We have been here for three days now and so far everything has been great....except the jetlag. The first morning we woke up at 2 am stayed up until 4 am and then went back to bed until 8:30 am. We never sleep in that late. The next morning we woke up at 2:30 am and then I ironed shirts while Alan read the handbook to me. Then we studied and exercised and were ready to go out by about 10. It was a long day. This morning I woke up at 3:30 (it's getting better every day) and wrote in my journal. Alan slept in until about 7:00 so he is adjusting much better than I.
Our apartment building. We are on
the second floor with another set of missionaries above us. They are 3 month
Humanitarian missionaries and are leaving today.
Our living room. The TV is nicer than the one we have at home!
Our bathroom. It's not too bad and the water is hot and plentiful.
We will be for only about 2 weeks while our work permits and government registration is being completed. Then we will be assigned to a permanent location, probably somewhere out of the City.
The light fixtures are really prety neat and there is crown molding in most of the rooms. Every room has a chandelier and the window open and close really neat--either left to right or top to bottom. There are no screens, but I haven't seen many bugs. We have a nice foam pad on our bed so we are not finding the beds hard as we expected. The door to our apartment looks like a bank vault door with three sets of triple locks on the front and two triple sets of deadbolts on the top! We should feel very safe. We got our water filter installed, but the sink leaks and will be repaired on Monday. We still don't have the internet hooked up, but that should happen on Monday as well. We are using the WIFI in the mission home.
There are several playgrounds in the area around our building. It is not quite like the ones Elli has in her complex, but they are well used. The weather has been warm, although this is supposed to be the rainy time of year. Things are pretty green, but there are very few trees. When we flew in, everything seemed pretty brown on the rolling hills. But there are some trees planted in the City. When we flew in we could see the dirt roads leading out into the steppe and we saw some gers as we drove from the airport.
The drivers here are so amazing...no one yields and the cars just inch their way into traffic and there are very few traffic lights. President Clark navigated it well and said it wasn't even as bad as it can get. I think I am glad we are not going to be driving, although some of the senior elders do drive and have adjusted as well. One amazing thing is that there are cars with steering wheel on the right and some with the wheel on the left, so it gets a little tricky when trying to see around another vehicle to pass. There are very few motorcycles and we have not even seen a bicycle. Jaywalking is the only way to cross the street and the pedestrian definitely does not have the right of way. They just go across the first lanes and wait for a break in traffic and then go the last lanes. We're not that brave yet and wait for a break both ways.
We have been fed by the senior missionaries every night. Pres and Sis. Clark took us the first night to a Ukranian restaurant, the next night we went to an Indian restaurant and last night we had lasagna with another couple. The food has been excellent, which is also different than we had been told. Although, we still hear the stories of eating sheep head--even from the senior missionaries! But we cook for ourselves and have been surprised to find almost everything we need with labels very familiar -- Western Family, Campbells, Marie Calenders, Tide, etc. Things are plentiful here, but we are not so sure how it will be out of the city so we are planning to stock up a bit before we leave.
It has been a little slow for us since we don't have an assignment yet. I never dreamed we would be so not busy on a mission. I guess our time is coming. There is really not much else we can do right now. Some missionaries we were with at MTC English class were in town and had lunch with us. It was good to see them.
The church seems fully functional here. There are missionaries to work with PEF, the YSA, Humanitarian, FHE, Employment, temple, and family history. Here is a pic of the entrance to our mission home. It is really a very nice building with a guard 24/7. It has 5 floors where all the staff have offices, the chapel is located and is the mission president's home as well.
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