Back to Armenia #13

Pumpkin Carving

Geghitsik getting her apple

We participated in our first branch activity since last June. It was a Halloween-themed party with apples on a string, pumpkin carving, cake walk of sorts, art table, dancing, and refreshments. Our young adult party planners, Tamara and Lia, helped with refreshments and dancing and CLEAN-UP. We’re glad for their efforts to help make the branch activity successful and fun. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t on Oct. 31^st as the Armenians don’t have that celebration in their list of holidays.

Sister Dibb and Lia, her translator

The weekend brought some visitors from Salt Lake (Sister Dibb, counselor for the General YW and Sister Larsen, counselor in the General Primary). They did a 2-1/2 hr training on Saturday on leadership principles and Elder Lawrence of our Area Presidency also spoke.  Sunday, they did a fireside for the mission and the chapel at the Mission Office was packed with listeners. There were several who came up from Ararat and it was so fun to see them. I got so many hugs and kisses that I think I can keep going for a few more weeks with all those expressions of love and caring.

November 15^th found us on the road to Antalya, Turkey via Kiev and Moscow to attend a conference for all the CES missionary couples. At first we were a little miffed about the travel distance…we live the closest, but have to travel the longest distance to get to Turkey…but with our layover in Kiev, we will be able to attend the temple and do a few sessions of temple work…so worth it, we think.

Lobby of Hotel

Peterson trying to skip rocks on Mediterranean

Elder Peterson at Fantasia Resort

The Petersons beside the pool

We stayed in Kemer at a wonderful, all inclusive resort called Fantasia on the Mediterranean Sea. The temperatures were in the 80’s, and the surroundings were beautiful…lots of palm trees, beautiful flowers and citrus groves. Fresh-squeezed orange juice was on the menu every morning as well as so many items to eat from several buffet sites. I finally had to skip a meal just to not feel so “stuffed”.

It’s been so exciting to be with so many other couples who are doing the same thing…working with young adults and seeking better ways to administer the programs and be successful with the charge that we have been given as CES workers. It was a wonderful, faith-building experience to feel of their spirits and hear their testimonies. We have learned so much and are grateful we had this opportunity to come and be together. I thought it was interesting to learn that with the 18 couples and 4 staff members, we had 133 children and 355 grandchildren. Of the couples, two were from Russia and one from Denmark, the rest from the United States.

The Petersons visiting ruins at Perge in, Turkey

While in Turkey, we were able to make a visit to Perge…the place that Paul visited and a site of ancient ruins from 3^rd and 4^th century B.C. The camera ran out of battery in the middle of our tour so we’re hoping some of the other seniors will share their pictures with us. We were able to get a new battery from off the tour bus, so all was not lost…just missed a few pictures.

The end to a great week was another wonderful experience. We were able to visit the Kiev Temple. The temple is such a peaceful place and to be able to serve and help someone with East European ancestry made it more wonderful. We had another “small world” experience. On the last session of the day, Elder Peterson looked over and observed, “that girl looks really familiar, but where do I know her from?”. It finally came to him and it was Annabelle and David Hyde. It was so fun to reconnect with them and talk and talk. They were kind enough to drive us to our red-eye flight so we were able to visit some more on the way. It was great to see someone from our Salem roots.

We were glad to be back in Yerevan even if it was 3:45 in the morning. We had pre-arranged with Erik to pick us up but he wasn’t there. We had lost the cell phone somewhere along the way between Kiev and Yerevan and couldn’t call to see what had happened. (It ended up that his van had broken down and was in the shop and had tried to call, but without our phone, who knew? It was just another adventure.)We finally arranged for another cab and were in our beds a little after 5:00 a.m.  A few hours later, we were on our way to District Conference. We watched a CES fireside with our young adults in the afternoon, and now we’re getting pretty tired as this day is winding down. … It is just another day in the lives of these Armenian missionaries.

