Hello from Armenia! How's everyone doing? It seems like our family has had another good week, which is always great to hear. Thanks so much for writing me, I really look forward to reading all of your emails. People probably think I'm crazy cause I start laughing out loud sometimes haha. Oh well. I'm white and American and in Armenia so they already think that, so I'm not too worried. haha. It's been another great week here in Charentsavan! I'll start out by telling you all about the work this past week. Things were pretty slow at the beginning of the week. We had so many meetings cancel on us this week. What made it a little more rough is it rained a lot and everyone goes inside but can't knock on doors or anything, so we just had to walk around in the rain and look for people to talk to. haha. Its all good though. Things went uphill as the week went on. I think sometimes the Lord just wants to see you if you're willing to work, even when things aren't working out, and then if you do things start to fall in place. Well, I'll tell you about Lita first. She has 3 kids and 2 of them are members, one a 12 year old boy and the other like an 18 year old girl. They've been present at our meetings with her which really helps. I'm not sure if I told you about her last week, but I'm going to tell you again if I did haha. So, when I first got here we didn't have any investigators because all the ones they had had just gotten baptized, and Lida's 12 year old son was one of those recent converts. So when we met with and talked to him about missionary work and talking to his mom about the church and about meeting with us because she comes to church with him and his sister just about everyweek. We knelt down in prayer at the end of the lesson and it was really spiritual. Well, Sunday came around and she walked in the church, came right up to us and told us she didn't want to meet with us. Haha. But then this past Sunday she told the Branch President she wanted to meet with us and when we met last Sunday night she said she received an answer to a prayer and that she knew the church was true. A complete 180 degree change in her. It was so cool to see. So we've been trying to teach her everyday and she is accepting everything really well. She is even talking about wanting her to help her other son meet with us. She should be baptized in the next two weeks since shes already been to church so many times, so we are really excited for that! Then there is Ando. All of our meetings scheduled for earlier in the week fell through so we didn't get to meet with him until later on. He's doing really well though. He came to all 3 hours of church again yesterday and he's started to keep committments so he is progressing really well. We're just going to keep moving along with him. And then yesterday Geyvork came to church which was a miracle. Apparently he ended up staying in that village for the rest of the week. We were way happy when we saw him haha. I know that God answers prayers. He wasn't able to meet with him yesterday but we are going to meet with him Tuesday and he said he is going to bring Ashot so we were way happy about that too! We thought we were going to have to drop them. So Elder Steglich and I are excited to get to work with them again. And Knarik's mom still won't let her be baptized. She leaves to go back to Gyumri this week so we are going to try to meet with her as much as we can between now and then. We had a really cool experience with her in one of our meetings this week. We were teaching about the Word of Wisdom and we had to bring one of the Branch Priesthood holders along because she is a girl. And we were talking about it and the Priesthood holder wasn't taking it seriously and was kind of making a joke out of it and Knarik turned to him and basically said, "You're lucky enough to be baptized and you don't take this stuff seriously? What's wrong with you?" It was so amazing. It just shows you how prepared some people are. Even though she can't be baptized she still reads The Book of Mormon everyday. She writes down her favorite verses and then shares them with us when we come. And she's praying for things to work out. We just keep telling her that if she keeps doing these things that the Lord will provide a way. We are going to talk to her about missionary work this week and send her home with a ton of church material haha. Two lucky elders are going to stumble upon her in the future and be amazed at how ready she is haha. That's about it progressing investigators wise.
Everything is coming along really well as far as the language goes. I still don't understand a whole lot but I am able to follow lessons better and catch the gist of what people are saying. I'm able to say a lot more in the lessons too. Its a slow process but things are coming along. A new thing the church is doing with missionary work in this 12 week training program and the goal is to have the elder getting trained to be able to train if he were called on at the end of the 12 weeks. Its not really a possibility for here because of the language but they told us in the MTC that they have started trying it out with English missions. I felt like it would be a good goal to have and that it would really push me and keep me motivated so I'm working really hard. I want to be able to teach any part of any of the lessons in Armenian by the end of my training. Elder Steglich and I are going to make a language study plan this week that should really help. He said he made one after he was trained because he felt like he needed to be able to teach any part of any lesson and he said he shot forward with his language. Then he got called to train me haha. I just want to be able to teach and understand these people! haha. Its coming along well though and I'm having a lot of fun with it.
On Saturday, we went with Branch President, his 2 nephews, his girlfriend (who is a member), and her dad (who is not a member) to go eat authentic Armenian food haha. I took lots of pictures and I'm going to send them in an email. We ate khorovats, which is Armenian BBQ. It was way good. It was just pork, cooked tomatos, eggplants, and peppers, and then that lavash bread. I liked the pork and the lavash, but the other stuff...not so much. Haha you know me. I tried it all though. We went to this field just outside of Charentsavan and it was really pretty. We combined our lunch and dinner together so we wouldn't waste time haha. But we just ate and Elder Steglich played the guitar and sang and they showed us how Armenians dance. It was such a great experience to have so early in my mission. Armenians are so amazing. I love these people and this country! haha.
Funny moments of the week: First, Elder Steglich and I went and visited a recent convert this week and taught a short lesson. I had never met her before though and whenever we meet with someone we don't know we show them our pictures. For some reason they LOVE pictures haha. So, this lady was flipping through the book, they ALWAYS say how pretty the girls and mom are, but she got to a picture with dad in it and she stopped and was like I've seen him from somewhere. She was convinced dad was a movie star haha. It was so funny. I was dying laughing. Thought dad might enjoy that story. Second, I'm not sure why I found this one so funny but I did haha. Elder Steglich and I were walking down the street and all of a sudden he was like you have got to be kidding me. While we were walking a bird flew by a pooped on him hahaha. He was so mad. I'm sure my laughing didn't help but I found it quite comical. Apparently theres some mission legend that if you get pooped on by a bird someone is going to give you money so you're not supposed to clean it until someone does. Yeah he didn't wait haha. I don't blame him either cause theres not a whole lot of money to go around here and I definitely wasn't paying up haha.
Well, I hope everyone is having a great week and knows how much I love you all. Things are going great here and I hope you all know that I am doing well. It is such a privilege to be a missionary and to have the opportunity to serve these people. I'm so thankful! I've also been extremely blessed with such a wonderful family! I love you all and hope all is well!
Love,
Elder Fairclough
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