Cold Weather and Handicapped Day Care to Warm Our Hearts - 22 February 2009

Did you know that Astana is the second coldest capital in the world?? The first is Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia.

It was cold this week. "How cold?", you might ask. This morning it was -41 degrees F. with the wind chill factor!! All this week it has been -30 degrees to -40 degrees F. so we didn't get out as much as we would have liked to. Spring cannot come too soon!!

We did get out this week to a closing presentation on Tuesday for a project we did for Ludmilla Yeger Georgiyevna who runs a handicapped day care center for children.

These are some of the children at the day care center.

The children did a program for us which was fun to see. They are so cute!! Ludmilla does a great job with them!

We donated some items for the day care center. These balls, that the children are playing with, were part of the project.

Ludmilla uses performances to teach the children language skills and socialization. This wardrobe, for the costumes, was also part of the project so she could save them from year to year to cut down on her expenses.

Before we left for Almaty, the pump went out on the washer, so we knew we were facing that this week. On Wednesday, Mira called a repairman who came and was able to fix it, which was a relief because we didn't want to buy a new one! The Lord blesses us in so many ways!!On Saturday, Ludmilla had a sewing class for some of her students and teachers and we wanted to see the sewing machines that were also part of the project. Aigul, one of the teachers, is working at one of the machines.Lela is another teacher who works with the children. She is showing us another sewing machine that the Church donated to the organization. She is working on some costumes for a presentation on March 7th (which we are invited to) for Women's Day. Anne, Aigul, Ludmilla, Roy and Lela. We were glad that we could do a project for this organization.

While we were out and about on Saturday we met one of Mira's friends and we asked if we could take her picture. She was nice to let us do so! (We have wanted to show you some of the gorgeous fur coats over here along with their beautiful hats, but we don't always have time to ask complete strangers if we can take their picture. Besides, we're afraid they will look at us funny! Generally, it's so cold that we don't want to get out the camera!!)

We had Church 7:00 a.m with Zhanna today and it was wonderful! What would we do without her?!! Despite the language barrier, the Spirit helps us understand!

Hope it warms up so we can have a more interesting blog next week!! What can we say, we are trying to stay in and keep warm!

We are grateful that Ryan and Tiffanie's baby is over the RSV and is home from the hospital. The Lord continues to bless us!

Love,

Elder and Sister Welling