We hope that this will find you all well and happy. We were able to talk with Alisa, Suzi and Ami on Dad's birthday. It sure was nice! We were taken to dinner at an Indian Restaurant by Mission President, whose wife has Dad's birthday too.
We've had a great week. We delivered a wheelchair to a really sweet Buddhist lady this week. Her daughter went into the family chest and pulled out their "best" glasses which were wrapped in a sheepskin, rinsed them out and poured us their native drink, warm milk mixed with water and salt. I sipped a little to be polite, but Dad drank the whole glass to find little "things" in the bottom. The lady gave us her blessing that we would live to be a hundred and be very healthy. We've been cautioned not to drink the water here. All the missionary apartment kitchens have filters installed. We even were brushing out teeth in the kitchen sink so it would be with filtered water to find out three days after we got here that we were not pulling out the little plug that makes the water go through the filter! I guess we have pretty strong immunity, we haven't gotten sick yet.
I'm sending a pic of the building where we attend church. It has a parking lot but noone in our branch or the other branches have cars. Once in a while you will see a couple of cars in the parking lot. This pic has the Mission President's car. He came for the baptism.
We live six flights of stairs up, which we walk at least 3 times every day. The steps here are not the same height and takes real concentration. We have a man who lives underneath the stairs, who keeps the entrance swept up and the stairs as clean as possible (which is not very). We always stop and give him a treat when we come from the grocery. The first night we came here, we were a bit nervous. If you came into our apartment building after dark, or even in the daytime, you would understand. These were built back in the 40's by the Russians. You can imagine how basic. But, most of the apartments have been kept clean and especially the ones that we inherit from former missionaries are pleasant. Our bed has a box spring and a thin flat pad which is adequate. We have hot water most days, and on the days we don't we improvise by heating water in the kettle and taking Bonifay baths.
We were in a taxi the other day and our Translator, Arika, was letting me practice my Mongolian. I told him where we wanted to go, but I didn't tell him to turn quick enough. When he realized that we wanted to turn left, he just turned left from the right hand lane, which wouldn't have been a big deal around here, except there was a policeman directing traffic. He pulled the taxi over. We were at our stopping place, so we paid the fare and got out with our things and hurriedly went our way. Just as we crossed the street, we saw the taxi driver had parked his car in the street and was chasing us down, fussing at our translator saying that it was her fault that the policeman stopped him. Dad told me to take the packages and quickly go to the office building and not look back. He took Arika by the elbow and escorted her away from the taxi driver and into the office building. I don't think I'll be giving taxi driver instructions for a while.
We've had a great week. We delivered a wheelchair to a really sweet Buddhist lady this week. Her daughter went into the family chest and pulled out their "best" glasses which were wrapped in a sheepskin, rinsed them out and poured us their native drink, warm milk mixed with water and salt. I sipped a little to be polite, but Dad drank the whole glass to find little "things" in the bottom. The lady gave us her blessing that we would live to be a hundred and be very healthy. We've been cautioned not to drink the water here. All the missionary apartment kitchens have filters installed. We even were brushing out teeth in the kitchen sink so it would be with filtered water to find out three days after we got here that we were not pulling out the little plug that makes the water go through the filter! I guess we have pretty strong immunity, we haven't gotten sick yet.
I'm sending a pic of the building where we attend church. It has a parking lot but noone in our branch or the other branches have cars. Once in a while you will see a couple of cars in the parking lot. This pic has the Mission President's car. He came for the baptism.
We live six flights of stairs up, which we walk at least 3 times every day. The steps here are not the same height and takes real concentration. We have a man who lives underneath the stairs, who keeps the entrance swept up and the stairs as clean as possible (which is not very). We always stop and give him a treat when we come from the grocery. The first night we came here, we were a bit nervous. If you came into our apartment building after dark, or even in the daytime, you would understand. These were built back in the 40's by the Russians. You can imagine how basic. But, most of the apartments have been kept clean and especially the ones that we inherit from former missionaries are pleasant. Our bed has a box spring and a thin flat pad which is adequate. We have hot water most days, and on the days we don't we improvise by heating water in the kettle and taking Bonifay baths.
We were in a taxi the other day and our Translator, Arika, was letting me practice my Mongolian. I told him where we wanted to go, but I didn't tell him to turn quick enough. When he realized that we wanted to turn left, he just turned left from the right hand lane, which wouldn't have been a big deal around here, except there was a policeman directing traffic. He pulled the taxi over. We were at our stopping place, so we paid the fare and got out with our things and hurriedly went our way. Just as we crossed the street, we saw the taxi driver had parked his car in the street and was chasing us down, fussing at our translator saying that it was her fault that the policeman stopped him. Dad told me to take the packages and quickly go to the office building and not look back. He took Arika by the elbow and escorted her away from the taxi driver and into the office building. I don't think I'll be giving taxi driver instructions for a while.
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