June 13, 2011

Hey everyone!

Can't believe another week has flown by! It's good to here that everyone is doing well and enjoying life. It was really good to here that you all had a good time in St. George. I hope you sent everyone my love. Everything is going great here in Armenia. I feel like this week went by in such a blur but I'll do my best to fill you all in haha. I'll start out with investigators and we'll go from there:

-Lida is doing great and is still on track to be baptized this week! She has her baptismal interview tomorrow night, so we've just been doing our best to make sure she is prepared and ready. We are hoping to have her baptism on Friday down in Yerevan so we are really looking forward to that. Not really much else to say about her haha. I'll be sure to let you know how it all works out next week!

-Next is Ando. We had a tough time with him this week. We have been working really hard to get him into The Book of Mormon and make sure he is reading every day. It has been a bit of a struggle. We really focused on making sure he understands the importance of reading from The Book of Mormon. I've come to learn that you can't gain a true testimony and become truly converted to this gospel until you read from The Book of Mormon and pray about it. We had a really good talk with him yesterday about its importance and that we can't meet with him anymore unless he starts reading on his own. For the first time we really feel like he gets it. I've also learned that as a missionary there is no beating around the bush. haha. Before my mission I would have done my best to kind of skirt the edge and not make things awkward but I've learned that as a missionary, I've been called to be bold in proclaiming what God wants from his children. We meet with him tonight so hopefully he is doing well and he read!

-Next up is Ashot and Gayvork. They we were able to meet with them both again this week and they both are doing really well. We had them say the opening and closing prayers and they both did a great job. They also came to church yesterday. Elder Steglich and I are really looking forward to meeting with them next week and hopefully make some progress with them.

-Knarik is the next batter up. She is doing great as always. She leaves this week unfortunately. We did find out, however, that its not her mom that won't let her be baptized. It's actually her dad. She lives about an hour and a half away from the branch building in Gyumri which is why her dad won't let her be baptized. But apparently her sister took the discussions here in Charentsavan a couple of years ago and she still believes this church is true and wants to be baptized. So I'm really glad that she atleast won't be alone with all of this when she goes home. I'm really glad that I've had the opportunity to see her grow with all of this. Its the most amazing thig to watch someone gain a testimony. I'm so glad to be a missionary!

-Last but not least, David. Elder Steglich and I had the coolest experience with him this week. Up until the other day, David seemed not very interested. He loves our branch president and really looks up to him and he likes us a lot and his always nice but it seemed like he was only meeting with us because of his wife. We have tried really hard to stress to him the importance of families with him because he has a pretty young baby. Everytime we bring up the temple his wife's face just lights up and she becomes so happy. You can just tell that she wants to go there with him so bad. Well, he had been flaking on meetings alot and Elder Steglich and I decided that we were going to sit down with him and his wife and branch president and let him know whats up haha. So we prayed about it and we decided about what to do and afterwards we felt like we needed to give him a baptismal date. So in our meeting Saturday night we gave him a date and told him everything he needs to do in order to be ready for that. His wife was SO happy when we started to give the invitation, and even more importantly, he accepted! The Spirit was so strong. Then yesterday we were talking to his wife when he wasn't around and she told us that he was supposed to go to work but he got out of it so that he could come and he told her that there is just so much that he needs to do in order to be ready for his baptism! And that after they read The Book of Mormon together the night before that she got up to walk away and he called her back and told her that they still needed to pray! It is so cool to see people making these incredible changes in their lives! We are going to work really close with him this week so hopefully he can continue to progress!

That is it for now with our progressing investigators. It was really cool because we had all 7 investigators at church yesterday which we were both way happy about. The work is going so well here in Charentsavan. I'm so happy to be apart of it all! I had the opportunity to go on my first companionship exchange this week. I went over to Ashtarak with Elder Lush for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and Elder Hall came here to Charentsavan with Elder Steglich. I was able to learn a lot of important and valuable things from Elder Lush and Ashtarak seems like a great place, but I really gained a testimony that I am exactly where the Lord wants me to be. I know that I am meant to serve the people of Charentsavan right now and to learn from Elder Steglich. I know that there are people here that I am supposed to help and that is such a blessing. Its hard to not question sometimes if you're making an impact or helping anyone and to look at all of your inabilities with the language, but then I just think of that simple testimony that I know where I am supposed to be and I am doing what I am supposed and all of the doubts go away. This simple truth also brings a lot of happiness. I'm as happy now as I have ever been in my life, because I know these things. I love being a missionary and serving these people and the Lord! It is truly a privelege and a blessing.

Well, funny story of the week comes at my expense this week. haha. Elder Steglich and I were reteaching a recent convert the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson to a woman named Anahit. She is from Georgia and speaks Armenian but not very well. She reads The Book of Mormon and prays in Russian. And Elder Steglich was teaching the repentace part and I thought he was trying to lead into baptism. Anahit doesn't know alot of the gospel words in Armenian so sometimes it takes a minute to get on the same page. Well, I thought he was trying to lead into baptism and I thought he asked her something like what do we do after baptism? and I thought she just couldn't think of the word for baptism. So I put my arm to the square like you do when you are baptized (I couldn't think of how else to help her understand the word for baptism) and that just confused her more. She thought I was pointing to the Heavens hahaha. Elder Steglich couldn't stop laughing. Especially because he wasn't even trying to lead into baptism. I felt so stupid hahaha. Oh well haha. She has already been baptized so atleast I didn't ruin her salvation!

Thats about it for this week though. Nothing else has really happened. Just working hard and staying busy. I hope you all enjoy the letter this week. I'm glad you are all doing so well. Thank you so much for all of your love and support. I really appreciate it and it really strengthens me. Thank you for your prayers as well. They truly are felt. I love you all and hope you all have the best of weeks!

 

Love,

Elder Fairclough