Experiences in Armenia

Armenia the beauty and history:

On our second trip to Armenia, we had a chance to see

some of the historic and scenic things. Mount Ararat is actually in Turkey, but is seen from Yerevan, the capital of Armenia and the Armenian people consider it a national treasure. It is prominent on their coat of arms and is something most tourists

buy pictures of. It is snow covered most of the year and has 2 peaks. Bibically it is believed to be the mountain where Noah’s arc landed after the flood.

We went to Khor Virap, which is where the pagan King Trdat III imprisoned Saint Gregory, the Illuminator in a deep pit for 13 years. A woman lowered food to him. He was brought out of the pit to cure King Trdat of a disease. He did that and the king converted to Christianity and ordered his court to convert and Christianity became the religion of Armenia. Thus, Armenia became the first official Christian nation (301AD). It is believed that in the 1^st century, Christ’s apostles, Thaddaeus and Bartholomew came to the area that is now Armenia.

Jack and I actually climbed down into the pit, which was easier than coming up.

We went to a more modern monastery. The priests were using cell phones.

This monastery was not destroyed in WWII because

of the bell in this tower.

There is a monument to the Armenian holocaust. This took place begin

ning in 1915 and is recognized as the first modern genocide. It was carried out by the Ottoman empire and is still the reason that the Turks and Armenians have armed borders. They are trying to resolve the issue now.

Driving along the road you find people who have beehives and sell honey.

In the rural area we saw a man herding his cows.

We gave fruit trees to a village and every family got 3 trees.

This is a home

where a refugee family lives.

The wife is working in the field.

There is also a place where they have statues on the Armenian

alphabet. It is traditional to have your picture taken

with the letter that

begins your name.

There are many storks in the area. They mate for life and build their

nests in high places. We saw several nests along the arm of a crane.

The last day we went to a restaurant for a barbeque. They had bears and other animals there. The restaurant owner got very nervous if you got too close.

Experiences in Armenia

Posted on Nov. 7, 2009
Since I didn't start at the first of our mission in Eastern Europe, I have decided to organize my posts by countries that we visited. This is about the things we saw in Armenia in June and then in September. We went to a village where we are putting in a water project. This project will
provide clean water to 14 villages. Some of the villages have not had clean water since the 1970's.
This woman was walking with her child to get water from a source that is 5 miles from her home. She is carrying a pail to bring the water back.

This woman is gathering dried manure and stacking it for use as fuel in the winter months.
Working in her field.
In order to bring the water into the villages it was necessary to dig 24 miles of trenches to lay the pipe. This man was one of many that dug the trenches.









The mayor of the village was down in the trench inspecting and giving his opinion.

The missionary serving in this part of Armenia is Tom Blotter who happens to be a water engineer. Talk about being in the right place. He is already starting another project for more villages and will do one more in 2010 before he goes back home to his ranch in Logan, Utah.

As we were going through the village we were followed by many villagers, some were eager to have their pictures taken.
This lady giggled when I showed her the picture. She hurried to tell her friends.
Faces are amazing.
And yes the children. Always beautiful, always inquisitive.
These three boys followed us through the village and were eager to have their picture taken.

This young man had to put his sunglasses on before I could take his picture. Ever cool, even in a small village in Armenia.

After the project was complete, there was a closing ceremony in every village to present the "fountains" and the clean water to the village. When we bring water in, it is not to each home, but simply to 4 or 5 fountains where people can go to get water that is clean and carry it short distances to their homes. We were privileged to be able to go back to 2 of the closing ceremonies in September.
The ceremony starts by serving bread to the honored guests. The girls are dressed in native costumes. There is a hole in the center of the loaf of bread and salt fills the hole. Each guest breaks off a piece of bread, dips it in the salt and eats it.
The fountain is presented with a ribbon cutting
ceremony. The water comes out of the top and the side of the fountain. When it was turned on Sister Blotter almost got her face washed.
The question was asked, "How many of you helped to dig. Most of the men eagerly raised their hands and showed their callouses.






This is the village office. Note the
outhouse next to it. (left side) Keep in mind they have no running water.



And speaking of outhouses:
This is one of the nicer ones. There was even water to wash your hands a few steps away.
The driver stopped at this one and when I walked over to it and opened the door, I found it was

just to boards over a hole. I decided to just go back to the van and get my camera.


Our next project was another village where we provided a tractor. The 13 year old drives the tractor for his family. Food production has increased dramatically.


This is the sign-up list that the village keeps to show who has used the tractor. It is their way of showing us they are accountable for the help we provided.

This village invited us to a barbeque to celebrate. The grill is made out or rebar and the meat and vegetables are laid across it. The fire is made from grape vine trimmings. I have never eaten better pork. The 9 and 10 year old girl and boy in the family played the piano for us and it was quite a concert.

