Summer Travels

As we move from Spring to Summer, the country gets more and more beautiful. We are busy driving to the villages, inspecting trenches and construction of the water projects. These projects culminate with a closing ceremony. They will have one of their pretty young girls dress up in a best dress and bring us some bread with salt in the center. We tear off a piece of the bread and dip it into the salt. This symbolizes life. Armenia is a very mountainous country. Most of the villages we work with are at the higher elevations. Therefore, we have been able to enjoy spring weather for a long time. We were driving to a village in June and we came upon these yellow fields. There was yellow on both sides of the road for as far as we could see.

The yellow landscape.

Our transportation a Russian Lada Niva.

We put at least one of these fountains in each village. It says a "gift from Latter Day Saint Charities".

The bread and salt and a pretty young girl.

Sister Rich and the women and girls from the village.

We purchased some cows for an NGO, the dairy products are given to the poor and needy. Elder Watkins, our new Employment Missionaries grew up west of Ogden, milking cows. He said you never forgot how. This picture proves him right.

Elder Watkins showing how it is done.

The Branch President (wheel chair) and the rest of the cow project.

A typical village

Typical Village Plumbing (outhouse)

Washing dishes and clothes in the village

Who needs a butcher shop for a cow when you have the roadside.

Heading back south to Yerevan. Mt Ararat in the background.

Checking running from the water source to the village.

Rocks from the trench.

How would you like to dig this by hand, they did.

We decided we needed a garden.

Our harvest.  A very expensive, but good tasting tomato.

This was a great Baptism, her husband was Baptized two weeks later.

Not all village homes lack modern technology.

Our engineer and his granddaughter in his garden.

Our Welfare Manager Dima at a closing.

The children love ice cream.

Making charcoal to cook with.

Eric, our driver and friend, his mother and aunt at his birthday party.

Building benches for a Branch service project.

The end product, very comfortable park benches.

Elder Rich and President Carter

An old Russian Combine we are buying for some remote villages.

Our "daughter" Rebecca Bennett visiting on her way home from Germany.

Khor Virap Church and Mt Ararat.  On the Turkish border.

Khor Virap and Masis (Mt Ararat) the home of Noah's Ark.

Buying some gota bread, and honey covered nuts.

Rebecca and the letter "B", for Bennett.

Elder and Sister Rich with the letter "R", for obvious reasons.

A pastry bakery in a converted garage.  Our "hole in the wall bakery".

The shuka (shops) by our apartment.  This is about a block long.

Our favorite Armenian fast food, Shawrma.

Yet another shop making shawrma's.

The reason we do water projects, so these women don't have to carry water.

Sister Rich and her favorite spider in downtown Yerevan.

Elder Rich and that's no bull.

One of the trolley buses.  We call this one the holly wood bus.

Driving through a wheat field, we need a four wheel drive.

The trip was taken to check out a hay baler.

This baby is 14 hours old.  These young village mothers are pretty stout.

Duet in the park in downtown Yerevan.

Two of our favorite friends, Eric and Anahit.

Sister Rich loves flowers, even wild flowers.

Elder and Sister Patterson, Area Welfare Specialists at a closing with us.

Introducing the  Pattersons to Armenian fruits.

LDSC provided the beds, bedding and cabinets for this Kindergarten.

Old men playing checkers and Narni (backgammon).

Sister Rich cutting honey comb off a frame.

According to Eric, this shack has the best Tan (yogurt drink) in Armenia.  It was good.

A restaurant on the side of the road.

Thanks for looking at our blog.  These pictures do not do justice to the beauty of this country.  We love our Mission and we love Armenia.

Elder and Sister Rich