New Friends

Our new office couple has arrived! This is very good news because for a time we were 'sweatin' it' when it looked like we were going to be in dire straits for an office couple here. The Lunas are from Blaine, Washington. When they got their call their arrival date here was in mid October. The Gerrs were leaving at the end of July. What were they going to do? (We were relieved when our area CES supervisor told us that couples with an 'extra' calling, such as CES or humanitarian, can't be reassigned without the approval of their area supervisor and he wasn't going to let us be reassigned.) Then the powers that be got the Lunas' arrival date moved up to mid August. They would almost have made it before the Gerrs left. However, they spent an extra week in the MTC waiting for visas. The office elders held down the fort but are mighty glad they didn't have to do it for long. Anyway, they are here and we just had a good P Day with them and will enjoy having them here, I'm sure. We helped them navigate the metro for the first time and took them on a boat ride and to an outdoor market. Went to dinner with the Araves this evening. So now we have 3 couples here in the city again and one other couple in a distant city. Couples are needed so badly.



We also attended a baptism this afternoon for a wonderful Nigerian young man. How we still love those black faces. The elders are teaching several West Africans and always bring them to visit with us. There are quite a few here studying. They seem to be able to get visas to Russia quite easily. The baptism program was in English, since that is what he speaks, with translation into Russian. Tomorrow for our Family Home Evening at the Institute 4 of the West Africans are coming so we are going to teach it in English this time and will have to have a translator for the others. Lately we have had others give the lesson in Russian. What a problem language is!!

One of these elders is another 'new friend' and we were happy to welcome him with fun and games at the Institute. We actually had 7 elders and 1 sister from America arrive this week. This elder was assigned to a town which is a 9 hour train ride north of here. His companion came to get him and they had some time before their train came to go back so they came over and Sister Arave and I played Phase 10 with them and Lou whipped them in ping pong. (He's getting pretty formidable.)