We have had so many opportunities to be with dedicated missionary couples who are serving the Lord by serving his children. When I say "we", when I talk about things that have been provided, I am referring to our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The members all over the world make small contributions so that great things can be done to help others. We are very grateful to be able to be a small part of this service. We have now been in Eastern Europe a little over 6 months. We miss family and friends, but are happy to be here

Ariving in Moscow

I was very nervous about starting a blog. I wanted to do it in order, but that didn't happen so I will just go back and pick up a few things. This is from the beginning of our adventure.

When we arrived in Moscow, we were babes in the woods as far as foreign travel was concerned. As would happen, one of my bags was lost. (We didn't know that it was still in Atlanta. Scott had been notified that it would be sent the next day, but he had no way to contact us.) Everyone got their luggage and left except us. We stood there bewildered and tired. A man approached us, I call him "Mr. Trenchcoat". He looked like he was right out of a Russian movie. Dark trenchcoat and crew cut and not a smile on his face. He directed us to a desk where I tried to communicate with someone that I had lost one of my suitcases. Mr. Trenchcoat was "helping" me. I finally got a paper filled out. We could see the people waiting outside the security area on a TV screen. They could see us, but we couldn't talk.

Mr. Trenchcoat decided that I had too much luggage and he wanted some of it searched. How could I possible have too much luggage? We were allowed two suitcases each (total of four) that were up to 50 lbs each and then we paid $100 each for an extra suitcase (now the total is six). Plus we were allowed two carry-ons each (now the total is 10), but not really because one was missing. How could he possible think we had too much? Anyway, in his most furious voice he told me to pick a suitcase because they were going to search it and I had to tell him "everything" in the suitcase. Now we had been living out of suitcases for about 6 weeks. I had packed and unpacked them. Who knew what was in what. I tried to explain that Jack and I had been married a long time and that things were packed together. He said, "NO-I WANT YOUR SUITCASE." I was getting more and more nervous. I picked a suitcase and prayed. He took me over to the customs man, but first he pointed out a sign that said I would have to pay a fine. Fortunately for me, the customs man had no interest in looking at my suitcase. As I stood there helplessly, Jack asked if he could let the people that were waiting know that we were here. He was allowed to go to the door, but not go through.

The people there were David Stapley (our boss) and his wife, Lisa and Vlad Nechiporov (the man whose job we were going to take (he is a native Russian). David handed Jack a cell phone and

Jack came back to me. The phone rang. It was Vlad. He asked to talk to Mr. Trenchcoat (although he didn't call him by name). They had a conversation and all of a sudden we were not going to be charged a fine and we were good to go.

Who said we had too much luggage?

Old friendships renewed.

We left in one car and Vlad in another. We had not gone a mile when there was a policeman waving a stick and pointing it at cars to pull them over. He pointed at David. The easiest way to get out of the situation is to pay a bribe and drive on. We don't pay bribes so David spent about an hour sitting in the police car. Lisa called Vlad and he came back, but didn't want to interfere unless it got serious. Other drivers were pulled over, paid their fines and moved on. David was given a ticket and then we left. Let me add here that none of the drivers had broken any laws, they were just on the wrong street. We went to the Stapley's and spent the night.

The next morning we were driven to our temporary apartment. It was a shock to me. I have never lived in an apartment. This was an apartment that sister missionaries had lived in, but it was going to be closed down after we found an apartment. The apartment was very small.


The only explanation necessary here is that Jack was trying to hold the washing machine in place. It sounded and felt like an invasion when it ran and you can see how small it is.

We were shown the market by the young missionaries and somethings were explained to us, but between the jet lag and the language problems, when we went back to shop we didn't do very well. We could figure out canned peaches, top ramen, bread, cheese and butter. For the first few days that was about all we ate.

We called the airport and my suitcase had arrived. We had a form to fill out that included listing everything in the suitcase in Russian. I wasn't any better knowing the contents of that suitcase than the one the day before. One of the young elders filled out the form and we all went to the airport. The two missionaries and I went in and found the "lost luggage room". After filling out more papers the door was opened and we entered a room about 30 feet wide and 50 feet long with shelves full of suitcases up to the ceiling (about 12 feet high). We were lead to an area of shelving about 10 feet long and told the suitcase was in there. We finally found it and we were not allowed to touch it. It was taken to a man who looked at the papers that the missionaries had filled out. He said they were wrong because they had a Moscow address instead of a United States address. The poor missionary had to do it again, in Russian. All of a sudden, Mr. Trenchcoat showed up again. He said a few words and we were on our way.

About the fourth day, Jack started with a rash. The mission doctor thought it was a reaction to something. I didn't have a rash. The seventh night when I got in bed I felt really creepy, like something was all over me. I got up, turned on the flashlight, didn't see anything and told myself that I was just imagining things and to get my act together. I got back in bed and eventually went to sleep. The next morning I had a rash all over my body. Oops, not a rash, bed bugs. I told Jack that I was out of there. We called David Stapley and he came and took us to an empty home in an expat area and we stayed there for 2 1/2 weeks while we looked for an apartment.

We worked every day, looked for an apartment almost every day and finally found one after 3 1/2 weeks.