Back to Armenia #12

Elder Thylin translating call letter

Pres Carter with Zara, opening mission call

Sometimes time seems to be moving so fast that I get to the next weekend and hardly can remember what I’ve done to make the time go zipping by.

One of our young single adults, Zara, received her mission call this week, and we’re so excited for her. She had really wanted to go to Temple Square in Salt Lake City…and someone must have heard her prayers because that is where she is going. She doesn’t know much English, so she’ll have to work hard to learn the language so she can be effective in her call.

This past Friday was a wonderful Zone Conference. It’s a way to be infused with new enthusiasm for the work we are doing here. There were some changes that will affect how we do things. Because the church is trying to do things correctly and not get into trouble with the government, we can no longer have housekeepers. President Carter indicated that about 40% of work wages are handled under the table and the church doesn’t want to get “sued” for being an employer and not paying taxes or having the necessary stamps to conduct business…so now we get to do our own house cleaning. I’m afraid I was getting a little spoiled from not having to clean bathrooms the past five months….back to reality. We also will no longer be able to have English classes, as that is not part of our Charter with the Government. We can still have interested people come to our Doctrine and Covenants classes and marriage class that are taught in English, but they have to understand they are religious courses for the main purpose of learning gospel principles and doctrines with the side benefit of learning some English.

We enjoyed a nice dinner with the senior missionary couples and some visitors from Russia and Ukraine. We again went to the Corner Café that has the best steaks in Yerevan and a place we have enjoyed a few other times.  We then went to the beautiful opera house and watched some wonderful Armenian folk dancers. One of the dances they did was just like the dance our youth had performed at the Kiev Temple Dedication.

Sunday, we had a wonderful Mission Council at the Mission Home and received more good news from visitors from Salt lake who are here doing a welfare audit. They are in the process of going through the government hoops to allow us to do the church’s ARP (addiction recovery program) here as well as additional programs sponsored by LDS Family Services. It’s pretty exciting what is in the works. There are also lots of Humanitarian projects that are ongoing. Our employment people also reported 72 job placements for the month which is more than they’ve had for the whole year thus far, so that is good news. We know that having jobs and especially good jobs is key to improving the economy and key in helping the church to grow.

Before I forget again, I wanted to let everyone know how excited we are to be having more grandchildren. Jana and Mike are expecting a girl in March and Sue and Zach are having twins in June. What wonderful welcome home gifts they will be.

Back to Armenia #11

Artur, Carman, and Tatev

In spite of being in a country that doesn’t celebrate Halloween, we managed to do a little on our own. We enjoyed a family home evening with the Pincocks, Artur, Lusine, Tatev and Carman. We introduced the concept of family home evening to Tatev and Carman who are not members of the church. Sister Pincock talked about Halloween and some of the things that are done in America to celebrate. We did a fun activity in trying to create our own “haunted houses”.

Artur, Carmen, Tatev and Lusine

This was also the week for the Young Single Adults to have their Halloween party, complete with decorations, costumes (at least those brave enough to do it), pumpkin carving, games (they love to play, but sometimes getting them ready and understanding what you want them to do continues to be a challenge), food (sandwiches and salad and cakes) and dancing. Disaster was averted early on when we went to pick up the bread and were told, “No, that was supposed to be tomorrow.” So much for communication.  Our taxi driver stopped at a shuka (small market/store) on the way to the party and we picked up 20 breads for sandwiches (in Armenia it’s called sandwichie hots, sort of Arm/English). Elder Peterson was able to order another 30 from the Georgian bakery right across the street from the church and we were able to put the sandwiches together and feed the masses on time. We still need to get more of them on the dance floor and hopefully when dancing classes start that will help.

Included in the activities was a visit by Brother Henry Kosak from Russia and Brother Hall from Salt Lake, our “bosses” with CES. We enjoyed the fireside and it was a calming conclusion to our activity. It was fun, but cleanup took a looong time as they had scattered confetti all about the room and the poor vacuum kept getting plugged up and one vacuum quit altogether. I think confetti needs to be banned. We are learning as we go. We really appreciate the efforts of the Institute Council and their friends who do so much of the planning and putting on of these activities.

