Lack of Water But Not Paperwork in Astana, Kazakhstan - 19 October 2008

This week we had a lot of paperwork to catch up on with the past projects and the one that we just got approved for the Blind Society. We didn't get approval for the project for the Deseret Industries Training in Salt Lake, which we were really disappointed about, but we can see the wisdom in not spending a great deal of money on one person which is the underlying factor behind the Church's humanitarian efforts.

In the middle of trying to get our project paperwork caught up to date, the water was turned off every day! Fortunately, it was after we had our shower!! It was turned on again in the late afternoon but came on in a lovely shade of brown!! We were glad to have it every morning and evening but the rust has caused the hot water in the kitchen to stop working. So we have been doing dishes by packing hot water from the bathroom to the kitchen. Through the help of the neighbor, our translator and the cell phone, the repairman is coming on Monday to fix it. Yeah!!!

A couple of weeks ago we were asked to go to the Kazakh University of Humanities and Law and speak to the 2nd year English students.

This is a brand new campus for this university and just barely opened at the start of the school year.

The front was patterned after the Supreme Court building in Washington D.C.

This is inside the front door of the university.

The halls are big and beautiful and wide. It is quite a beautiful university.

Mira, Anne and Aizhan, the teacher of the 2nd year English students. (Aizhan also helped us out as a translator for the American doctors during the NRT.) She has two groups of students, Russian speaking and Kazakh speaking. She wants us to come and speak each week in her classes. She would also like us to start a conversational English Club with them at the beginning of November. We are pretty excited about that!

These are the Russian speaking students who are in their 2nd year of English. They are wonderful young ladies who are eager to learn all about American style English, as opposed to British English! We love them already!

Here we are talking about holidays in America and comparing them with Kazakhstan holidays. We also told them a little about ourselves and let them ask questions about us. A couple of questions were political in nature and we had to say that we can not talk politics at all. We also had to sign a paper telling the Head of the Department that we would not talk about our Church unless asked and we would not teach doctrine or proselyte. This week we will be visiting both Kazakh and Russian classes. It should be fun!

On Saturday, we found out that we will be getting 8 more missionaries from the Russia Samara Mission for their visa renewals. They will be here on Tuesday and will be leaving on Friday, hopefully. The Samara missionaries have been going to Stockholm, Sweden. But today we found out from President Cranney that there are 13 missionaries that are still waiting for their visa renewals in Stockholm and it has been 3 weeks! Hopefully, we can get it done in a timely manner. We don't know what we would do with 8 missionaries for two weeks when they can't even proselyte here! Anyway, we love having missionaries come!

We just want to let you know that Clint and Megan had a baby girl, Adelaide Anne; born on Wednesday, the 15th of October. We were able to see her the day she was born and she is a beautiful little thing! Mother and baby are doing well. Congratulations to the Ricord family!

We love the gospel and are so grateful for the opportunity we have to serve here in Kazakhstan. It is a blessing in our lives. We love our Savior more each day because we know that this is His work and we are helping to further that work here in this part of the country. We are so grateful to be members this Church!!

Love,

Elder and Sister Welling