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

Spring Travels Part 2

As we are working with our 31 Villages Water Project, we make repeated visits to the villages checking on their progress.  It is important that they dig the trenches to our specifications so that they won't freeze in the winter.  We have found that the villages in the mountains are incredibly beautiful.

What a beautiful place, notice the small shed on the right.

As the work is finished in each village, they hold a closing ceremony that we attend.  The format is similar in each of the villages. One of the things that we love about Armenia is the various traditions.  It is a very old country, so they have a lot of tradition.  

One of the village girls offers us bread with salt in the middle.  We dip the bread in the salt.

Sister Rich and the Village Mayor cutting a ribbon on our fountain.

Elder Rich sampling the water.  It is really good water.

The water is good.

The mayor will then give a short speech thanking LDS Charities and Elder Rich will thank the members of the Church who contribute money for these projects and all of the people who work so hard on them.  Yes, these pictures are from different villages.  To date, we have had closing ceremonies in 19 different villages.

Carrying water. This is how it was done before we did the project.

In most of the villages, they have been carrying water by hand for 25 or more years.  They would have to walk up to 1/2 mile or more.  Not so bad in the summer, but really difficult in the winter.

Village life.  The truck is left over from the Soviets.

This is a wishing tree.  You place a piece of personal clothing and then make a wish.

Just to add some more beauty to the area.

Kids playing soccer, the opposing team (goats) are at the other end.

It looked like the goats won.

In addition to the beautiful people in the villages, there are also a lot of storks.

These are truly beautiful birds.  They build there nests on top of telephone poles and return to the same nest each year.

When they take flight, they are really big.

We did a project at an orphanage.  It is really an institution for handicapped.  On our first visit, we took a picture of this lady.  We told her we would give it to her.  When we went back for our second visit, she told the director that we were not truthful because we had not given her the picture.  At that point he gave it to her.  When one of these people remember something, they never forget it.  We were really happy that we had remembered to print it and bring it along on the closing.  We provided some beds and bedding to the orphanage.

She was happy with the picture.

The children were preparing for a celebration.

One of the beds and bedding.

When you have nothing, anything is appreciated.  We also provided the same beds and bedding to a local hospital.

In addition to doing Humanitarian work, we are also occasionally invited to help teach an investigator.  This young man spoke good English and we were able to participate by bearing our Testimony about the Book of Mormon.  His name is Artur.

Artur, Elders Anderson and Garner along with the Rich's

Artur is in white.  We love Baptisms.  And yes, Elder Morris is that tall.

We love our Mission and we love Armenia.