From Dignitaries to Dogs in Astana, Kazakhstan - 23 November 2008

This fall, we have been visiting a couple of English classes each week so that they can hear Americans speak. While we were there, one of the teachers asked us if we would help them with an English Club twice a week. We told them that we would love to as long as it didn't interfere with our humanitarian work here in Astana.

Monday was the opening for the English, Japanese, and Kazakh Clubs. Those in charge told us that it would be very informal and that we should come up with a game or something really fun to do to introduce what we would be doing in the English Club. When we got to the university, we were taken to a different room with a large table which had individual microphones at each chair!! It was a beautiful conference room with huge chandeliers!! We looked at each other and needless to say, decided to scrap the fun and games we had planned and Roy prepared a formal introduction about why we are here and what we are doing!! He did a great job! We have found in Kazakhstan, that we really need to just "go with the flow" and usually everything turns out all right!!

This gentleman speaking is Shigeo Natsui, the Ambassador of Japan, and he was invited by Mr. and Mrs. Tomoko Miyata, who teach a couple of Japanese courses at the university.This wonderful lady is Depale Pal, the Director of the Indian Cultural Center here in Astana. She spoke about how English is so important to learn because it is spoken in so many countries. She was there representing the English language and we were grateful for what she said about how important English is in the world today.

The man on the left is Sergey F. Udartcev, Rector of the University and the man in the middle is a wonderful professor that we love and have gotten to know very well. (He has friends who are LDS professors at UCLA who he says are very passionate about their religion!!)

Mr. and Mrs. Miyata and their translator wanted to have their picture taken with us also.

All the students involved in making this happen wanted to have a picture taken with everyone. It was very enjoyable to meet all of these interesting and wonderful people.

We are working on another couple of projects that we hope will get approved by this week. We also had one of the professors at the university call to see if we would help a young man, Bakytzhan, to speak and understand English better so that he can pass the interview at the US Embassy in order to get his visa to attend the University of Houston, where he has been accepted. He has to have a visa to get there and he has one more try before classes start in January. We told her we would love to!!

Bakytzhan came Friday evening and we spent 3 1/2 hours with him. He is a wonderful young man and very bright. He told us that we are the first Americans that he has every heard speak and he would like to spend some time listening to us and have us ask him questions so that he can understand and answer them better. Then Roy invited him to go to the circus with us on Saturday because Frank Tetreault, the Air Astana pilot, had invited us to go and Bakytzhan could listen to him talk, also.

Roy, Bakytzhan, and Frank enjoying the circus....

along with Mira, Damir, Mira's nephew, and Anne.

This is the Russia Moscow Circus and they had all different kinds of acts with animals and acrobats. The dog acts were just adorable!!

This was one of the bear acts which were quite good!

During the intermission the children could buy a ticket to ride on this camel.

This was the best animal act of all!! This kangaroo was very fun to watch in this boxing match!

These two acrobats were just incredible and they were fun to watch. They were probably the best act at the circus. We enjoyed it all and especially the people we were with. We have made such wonderful friends here and it seems we are meeting and making more friends each week!

We hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families this week. Living in Kazakhstan has made us more thankful for the things that we have in our lives; like our family, our country and our Church. We are so blessed and grateful for the opportunity the Lord has given us to serve this mission. It truly has blessed our lives.

Love,

Elder and Sister Welling