Hey everyone! How is everyone doing this week? It was great to hear from you all! You're all so great. Thanks for your support and words of encouragement and love. I love you all!
So, another great week has come and gone by here in Charentsavan. Everything is going really well though. Not a whole bunch of new stuff going on. Things are going really well with Elder Cook. We are getting more comfortable with each other and teaching well with one another. I'll start by telling you all a little bit about some cool experiences we had this week with some of our investigators. First off, Allah. She is doing really well. It has made a big difference meeting with her and our Branch President together. She doesn't look at us with a confused look as much anymore. We came to find out that she didn't know what the word for to repent in Armenian is and some other really important words like that...haha yeah that would not have been good if we had just kept going. But she is really doing well. I can really notice a change in her. She is offering to say the prayers now and stuff like. I love seeing that change in people! Never gets old. We had a really cool experience with her this past week. She had us come to her friends house to meet with her and we weren't expecting to really focus too much on her friend but as we started talking to them all we came to find out that her friend's husband and mother just died. It was really sad as she was talking about it. Her husband was just 28 years old and they have a son who is 4 or 5. After all the talking and learning about her, we didn't have a whole lot of time to teach but we were able to teach her some of the Plan of Salvation. She just sat there and cried. It really strengthened my testimony of the Plan of Salvation. She had so much despair and darkness in her life, and talking about the Plan of Salvation helped me see how much our Heavenly Father truly loves us. Our much hope and happiness and comfort there is in His plan for us. I'm really looking forward to meeting with her this next week. Next, Luiza. I'm not sure if I've told you much about her but she was a referral from a member in our Branch. She lives in a village about 20 km out of Charentsavan and she comes to church every week! haha. We can only meet with her Sundays after church because she is so far out. She is doing so great though. But when we met with her yesterday we had Alec come in the room with us because we can't be only with women. Alec usually goes off on little tangents in our meetings but usually it is for only a few minutes and then he just goes back to normal haha. Well, we were trying to teach Luiza a little about the Plan of Salvation and apparently Alec doesn't agree with the fact that our bodies and spirits will be resurrected together. Haha yeah, I have no idea. He's getting old. Anyways, he just went off for like 20 minutes. Like he just went nutso. I don't even know what to say. He seriously had like a crazy/restless look in his eyes haha. I was just like oh crap, I have no idea what Luiza is thinking. We tried calming him down and to get him to listen to us but he was just talking non-stop. But Luiza totally just calmed him down. She started talking about how we all just need to be more faithful and endure faithfully and stuff like that. I had no idea how strong she was cause she usually is just really quiet. It was so great! Alec just sat there quietly for the rest of the meeting. And then when the meeting was over, Luiza went up to him and asked him if he'd come to our meeting next week. It was so cool to see! Other than that everyone is doing really well. We are teaching Silva's daughter-in-law, Kristine, and she is doing so good! She has already read almost all of The Book of Mormon! I'll let you know how she progresses this next week. Everyone else is doing really great though! This week was just a busy week but way good. I'll let you know how everyone is doing this next week!
I don't really have a whole lot of other side stuff to share this week unfortunately. The mission as a whole has been in a little bit of a slump so President Carter raised the standards for meetings, new investigators, and people we talk to on the street in hopes of everyone proving to themselves that we can do better. It went really really well and everyone had a much much better week. But this last week was also probably the busiest of my mission as well. It was so crazy! I loved it though. My competitive side came out a little bit haha. We hit all the goals he set for us, except the number of people we talk to on the streets. We missed it by 4! haha. Its funny to see the little things that bring out my competitive side. haha. But I'm really looking forward to this next week and the work we have ahead of us. We are going to hit all of our goals this next week! Haha I'll let you know how it goes.
The language is coming along well. I am starting to notice a lot of things that I need to work on and at the same time, notice those things that I am doing well with. I still wish I could understand more and say more than I can but as they say here "kamatz kamatz" (slowly but surely). I had to give a talk yesterday in church. It went pretty well I think. I was pretty nervous haha. I spoke about missionary work and the importance of us opening our mouths as members of the church. I'm not sure if they understood or got the spirit of what I was trying to say, but I did my best! haha. I think things are going to start going really well with the language though. Even though it is super frustrating, I find a lot of joy in learning more. I just can't wait until the point when I can really express myself and say all the things that I want to say. I know that the hard work that I put in now will make it happen. There are a lot of missionaries that learn just enough of the language to get by and then they stop working hard. In my opinion, they miss out on so much. Learning this language has taught me the principles of diligence and putting my trust in the Lord. I have learned that as we are diligent and doing all we can, and then turn the rest over to the Lord and put our trust in Him, that is the moment when the blessings come. I know this to be true and I'm thankful for that simple fact. As I think of that, I look forward to working a little bit harder than I did the day before. I've been truly blessed because of this.
Well, I think that is about it for this week! I hope you all have amazing weeks! You are all so great. Thank you for all that you do for me and help me with! I couldn't do this without ya! I love you so much! Talk to you next week!
Love,
Elder Fairclough
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