Week 77  Home

Well its kinda funny that I ended up writing this email on a Monday, which used to be my Pdays. As most of you already know I am officially home. It came very unexpectedly. On pday I got the call from my president that they were sending me and my coming home group home. Talk about a life-changing phone call. Well basically the rest of the day I tried to get a bunch of souvenirs and I packed. My flight was thought to leave the next day, but that was a mistake and we didn't know that til we showed up to the airport...so that was fun at 5 am in the morning. That day we chilled because our whole mission was officially on quarantine. Amazing thing was that it snowed that day. Tbilisi never snows! Small miracle. Again a late night for me. Isani sisters joined us. We heard that more missionaries from our mission (the Georgia side) were leaving. The senior missionaries, and two elders who have a chronic asthma were leaving for their safety. So, in one day basically we lost 3 missionaries and they were down to 12. Well, luckily I got a flight buddy, Elder Layton, for my flight. 

Leaving Georgia was a lot harder then I expected. I mean it was probably even harder since I wasn't able to see people before I left. I didn't believe I was leaving until I took off on the airplane from Tbilisi to Istanbul, Turkey. Its weird because I realized then just how short a mission is. Being on the plane reminded me when I left and it almost felt like yesterday when I left home, yet I know that there were many months in between that. It's funny because I feel the same I did then, but still remembering the old me seems so foreign. Hard to explain really. After crying basically the whole flight from Tbilisi we landed in Istanbul. We both had a layover of about 5 hours. Talk about boring, I couldn't sleep either. Once I boarded my next flight it was straight to San Francisco which was a 13-hour flight. Man that was the worst flight ever. Squished and exhausted but I couldn't fall asleep. I didn't eat anything too just because when I eat plane food on my first flight, I do not feel good afterwards. Well, after a super long flight I finally landed. I got to see my mom and sister in a person for the first time in a long time. One, Amy is taller which is not OK. She was smaller when I left. Second, America is huge! But, buildings are so short! I am so used to tall buildings and apartments. One thing that I won't miss is smoking, no one smokes here which is amazing!  I also, won't miss that smell. I got to see my dad later on in the week when he finally got back from his business trip.

Well, its been almost a week and it has taken a little time adjusting. I still wake up at like 5AM and I get bored pretty easily, but its getting better with each day. Sad news is that they sent 5 more missionaries home from Georgia. which means there is only 6 left. The only reason why the sisters are still there is because they couldn't get a flight to Tonga for Sister Mafi and she needs a companion. The Georgia mission is basically gone and that's so sad. Good news is that the Doctrine and Covenants, in Georgian, came out online! So there still are miracles happening!

Well I am beyond grateful for my time in Georgia as a missionary. I miss it a lot already. I grew a lot there and it truly became my second home. I am going to miss the members, the people I met and especially the missionaries, they became such a family to me. I am grateful for the all experiences I had, good and bad. I learned so much about life and the gospel and my testimony grew so much in that short span of time. My missionary time I will forever cherish.

I am currently on quarantine for 14 days, so I can not go see people at the moment but afterwards I can and would love to see anyone that would like to meet.

Well Georgia til' next time.❤🇬🇪

- და ჯენსენი

Week 76  Basically Quarantined

Well, this week did not go as planned whatsoever. Currently not in the most happiest of moods. Our mission president early in the week informed us that everything was OK, nothing to worry about the in regards to the coronavirus and then the very next day we were informed to take no public transportation, only taxis. Then the following day church was suspended and our bank accounts we were full so we could fill our apartment with 14 days worth of food. We are still not on quarantine...but we basically are. English night, game night, church, district meeting is all gone. Most finding has been suspended and the only thing left is to walk outside and go to parks. People won't accept meetings because of the coronavirus. Georgia has been flipping out. People are leaving to the villages and so our area is becoming a ghost town with each passing day. We go outside but there are barely anyone around. I'm bored out of my mind and not happy. Everything I loved about missionary work is basically gone...and I don't want to end my mission like this. Plan for today is to buy all my souvenirs because next week they might not be open. I want them at this point to put us on quarantine so that we don't force ourselves to try to make nothing into something everyday with barely any tools/options other than to walk for 7 hours....but I also will go insane if we go on quarantine. Sorry for the rant but it's been basically all that has happened this weekend.

The beginning of the week WAS good.

- met a super cool lady from France that is motorcycling around  the world

- met with Em and visionary man with a member present. Awesome meeting

- tried to find some long lost members and we got lost along with them

After that...is when the mess happened and Georgia started to flip out. All the stores are being ransacked. It's insane. We had to figure out church and put groups together with the elders. The church is already unstable over here, and now doing it this way is causing a lot of problems. But, over all it wasn't too bad. Church was an 1 hour late because members got lost. 2nd hour also didn't happen...we just had tea time really instead...yeah it was very Georgian, and it's really not tea. I gave a talk, so that was fun. Overall, not bad. We might have broken a rule though..asking president today if we can meet there. Instructions not clear to us. We do know that members are asked not come unless it they are in walk-able distance. Well, for us anything is walk-able. 30 mins why not heck we are chill with an hour. I mean during this time there is nothing else to do so why not. Anyway that was the week.

