Book of Mormon STORY

Yesterday I was asked by one of the Senior Missionaries:

"Any chance that there might be a copy of the Book of Mormon in Bulgarian on your store room shelves? We have an English group attendee that from age 9 to age 20 lived in Varna, Bulgaria with her family. She is Armenian but just returned to live here."

I knew that we had Book of Mormons in several languages, but I was nearly certain that we didn't have any in Bulgarian.  I ALMOST emailed her right back and said,

“We don’t have one but I can order one, and it would probably take a couple of months to get here, are you sure you want me to order it.”

Then I kept having this little feeling to go organize all of the Book of Mormons in all of the languages.



As I did so, there among five shelves and 22 languages, Croatian, Portugese, Spanish, Persian, Arabic, Albanian, Chinese, Danish, Hungarian, Greek, German, Sinhala, Polish, Italian, Turkish, Swedish, Romanian, Latvian, Russian, Armenian and English - - was one Bulgarian Book of Mormon.

Yes, the Lord cares about the “one”.  I know he cares about this Bulgarian woman.



Name the Cost $$$

The price of things are so random here. Without a lot of thought I totally got brave and had my hair colored and styled. This is the result. (JK)

Not bad huh?  COST??  3000 drams or less than $9.00, considering they don't use curling irons just  different sized round brushes and I'm sure the brushes are shared by everyone as a peice of long black hair kept hanging in my eyes.  I also noticed a different stylist putting the blow dryer between her legs when she had to use both hands for styling.  They don't use conditioner or any products on your hair either.  I tried not to notice the gobs of black hair laying all over the floor.  Hey, it was the end of the day! 

Actually my stylist Asa was super nice and knew a little English. She asked how she could learn more English. Well, the government says the Church can't have English classes, so we have English Conversations and I told Asa about them, but she has to work on those days.  I am going to tell the Sister Missionaries to come and I will introduce them to her.

and to her. 

 She was hanging out the beauty shop and said I was nice, so I asked if I could take her picture.

I made my sisters guess what the cost of my coat was, the closest guess would get to pay for it! (hehe)

Yikes! $226  I'm happy to announce that PAULINE is the winner.  She guessed $200.

Now these veggies cost .75

& these veggies cost $2.40 at a different veggie stand.

The coat IS really nice and I didn't bring one from home because I didn't have one at home...and and

This Week... A Little Bit of This and That!

Cute Little Lia from here in Yerevan has received her mission call to the Temple Square Mission in SLC.  Her English is already really good and she also speaks Spanish.

She got her call on her birthday!  What a great day..  she will be an awesome missionary!  Her nonmember Mom is worried that he is going clear across the ocean to serve.

Elder Jones at his desk.  Looks like he cleaned it.

 Sister Jones at her desk.. Looks like she didn't clean it.

It rained on and off all day Friday.  First real rain storm since we got here. Big claps of scary thunder.

 This generation of  ladies typically dress and look like this.  Most Armenians of any age don't look very happy, except for the little children.

A lot of Armenian men spend a lot of time standing, talking and smoking.  These nice men do maintence on the church buildings for us and are very cordial.

 This was lunch today.  It was a full roasted chicken with potatoes. The enclosed rotisserie roaster was on the street. Then the guy took it inside to cut it up for me.  To get it home he wrapped it in lavosh (Armenian bread, like a thin tortilla) It was actually very tasty, seasoned with dill, celantro and ??? 

THINGS THAT ARE STARTING TO SEEM NORMAL

Keys to open everything. AT THE OFFICE - The refrigerator, In the kitchen - Each cupboard with a different key.  I use keys to get in my office, for the supply room, each cupboard with a different key, Deseret Industries closets, each cupboard with a different key.  Elder Jones is in charge of keys and he has a case with hundreds of keys.

The first time I saw this I was appauled, now it seems normal.

A small beatup Nissan type pickup delivering bread to stores, the bread is not wrapped, just stacked in the back of the pickup.  The truck does have a shell on it.  No matter what store most bread is not wrapped. One day one of the Senior Missionaries watched a bread delivery man carry all the bread in his hands, yet he had two more loaves, so he just stuck them under his armpits!

One of the nicer grocery stores is called SAS (sauce)  We can see the back of the store from our window.  The groceries are delivered in random trucks.They unload vegetables on to the ground then SAS employees put them into containers . Then take them in the store.
Bob saw unwrapped hot dogs fall out of the back of a delivery truck, the driver just scooped them off the ground and puts them back in.


This is what the ground often looks like.

Just another day for me now!

