Closing Presentation in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan - 5 October 2008

Monday morning, we flew to Pavlodar, a city east and north of Astana and close to the Russian border, for the closing presentation of a project we did for a handicapped organization. Mira left Friday for Pavlodar to be with her family for a celebration during Ramadan, a Muslim celebration. Mira met us at the airport with Nadezhda, the Deputy Chairman of the organization, "Optomist". Nadezhada brought a bouquet of flowers for both of us and thanked us so much for coming. During the ride to her office, she was so emotional and grateful to us and wanted us to know how much they appreciated the help. When we got to the office we were introduced to her staff and of course, they fed us breakfast of sandwiches and salad and juice! On the left is Lena, Administrator, Nadezheda and Roy.

They took us to another building across town where the equipment, that was donated by the Church, was located. When we got out of the van, these two ladies were there to greet us with a plate of Russian rolls with salt in the center. Mira told us that this is a traditional Russian welcome and that we were to break off a roll and sprinkle it with salt and then taste it. The media was there and caught it all on tape!!

Nadezheda presented us with a plaque thanking us and our Church for the equipment for their handicapped organization. There were lots of people there and Roy was interviewed on camera about how we came to do a project here in Pavlodar and why we chose this organization. Roy explained that our Church helps organizations in over 160 nations and that we try to help as many people as we can.

This is a 3 in 1 Power Gym that we donated which helps with both upper and lower body strength.

Each of the men that demonstrated on the gym were all physically handicapped but very athletic.

This man is demonstrating the exercise bike which was also donated by the Church along with ski boots and bindings for amputees. This organization has social and athletic events monthly to keep them physically, socially, and mentally active and to help them feel a part of society.

After we checked in at the hotel, they invited us back to their office for dinner! These people in Kazakhstan eat more than Mormons!! It was a lovely dinner of fried chicken and puree (mashed potatoes), wonderful salads, cok (juice) and more! At the dinner, Nadezheda gave us some more gifts and thanked us again for all the help.
During the meal, the lady in white sang a special song that she had written about Pavlodar. It was so beautiful that she had Mira in tears and Nadezhda sang along with her. We felt very privileged to be there with this group of wonderful people. There were lots of hugs when we left. We hope to be able to see them again.

After taking us to the hotel, we went sight-seeing around Pavlodar. Here we are at the big park in the city that is next to the beautiful river. It was so cold and windy, we thought we were going to freeze!!

We also went inside this big, beautiful Russian Orthodox Church.

We were invited to Mira's home for dinner that evening. We had a lovely meal with manty, baursak, tomato salad mixed with homemade sour cream, fresh fruit, nuts and dried fruit and pickled tomatoes, and raisin filled tarts and fresh home-made raspberry jam!! It was so delicious and candy and chack-chack to top it all off. These are Mira's parents, Dametken and Asylek Mussabekova.

During our visit, Dametken presented us with two horses and a couple of trivets that were made by the teenagers from the handicapped orphanage, where she works. She also sent us home with homemade sour cream and raspberry jam, which we loved! They are very thoughtful and gracious people!

We flew back to Astana Tuesday morning and did some follow up on our projects the rest of the week. We hope to go to Osakaravka this week for a closing presention.

We enjoyed listening to conference, the Saturday morning session and hope to be able to listen to Sunday morning's session if I can get this blog done!! We hope you all enjoy conference, too.

Love,

Elder and Sister Welling