Spiritual thought: I have to say having sacrament in someone's home was weird. During the prayer we had the house owners rooster go off too. Despite the situation, I still felt the spirit. The ordinance is quite special and although it wasn't super fancy like it usually is, I still felt the all the same spirit.

Well that was the week, til next time!

-ა ჯენსენი

Week 75  Relief Society Activity

Sorry this week email is a little short, I don't have too much time. This week was fun, but it went by in a flash though. I literally can't remember too much of the week. We had some meetings, we've been trying to pass our investigators off to the Indian missionaries, and we celebrated Georgia's Mother's Day and Women's Day. I bought some flowers and gave them out to people. Also called a lot of people too. Normal missionary stuff through out the week. Weekend was a blast. Saturday we had the relief society activity where we celebrated the 178th anniversary of relief society. We are celebrating it kind of late. We made quilts all together and talk about a turn out! Nail lady came with her girls and they loved it!  Made my day! Wish I could share picture's here of it, but of course I can't. Afterwards we did the community cleaning project we have doing around the town. Our neighbor joined and the bar lady joined us as well, along with some other friends. It was great! Sunday was interesting. We went down to Rustavi to join their church service. President said we could do so. Church was so small. There were 10 people all together, 6 people and 4 missionaries. I got to give a talk which I was excited for. Although, I realized I wouldn't have a translator to translate into English so when they said you need to give a 15 minute talk in Georgian I actually had to talk for 15 minutes in Georgian. Usually, translation takes half of the time. Pushed my language abilities a bit, but it was fun. Afterwards we went and visited some people and gave out the flowers for mothers day. Later found out that our relief society fell apart while we are gone. We miss one Sunday and it's back to false doctrine. We also found some other things in regards to keeping the commandments that we will be needing to go over...this is gonna be an interesting week. Anyway nothing to crazy planned for this so we will see what happens!

Spiritual thought: I gave my talk on The Plan of Salvation. I realized just how much is in the plan of salvation...like it is a very detailed plan! I was trying to fit the entire plan into my talk and I barely did. I couldn't elaborate too much on certain parts too. There is just much. Talk about a perfect plan. I am so glad and thankful for the knowledge I have of the plan of salvation. It truly is a blessing. 

That was the week,  til next time!

- და ჯენსენი

Found some funny graffiti thought I would throw it in😂

Week 74  Small World

So this week was great! P-day was great we made khinakli and didn't go too bad actually! So a guy messaged sister Mercer and asked if she was a missionary. He said he is reading the Book of Mormon and he is really confused and wants us to teach him. He currently lives and India. I remembered that there was a kid from my stake back home  that is currently serving in India so I shot him a message, shout out to Elder Jue! So currently we are in contact with him to get this guy (I'll call him Shar) passed off to missionaries a little bit closer to where he is. We first had a meeting with Shar to get more info over phone call and man let me tell you we were very surprised by his knowledge he already had. He bought the BOM off of Amazon and started to read it!! Got stumped in 2nd Nephi. He talked about his catholic friends telling him not to read it but he said that he hadn't read anything bad in it yet and said that he would continue. So that was the fun miracle of the week. We had a lot of meetings this week. We met up with Em. She was a past investigator of mine. She isn't doing so well so we are going through the self reliance program and see if that helps her. We went back down to Rustavi on Friday. We met with nail lady again and she was so cute. She made us cheese khinakli and gifted us Georgian bottle toppers which I will probably hang up in my car when I get back. Her husband (who is a member) messaged us later and thanked us for making his wife's day which was so cute! Later we had a meeting with the grandma that we helped last week. Her son goes to Rustavis English group actually. The meeting was really weird. Everytime I tried to do the normal missionary tactics it didn't work. Tried bringing up her saint pictures on the wall and talk about Christ, but she just nodded and changed the subject. There are so many religious things in her house and we tried to make convo using them, but the conversation would constantly be switch. Even in normal conversation we couldn't hold anything. Well we thought it was a disaster of a meeting, but still decided to gift a Book of Mormon at the end. So the really cool thing about this is that a few days later the elders start to hang out with her son and the son said he wanted to read the book. Well, the next day he texts the elders to say he does not understand the Russian version very well.  This confused the elders because they hadn't given him a Russian one. Guess what?  That was ours we gave the mom! So another small miracle! Saturday we did a cleaning project which went great. Sunday we finally did the children and youth activity to explain the program. We didn't have everyone show up due to sickness, but it still went great! The kids are very excited so the work has paid all off. Another fun week ahead...this will be fun. Relief society activity and exchanges with Isani!

