"How Many Missionaries Does it Take ???"

So, how many missionaries does it take to move a single bed?  Turns out about 6!  The elders have been looking for a second apartment for quite a while and finally found one.  But they needed another bed.  It just so happens that we had an extra one in our apartment.  Our landlady said the elders could use it, so they came over one afternoon and took it apart.  Everyone grabbed a piece of it and off we went!  Kind of funny to climb on the bus with pieces of a bed, but we got the job done!

These are some photos out our window to the courtyard down below.  Some brave kids decided to play on the mountain of snow.  Once in a while a tractor will come and gather a bunch of snow from the sidewalks around the playground.  Of course, as soon as they do that, it will snow the next day!  In the lower photo, there is a bench towards the top where the kids are walking.  Down below, you can only see the arm rests of the benches.  The snow is much deeper on the lower side.  The wind pushes the snow around.  Some days we can't tell if it is fresh snow, or if the wind has just evened everything out!

 

We had a chance to go down to Almaty for Zone Conference this week.  The Almaty branch sponsors a music night every week.  It was fun to enjoy the elder's and sister's talents as well as some of their members and investigators.  Almaty has not received accreditation from their city and none of their missionaries have permission to preach at this time.  So their main focus is on English class and music and service projects.

 

We had a nice visit in Almaty.  Turns out the weather was about 20 degrees warmer.  We could actually go outside with some exposed skin!  And we kept the windows of the hotel room open all night because they had the heat turned up so high.  We were able to get signatures on the documents for the upcoming wheelchair project so the trip came at a good time for us.  

 

The travel time was not the best ever.  On Thursday, our flight to Almaty was delayed for two hours, so we waited in the terminal.  Then on Saturday's return flight, they boarded us on time, but then we were sitting in the plane for two hours before take off.  It had snowed all day, so they had a lot of planes to clean off and de-ice.  We were very happy to make it "home" safe and sound.

 

 

A few photos outside our hotel.  When spring comes, it is going to be a big sloshy mess!