We had a great experience hosting Family Home Evening for the missionaries and a couple of their investigators, Hasmik and her daughter. It is great to be involved with the young missionaries, too. They are so knowledgeable and have such a great spirit; it infuses us with new energy and commitment.

We had a fun class with our Young Adults on Saturday. It’s always nice to be with them…now if we could just convince them to date and marry…then we would count ourselves as effective leaders. They enjoyed the treats. Erik called them American cookies (they were chocolate chip, so maybe so).

I had to speak on Sunday about judging others. For me, it’s always a challenge to speak but I do get a lot of ideas about the subjects when I’m preparing, so now I have a couple of talks I could give (just don’t pass that along…because it’s not my favorite thing).

We discovered early Monday, that the Institute had been broken into and they were in the process of hauling sound equipment, computers, etc. when they were caught by the police. It’s interesting that one of the things they took from one of the offices was Artur’s haunted house. Those Armenians do have a penchant for sweets. Samvel said it was really funny to go into the police station and see the haunted house sitting on the desk as evidence of the burglary.

It’s been fun this week to reconnect with Elder and Sister Blotter. They have come to finish up or help with some water projects and will be here a week. They even brought us some “goodies” so we can still make fudge for Christmas.

We continue to learn and be amazed at all that goes on in Armenia. We love the opportunity to serve and hope the people are growing in the gospel and learning better how to serve one another. We’re looking forward to a night out with the Seniors as we attend the opera house and a production by Armenian dancers.

Back to Armenia #10

I forgot to mention when talking about the “Mother of Armenia” statue that it is on this site (at least nearby) where the country of Armenia was dedicated by Dallin H Oaks and Russell M. Nelson for the preaching of the gospel in 1991.

Some weeks just seem pretty ordinary…you know go to the office, read and study, teach some lessons, participate in teaching with the missionaries, dinner dates with husband and the other seniors, district meetings, laundry, but the big thing is we’re doing it in Armenia, ARMENIA.

We’re so grateful to be missionaries, to have this opportunity to share the gospel of Jesus Christ whether by example or speaking. We love our Savior and want to be like Him.

The week of October 4th, was sort of “feast and famine”. My children know that there are a couple of things for which I don’t have a great deal of tolerance. One is flooding water in basements and the other is rodents, dead or alive. So, this week was especially rainy and I didn’t think too much about it until some boys came into the Institute wanting to play ping pong. I gave them the equipment, unlocked the door and returned to the office. Within seconds they were back indicating I should come with them. What I saw was very disconcerting…four rooms were mostly covered in an inch or so of water on the floor. The storage room had all kinds of equipment, decorations, papers, props scattered about the floor and now most of them were in a state of wet…boxes disintegrating with accompanying mildew and other smells emanating forth. The boys helped to stack and move things to higher ground…and then decided to play table tennis anyway in spite of the water. I guess the ball wouldn’t travel very far if hit off the table. Several more hours were occupied with emptying out stuff from soggy boxes and either salvaging or throwing. We put a fan we found to work and the cleaning lady spent several hours mopping up water and cleaning the floors. It’s still damp in places but we’re making progress. One of the bags I emptied was one containing ropes and gunny sacks and balls, we use for our activities. I grabbed what I thought was a grayish wad of stuff and discovered it was, you guessed it, a deceased mouse. I screamed and Elder Peterson who was down the hall, told the other missionary couple…”she must have found a mouse…that is a scream she only uses when she finds a mouse”. Aargh!

Elder and Sister Blunck came for a "stay over" for Conference

Thanks heavens for the feast. We were able to watch General Conference with the other Senior couples for a spiritual feast. I really enjoyed President Monson’s talk on gratitude and especially as we’re not long to Thanksgiving and Christmas (as an aside, I heard that there are only 75 shopping days to Christmas). I appreciated President Uchdorf’s advice that when we are experiencing adverse conditions, we need to “slow down and stay the course” and to focus on things which matter most. He said something else that I thought interesting, “any virtue when taken to extreme can become a vice”. It was a wonderful opportunity to get our batteries recharged and to keep going.