So don't have too much time left and I'm getting kinda lazy so this will be a fast spiritual thought: Something I learned more this week is going and doing even if you don't want to or understand why. God sometimes will give you tasks that you don't understand but trust me, there is always a miracle waiting at the end of the tunnel which always makes the task worth it.

Well that was the week, til next time!

- და ჯენსენი

Week 73  Why are we here? For Dancing?

Well, talk about a week. We had zone conference this week and we had to give a portion of the training. Zone leaders did theirs on testimonies and we did ours on teaching, specifically teaching in Georgian. A little nerve racking but to honest, it was surprisingly chill. I didn't freak out about something like this for once! We celebrated by going out to eat with an old investigator. It made the investigators day, which meant it made our day. We also met a family that night, ,man the kids were cute! Friday we were in Rustavi, met with a member and helped this lady carry her bags back to apartment. She invited us to come next week! Also,we get to meet their artist investigator next week so I'm stocked! Saturday was cool. We tried to go find members and then later we were going to do a whiteboard stand with the other sisters. But, when we were at the church about to go, I felt like we should do a Book of Mormon stand. So...we changed it. At the time it wasn't this like "this is the spirit we must go" it was more of it came to mind kind of thing. Well, it turned out great! Both of us got promising contacts, gave out a Book of Mormon, and saw some long lost inactive members along the way. So yea, I'm going to call that the spirit! Oh, that's where my title of my email comes from😂. We had a guy come up to us and say "why are are here? For dancing"? And then walked away. You always meet the most interesting people out here. Sunday was interesting. I have missed a lot of the members, since we weren't there last week (sister mercer was sick). I taught primary, which went well. I also got to skip out on translating, hallelujah! It is seriously exhausting. Our senior couple spoke and their son who was visiting...and they used very complicated phrasing. Luckily, our member who is part of the church translation team showed up so I was saved. I asked president for his talk later, so I am currently using it for language study to see if I can translate it. It definitely is a doozy. We had a missionary broadcast that day. Elder Keaton from the seventy went to Armenia and addressed the Armenian missionaries...we just called in. It was good! Today we are getting a crash course from a missionary on Georgian history. He left for an operation a while back so he did a bunch of research before we came back. We are also going to try and make khinkali!

Spiritual thought: Elder Kearon said something that made me think. He said "we as saints thrive in opposition". Well...he is right! We know why we have it (opposition) and we can get through it. We learn from it and we grow from it. I have a had a lot opposition here, and yeah at times it sucks, but I suck it up and trust in God. Once I climb "that mountain" per say, I see my progress. I see what I overcame. And well, from that I'm ready to start the next mountain. Get back up again and start up the switchbacks of another mountain. So let's keep thriving!

Well that was the week, til next time!

- და ჯენსენი 

Week 72  Lock down

Well, this has been a very unexpectedly interesting week. Kicked it off with going to Lilo, which is the 3rd largest bazaar in the world. Talk about a maze and a lot whole lot of crap. Didn't find what I wanted, but ended up finding it at our normal bazaar . We went to go find some members that lived over there and that turned out to be a major goose chase. So these inactive members phones numbers don't work so we went out to go see if they even still live there. Well for one, we went back and forth and asked a million people if she lived there. W never found her so went to another member and again the same thing. A lot people told us to ask the market people, so for future reference if your in a small town ask the market people...they know things! FYI, never found them so no success. Tuesday was...interesting. We headed down to armenia for a mission leadership conference with the zone leaders. President Picard want us to now go by public transport (instead of highering a private driver). We were going to take a marshrutka but that was full. So we took a van instead which was already pretty packed. They put all four of us (Elder Whittaker, Elder Crapo, me and Sister Mercer) in the back. Which, by the way only had three seats. So we crammed all 4 us in 3 seats. So that was a fun 6 hour drive. Once we got there we met up with some Armenian sisters and went to a meeting. I guess word got around that I know how to say my testimony in Persian so they asked me if I could do so. Of course I did. It was super cool actually, cause my memorized testimony in Persian, was on the very things we were talking about...that God loves us and hears our prayers. So looks like I'm a Persian missionary now😂. Wednesday was the meeting and it was interesting. Basically only talked about Armenia. They have 37 missionaries which means more problems I guess. We never really got to talk about Georgia and our missionaries needs. But, I am going to talk to president about that. We are all thinking about how we need one meeting like this specifically for Georgia because yeah we are the same mission but we do live in 2 different countries speaking two different languages so of course we are gonna have different problems. We have zone conference this coming week which was planned at the very last second. Sister Mercer and I are giving a training...yeah for STL life😑. Well, they made us stay til Thursday, instead of just Wednesday in Armenia. Sister Mercer got real sick during this time so we ended up taking a taxi back. More room so that was nice. Since we got back we have been inside really, since sister Mercer has been sick. Exchanges were canceled. We did some branch work and went to game night. We tried to have some meetings but we were advised not to because of illness. The Isani sisters were also sick so Sunday morning sister Mangum (senior missionary) called and said it would be best for all of us to stay home and not spread the sickness any further. The children activity was canceled yet again. I haven't been sick so I dodged that bullet. But the rest of all the sister got sick. So basically the whole weekend we were on "lock down". Nothing to crazy to report besides that. This week is zone conference and sister Mercer's birthday so that will be fun. Hopefully everyone is feeling better by then.

