Hope ya' know...

I love this line from Elder Cook’s Conference talk. I think it’s the reason we have blogs, and journals, and friends—because somebody needs ta’ know. Sometimes we just have times that are so intense that while we’re going through them we just keep thinking “I’ve got to write this down, I’ve got to remember it, and somebody else needs to know all about it too.” Then when we start talking about it, or writing it , it somehow doesn’t really seem all that interesting anymore, and we just get on with our lives (another great line from Conference—Elder Snow). We had a week like that a week ago, but now this past week has obliterated everything I wanted to write about the week before.

#1 memory this week: We are surrounded by green hills. In those hills you will find a man, his bones held together by his earthy, leathery skin, who chops downs big bagfuls of edible green things—nothing you would ever find anywhere but in these green hills. We visited his family this week. They live in a very humble, very rustic home. It’s hard to tell what the walls are covered with—-mostly layers and layers of wood smoke. (I would say his smoke, too, but he just smokes one after another and never exhales.) There is a TV and the requisite china cabinet with fancy dishes, and a very nice replica of the Salt Lake Temple which the former Branch President made for them. The little bit of everything else is threadbare. The whole family was sitting in the living room bundling the greens to sell in the marketplace. To my great and happy surprise one of the daughters is Marineh, who I thought lived in the city. She has the sweetest radiant smile, and crippled legs, and somehow has to go up and down the rickety wooden stairs how many times a day to milk the cows, and do her other chores. While we were there she made the trip and poured us out two pop bottles full of warm milk to take home. Her mother makes cheese to sell, so this was a hugely generous gift. I had given her a CTR ring weeks ago, which she had given to her mother. Luckily I had a purse full and gave another to her, and to the little children in the family.

Captions for the photos: Top left and bottom right: our bath buckets, and our flames in your face water heater—just so ya’ know. The elders today said “You know, usually senior couples live in much nicer apartments than the elders.”

Then: Standing on the beautiful new bridge in Tbilisi which isn’t open yet to ordinary tourists. The guards who let us up only knew that we were Americans. If they had known our apartment wasn’t as nice as the elders, they would would have snubbed us.

Nine year-old Martune, who was baptized just today. He is the happiest person I have ever met. His smile will take him far in this life. Keep smiling, Martune.

Seda is the most faithful person in the world. I could talk about her for hours. She has had amazing spiritual experiences, and is second only to Martune in the happiness department. Or maybe, considering that she’s older and has had many challenges, she would really be first.

This house is being built next to us. They have spent weeks on the grand stone entry. I wanted you to see how buildings are constructed here. They do amazing things with blocks and cement. (As of the day we left to come home it still looked exactly like this, except, strange to relate there is a garden behind the wall.)

We are standing in front of the Armenian letter “B”. I was told my smile wasn’t sincere. And it wasn’t. I was tired and sick and I hope ya’ know I had had a very exhausting week.

Sanam—our Relief Society President. A very intelligent and faithful sister—a mathematics teacher, who also teaches Seminary and is my piano student. I’m a little in awe of her, but she calls me Sister Blunck-jan, which is high praise.

P.S. The Monday after: Marineh and much of her family were at Church sporting their rings. But the huge blessing is that Seda’s husband was sitting by her side at Sacrament meeting, and stayed for all the meetings. This is the answer to 6 years of fasting and prayer, and an amazing story I’ll tell you soon.

Something for the Grandchildren

If we had a bumper I might be tempted to get a bumper sticker proclaiming my grandkids to be better than everyone’s. We really do miss Rani, D, Tali, Marcus, Tiari, Rachel, Joel, Jake, Heather, Wesley, Abby, Whitney, Justin, Troy, Audrey, Dallin, Chad, Kyle, Alison, Griffin, Truman, Eva and Mae, and your parents, too. We’re trying to be good so we can all be together for a very long time—as in forever. We appreciate your prayers—-they really help—and we pray for you, too. We thought you would like to hear about what the children here did for a Primary activity this last Tuesday. This can help you understand a little about what it’s like to be in another country on a mission.

Try to imagine what this was like: We met at the Church and walked across town to a park. There was a playground but you had to pay 100 dram to go in and play so we didn’t. There were funny little rides that pretty much just went around and around, and didn’t look very safe or pretty. There were weeds, and trash, and lots of children and their moms and women selling sunflower seeds wrapped in pages of old books. When we got there we had a prayer, right out on the sidewalk, and the Primary president gave a little talk about how God created such a beautiful world. Then everyone waited in line and got to go on one ride. After that we walked to the other side of the town and went to a restaurant. We each had one piece of pizza. It had no tomato sauce (which would make some of you happy) and it had corn, mushrooms and red peppers and Armenian cheese. We all had a cup of red flower tea (Word of Wisdom approved.) No one complained, no one asked for something else, no one yelled, or misbehaved, or ran around. Everyone ate all of their food happily and used very good table manners, (except for one boy who licked the sugar shaker, which is not good manners). They were all very happy and thankful for the good time they had. In other words they all were very good children—just like our perfect grandchildren. And I think they had just as good a time as if they had gone to Disneyland. (And by the way, they all loved Pooh-pa’s bird calls and Piccolo Petes.)

One of the boys who came is named Martune. He is 9 years old and he is going to be baptized this Saturday. We hope he will keep coming to Church and be a good missionary some day. We think you would like these children if you were here with us. There are good people everywhere in the world, and Heavenly Father loves us all.