Izik Poghoysan playing the Saz

We had another cultural experience when we were invited to attend President Poghoysan’s 40th birthday party. We enjoyed wonderful food typical of Armenia and enjoyed hearing the President play his guitar as well as hearing great entertainment from Igit, Varuzhan’s father, as he played the Saz and sang for us.

This weekend, Yerevan was also celebrating its anniversary…its 2792nd. I was thinking WOW, but then I heard on the news that Jericho was celebrating its 10,000th anniversary of founding.

Back to Armenia #9

The weeks seem to go by fairly fast and now it’s getting closer to October. We had planned on Saturday to do something with some of the other senior couples…and that is what we did. There were four couples and we all crowded into Eric Gasparyan’s van and he did the chauffeuring. Nice! He also could tell us something of the sights that we were visiting.

Our first stop was to visit the “Mother of Armenia” monument at the top of the hill. She overlooks the city and has (as you can see from the pictures that Elder Peterson just had to take) lots of weaponry, tanks, missles, etc. surrounding her. It was also a military museum of sorts with lots of old uniforms and pictures on display. It was all very dark and the ceilings were covered with what I suppose was a netting with camaflouge. Okay, but once will do. The Pincocks had brought along some Yum Yum donuts (like Bismarks and apple fritters…just like at home) and we all enjoyed the midmorning reminder of things given up…okay it just isn’t because we came to Armenia, but I think we gave them up some time ago due to our “figures”.

We then traveled on some rather distraught roads for quite a period of time, but eventually arrived at Geghard. It is an ancient monastery, partly carved out of a mountain, that is still in business. The main chapel was built in 1215 and the monastery was established in the 4th century so it is very old. As we were walking up the cobblestone road from the parking lot, we noticed some caged pigeons. I think they still do live animal sacrifices here. It was a busy place. There were lot of tourists, a baptism (of an infant) and someone taking wedding pictures…so lots of observe. It was a curious place…very old. Elder P took a picture of the floor that has a hole in it. The chanter would sing and they would open up the hole to the downstairs, so that the singing could be heard throughout the monastery. As we were coming into the room, some tourist from Holland was in the middle of singing/chanting, and he had a very nice voice. It sort of reminded me of when we sang in the old theater in Salem where we performed Sound of Music years ago. They have a chapel where you can go and light candles and put them in raised sandboxes…waxy smelling place. There were vendors selling jewelry, breads, fruit leather, date/walnut concoctions on a string, and we did get some bread and some date/walnut goodies. I’m always a little concerned with the flies that have landed on them, but we seemed to suffer no ill effect. As we were traveling to our next site, we did purchase some apples on the side of the road (400 dram/kilo or about 50 cents a pound) and they were very tasty.

We visited a place called Garni. Elder Peterson enjoyed seeing the van cats and fox pelts that were displayed by the vendors on our way in. Garni is the only surviving Hellenistic architecture type temple in Armenia. It was originally built as a pagan temple, called the Sun Temple, they say in the 3rd Century BC. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1679 and rebuilt in 1949. We also saw the bathhouse and the foundation for another church. It was a peaceful place with nice vistas. If you saw the movie “Hercules” you’ve seen this temple as it was apparently used for that movie.

From Garni, we traveled to the “book” museum. The museum is located appropriately at the top of Mashtots Street. Mashtots is the one who invented the Armenian alphabet. There were lots of beautiful bibles on display with wonderful illuminations and illustrations. They were made from all sorts of materials and were all sizes from small (a couple of inches) to big. I read on one display that one of the books called the Homilies of Mush was made from 630 calfskins. When opened the book is about one meter wide and weighs 32 kiIograms. I didn’t see anything really old, but I guess if they were 11th Century…that would be considered pretty old.
At the end of our trip, some of the seniors enjoyed some Italian food and some others opted for sharmas (barbecued meat on a stick, put in lavash with lot of veggies added). It was sort of like getting a Subway in the States. We followed it with some soft ice cream for dessert. Great day!

