May 21, 2012

How are you all doing? It's been another great week here in Armenia.
I've some exciting news too. As of Friday, I have officially been in
Armenia for a year! Isn't that crazy?! I can't believe how fast this
past year went by. But I've got a lot to fill you in on so I'll go
ahead and get started.
We had an amazing meeting with Aram the other day. He is doing so
great and working his way towards baptism! One thing we have been
trying to help him understand a little better is the concept of sin
and repentance. So we had been trying to figure out how we could help
him understand those principles and the other day when we met he told
us about an experience he had had. Apparently he was in a store with
some friends and they were goofing around and a window got broken. The
store manager told him he had 30 minutes to pay for the broken window
or else he was going to call the police. Neither Aram nor his friend
had the money, so Aram had to call another friend to come and pay for
him. Are you seeing how perfectly that all fits together with
repentance and the atonement? haha. Elder Peterson and my eyes both
got really big as we were listening to him tell us this. So we tied
him breaking the window in as him sinning and him calling his friend
to come pay for the window as him calling on Christ to be freed from
the burdens of sin. It was so amazing to just see it all click and
make sense to him. Big, tough Aram who wants to be a body builder like
Arnold Shwartzineger (?), was left there with tears in his eyes as he
made the connection that Christ is His Savior. The Holy Ghost was so
strong and it was a meeting that I will never ever forget. I know that
Jesus Christ is my Savior and that he suffered for pains, afflictions,
and for my sins so that I can call on Him when I am in those moments
of need and distress.
We also had a great meeting with Abraham this last week. He met with
President Carter yesterday and he told Abraham that in October they
can start working on his mission papers! How cool is that?! Abraham's
B-day is the 31 of this month and he wants to have a little party and
he invited President Carter and us and some other missionaries. But we
have zone leader council that day so I wasn't sure if we were going to
be able to go. But President Carter told him that he'd bring us all in
his car to his party after our meeting haha. Abraham says hi and hopes
that you are all well!
I also had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Steglich this
last week. It was so great. I always wondered what it would be like
serving with him once I knew the language better and it turned out as
great as I thought it would be. Even though the exchange was only for
a day I was able to learn so many things that I can do better with and
improve on, just by watching his example. It was funny cause a year
ago I had just gotten to country and here we were a year later,
serving together again for a day. We had a great time and I learned a
ton from him. I'm just crossing my fingers that we can somehow
miraculously serve together again haha.
I'll end this weeks letter with a funny story. I realized last week
that I haven't been sharing funny experiences lately and I don't want
you all to think that I've lost my humor...haha. I haven't said a
whole lot about Elder Peterson so I'll share one with him. He is such
a great missionary. He's what I call a busy bee, he always has to be
doing something or speaking to someone. So, last Prep day I was super
tired cause we had had to get up real early so that he could go skype
his family for Mother's day. So we got back and I just crashed and
took a nice long nap haha. And when I got up he was deeply insued in a
game of Monopoly...against himself haha. I mean he had cards and money
going and was even talking to himself. My initial thought was, "man, I
must be driving him crazy" haha. I was such a party pooper! haha. But
I will have you all know that I play games happily these days without
being begged to do so haha. Well, I think that's it for this week. I
hope you are all doing well and know that I love you! Have a great
week!

Love,

Elder Fairclough