  

Spiritual thought: something I've been thinking a lot recently is how god prepares us for things so that later down the line you can use those learned skills another time. I have seen this countless times on my mission. Even before it too! Before my mission I was called as a gospel principles instructor which pushed me, but helped me a ton for my mission. Being a solo missionary in the MTC helped to prepare me for my mission even more so. On my mission I have experience that helped to push me so the next time something like it comes up, I'm fine and I can do it. What's so cool about this is that gods plan and the way he helps to push you and help you learn/ or prepare you is so personal. My experiences were for me, not for someone else. God knows us so well, and knows when to guide us and how yo push us. It's pretty magnificent if I say so myself. 

Well that was the week, til' next time!

- და ჯენსენი

Week 71  Karaoke for Days

This is gonna be kinda short, but I just don't have much time this week. So this week was filled with some interesting things. Finished translating the children and youth booklet. Met with some people to review it. Of course met with my favorite member. She was beyond happy when I asked her for some help. I love her! I had an interview with President Picard and he said he could send it into the area presidency and they could possibly use it the actual church transition. So woot woot! Went down to Rustavi and almost got poisoned again. Yeah why do I always have this problem. Sunday was weird, our Branch President and councilors were sick...so it was just elders running church. Like it was 2 elders in the stand and that was it. I found it kinda funny. A bunch of 20 years old trying to keep a church running. But hey it all worked out. I taught primary for the first time in a long time. It was cute, 2 of them picked a spot right next to me and the heater because "that's the best spot". Made me giggle. Well we were going to have a children and youth activity but, well, a ton of them were sick and we can't do an activity with just 2 (there is only 5 that can do the program at the moment) so we postponed until next week. Instead we did a stewardship report. Being STLs you have to meet with the zone leaders to see how we fulfilled our goals as a mission for the week and average them out. We are going down to Armenia on Tuesday for a mission leadership meeting to talk about it and other mission stuff...should be interesting. Luckily, met with someone before that. She had such a cute dog. Lot of potential too...so I'm excited! As for my title, well our neighbors have been having a nonstop karaoke party for the past 5 days. Walls are pretty thin so we hear everything. It's gone from opera, to Russian music, to american, Georgian, musicals, and even Disney songs. Nights have been a little more interesting around here. This week is packed. We have exchanges with the sister and then heading to Armenia. So lots to tell next week.

Spiritual thought: reading this week I really liked this scripture: 2 Nephi 1:20

"And he hath said that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence."

Follow God's commandments and you shall prosper in the land, or in other words prosper in life. God told me I needed to be here, and well, I listened and obeyed. I have received so many blessings from following that. I am amazed at how much I have been blessed from just being here. The people, my experiences mean the world to me. So...follow the commandments and trust me everything will turn out fine.

- და ჯენსენი

Week 70  I'm a mom again! Well, kinda 

So transfer calls happened on Monday and guess who I'm with?! Sister Mercer! For those that don't know, she was my trainee (as we like to put it in the mission, my child). So, I am beyond happy to be with her again for another 3 months. My last 3 months. What's funny is that in my entire mission, I have only had 4 companions. I served with Sister Van Brocklin, Arutunova, Mafi and Mercer. I am still in the same branch, but I did have to move to Varketili and I love it here! I am also STL (sister training leader) with Sister Mercer so this will be interesting. Ending my mission with a bang!. Ok, so the week:

Monday we were with all the missionaries since the elders (hunt and Christensen) were gonna leave on Friday. Next few days were just finishing up my time in isani. Few meetings. Met with my favorite member to go over one last thing about the priesthood. In the end we talked about her struggles and we cried a bit together. We are all on the path and sometimes you hit those very rocky moments. She is pushing through though. Thursday was transfers and I said goodbye to Isani and to Sister Mafi. To be honest it was weird the next day not to see sister Mafi since I have lived with her for 6 months😅 we set some awesome goals for the transfer, ending the mission hard! I'm stocked. We said goodbye to the elders. I got really close with those elders, they were like brothers to me. It was a sad goodbye but I know I will see them sometime when I get back. The next few days afterwards were weird, the mission has changed a lot. Everyone I knew from my first transfer has left expect for one elder. I'm a little sad to be honest because those times are over but I am excited to make new memories with this per say new mission although really it hasn't changed too much. Just two people left and we have two new people.