Sunday, Elder Peterson added another assignment…that of Ward Mission Leader. He was released as Elders Quorum President as President Carter said being the Institute Director plus 1st Counselor in the Branch Presidency, Mission Leader and Elders Quorum President was too much…and I think we’d agree.

All the Senior couples were invited to eat with the Budds on Sunday. The Budds are a younger couple with 4 cute children (including two girls with red hair…and you know we love our red heads). Justin Budd is army military attached to the Armenian Embassy. We had a great barbecue with hamburgers and all the fixings…sort of American-like.

You’d think we’d done enough eating to take a break for awhile…but not so. For Family Night we had some of the Armenians (Lusine, Samvel, Suzie Q, and Zara H) and the Pincocks come over and this time Lusine cooked a soup that had bamja (okra) in it and it was very good. We added a summer salad, bread and ice cream for dessert…so we have been well fed lately. Elder Peterson led a great discussion on marriage that involved how the Pincocks met and we were all educated and entertained. They are a great group of young people, and the old ones are great, too.

Back to Armenia #8

It’s always a small world out here. I was in our local market the other day and one of the workers in the produce (who was Armenian, but spoke some English) asked me where I was from. I said the United States…and she said, “I know that, but where?” I replied, “Utah, Provo, Utah”. She then proceeded to tell me that she had lived in Provo for five years and she and her children really wanted to move back there, but her husband did not, so here they stay, at least for the time being. She commented how she really liked Provo and how friendly and helpful the people there were. Way to go Provo!!! I think she has a favorable impression of the church and maybe even has some family that is LDS.

We had an opportunity to go to the airport to welcome home our returning dancers. They were so tired, but excited about the experiences they had had. One of the dancers was left in the Ukraine because she was late boarding and they had oversold the plane, so she stayed and I think had the opportunity in her delay to actually go to the temple to do some baptisms…an added bonus for her. She has sent off her papers to serve a mission and is waiting for her call. Another one of our cute sisters, Lia, is also waiting for her call. Lia has been serving as a “mini” missionary and so excited to serve full-time. Life really is about learning to serve one another, willingly and with a happy heart.

We had another opportunity to serve as we prepared a lunch for 30+ missionaries. We ordered rolls (kind of like hoagies) from our local bakery (not like the ones at home, I must say), purchased the other fixings (meat, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, mayo) sliced the bread, assembled the sandwiches, added, chips, grapes and juice and voila!, a lunch they all seemed to enjoy. The missionaries are participating in some training that is being done world-wide to help them become better teachers of the Gospel. This training is 4 days long and at the behest of the First Presidency. It is considered important enough that they are willing to pull the missionaries from their missionary work to receive the training.

September brought an additional assignment for Elder Peterson. He’s now the 1st counselor in the Yerevan Branch Presidency. The new president is Narek Tsatsuryan, and a returned missionary from the Ukraine of about 9 months ago. He’s been a member of the church for about 4 years, and has a lot to learn, but he’ll have an experienced leader to help him along. It was interesting to me that as we talked with Narek about his counselors, I was thinking in the back of my mind that Elder Peterson would be a good one…and then, I guess the Lord must have inspired Narek, too, because that is who he called.
We had a fun dinner appointment this last weekend…and we didn’t have to fix it. I did do a dessert and that is another story. We have an electric oven and I didn’t realize that is was set to only cook on the top…so the top looked cooked. but when I tried a little taste the bottom was still like cookie dough. So, I cooked it again (still not changing the settings, however). Then I commented to Rog about it and he noticed that the settings were wrong, set it right and I cooked the brownies for the third time. Less than satisfactory, but the missionaries who had invited us to dinner didn’t complain and enjoyed the brownie/ice cream dessert. We enjoyed the chicken enchilada they had made from scratch, using lavash, instead of tortillas. If they cooked like that every day, I’m sure they wouldn’t stay as thin as they are.

