January 23, 2012

Hey everyone!

How are you all doing this week? It was great to read all of your emails and see that you are all happy! I'm also you all got a very good laugh at imagining me cleaning for 4 hours last Monday haha. Our
place wasn't very dirty but we did all the little stuff like scub the bathroom tiles and what not so it did take a while. But now we have a squeeky clean house. As for this week, everything is going really great! I actually have some exciting news. I got a call from President Carter this morning and he told me that I'm going to be training one of the new missionaries that gets here in a few days! I'm going to be staying here in Erebuni as a District Leader and that is about all I know so far. There are two elders and one sister coming and Elder Cook, my last companion, is going to be the other Elder trainer. We
have an information meeting tonight so I'll know a little bit more about it all after tonight. I'm sad that Elder Seegmiller and I won't be serving together anymore. He is such an amazing missionary and he
has really come to be one of my closest friends. We'll keep in touch though. But I am really excited to be a trainer. It will be tough but with the help of the Lord it will all work out well. I'll let you all know who my "kid" is next week and I'll send you a picture as well! Other than that, all is going well here in Erebuni. Elder Seegmiller and I had a good week and were able to find a new investigator off of
the street. His name is Gurgen and he actually came to church yesterday. Unfortunately, he lives in the other Elder's area so we are going to have to hand him over to them. Funny story with that though. I gave the other Elders his name and number the other day and told them to give him a call and set up a meeting with him and all that good stuff. And they called me last night and were super confused. They said they called Gurgen and explained who they were and that they weren't the Elders that he had met with earlier in the week. They introduced themselves to our investigator Gurgen at church yesterday
(there is us and another companionship in our branch), and the Elder that was talking to him said that he was the one with the glasses that he met at church. And apparently the guy was like that is cool but I didn't come to church today, actually I haven't left my house today. Haha they didn't know what was going on. But Elder Seegmiller and I write down the names of all the people that we talk to on the street and if they give us their phone numbers then we write that down next to their name. But I guess we talked to more than one Gurgen last week and got both of their numbers and I gave them the wrong one... Haha oops. Oh well. Just too many Gurgens out there. But things are going well with all of our investigators. Slowly but surely some of them are coming along. We are hoping that Aram can continue to make progress. We have a baptismal date set for him for February so we'll have to
wait and see. He is doing really well though! We have a senior couple in our branch now as well and it is really cool to have them there. They are from Cache Valley and are in charge of the institute and seminary classes here in Armenia. I've done a little translating for them the past two weeks. It is really weird going from Armenian to English. I've also realized the difference between the way Armenians say things and the way we say things. Like the Armenians speaking were giving examples that made absolutely NO sense in English. Haha it was interesting to say the least. President Carter wants us to involve them in meetings with our investigators and have us translate for them. It really is great having their experience here in our meetings. We were able to have them come along for one of our meetings with Aram this last week, so the meeting was in English, but they helped out a lot. I'm looking forward to having them participate with our other investigators as well. I'll let you know how that all goes!
It was starting to warm up here until about the middle of the week last week and then it got really cold haha. Like I was getting to the point where I no longer had to wear a coat anymore and it was really nice. But then we woke up one morning and there was a good bit of snow out. So now I'm back to long johns and bundling up haha. It is good though. We stay warm and are healthy so no worries there. I'm just ready for the summer weather to get here! haha So, this is actually a really cool story. Two p-days ago Elder Seegmiller and I went with our investigator Aram to his University to play basketball. It was only the second time that I have really played here in Armenia and I was super pumped haha. It was an indoor gym but it looked like a gym from the 60's that hasn't ever been refurbished haha. But hey, a gym is a gym and there was a net and the goal was actually 10 foot so no complaints. But we had to call and get permission from President Carter cause I honestly wasn't sure if we are allowed to enter universities here in Armenia. He gave us the go ahead and said to try to pick up some investigators in the process. So, we went and it ended up just being us three playing. It was super funny though. I'll send the picture, but Aram was wearing some John Stockton shorts and a tank top and I was trying so hard not to laugh. It felt so good to shoot a basketball again haha. Long story short, one of the instructors walked in and watched us play for a bit. We told him who we are and where we are from and he seemed actually interested. He asked for a Book of Mormon and we were able to give him a Joy to the World dvd as well. Then at the end he invited us back to help train some of the guys there at the University and told us all the days and times and what not. And that night we reported this all
back to President Carter and he told us to go back once a week and play and try to use it as a missionary tool. Haha I was not expecting that. Never would have thought that I could use basketball as a finding tool but maybe it will work out. We aren't allowed to proselyte on campus but we are allowed to invite them to meet with us so we'll see if we can get anything to come of it. I'll let you know how it comes along and if it works!
So this next part is from Elder Seegmiller haha. It's a story from this past week and he told it to his family much better than I could so I had him send it on over to me haha. Funny story real quick though, I found out that Elder Fariclough does not like cockroaches! So there I was in the spare room justa puttin my tie on when I decided I wanted to throw something at Elder Fariclough. You know how that feeling is, when sometimes you just gotta do something unexpected just to keep things interesting. Well it was one of those moments so I started looking for something I could throw that wouldn't impale him but would still leave a mark. Like the sun bursting through the clouds on a rainy day, there it was! An actual size rubber cockroach! It was perfect, all I needed to do now was hit him right in the face! So I creaked the door open a bit and it was the perfect set up! I had a broad side of Elder Fairclough as he was sitting on the couch eating cornflakes staring blankly at the wall in front of him. Without making a sound I wound up, and chucked the little roach in his direction... I missed. Whizzed right by without him even noticing. Discouraged and sorely distraught I decided to be a good missionary and get back into my routine. As I fought through the emotions of complete failure I continued to tie my tie when all of a sudden I heard a blood curdling scream from the other room! I run out to find Elder Faiclough on the opposite side of the room with a look of horror on his face staring at the rubber cockroach by the couch! I asked him what the matter was and he explained how that huge cockroach had fallen on his arm from the ceiling and scared the living daylights out of him! Being the kind, loving, understanding companion that I am, through a storm of laughter I showed him that the cockroach is only rubber. Anyways I thought you might appreciate this story, Elder Fairclough is such a good sport, he laughed when it happened and wants me to send this story to him so he can send it to his family.

Hello Elder Faircloughs family, since I had to send this to Elder Fairclough I decided I wanted to say some more stuff about your son and brother Edler Fairclough real quick. I had to spice the story up a
bit to make my story sound interesting I wasn’t really trying to hurt him haha. He is such a great example to me, he truly is a natural leader and I have learned so much from him. I’m so excited for him that he gets to train a new missionary, they couldn’t have picked a better trainer, he is amazing at the language! I'm sure you already know he is amazing just as a missionary alone but I don’t know how much he has told you as far as the language goes because he is a really humble guy but he speaks perfectly. He doesn’t speak unless he knows how to say what he is trying to express and if he doesn’t know how to say it he thinks of another way to get the point across. I have often told my family that if he went to my high school we would have been best friends. I’m sure a lot of people say that about him because he such a great man! He is always telling me about his family and how great all of you are! Anyways I’m going to miss being companions with him but I gotta go now we are going to go get some burgers! 
What a good guy! I'm going to miss serving with him. I know that we are going to be great friends for the rest of our lives. Like he said, if we had gone to the same high school we would have hung out in the same group and everything. He is an amazing missionary and I have learned a great deal from him. Well, like he said, we are going to go get some burgers! I hope you all have a great week and know how much I love you all!

Love,
Elder Fairclough