The next few days we had a lot of work (there is a specific word in Georgian for this and I can't translate it into English😑 its საქმე) I have been translating the children and youth program into Georgian and it is mostly done. We are having a friend of ours look through it for any mistakes at the moment. Sister Mercer has been working on the format. The primary kids, and youth, need to be doing this and it isn't their fault it's not translated. I knew it wasn't going to be translated for a long time so I decided to do it. It is almost done. We are having an activity on Sunday to explain it. Let me tell you my brain is fried, but I have to say I have learned a lot in the last few days. Sunday was interesting like it always is. In sacrament meeting sister Mercer was translating and was struggling a bit. I think I remember telling you this but Georgians are very blunt here. So a member next me was complaining a bit that when she bore her testimony that Sister Mercer's translation was bad. Well, I was not gonna to listen to that so I went up to bare my testimony about weaknesses and remembering that we are all trying, ourselves and others. I know pretty bold, but hey, its Georgia that's how you do it here. There is no beating around the bush. I shared my favorite scripture of course Ether 12:27. Later sister Mercer told me she was about to start crying but when I went up and shared my testimony it really helped her out. So yeah for the spirit pushing me to do that! Second hour I partially translated for RS, but then a member took over, which I was chill with. I was doing fine but he wanted it perfect so I let him take it. He is a translator, so I'm not gonna say no. Which by the way Sunday school was great. They had a meeting and talked with him and boy did he step up!  Best lesson yet! After church boy my mind was everywhere. I had a bunch of people just swarm to me. Dealing with the doctrine and covenant translations (they have finished translating it by the way and the members are currently reading it as a proof read!), president asking about members, primary kids literally hanging on me, translating for the senior couple, and just all questions at once. I just stood in the hallway and everyone came to me. Man this it what it feels like to be an old missionary in Georgia...yah for responsibility😅. Something cool happened later on Sunday but it will be in the spiritual thought. That was basically the week. Nothing too special, we just have a lot of church business going on and so finding hasn't been happening. But, hopefully we will be done by Thursday so I can go knock!

Spiritual thought: This is actually a funny story. So coming back Sunday night we were hungry, but the only thing we had at home was rice. We wanted khachapuri real bad. So we started talking about buying it. Well it's the sabbath so we shouldn't do that right? Well we started thinking what if it's just a cultural thing in the church and is not actually a rule. Well standing outside of a bakery we searched all through gospel library to see if we could buy khachapuri on the sabbath to eat...well the more we read the more we realized that we shouldn't so we sadly left the bakery empty handed. Well, on our way home is a fruit stand. We say hi to the fruit stand ladies everyday. Last transfer the sisters did too but they never had a conversation with them. Well...today was the day. They stopped us an asked us a bunch of questions and it was a great conversation about who we are and why we are here. Walking away from that we both knew it was a blessing for not buying that khachpuri and keeping the sabbath day holy. I think God got a good chuckle from this experiences as well. So keep the commandments you'll be blessed! It works! Even if it's as simple as saying no to buying a cheap khachapuri on the sabbath. That night

ended with us happily eating our rice.

Well that is the week, til next time!

- და ჯენსენი

Week 69  Soup for Days

Talk about a week! Started out with a wheelchair project. Last year we did this too. We unloaded a whole truck of donated wheelchairs and man talk about a tiring day. Later went to a digital space museum with the sisters, super cool! We had exchanges this week and I was with Sister Gehring which was so fun. We met with a few members and did some finding together. We taught about the Melchizedek priesthood to a member and we had the elders with us so she could do a small "interview" with them as she called it. Also, we met with a member family here that I am in love with! Their daughters are adorable and seem to always cling to me. Turns out one of the girls gets baptized a few days after I leave which made me soooooo sad! Looks like I am face timing in! Then Thursday happened, the big day. We had the area president come for zone conference, President Golden. He is from South Africa. Awesome guy! Interesting accent. Turns out he did a stake conference in Livermore back in 2010!-hence the reason I don't remember, I was 11. He showed me a picture of him and the old stake president, President Alexander. Talk about a small world. We had a fireside that night. He actually interviewed me which I will talk about later. Weekend was chill. Currently translating the children and youth booklet into Georgian. We have a few kids qualified and I am working on having an activity where we go over the program. Sunday was chill didn't have to do anything really, for once. Yay for breaks. Though I didn't have the best day. Some days I wake up and I'm like I can speak Georgian...other days quite the opposite. I was having that day. Also didn't help that half of relief society was in Russian...so couldn't understand anyway. Although at times it was in Georgian, but my brain just couldn't figure it out. So frustrating. OK now to the reason of my title. We have been making a lot of soup recently cause it is soooooo cold and it's nice to eat. We told that to one of my favorite members and she asked if we have tried Borshe (russian cabbage soup which is literally purple) and I said once but it wasn't very good because a missionary made it. She said she would make it for us. Well, Sunday I walk into the sacrament room and she hands me a bag with a container of borshe!!! I love her so much! It was actually pretty good, so borshe, highly suggest. Transfers happen this week and as of right don't know where I am going. This is my last transfer...which is crazy to think about. I really want to stay in this branch! My favorite people are here! My last bit of time left I want to spend with these people.

