Kiev Temple Dedication

The Beginning

Men Dancing

Strong Young Men

Half the flag

Half of the Amenian Flag, Red, Blue and Orange

That would be hard to do

The Young and the Old

Mission Office

The Kiev, Ukraine Temple was dedicated today, August 29, 2010.  Armenia is in that Temple District.  We had the opportunity to send several of our young people to Kiev to perform a traditional Armenian dance.  They held a dress rehearsal at the Church a few days before they left.  We were able to attend that rehearsal  The kids were great.  These are some pictures from that evening.

On Saturday evening we went to the Church and watched the live broadcast, via satellite.  They had dances from most of the countries that will attend the Kiev Temple.  It was a great night.  Our kids really performed.  There is an article on KSL.com along with a  picture of the kids.

On Sunday,  we attended the dedication.  We were part of the first of three sessions.  We got to watch the traditional symbolic laying of the cornerstone.  President Monson was in really rare form, kidding around with the young people that were there.

Church / Mission Office Bldg

We watched the session in the room where we hold Baptisms. It required a recommend to be there.  When we walked in, we could really feel the difference. Our office is right down the hall, but at that time, we were in the Temple.  The whole thing lasted about two hours and the spirit was very strong. We really got our spiritual batteries recharged today.

Life in Our Yerevan

Automatic dishwasher and water filter

Filtered water

The washer and shower share a room

Automatic clothes dryer

Cooling it after watching Sis Rich do chores

Notice the three white cylinders on the counter. They are our water filters and filtered water must be used for drinking, rinsing dishes, brushing teeth, and washing off vegetables and fruit.


We feel very fortunate that we have a washing machine in our apartment, and it is fairly new. You can comfortably wash three shirts at a time. Drying them is a different matter. Our neighbors, who live on the floors above us have outside clothes lines running from our building to where ever they can connect them.


You can only see the bottom of the shower. It is different from what we are use to, but we have always had hot water and it works just fine. Sister Rich is really missing her bathtub to soak her feet and legs in. There were not racks for the towels, so we hang them on plastic clothes hangers, hung on the door nob and over electric plug adapter. It works.

Our Neighborhood

Our front yard

We were given the choice of where we wanted to live.  This apartment was used by the couple that we replaced.  It is about an hour from our office.  We commute by Metro (underground subway) and trolley bus.  The modern part of Yerevan is a very small part of the city.  Most of Yerevan looks just like our neighborhood. We wanted to get a feeling for what life is like in this city.  We really love it here.  We are very close to the Metro station and there are a ton of small stores and shops in our area.  We are still discovering where to buy the things that we need.  The one thing that we don't have in abundance here in our part of town are restaurants.  But with the Metro so close, we can very easily get to the areas where they are.  We eat dinner with the other Senior Missionaries frequently.  So it works.  There were only the four little boys when we took this picture, but there had been 12 boys and girls just a little earlier.  The pool out back is used for swimming by the children on a hot day.  We have no idea what its intended use was.

Front yard with children

Back yard with pool

Modern Yerevan

This is life in the 21st Century in Yerevan. This is Republic Square. We are also showing the Post Office, where we pay all of our Utility Bills. The beautiful street with the flowers in the middle is Northern Street. Some of our friends life in this part of Yerevan, we, however, do not.

A Trip to the Villages

The group by the equipment are Elder Holmes, from Moscow and myself along with the head of the Farmers Co-op, in the tie and the farmers from the village that use the baler they are standing in front of.

On the way to the village, we passed by this old crane, left over from the old Soviet Union days. It hasn't been used in a while judging from the current occupants. When is the last time you saw a stork nesting on a crane? We always thought that storks lived on chimneys and brought babies.

















After we looked at some of the equipment we visited one farm house and the children played the piano and sang for us. They were really good. The girls said they knew an English song which they sang, Jingle Bells. The family had a beautiful garden in their back yard.


We then went to another house where they had prepared a BBQ for us. We have never seen so much food on one table. The table was set beautifully, with a lace table cloth and fine china. The main course was pork which was prepare on spits over coals from grape plants. The flavor was wonderful. We ate and ate.

As we were leaving each of the three places that we visited, they brought out sacks of their farm fresh produce, fruits and vegetables. There was far more than we could use so after we took a little bit for ourselves, we sent the rest to a meeting that the Church Employment Missionaries were holding and the members got the rest. We heard that it was the hit of the meeting.

The picture with the family includes our Mission President and his wife, President and Sister Carter. They accepted our invitation for the trip.

Learning the Language

We have really been putting a lot of effort into trying to learn the language. Armenian is a very beautiful language. The most difficult part for us is the alphabet. As you can see from our badges, which say the same thing, the Armenians don't use a Latin alphabet. And, no it is not the same as Russian or anything else, it is just Armenian.

We try to read from the Book of Mormon each day. We read a verse in Armenian and then in English. So far we have read 5 chapters from 1st Nephi.

In Church, we don't use a translator, but try to listen to the speakers. We are getting our ears used to hearing the words. We are getting so we recognize more and more words. Maybe someday we will know what they mean in English. Last Sunday, they asked me to say the prayer in Priesthood, which I did, in Armenian.

