21 January 2008 - Letter from Kazakhstan

We thought we would show you a little about where we live in Astana.

This is our apartment building from the back. Everyone enters from the back because all of the fronts of the buildings are offices and stores. The building is three times longer than what you see.

The lst floor behind the stores is indoor parking; but it is so costly than they park on the street. But the street is so narrow, they just park on the sidewalk.

We live on the third floor of apartments which is actually the fourth floor. If you count up three floors of windows, that is the level we live on. But our apartment windows face the other direction.

Notice the cute "babushka" on the front (back) step of the apartment with her groceries. Does she look familiar or what?

This is the front door (back) of our apartment building. This is an upper middle class apartment building. It even has a combination lock to get you in the door. But it seldom shuts tight.

This is the long flight of stairs into our apartment building up to the first level of apartments where we get on the elevator. None of this area is heated and we carry little megalites with us just in case the lights are out.

These are the mail boxes. Most of the bills for garbage removal are still in the boxes. If you would like to write us, here is our address:

LeRoy Welling

12 Irchenko Str., Apt 154

Astana, Kazakhstan

010000

It should take about 3 weeks to get here so we

will be patient.

This is the living room and our office. We have a three piece sectional (but it's all bolted together) and an arm chair. See the "dedushka" working hard on the computer.

This is our bathroom which is quite large. Around the corner is our tub and shower. In this corner is the washing machine. It takes 2 1/2 hours to wash a batch of clothes so we have to start early in the morning. There are no dryers in Kazakhstan so we dry everything on drying racks which we forgot to show you; but use your imagination!!

We also have another half bath which has a toilet and a sink. Everyone tells us how lucky we are!

And this is our kitchen which lacks a little in counter space, but, the stove has a lid that drops down and that's our counter space!

We have a window to the left which looks out on the back of the Radison Hotel.

The only table in the apartment is in the living room so we plan on purchasing a table that we can work on and move the table from the living room back in the kitchen where it belongs! That way we won't have to clean up all the paperwork from the projects we are working on every time we eat!

We also have a bedroom and also an entryway where we hang our coats and take off our boots and shoes. Everyone removes their shoes and boots and puts on slippers before entering

the living area. We love our apartment and we are thankful that it is as nice as it is. By Kazakh standards it is very large and well furnished.

That's about it. We are doing well and getting out more and more. Thanks again for all of your faith and prayers. We love you all!!

Love,

Elder and Sister Welling