Spiritual thought: I don't know how spiritual this is for others but it was spiritual for me. These past few weeks has been kinda ruff for me to be honest. I've been just pretty hard on myself and beating myself up. It's just hard when I feel Georgia deserves so much better. There is so much to do here since the church is so new so it sometimes feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. I want to be the best at this, but at times I only see myself failing. Anyway that's been on my mind recently. Broke down actually after a priesthood blessing which freaked the elders out😅. I got a bit better. Well, when President Golden came he wanted to interview a few missionaries and I was one of them. I told him a few of my thoughts and he just looked at me and said "stop that, stop beating yourself up". He proceeded to go on about a few things that I was thinking about. Basically a lot of things I really needed to hear. He then said he knew we needed to meet so I could end my mission without these thoughts. Also said not to think about that type of stuff for the rest of my life not just on my mission.😅  God loves me and is proud of me was the gist of it his message. I have seen in the past few weeks with having certain experiences where I can feel God saying I'm doing ok and keep going. This was the cherry on top. With that in mind I know just how much God loves his children and truly cares about them, even if it's just a good pick me up.

Well that is the week,til next time!

Forgot! It was my companions, sister mafia's, birthday!

- და ჯენსენი

Week 68  Bible Bashing with a Priest

[Parent note: This is a picture of Rachel she sent to us this week after her first haircut in Georgia . She was so afraid of getting her hair wacked because an old companion had that done on accident. She also had to wait until she knew enough hair cutting vocabulary to describe how she wanted it cut. This is such a classic Rachel pose and expression]

It was another interesting week.  One, we celebrated orthodox new years. We had the sisters over Monday (Mercer and Reynolds). We did proselyting before and so we had the night to party. Made pizza and did make overs. Yup, super girly stuff that I never thought I would do but here we are. Over here they have Georgian Christmas trees which they burn on the orthodox new year. So we did that. I didn't burn the big one I bought...cause I don't want to burn down our apartment building...looks like the Isani Sister's apartment is stuck with the tree for a bit😅. More knocking and finding this week. When we were walking home we got stopped by 2 guys. By the way, this is on a busy street, so mother calm down. Anyway they both were holding  beer...so I was like this might end interesting. They were nice and were just interested in why we were both holding the same book, yeah we were happy to tell them why. We talked about our church and well it turns out one of them was a priest...and he was all ready to prove us wrong. Yeah, I had to bite my tongue a lot. The other guy was chill and was helping us out actually...but the priest guy was just not having it. We eventually just told them we we had meeting because it wasn't productive. He was chill and kissed our hands at the end.  The blood was boiling a little afterwards but hey it's not a mission unless you get a little bible bashed at times, right? We met with one of my favorite members and she came all prepared. Last week we asked if she had read a certain book about the Priesthood we gave her. She was like "oh we don't need to know about the priesthood, that's the boys thing". Yeah we set up a follow up meeting real fast. We told her to read a few chapters before next meeting and she comes back and has taken full on notes and basically made our lesson without even knowing it. She is amazing! Oh we are teaming up over here with Carista which is a catholic charity group. Tonight we went on a tour of the place. We will finally be having regular service time through out the week! It was amazing and they also have an art therapy part and I seriously hope they let me volunteer there soon. Thursday we said goodbye to visionary man. He is gone for a few months to a certain country of which I cannot name. I thought it was my last goodbye to him but he gets back just a few weeks before I leave, so yeah! He gave me some advice before I left and man did he hit the hammer right on the nail. Everything he said was something I was seriously scared about or have been worrying about recently. He was like I don't know why I am saying this but it's coming to my mind. I of course was like that's the spirit, please continue. Friday we met with another member down in Rustavi and she fed us soggy xinkali...I had 6 cause she wouldn't let us leave unless we had that many. I did not feel good afterwards. Saturday we had a sushi party with a contact of ours with the other missionaries. He is super cool and it was a blast! Sunday was well a mess. I got out of it though so because I had to help in primary. I felt bad for the other missionaries though. I finally gave my talk this time, recall I was sick last Sunday. All the members really loved it, which was great. We went up to the primary room and guess what?! Primary has improved and we are actually having lessons. Yeah for progress! We mad an iron rod out of scarfs and jumping ropes. Kids loved it. While we were having a blast in primary, Sunday School was falling apart. We have been struggling with our Sunday school teacher for a while now. He speaks English but we English speakers don't understand most of what he is teaching and he usually teaches the doctrine wrong...well I left all the younger missionaries to translate and I guess it didn't end well. I basically had to straight out tell him he was wrong. Georgians over here are blunt. Us Americans and foreigners it can come off rude. But, for them it's normal. Well they just kinda drilled the missionaries about how they don't know the language...which I felt real bad about cause it wasn't even their fault. We have been struggling with the teacher because he doesn't make sense. It's hard enough to understand in one language let alone having to translate into another language, one you are learning. So looks like I'm probably translating next Sunday school. I'm officially old...missionaries are turning to me for things which is weird. I mean they started doing that this transfer, 3 months ago, asking me to plan things and do certain member stuff, but this made me realize even more that I seriously am the oldest sister missionary. I'm still a child! I don't get this😅!