Today we had a meeting with our accountant. She has worked for LDS Charities for four years and she is now starting to investigate the Church. I felt prompted to bear her a short Testimony, which I did, in Armenian. I seem to keep mispronouncing the word for to know. At least we keep trying.

Gloria had asked our interpreter how to say one more. She had an occastion to use the word today to get a fellow to leave our office. He wanted us to work with him today and we couldn't until next week. He is a difficult fellow to get rid of. She told him one more week and I told him no, not today. The Lord is still in charge. There were no translators around and he spoke no English, so our little bit of Armenian helped. Thank heavens, Sister Rich had learned the new word yesterday.

Our First Work Week

We arrived last Sunday, it is now Friday evening. It has been quite a week. We slept some on Sunday and then had dinner at the Mission Home with Pres and Sister Carter. They are very nice, they are also just about as new as we are. On Monday we spent a few hours with the Sister Missionaries, Sister Crego and an Armenian Mini Missionary. They helped us identify some products left in the apartment. All of the labels are in Russian. We didn't know what to wash dishes in, as it turned out, we didn't have anything. We then walked to the nearest large grocery store, which is small by our standards. After that we walked back to the Metro (underground train) and went to the Central Church. This is the building where the Institute is located and also the place where we will be attending Church. We then got back on the Metro and went to the end of the line where the Mission Office is located. After spending an hour or so there, we got back on the Metro and headed home. The Sister Missionaries got off along the way because they had something they needed to do. We were now on our own.

We got back to our apartment with very little trouble. We decided that we needed to go to the store and get some things. I was pretty sure that I knew which road it was. The traffic circle that is by our apartment has 7 roads coming into it. We went down the road....We walked and walked and walked. No store. We must have been on the wrong road. Backtracked to the circle and tried another and then another and then another....No store. We hate to give up, but we both had jet lag and were worn out. We had some food that Pres Carter had left for us.

The next morning we headed out for the office. No problem because the Metro stop is that last one and everyone gets off. That is what we did. With the Sister Missionaries we caught a bus right outside of the Metro stairs and took it up the hill, a little over a mile. We go to the road and no bus. We waited and waited....no bus. We walk up the hill. We walked and walked and walked. We were looking for a landmark so that we could turn right and go about a block down the hill to the office. No landmark. Pretty soon we ran out of road. The one that we were on T'd. We were really lost, not just disoriented, but lost. Fortunately, we had a cell phone and called the Mission Office. We got a taxi, called the Elder and he told the driver where to take us. The driver got lost, but we finally got to the office. The one hour trip had taken about two hours. The President heard about our plight and took us in his car and we found out the follies of our ways at the Metro station, wrong exit and wrong road, and also to get to the store. We had picked the correct street, we just didn't walk far enough.

We can now get to work without making any mistakes. The real test will come on Sunday when we have to find the correct stop for the Central Church.

Wendy asked for a description of what this place is like...

Yerevan is a large and very old city. There are probably a million people here. The buildings are not very tall, maybe 5 or 6 stories. Yes the roads are paved and there are cars every where. We think there are more taxi's than private cars. Driving here would be something. They don't pay attention to the lanes. We walk to the subway (Metro) each day. It is underground. Our stop is under a very large traffic circle with perhaps 7 streets coming into it. There is a market under ground by the Metro. There are a lot of narrow walkways with shops on both sides. It is very crowded. Each shop will sell one type of item, for example sun glasses or nail stuff.


Once we get to the entrance to the Metro we pay and take an escalator down, perhaps three stories. The escalator is the fastest that we have ever been on. The train cars are old, but clean. It is a great way to travel. We are the only Seniors that we have met that have used the Metro. We reverse the process at the other end. The market is not nearly as large. We then catch a bus to go up the hill, a little over a mile to the street where the office is and then we walk one block to the office. In the evening we don't catch the bus, we walk down the hill to the metro.


There are stores all over the place. We don't think the notion of a department store exists. The outside of everything is pretty rough. The insides are nice. Look at the outside of our apartment vs the inside. There is no grass. If there is a yard, it is just weeds. There are a lot of buildings that are not being used, they are in various states of being torn down or decay.

It is a wonderful place. The people are the prettiest of any country I have ever been in. They are very nice. It is very old country, lots of people standing or sitting outside visiting. Just like pictures of old New York.


We are going to love it here. We get to know more about it each day. We are continuing to try and learn the language, with what energy we have after the trials of learning a new job.


Elder and Sister Rich

Our Missionary Apartment Inside and Out

These are photos of our missionary apartment, from the front porch and looking out away from the front. The inside shows the living room / kitchen, second bedroom (office) and our bedroom. As you can see it is a very large and nice apartment for a couple of missionaries.

Layover in Vienna, Austria

We had a 14 hour layover in Vienna. We took a taxi and spent 8 hours in this very nice Austrian hotel. We then enjoyed a very good Austrian meal before heading back to the airport for the flight to Yeravan.

Welfare Seniors and Language Tutor at the MTC

These are the Welfare Couples, they are going all over the world. On top is our Armenian language tutor, Noelle Brough. We got over here and found that she had trained all of the Senior Missionaries that are in Armenia. She is an incredible person and we dearly love her. We wish she were her to work with us now.

Elder and Sister Rich at the MTC

Here we are at the MTC, at the famous map pointing to where we are going.