Khor Virab

Here are some pictures Jared sent on Tuesday.  Sorry it took so long!!! We'll hopefully have another letter in less a couple of hours!

So, today I went to a place called Khor Virab (we switched our pday, that's why I wasn't able to write to many people yesterday). Khor Virab is a sacred cultural site which our mission president allowed us to go to (we usually aren't allowed to go there). Khor Virab (literally translated as "Deep Pit") is where the founder of the Armenian church was kept to die for his beliefs. An old lady kept him alive by sending down food to him every day. Eventually, the King of Armenia at the time had a change of heart (the actual story is longer and weirder) and let him out. The king asked him to convert him and they made the national religion Christian. They have a church there now right next to the hole where he was kept. I included a ton of pictures. It was really neat. We got to go down into the pit which was really quite deep and kinda dangerous to get down :p We had to go down by ladder. Anyways, that was my week :)

Me and Elder Seegmiller in front of the church. It was snowwwing so hard.

Me going down the stairs into the Khor Virab.

See the road behind me? That's the border of Turkey :)

That's Armenia's guard tower.

Our district :) It's the biggest in the mission.

This is the alter where they sacrifice animals.

The church

Me in the pit

The stairs into the hole.