Spiritual thought: I thought I give you little from my talk I gave in sacrament meeting yesterday. I actually basically gave my farewell talk I gave in america. I talked about the continual strengthening of your testimony. I gave my analogy of when I lost weight. I did small things everyday and I kept on doing them. It is a lifestyle because temporary changes do not have long lasting effects. Your testimony is the same. We have to do little things everyday to keep our testimony growing and strong, everyday! I talked about the three things that we need to do. Pray everyday, read the scriptures and go to church. All are simple yet very important and they help us deepen our faith which we need. I highly recommend listening to or reading Elder Johnson in the last October session. He talks about this and it is a great talk. 

Well that was the week, til next time!

-და ჯენსენი 

Week 67  შობა (Shoba)

Well, we had Georgian Christmas and it was fun. Got to see the parade thing again this year and it was amazing. Lots of incenses burned and priests going around a flicking holy water at people. What a day. It was weird to see Alilo Parade come to the big church again. Through me back a little. Wow how much time has passed. The mission has changed so much as well. We did some more "finding" this week. It's been a while. With all the activities and the hectic holiday schedule we haven't gone out finding too much. So back into the good old missionary work. We went knocking, did some Book of Mormon stands. Not really any real potentials this week but we will keep on going! We did have some meetings with some members this week. Friday was fun. We met with nail lady and her kids. We basically just had a dance party. What's funny is they showed me the new BTS song that came out😅. I guess I never have to worry about finding out what's new with them...it seems to always follow me.  We had another meeting with a member where she fed us this weird warm raspberry jello thing. Well, not really jello. It had the consistency of snot...tasted like straight up cough medicine and I think it was. Well that wrecked me for the weekend. My stomach was destroyed. It wasn't too bad on Saturday, but Sunday it hit...and yeah no good. I was supposed to give a talk, but we moved it to next week. It looks like every time I'm supposed to give a talk the adversary tries to poison me. Yeah so Sunday wasn't really that interesting. Oh, I forgot to tell you one of our elders left this week. He supposed to leave in 3 weeks but he got the OK to leave early. So right now we are pretty small mission....7 elders and 6 sisters. Kinda crazy. Today we are celebrating the Old Georgian New Year with everyone. Georgian's new years is on the 14th. So we get 2 Christmases and 2 new years. What a country!

Spiritual thought: This will be more of a fangirl moment hope that is ok! Come follow me! I hope your doing it! What an amazing program and I am so excited for this upcoming year. Already I am loving the 2020 come follow me curriculum. I am excited to see what more I can get out of the Book of Mormon. I have read it multiple times and I'm intrigued to see during this year how much more I will get out of it. 

That was the week, til next time

- და ჯენსენი

Week 66  New Year 2020!