I would tell you about our Relief Society Activity last Wednesday night, but it would probably take 4+ hours to do it.  That is how long it lasted.  What a Cultural learning experience for me.  (I ain't in Moapa anymore) It was on Beauty.  Just think disco, Santana music, Armenian music, slide shows, beauty panels, manicures, facials, hair cuts, dyes, Whoa!  I could go on and on.  Everyone seemed to be having a great time, including me!

M&M's Monuments & Museums

Last Saturday we did a little tour of the area.  The first place was called "Lady of Armenia"  The monument of Mother Armenia symbolizes the fighting spirit and willingness of the Armenian women to defend her fatherland. It tells about the participation of the Armenian people in World War II, and about the battles of 1980's and 1990's for the freedom of Armenia.

It was at this site where the Elders Russell Nelson and Dallin Oaks dedicated Armenia for the preaching of the Gospel.We read a copy of the prayer just before arriving here.

Elders & Sisters, Rich, Peterson, Jones, Pincock - We had a beautiful view overlooking the city.

There are old weapons, tanks, trucks, etc on display.  Of course all of them are pointed at Turkey.

We then traveled to the Geghardavank (monastery)  We just missed seeing the baptism of a little baby by a monk.  The Grandpa of the little baby did give us chocolates to eat to celebrate. 

I must say I think it would be very depressing being a monk.  He was dressed all in black and hooded in a ancient monastery.  I could barely see that there was a man there. 

This photo shows one of the altars. (Armenian Apostalic Church)

This room was full of candles that you could light and pray near.

Outdoor view

Indoor view

Yes, they still have animal sacrifice at this monastery.  These are doves that could be purchased or I guess bring your own, larger beast??!!

Previously, they used this room to sacrifice the animals.

Now it is outside.  These men were just cleaning up, squirting off the blood.

This girl was having her wedding photos taken here! Thankfully, not by the bloody area.

Next up was a Pagan Temple at Garni from the 1st Century A.D. After Armenia converted to Christianity in the 4th Century, the rulers of the country used the temple as their summer residence. This temple was considered a marvel among the temples of the Orient.  Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it is the only example of the Hellienistic architecture on the territory of Modern Armenia.

There is a fantastic landscape of Garni right behind the temple.

This little lady was sitting along the pathway and I asked to take her picture.  Isn't she sweet!

Of course there were gifts to buy.  I'm not sure I could ever get these ocelot and fox furs back into the USA

The bride showed up at the pagan temple site.  She was a beautiful girl.

This is very common to see in the city.  A limo honking through red lights with flowers on the top and the wedding party following.  Could it be that the same bride we saw early, was in this limo?

Last stop of the day was the Mashtots Matenadaran  Museum.  It has one of the largest manuscript collections in the world, dating back to the 5th Century.   The creator of the Armenian alphabet Mashtots is one of the many statues.

These were some of the manuscripts.  I didn't know until later that you weren't supposed to take pictures of it.  I hope I didn't ruin centuries of preservation by taking these photo. Yikes!

A Saturday Walk!

September 11, 2010 - Saturday
We went for a little walk around the neighborhood today. Near here is what they call an outdoor Bazaar. It had a lot of fresh vegetables, fruit, meats etc. We were admiring the wonderful strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, which all looked perfect. Then we wandered upon the “PIG HEADS” all lined up in a row, so tomorrow we are going to have pig head stew! (Just kidding, we couldn’t decide between the non refrigerated whole chickens covered with flies or the various fly covered beef that a guy was cutting up with an ax) hehe

OH HOW I WISH I HAD PICTURES OF ALL THE ABOVE!  MAYBE ONE DAY I WILL GET BRAVE AND ASK TO TAKE SOME....
After the Bazaar we walked to a grocery store that we were told had peanut butter in it. It was a pretty big store but we couldn’t find any peanut butter. They say if you find something you want in Armenia, buy it right then because you might never find it again.

This is an Armenia style wheelchair access! I don't think the picture shows you just how steep this is. It is scary!

Even scarier is the new construction.  I hope there is never an earthquake here....

LastMonday we took off by ourselves to an unknown part of the city and found the cutest Noah’s Ark. Notice Mt Ararat (Masis & Sais) on the side. We were quite proud of ourselves for wandering around independently.

Then you open it up and of course there is Elder and Sister Noah and some of their animals!!  I showed, Kate, Knox and Hans these on Skype and they loved them....

Tonight was certainly the highlight of the week. We visited with Armen, Nina and their son Rawland. A very nice family. It is so rare for a husband, wife and children to be in the church.  Most of the members are women and we really need Priesthood holders here.  We went to their apartment and they invited us back. They are less active and I know they felt the Spirit tonight. I forgot to take their picture, but I will next time. We went with the Elders and they gave a lesson about the family and the temple and of course interpreted for us.