One of the things we miss as missionaries is personal face to face interaction with our families and friends back home. Skype is okay, better than e-mail, but not quite the same as in person stuff. We just received an e-mail from Alisa and she will have some great musical opportunities coming up in the next six months, and if any of you are in the area where she’ll be performing, maybe you can represent us with some hugs and kisses. She’ll be performing at the Lincoln Center in New York on December 19th as part of their Christmas program and makes her Carnegie Hall debut on March 14th singing John Rutter’s Requiem. There was also a fun article (http://issuu.com/philatknpr/docs/desert_companion_2010sept/58) about her that appeared in a local NPR magazine. We’re excited for her and I guess you could say, “busting our buttons”. While on the subject of family, we have one other request. Our oldest granddaughter has Retts Syndrome. There is an opportunity to register and vote every day at http://www.refresheverything.com/rettresearchtoreality . Pepsi is giving away dollars for research and we’re voting for a cure!!!

Hope you are enjoying life wherever you are!

Back to Armenia #7

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me. I was really not very excited about my birthday this year. It was the same day as the Seminary opening social up at Lake Sevan. Not only would I have to speak for 30 minutes, but had to come up with games to keep them entertained for an hour. The time when you go to the Lake is usually long (at least a 12 hour day) and we were tired at the end, but it wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. Where else could we have gone that I would get sung to about three times and given tons of hugs and kisses and birthday wishes by about 60 young people?

One of the games we chose to do was a balloon toss with water balloons. I couldn’t believe how long it took to try and get them to understand how to do the game…about 30 minutes. Words of explanation just didn’t seem to work…the next time, we’ll demonstrate…that is if we can get them quiet enough to watch and listen. I guess it isn't a world-wide game. We also did a sponge relay (it was nice to have the water resource of Lake Sevan). They would run to the lake fill up the sponge with water and then run back and squeeze the water into a bucket and the first team to fill the bucket was the winner. We seemed to have picked good games and they enjoyed playing them.

Saturday (28th) afternoon, we took a little bit of a P-day and went to the Genocide Museum with some other Senior missionaries. The museum was a place where one could see “man’s inhumanity to man”. The pictures displayed there reminded me of similar pictures I’ve seen of the Holocaust. It’s amazing with such physical evidence, that the event (beginning in 1915) can be denied by some as ever taking place.

The dancers are finished with their rehearsals and are now in Kiev getting ready for their performance at the Cultural night as part of activities for the Temple Dedication. We can hardly wait to watch it.

Well, we did watch them perform and they did great! The rest of the Cultural Celebration was interesting and there was a lot of talent displayed (from nine different countries)…but I think our dancers were the best…no prejudice here. President Monson did a little piano playing before it officially got started and this amused us all. The dancers even made a brief appearance (very) on KSL News.
Sunday, the 29th August, was the actual dedication day and as temple dedications go, it was wonderful. We were able to watch the cornerstone ceremony. That was interesting as President Monson wanted to make sure all who wanted to participate could. The younger boys, he called “tiger” and he was very complimentary to the young girls. He didn’t want to let the choir do their singing until all who wanted to put some mud in the cornerstone had had the opportunity to do so. It was pretty entertaining.

The inside of the temple is beautiful, a place of refuge and so peaceful. At our session (there were 3) for the dedication, President Uchtdorf conducted. Sister Galbraith (temple matron), Russell M. Nelson, President Galbraith (temple president) and President Monson spoke. This is the 134th temple (the Kiev Temple was announced in 1998, but ground was not broken until 2007), the first one in Eastern Europe and it serves over 31,000 members. The spirit we felt while participating in the dedication is wonderful and we’re excited for the Saints and their possibilities now for eternal families.