The weekend of October 20 and 21 we had conference in our little branch.  On Saturday morning we had a few members and a couple of investigators come and they stayed until about the middle of the second session when most left.  We had a Russian conference for most and some of the Elders, Sister Hoagland & I and Sister Tolbert watched on lds.org on the branch office computer.  While the big surprise of the conference was already known, people still wanted to see it.  I particularly enjoyed the reaction of some of the missionaries when it was Elder Holland's turn to speak.  They were so excited.  There were many wonderful talks as usual.  In the evening the Elders came to the apartment and we watched the priesthood session on our computer.  Sunday we had a large group for the morning session with some investigators.  They left after the first session and we only had about two besides the missionaries at the end.  I felt good about our participation.

That Sunday evening the Sisters called just about the time we were going to fix something to eat and said they wanted to come and give us some service by fixing us dinner.  Nastia and Rita were with them and brought one of Nastia's friends with them.  

 Rita is interesting in her dress.  We don't know how to tell her she looks beautiful with her hair down and with out the flower adornment.  Sister's Tolbert and Lewis are wonderful Sisters and we are happy to have them in the branch.

 Here we all are (I am represented in the mirror) ready to eat our meal.

 Monday we went to Vika's with the Elders to give her father and mother in-law their final baptismal interview.  We are having so much fun watching Arcen growing so fast.  He is just a pleasant little baby who seems to be very content with life.

 You cannot go into an Armenian home without them feeding you.  We were treated with a bowl of soup with some kind of meat in it.  We don't know if it was beef or mutton.  Bread and cheese are usually on the table.   We are now ready for their baptism on Saturday.

Tuesday is English group night and we always enjoy the experience.  We take the conversational group (the ones who speak pretty well) and we used the creation as a topic this week and I used pictures in my computer to talk about the things which indicate the influence of God in our earth and life.  The week before we used repentance as our topic.  We have one person we meet with on Thursday for private English.  We have her read from a book and help her with pronunciation and definitions.  She writes the words down to look up later.

 Wednesday is family night and we used it to celebrate all the birthdays in October.  We had 20 some people there.  We played a couple of games, the above being where you add two pencils at a time, put them on the back of your hand and try to catch them with the same hand.  Here Rima beat her brother in this contest.

 Musical chairs is always a favorite. This is the biggest we have had since we have been here.  I think we are going to have to stop it as I don't think our chairs can take the abuse.

 This time Radic won musical chairs.  His final competitor walks away with a smile on his face.

Here we are with our celebration meal.  Sister Hoagland fixed a large bowl of pasta salad (green bowl) with to which she added pineapple, apples, carrots chicken onions and mayonaise which everyone seemed to enjoy.

One of our members, who is not even near middle class, gave the Elders money to buy food for our less fortunate in the branch.  Friday night we went to the store and purchased potatoes, onions, garlic, cooking oil, carrots, and cabbage to be distributed this weekend at the branch building.  It was for three families and for several individuals.  The Elders took a taxi with all the food because there was no way we could hall it on a bus.