Happy new years and შობას გილოცავთ (Merry Georgian Christmas. Georgians celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January)! I cant believe that it is 2020. I feel like it was yesterday when I was in my training when the 2019 new year hit. Well, 2019 went by in a blur. Monday was the branch Christmas activity and it was so fun. The missionaries did a nativity scene reenactment that one of members put together. It was really well planned out, and actually went amazing. I was Mary or over here they call her Mariami. Tuesday everything started to close down. We had to be inside by 6pm for safety and the sisters came to our apartment (sister mercer and sister Reynolds). We partied hard, lol. We made pizza, ate a ton of sugar, watched the Best Two Years, and basically just goofed around until the fireworks. So here in Georgia new years is insane, everyone does fireworks. So it's a 360 degree firework show. We went on the roof and watched it. Almost got hit by a firework actually😅. People just shoot them off their balconies...probably not the safest thing but its super cool to watch! The next day Georgia is a ghost town, everything is closed and no one really is outside. We joined a meeting with the sisters investigator cause the guy they are teaching is moving and I wanted to say goodbye. When Sister Mercer and I were on splits we found this guy. He is super cool and has already finished reading the Book of Mormon and knows it's true. I got to use my Persian testimony on him too! H said I have a good accent. So "imma" going to learn Persian when I get home. Add that on to my Japanese. We deep cleaned the downstairs library/closet finally, there was so much unneeded crap down there, I'll will attach a picture of all the stuff we had to throw out. Mom would not approve of that closet. Friday we met with some members in Rustavi. Saturday we went to an old folks home with all the missionaries. It was the same one I went to last year around Christmas. We danced and sang and later they fed us something called ღომი (ghomi) which is corn meal and cheese curds on top...not a fan. I gave most of mine to the elders. Sunday was a little sad, one of the members passed away. It was cool however to see how many people went up to bare there testimony about the Plan of Salvation. I also went up if you believe that! I have never voluntarily went up to give my testimony. Usually someone has to ask me or I have born it at the end of a lesson or talk.  But, this time I went up. I shared about my experience with my grandmother passing. I talked about how I was a little angry at God for letting such a sad thing happen during the Christmas season, but later the spirit reminded me of the real reason we celebrate Christmas and that is Christ. So my anger turned to gratitude remembering that because of Christ our families can be together again. We taught primary after that and as usually it was insane...but it has gotten a little better so yeah for more progress. Monday we went to go see the family members of the person who passed away with the missionaries in the branch and some members...well we all got lost for like 3 hours only to find the place and then to find them not even there....yeah that was interesting.

Spiritual thought: Well, my year to the lord, 2019, is officially over...and it's kinda weird. (that's we call it on our mission, a full year of missionary service). Wow how much has happened in the past year and oh how much I have learned. God has been with my through all of it and it's cool to look back and see that. I wouldn't take back this year for anything. 2019 is year I will never forget. I have met so many amazing people, made so many meaningful memories, and have gotten so much closer to God through it all. I will cherish this time for the rest of my life. This year my resolutions are different, since last time when I made them I knew I was going to be a missionary the entire year...now I only got like 3 months....which is weird. I still have a lot of time...but not like a full year like before. Man how time flies. Overall I've never been so happy in my life and I know the main reason is because I never been this close to God before in my life. They're right when they say the gospel brings so much joy, because I can feel it.

Well that was the week(and year😉) til next time!

-და ჯენსენი 

Week 65  Christmas With Another Family

So talk about an interesting week. First, Merry Christmas! I celebrated my last Christmas in Georgia. I have to say I am so glad I got to spend 2 Christmases in Georgia. The beginning of the week was actually a little hard for me. For those that don't know one of my grandmothers passed away this week and it was a sad goodbye. It however was still peaceful knowing that this goodbye is only temporary. The passing hit me with a little homesickness...so for the first time, really, on my mission I was homesick. But, with the help of my other family out here, the missionaries, I felt a lot better. Even though I was missing my family back home I was still fine and happy because I was with another family of mine. We had Christmas dinner with "visionary man" and his brother along with all the missionaries Monday. We visited Em with the sisters to do a pass off. We had a Christmas breakfast with a member and all the sisters. We had Christmas dinner with the missionaries at the senior couples apartment. Afterwards, we played board games at the church while we called our families. Thursday to Saturday was when we headed down to Armenia to celebrate the holiday with the rest of the mission. 6 hour drive both down and back up. I got to be with some of the sisters in my MTC group! It was so awesome to see them again and to see how far we have all come. Wow how times passes. I also realized how different the mission is down there. Every time I walked in to a church it was so big! And there were so many missionaries! 37 Armenians and 14 Georgians. So the mission conference there we had a ton of missionaries. As much as I loved  visiting Armenia and the missionaries down there, I could still feel how right it felt to be with the Georgian missionaries and to serve in Georgia. It was a testament to me that I am where God needs me, in Georgia with the people I serve  with and who I serve. I got to go to a branch activity in Armenia and I tried my best to interact with the members...basically only could say hello and how are you.😂 Mission conference was a blast. Awesome "trainies" did some skits and later we caroled in the rain. Sunday was pretty chill for once. I had really nothing to do. Elders taught second hour and the other sisters taught primary. So I had a chill Sunday for once! Church was also pretty small...like only 15 people showed up😅 but it was good none the less. The music guy came again to church so that was cool! Today we have our Christmas branch activity so that will be fun. 

Spiritual thought: This week I am grateful for the plan of salvation in a lot of ways. One being that we can be with our families again. Another being Christ and the role he has in our lives. Another being how perfect the plan is to each and every one of us. Like this plan is amazing and it is such a blessing in so many ways. If you truly study the plan of salvation you can clearly see just how much God loves us because each part, is a testament of how much he cares for us.

Well the next time I email it will be 2020, so til' next year!

- და ჯენსენი