Back to Armenia #1

Return to Armenia #1
Well, we’re back. It’s been interesting and hard to believe that we finally made it back. Getting over jet lag continues to be a challenge, but we’re working on that. We left Provo at 5:00 a.m. on June 21st. We took a shuttle with a bunch of very enthusiastic missionaries headed around the world. I think we need some of their energy infused into us.
Our flight went from Salt Lake to New York to Vienna and on to Armenia. We had a 14 hour layover in Vienna which was a new experience. We had a “day room” which is a hotel room you can use between 9 and 5. We slept for a few hours then walked a mile to the train stop and took a “schnell bahnen” into downtown Vienna. We strolled around a bit, visited the Stephens church, and then enjoyed some wonderfully marvelous wienerschnitzel at a restaurant called Figlmuller. We decided we’d share the meal and were glad we did. The schnitzel filled the whole plate and then some. I think it was about 12” across. The potato salad that we ordered was delicious, too and we were stuffed by the time we finished. I was so impressed with how clean the city seemed…I didn’t notice trash anywhere. We flew next to Yerevan and arrived a little after 5 a.m. on the 23rd, about 36 hours from the time we left Provo.
We were met by the Mission President, President Dunn (who completes his mission assignment on July 1st) and Ruben Gasparyan, the mission driver. We stopped by the mission office to drop off a couple of suitcases and our heavy winter coats and then dropped President Dunn off at his hotel where he is staying while the mission home is undergoing some remodeling. Ruben then drove us another hour up into the mountains to the town of Tsakhador where we attended a Young Single Adult Conference for the next couple of days. I think we were more “zombie like” than we would have liked, but we did enjoy being with the wonderful young people in this mission. We did a workshop on finding your celestial partner. We ate a lot of interesting food (most of which wasn’t very good) and were offered very few fruits and vegetables. If our new goal was to eat more healthfully, I don’t think we did.
The end of the conference found us driving again…and finally… returning once again to Ararat, about six months after we left. Other than some dust, things looked much as we had left them. Not quite…We discovered after Ruben left that the toilet wasn’t working and the pump wasn’t working so we didn’t have access to water to wash our pile of dirty clothes, shower or fill our water jugs….welcome to Armenia! But, there is also a lot of green that we missed when we were last here…grape vines, apricots and all sorts of greenery from blooming things. There were also a lot of swallows flying about our place in Ararat. Sort of reminds me of the swallows returning to Capistrano, California every year. I wonder how long they’ll be here?
June 26th, we have some water, but the pump isn’t working. We were able to very slowly fill a couple of jugs, but no showers or laundry this morning. Ruben and Ara arrived mid morning, fixed the pump and toilet, so we ought to be cleaner for church tomorrow. We’re off for some orientation with the Shulz’s, the CES couple we’re replacing next week.
June 27th, there is nothing like a warm shower to make you feel like a new (albeit cleaner) person. The water is still working and we were able to go back to the Ararat Branch for a hello and goodbye. It was great to give hugs and kisses to the members we’d grown attached to while we were serving here. We missed seeing some and wished we had the opportunity to visit and encourage them to keep coming. Some things never change. Our first week back has been good!