February 13, 2012

Hey everyone!

How are you all doing this fine week? As always, it was great to sit down and read all of your emails and see that you are all doing well. I really feel like I was just sitting at this computer emailing you
all. I can hardly believe that it has been another week. Time flies when you're having fun! Everything is going great here in Armenia though!
I'll start out by telling you all a bit about the work this last week. We were able to meet with the man from Russia (Arshon is his name), his wife (Arpine), and her father (David) this last week. It went
really well. Arpine had a billion questions, which made it a little difficult to teach her haha, but the questions that she had were really good. Funny story with that. We were getting to know them a little bit and they were looking at our pictures and I was explaining our family and what not. And they were ask a ton of random questions. They started asking me questions like if we own our house and how much dad makes and I was like I have no idea actually haha. And they were like how do you not know that, they're your family aren't they. And I had to explain that parents don't usually share those types of things with their kids, which they didn't really understand cause here they know pretty much everything about their kids and parents. But here is where the funny part comes in. She asked me what dad does and I've never had to tell anyone that here. Because Armenian is such an old language they don't have a lot of the more modernized words so they just use the Russian words, which are sometimes very similar to the English word. So sometimes you can just throw an English word out there and just hope that the Russian word is similar and then they'll understand. Very risky business though and most the time it doesn't work haha. But I through designer out there and Arpine was like, "oh yeah, that is so cool. I am a designer too." And then I realized that she she was talking about like a clothes designer haha. I quickly corrected her on that one and made sure they understood that my dad
isn't a clothes designer haha. Good times. But Arpine and Arshon came to church yesterday and stayed the whole time! Also, we are working with a lady named Greta. She is what we call an "eternal
investigator", which means she is someone who is interested but never does everything they need to, just some of things, so they get dropped for a while and then they start investigating again a little later and then the same thing happens. Kind of sad. But she called and told a set of sisters that she wanted to get baptized and turns out that she lives in our area. So, we've been working with her for a little bit and it seemed like she'd make steps of progress and then steps back. The big struggle with her has been getting her to come to church. Cause she is reading and praying. But for some reason she hasn't been
coming. So, we've been working with her on the things that she needs to do in order to be baptized. And I'm not quite sure what made the difference but she finally came to church yesterday! We were so glad to see her there. She stayed the whole time and participated. To be totally honest I'm not sure what the difference was but we are really thankful that she came! haha. Aram is doing okay. He has kind of
started to plateau a little bit. He has been getting really busy with school and hasn't had a lot of time to meet with us or anything like that. We are still trying to work with him but not sure for how much longer. Hopefully something turns around this next week. If not, then we might need to stop teaching him for now. So, we'll see how it all goes this next week. I really do love being a missionary and doing
this work. It really is a blessing to be able to share the gospel. At times it can be really difficult, but it is always worth it. Everything is going really well with Elder Rackham. He is such a good missionary. He works really hard and is doing great. It is really interesting training cause I remember how I was feeling at that time and how foreign everything seemed but now it all just seems so normal to me. I also remember how frustrating it was with the language sometimes, but as I look back on my training that isn't what I think of. All I remember really from my training is how happy I was and all the good experiences. I've been relating these things to Elder Rackham in hopes that he isn't getting frustrating with the language. So, hopefully it's helping. It really helped me to realize that as long as we are doing our best and keeping a good attitude about things, to the best that we can, that when we look back we won't see the frustration or shortcomings, rather we'll see the happiness and the good memories. A very comforting thought. But it has also been really great to see how much he is improving on a weekly and even daily basis. It's helping me to keep an eye open for the progress that I myself am making as well. Overall, training is a really great experience so far! The weather has been really crazy here this last week. It snowed a couple feet earlier on in the week and was pretty cold. The weather has heated up a little bit, but not much and there is still a ton of snow. We were able to go do some service for a member out in a village and we shoveled snow for him and for this other old lady. As I was shoveling I realized that I've never really had to shovel snow before haha. Which made me realize that this is the most snow that I have ever seen or lived in. But it was really good to get out and help some
of our members and get some energy out haha. So, really exciting news. I'M GOING BACK TO CHAR THIS WEEK. Haha hopefully you caught my excitement. I'm going there on an exchange, so
I'll only be there for two days but I'm really looking forward to going back and seeing everyone. I'm especially excited because I can actually talk and understand now haha. But be prepared for a full
report on how that goes next week! haha. Well, I love you all so much and am so grateful for all of your support. You're all the best! Know that you're in my prayers daily. Happy Valentines day!

Love,
Elder Fairclough