May 7, 2012

Dear Family,

How is everyone doing this week?! I want to start out by saying HAPPY
MOTHER'S DAY to the best mom in the world! And also to my two lovely
sisters! I'll of course get to tell you to your faces when we skype
this weekend, but I wanted to go ahead and tell you now as well. I
can't believe it is already time to skype again. It really doesn't
feel like 5 months have passed since we last skyped. Crazy how fast
time goes by. But I'm going to send a separate email with skype times
and what not.
Also, there have been a few changes with email again and I'll be able
to give more details when we skype but we now only have an hour to
write all of our emails, which includes President Carter. So that is
why you didn't get a response from me personally last week or this
week. Sorry! I'm working on fitting it all in though. I'm going to
start printing off your emails and reading them afterwards when I have
time to enjoy them. But I'm going to try to do my best to fit answers
to all your questions into this email as well. One of the favorite
scriptures I like to share with people is Mosiah 2:41, cause when we
are obedient, we truly are blessed and happy. Thank you all for
helping me and supporting me with that!
The work is going really well here. We were able to pick up a few new
investigators this week, one of which is a 70ish year old German man.
His name is Wolfgang Rickman (isn't that such a great name?!). He
speaks perfect English and is a pretty funny guy. He is living here
cause Germany was too expensive and if he lived there he would have to
continue to work. So he has retired here in Armenia, of all places
haha. He was actually a referral from Salt Lake. Apparently he had
spoken to missionaries in Germany. He made it clear that he didn't
want to changes his religion again but he agreed to read the Book of
Mormon and give it a chance. So we'll see where this one goes!
Haik is doing really well too. He has been pretty busy with work this
week but we were able to have a great lesson with him about the Book
of Mormon. I've found in my mission that if you can get an
investigator seriously into the Book of Mormon that everything else
starts to fall into place. Anyone who sincerely reads and prays about
it will get an answer, regardless of age, social class, or how smart
you may or may not be. It just takes a willing and sincere heart. What
a blessing!
Abraham is doing well. He says hi to everyone. We are going to try to
meet with his brother and mom tonight actually. Hopefully it goes over
well. We're planning on doing a little FHE with them. They are great
people and like us a lot, just not quite sure how interested they are.
We are hoping to start teaching them and spark some more interest so
we'll have to wait and see!
A couple of you have asked about what exactly a zone leader does so
I'll go ahead and explain that. So the mission is made of zones that
consist of districts. So there are 3 zones here in Armenia with 2
districts in each. So before, when I was a district leader, I was in
charge of personally working with 6 or 8 missionaries with their work
and any other training given from the mission. And as a zone leader,
we are in charge of helping district leaders so that they can better
help the members of their district. And then their are 2 assistants to
the Mission President who help train the zone leaders and work closely
with the Mission President. Elder Steglich is an assistant still and
so we work closely with him now report to him every night, which is
fun. Hope that all makes sense!
I wanted to end on a spiritual note. I studies the principle of grace
during one of my studies this last week (thanks for the things you
wrote to me about that last week dad). In the bible dictionary, grace
is defined as divine means of help or strength, given through the
bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ. It reads in 2 Ne. 25:23,
that grace is counted unto us, AFTER we do ALL that we can do. It
hough a lot about the trials that we all face and how most of the time
the solution doesn't come until we try and try and it seems like we
can't try anything else and we have done all that we can. That is when
Christ's grace kicks in, if we are humble and turn to the Lord, like
it says in Ether 12:27, then we are given the strength to rise to any
situation, trial, or need we may have in order to go beyond our own
strength, capacities, or desires. I am so thankful for Jesus Christ
and that because of him we can be gifted with grace to overcome all
that we face in this life, no matter the circumstance or difficulty.
I love you all so much and hope that you are all doing well and having
a good week. I can't wait to skype you this weekend. See you soon!

Love,
Elder Fairclough

P.S.
Don't forget to have some questions ready for when we skype!