Hello to family and friends!

Last blog we showed you pictures from the Armenian alphabet monument.  I meant to include this plague in the town of Yerevan which shows the entire Armenian alphabet:  

The first line of characters in Armenian sound like aw, buh, guh, duh, ye or eh, zuh, eh, uh, tuh.  

In case you are interested the second line of characters sound like: zh like s in measure, ee, l like in lilly, kh like the gutteral ch in Bach, tz like in Mitzi, k, h, dz like in kids, gh like gutteral french "r".

The third line sounds are like: dj hard clipped j sound, m, y, n, sh, vo or o, ch, p, j, r.

Fourth line sounds are like: suh, vuh, tuh, ruh, ts like in bits, ? , puh, kuh, o, f as in life.  There is one other not shown here that is an oo sound like in cool.  

So there you go.  It helps to learn this alphabet to recognize the sounds of words even if you don't know what they mean.  For me, working in the office and receiving baptism forms in Armenian, even though the missionaries help because it is in cursive, sometimes I have to distinguish for myself a name or two.  I have also tried to read the Book of Mormon in Armenian - even though it would take me many more months than I'm here!

We want to share with you a meal that was made by one of the branches at a recent branch activity night:

 The stuffing in the squash is half cooked rice that you push up against the sides of the squash, apple, lemon juice, dried fruit, raisins, walnuts.  You push the food down really tight. It cooks for two hours.

 Then you slice horizontally, to put on the plates 

We want to share with you our surroundings where we live.  Below is a building on the next block from where we live.  It is in construction and we thought it interesting because of the support system.

  

 There is a park on the next block that has exercise equipment in it.  Elder Eyre here is trying it out!

Parallel bars for the arms

Elder Eyre is trying to figure this one out!  The instructions called it a back rub!

This little Armenian girl showed us how to use this one!

We are headed home from the park, this is the drive through to the center of the complexes

 You will see that on both sides of the drive through they have painted pictures:

Don't step in that water Elder Eyre!

The picture below is looking up at our apartment.  It is 5 & 6th set of windows from the left in the middle row of windows

Here is a closeup of those two windows. The left set of window, with the A/C unit, is where we have our sitting room, the right set of windows is where our kitchen is.

One of the things that we like most about the people here is that they are very innovative.  They don't waste and they don't throw things away!  If they need the space, they find a way to use it at all costs:

Here is a closeup -


Talking about being innovative - We had Thanksgiving dinner with the missionaries in our Zone.  Here is one of the sister missionaries making a pumpkin pie.  We improvise a lot here.  They don't have pumpkin so she used a type of squash they have here.  She is rolling out the dough, improvising of course.......

 Here is a picture of her rolling pin (without the foil)!

They had no pie plates and so here is her improvising again:

 
Below is the finished product after cutting the pie slices!  Hey, it was actually very good!!!

We bought two turkey's at a supermarket, which were from America, which cost around $75.00.  They were both around 15 lbs.  We made dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, bread, cucumber and tomato salad, one Elder made jello he received from home.  Another Elder made brownies by melting some chocolate bars and also made some popcorn balls.  There were leftovers and the Elders loved taking those home!!  And here we are all ready to eat! 

Looking down from the other side of the table minus the photographer (me), and added one Armenian lady on the left.  There were 12 missionaries and three senior couples.

Since winter is setting in and we will no longer have summer vegetables I wanted to share with you the size of their beans here in Armenia.  Now this is a long bean! - but very typical.  They are good!  I hate to have the season come to a close!  I am sad.  In the winter we will only have beets, cabbage, carrots and potatoes to eat.

Just wanted to share some pictures with you that helps you to see what we are experiencing here in Armenia.  We love these very dear people here and our mission.  We are learning so much!  Not only from the culture and the goodness of the hearts of the people but so much more!  

As we study the gospel continually we have grown to understand more just how much Our Heavenly Father loves His children here on earth.  He has given us so much to learn about Him and His ways.  He provides us with His gospel and true principles so that we might return to live with Him someday!!

We are so very grateful for His Son Jesus Christ and all that he has done for mankind.  With Christmas coming up shortly, we especially love learning about His life here on this earth, His mission and His love for each of us!  All that we do should center around Him.  All of history does.  We must try to learn and develop His attributes as a people and we could find peace everywhere.

We love you,

Elder and Sister Eyre