles sang us a few tunes.

We Met Members of the Almaty Branch:

While in Kazakhstan we were given strict orders not to do any missionary activity -- we couldn't even answer religious questions asked by our own church members living in Almaty. According to law, anyone who preaches within the country must have a license issued by the government. The missionaries who come to serve there from the Moscow mission cannot open their mouths and say anything of a religious nature until they obtain that license. We were allowed to sing in the choir that day -- probably the biggest choir they have had for a while.

The Almaty Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has about 60 active members. The chapel was filled to capacity while we were there.

The sisters and I were invited to attend Women's Conference at the Almaty Branch. We found the same welcoming spirit with these dear women as we would in our various home wards in the USA. Their theme was built around strengthening the family -- we ate, played games, sang songs, and participated in sharing ideas.

We Participated In Sports:
The missionaries had 'sports' activities they participated in about every other day. No this is not them -- next to the field where they were playing soccer, a school was having an American football game. We wandered over to watch and cheered on the Almaty Apples. They looked like they were winning over the Kergistan Kinnickees (I just made up those nick names- could you tell?). Watching was a lot of fun --but it was easy to tell they were very new at the sport.

We Studied and Spent Time Together:

We went to one anothers apartments for District meetings. We had three apartments with about 2-4 miles between each.

Three groups of missionaries (21 total) gathered together at the Almaty meetinghouse one afternoon to watch a session of conference. What a great group to be 'stuck' with!! The problem is - about 40% of our mission was now outside of Russia, and all these young missionaries were worried about their contacts at home, and who would take care of their work. Thanksgiving day we gathered together in the largest of the 3 apartments to enjoy a nice meal and just to be together. The food smelled wonderful and the company was great-- all these young people were kind, patient, and grateful to be spending this special time together.

Elder Gubler cooked 6 chickens, mashed patatoes, carrots, gravy and corn. We also had homemade rolls, cake, and apple pie. Yum!!! Elder Nuzman was invited to do the honors in slicing the chicken.

"No one can eat until I get a shot of this food", Elder Shreeve snaps a photo.

What do you do after feasting on Thanksgiving? I mean, when there are no football games to watch. Play games, of course -- even Ron got into the act, and had a good time.

Zenkov Cathedral is surrounded by Paniflov Park, a pleasant rectangle of greeenery. The park was named after the heroes of World War II. The Cathedral is one of the few tzarist-era buildings to survive the 1911 earthquake, despite the fact it is built entirely of wood and constructed without nails. It is beautiful and almost looks like it should be in a storybook or fairy tale. It is also one of the eight most unique wooden buildings in the world. It serves as a Russian Othodox Cathedral.

It's just as pretty from the back as from the front.

In the park behind the cathedral were some very impressive statues dedicated to war heroes. I know our grandsons would be very impressed.

After 13 days (for our group) we finally had our visas -- hurray!!!! We flew from Almaty to Moscow - then had to transfer to another airport in order to connect with the flight to Yekaterinberg. We took a train - about 15 miles; rode on a subway until it ended - possibly another 15 miles; rented a small bus - big enough for 19 of us (some of the missionaires found flights directly to their mission areas and had already departed) and all of our luggage, and traveled another 10 miles, or more. Finally we arrived at our airport and we were very happy to be on the last leg of our journey 'home'. An exciting adventure -- but not one we would like to duplicate in the near future.