From an email sent to the family Sunday, December 30...

Yes, our mission call is to Astana, but we flew down to Almaty with Bro and Sis Balls on Christmas Day to finish our training and country registration. We are now registered and hopefully they won't throw us out. Our luggage arrived the day after Christmas because Svetlana had it forwarded here. WE are very thankful to have an extra set of underwear and fresh clothes!! The Balls were having as much trouble getting out of here as we were getting in so we didn't get in as much training as we would have liked. Hopefully, we can figure things out on our own or with the people here and in Moscow. WE haven't been able to get our computer programmed to function in this country yet, so we are still relying on the Vincents, who are the leadership couple here, with using their laptop. They are from Salt Lake. He was a lawyer and a former member of the Seventy. They have treated us royaly by feeding us and taking us sight seeing. They are also hosting us and the three sets of young missionaries for a New Years Party from 12:00 noon until 12:30 midnight when the Mission President says we have to go home. WE don't think the phone in our apartment here in Almaty was working and we are sorry if any of you tried to call us. Until we get back to Astana and get registered on Skype, email may be our only means of communication..
We are fine. Getting used to the culture has been interesting if not difficult. They are wonderful friendly people, but their lifestyle is certainly a great deal different than ours. We went to an outdoor market with Svetlana and the Vincents. (Svetlana is our legal representative, a returned missionary and only 29 years old. She is very helpful and we could not function without her. If there are any problems we call Svetlana.) Anyway, back to the market; the only way to describe it is to say that it somewhat resembles 8 rows of narrow metal quanset huts side by side with steel shipping containers 2 high inside and each shipping container is it's own store. No heat and no sun and freezing cold!!! WE about froze our feet off trying on boots!! As you enter the mile and a half row of shoes the word carries that you are coming and what size you wear. Svetlana told us to stick by her because if we got lost we would never be found again!! It was totally unbelievable. We are talking 1 to 2 miles of nothing but shoe stores on both sides!! And remember that this is just one aisle!! We did find our boots and so did the Vincents and then on the way out we went to the row for hats and found one to fit Roy to keep his ears warm! Now we both look like Russians. Anything that you could ever want to wear was found in this market along with thousands of people. Across the road on the other side was anything dealing with housewears, decorations or furnishings. It was unbelieveable!! WE nearly walked for a mile to get there after we parked the car. Did I mention it was freezing cold???? And Almaty is 20 to 30 degree farenheight warmer and Astana.
Today we went to church here in Almaty. The services were completly in Russian. The missionaries translated for us. They have a nice branch and wonderful people. You can not believe the quality and testimony of the youth. The Gospel Essentials class is taught by a 17 year old girl and an 18 year old young man. The youth teach Seminary classes twice a week in the morning and Svetlana teaches Institute. The depth of their testimonies and knowledge of the gospel brings tears to your eyes. Two of these young men have their papers filled out to serve missions, another 17 year old has his application in to go to BYU. They are the future of the church in Kazakhstan. They are extremely humble, wonderful young people. The missionaries can now openly wear their badges but we still can not in Astana.
New Years here is a big deal. They don't celebrate Christmas at all but they celebrate New Years from the 31st to the 2nd of January. We can't get a flight out until Thursday, so we should be in Astana Thursday night. Hopefully, we can get unpacked, settled in, and start finding our way around the paperwork and reports.
WE were awakened this morning with an earthquake which was pretty scarry because these buildings look like they can't stand much!!
We love you all very much and we miss you too. Don't have too much fun without us. We probably won't be emailing again until next Friday or Saturday, hopefully from our apartment in Astana.
Love,
Roy and Anne