Another week in Astana

It was kind of a quiet week.  Two of the elders had to go to Omsk, Russia for a visa renewal trip.  They have been here six months and President decided it is easier to have them get extentions than to try and send new missionaries in.  Another elder has been transferred to Russia in preparation for his release in a few weeks, so there was no point in getting him a new visa.  And our fourth elder has traveled to the mission office to work on a project for Kazakh lesson materials.  He will return with a new companion in a few days.

So, we and the sisters handled English on Tuesday night.  We had a pretty good turn out.  On Wednesday, the sisters had to go to Almaty for a couple of days to work with the sisters there, so it was a good thing that the elders had returned with their new visas in time for English on Friday.

We did get one project approved this week.  It is for music toys for a rehab center for children in Stepnogorsk.

We decided to take a walk on Saturday.  Too bad it was the hottest day of the year so far, so we got too much sun.  But it was kind of nice to be out and see people enjoying the warmer weather.

We are starting to see new decorations around town.  That can only mean one thing ... another holiday is coming up!  They have a big celebration the first week of July for Astana Days.  It is the anniversary of Astana's being the capital of Kazakhstan.  Coincidentally, it is also the president's birthday.  And, someone on the bus told us that the president has the same birthday as George W Bush.  Who knew?



It will be the 15th anniversay for the capital!

Some people are starting to enjoy swimming at the "beach".  We pretended that the sound was like the beach in Hawaii or Cancun.  We had to pretend pretty hard!

We went to new territory on our walk, going under the rainbow bridge.  You can tell it was a beautiful day.

We can see this bridge from our apartment.  It has colorful lights at night.

The Kazakh flag is supposed to represent the blue sky and the yellow sun

This is what we saw on our way to church this morning.  These four little kids were out for a stroll.  The park is across the street and I think that's where they were trying to go.  I think the oldest one is two!  We looked around and couldn't see any adults with these kids.

But all of a sudden, someone came running out from one of the streets looking for their little angels.  They must have noticed that it was quiet!  At least they stopped to consider if they should cross the street or not!