January 9, 2012

Hey everyone!

How are you all doing this week?! I can't believe another week has come and gone by. Things have been going really well here in Erebuni. I wasn't really sure what to expect this week with the holidays and all, but this week actually turned out to be one of Elder Seegmiller's and my best weeks together. Funny how things work out that way. But I'll start out by telling you a few things that happened this week and then I'll explain a little how they celebrate the holidays. This week Elder Seegmiller and I were able to find a few new investigators. It was really interesting how it happened too. So we went out to street contact and we made it maybe 5 minutes and the very first person we walked up to invited us into his house. When we first walked in his family all looked at us really standoffish but after sitting down and talking for a few minutes they all kind of warmed up to us. There was the man, his wife, his wife's sister, his mom, and his two little kids. They were all really nice and were basically shoving food down our throats haha. But they kept telling us how we have a light about us and how peaceful we are. It was really cool to be told that. And then before we left, we asked them if there was anything that we could do to help and they just said that us coming was the biggest help they needed. Then the father made us promise that we would come back later in the week. All in all it was a really great
experience! I'm not sure if I've explained our investigator Aram very much, but he is 17 years old and he speaks English. He is actually from Austria and is learning Armenian right now too. But he is a really funny kid. He wants to be a body builder and Arnold Shwartzineger (sp?) is his biggest hero haha. Whenever Elder Seegmiller calls he yells, "GET DOWN", in an Arnold accent haha. It never gets old. He speaks pretty good English but not great. He understands really well though. He says some funny stuff such as instead of saying big guy, he says bigger guy. Also, he struggles with saying Fairclough so he just calls me The Max. Haha that is probably my favorite. But we had been struggling to get him to really grasp the gospel. He really likes us though, especially Elder Seegmiller, and he calls us his brothers. He reads from The Book of Mormon every day and talks to Elder Seegmiller about it on the phone every night before we go to bed. But he still didn't have a testimony and we both felt like he was doing it just because he likes us so much. So we decided to be really straight forward with him one meeting this week and we focused on really helping him receive an answer about The Book of Mormon. He said he believed it was true, but we had to explain to him the difference between believing and knowing. We first talked about why we are here and made sure that he understood and then we explained (probably for the fourth time) how to receive an answer through prayer. But this time we decided to kneel down with him right there. First, we prayed and showed him how he needs to ask and then we had him say a prayer. It was by far the best prayer I have ever heard him say, which we were way pleased with. After talking for a bit longer we both went on our ways. Then about an hour later he called and told us that he was feeling the calm and peaceful feelings that we had been talking about, that everything was starting to make sense, and that he knew The Book of Mormon was true! It was really neat. We were then able to take him to another set of missionary's baptism which was really amazing. Normally things with Aram are kind of hit and miss with meeting with him. We found out the morning of that there was going to be a baptism at the mission office for a guy from India and that it would be in English. It was perfect! We really wanted to take Aram but were pretty worried since he is usually so busy. But Elder Seegmiller and I knelt down and prayed together that
it would work out. We then called Aram and he said the usual, "I'm not sure right now, but we'll stay in contact." Things were not looking very good haha. But we continued to pray together and when we called an hour later before we needed to leave he told us that he could come. I know for a fact that the Lord was helping us and that He answered our prayer. Cause things are NEVER that easy when setting up appointments with him haha. But the baptismal service went really well and I think Aram felt the Spirit there. Elder Seegmiller and I are really excited for this next week and seeing how he progresses.
Also, we were able to work a lot with our members this last week. We got fed a ton but the meetings we had with our members were some of the best member meetings that I've ever had. The district presidency here is pushing for the members here to spend more time in Preach My Gospel and so in these meetings we taught them from different chapters from Preach My Gospel. I'm not sure if any of you have a copy of Preach My Gospel, but if you don't I hope that you can get one. I love Preach My Gospel and it has given me some amazing direction in my life. I'll let you know how the meetings go with members these next few weeks as we focus more on that. This last week was really great overall. People are slowly starting to snap back to reality here, just like most of you have been haha. I never would have imagined that an entire country would pretty much shut down for a week. It was so crazy. Sometimes we walked outside and it was like a ghost town. The Lord really blessed us with a great week and I am really thankful for that. Basically what they do here is they just fill the tables in their house with food and just invite family and friends over and have a good time. They didn't do anything special for Christmas, which was actually really sad. You couldn't tell any difference between their Christmas day and any of the other days of the week. I'm not sure why they celebrate on January 6th to be totally honest. They had some crazy decorations all around the city though. They set up some huge trees and decorated them and then some people put up Christmas lights. It was definitely very very different from how we celebrate at home. I'm just really happy that I get to be here for this next year cause it really was an exciting time. Generally, most Armenians are kind of down in the dumps but, at least for this week, everyone was really happy. So, if any of you are feeling down in the dumps, just try taking an entire week off and eating as much food as possible... The more I think about it the more I realize that that is actually not a good idea at all haha. But the Armenians seem to love it! haha.
I hope that you are all doing well and enjoying life. I wanted to share something that was said in church yesterday. One of the leaders said that we can be followers of Christ and not expect hardships or trials. But when those hardships and trials find us, we can at least rejoice in the knowledge of knowing that we are following Christ and are ready to grow and become more like Him. I know that this is true and I hope that you all can remember that if you ever feel overwhelmed or like you are having a hard time. I love you all and am thankful for all that you do for me. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Fairclough