Week 13  Christmas Week

This week went by in a blur and it felt like I skyped my family like 3 months ago.....my concept of time is out the window. This week started out great with Christmas Eve. We met with all the missionaries at the Donovan’s (senior missionaries) for a late breakfast. We did a secret Santa exchange. For Pday we basically hung out with all of the missionaries. Then it was Christmas. We went to an American family’s (affiliated with the Embassy) home for dinner, and let me tell you the food was AMAZING. Then we left to skype our families. Skype, the website, didn't work so we had to use another video chat app called Google Hangout. It was great to hear from my family and actually go into more detail about things. Amy cried a lot in the call which was sad. Love you Amy! Bore my testimony, which I realized later I used the wrong tense for "to have"......so I said the church had his gospel...probably...oops. Sorry teachers! And just like that it was over. I'm surprised I didn't cry, but then again I haven't felt too homesick – no offense fam. That might change in the next 5 months, but we will have to see. Wednesday rolled around and this was my favorite day of the week! We went to an old folk’s home in another city with all the missionaries. The old people were very sweet although no one had really any idea what they were saying because they didn't really have any teeth or some only spoke Russian. Some played the piano and others the accordion for us. IT WAS SOOOOO COOL! I took videos of course, love looking back on them. Then the workers fed us like grits with cheese on them, which we ate with our hands....it was very weird and still haven't decided if I like it or not. The worker lady really liked me for some reason. On my way out she hugged me then she whispered something in my ear and gave me huge smile. I just said thank you and moved on but luckily another sister heard and translated for me. [Parent interjection: Rachel...what did she say?] We went caroling a lot this week. Christmas in Georgia isn't until the 7th of January so we get an extra Christmas and longer holiday season. On one of our finding days I stopped a lady with a husky....mainly to pet her dog because the dog looked super clean. I went up asked her to pet it and we ended up talking to her and she wanted us to come over. We went over another day which the whole set up was weird cause she wanted to meet on the street. We met up with her and she walked us to her apartment. Her apartment was super nice like almost American looking. Very rich lady. She talked a lot about her son who is about our age. I think she wants to set us up with her son.....so that's awkward. Her son by the way was very weird. He came home while we were there with his friend changed his shirt multiple times. At one point came in to the kitchen trying to cover his chest because he was shirtless and to get a drink. Threw a tantrum about a certain shirt to his mom before finally sitting down...interesting guy. We have another meeting with them because we ran out of time to go full into a lesson. Don't know when we will meet again but next visit will be very interesting. Today was super fun and I will go more into detail next email. I will have a lot of really cool pictures of New Years. Georgia goes insane over New Year so I am super excited about that. 

And that was basically my week. It was fun doing service for others and seeing them so happy over it. That's the part of I love about missionary work is meeting people, sometimes very interesting people, and serving and helping them. [Parent note: what happened to our introverted daughter?]

Well until next week!

-და ჯენსენი

P.S. We got Wendy's for Christmas Eve dinner!!

Week 12   შობას გილოცავთ!!!!!!!

[Merry Christmas]

Just like that yet another week done. This week was crazy and I can't believe it's over. This week started out great because we had a meeting with a Ukrainian referral. When a member went up to the temple not too long ago, one of the members over in Ukrainian said to send the missionaries over to some relatives in Georgia. We were those missionaries! So with the Donovan’s [senior missionaries] and the Georgian member we all went to their apartment. It was awesome and they were very interested. The Georgian member testified about the temple and what they did there. She was so awesome! We plan on meeting with them again soon. I am super excited about these people! I did exchanges this week with another sister (Sister Myers) and it was super fun! Sadly our alarm didn't go off that morning so......we slept in on accident......still not happy about that. I have no idea why BOTH of our alarms didn't go off. Oh well, the rest of the day was super fun. We met up with a Georgian who lived in England at one point. She was super cool and had an English accent. The best! I got to share the spiritual thought before we left (luckily in English) and it went well. Then Saturday we had a zone conference which was basically a Christmas party with all the missionaries. Super fun and then later that day we went caroling. That was awesome aside from the fact at one point all of us sisters got a kiss on the hand by some random drunk men.........yeah that was "nice". Sunday was cool, we had a small linger longer with the branch. It went really well! The American Embassy families really chipped in with this one which was great. And now we are here. We have a fun Pday planned with everyone being Christmas Eve. All of us sisters in our branch are going to go caroling to some of the inactive and active members in our areas, so that will be fun.

This week was amazing because we really focus all our lessons around Christ. We got to tell of His story and that He lives. That because of Him our lives are so much brighter. Christ adds light to every dark and dreary day, week, and sometimes years of our lives. He truly is our perfect brightness of hope. We got to see people come closer to Christ this week and it was amazing to see. I really could feel Christ's love for people even more than I have before. I really hope to keep that throughout my mission and even past that. 

Merry Christmas everyone! შობას გილოცავთ!!!!!!!

-და ჯენსენი

Week 11  "Knocking is so fun!"

Another week done! I actually hit my week mark a couple of days ago. Although, with the amount of work we've been doing it feels like I've been here longer than a week. It was a super fun and very interesting week. I went knocking doors for the first time this week. Let me tell you, knocking is so fun. Like I still have no idea what anyone is saying half the time (or probably all the time), but the people here are so interesting....and kind of weird at times. But, that's the best part. I love korpises (apartment buildings) because the stairs are so sketchy and half the time it looks like no one lives there. The best! During my first “knocking” we were invited in by this professor lady. She was very passionate and talked about how she was born during the communist time she is not religious. She said multiple times how she can't understand it, meaning religion. But she gave us a referral and so we met with her at work...at the university to meet her friend. This is where it gets interesting. Her friend wasn't there so we just ended up talking to her, the lady that said she doesn’t like religion. She read the pamphlet and the website and again said she doesn't understand the need for religion. We had to drop her sadly because of that. She proceeded to tell us how technically we weren't allowed to be there, so I don't why she thought this was a good place to meet. Anyway, she made sure that we hid our pamphlets and her friend walked us out.....so I probably could have been arrested. The university by the way looks like an abandoned hospital from a horror film....very interesting (see photo). Another time we accidentally knocked on an inactive member's house, so we hitting up their apartment soon. There is another cool story I would tell, but I'll tell it to you next week because we are meeting with them this week. I'm really excited because everything has been lining up perfectly with them so far. 

Other fun stuff: I ate at an Iraqian's house this week. They made homemade falafels for us. Super good. Parents I thought of you the whole times because I knew you would love them.

Spiritual thought: Read Mosiah 16:9. It is a super powerful verse about Christ and it goes perfectly with the Light the World that is happening right now.

Til next week!

-და ჯენსნეი

P.S. Exerts from responses to parents emails:

• Grocery stores are so different and hard to tell what is what because it most all the food labels are in Russian.
• Everything is super cheap here.
• I've tried a lot of food and yes I tried the churchkhela [hazelnut or walnuts dipped in flour, sugar and grape juice mixture] it was pretty good, not my favorite of the Georgian food though.
• I am eating at a member’s house for Christmas (American Embassy family).
• There is a huge possibly we have to turn in early cause of drunk people during the end of day. Past missionaries had to go in early during big holidays because of that, its chill though me and my companions made some fun plans if we do. 
• I will take a picture of a Georgian Christmas tree that we plan of getting today. Look them up there are so weird, but so awesome.
• I hope I get to show you the mission afterwards, because there is a lot of things here that I'm like oh Dad would totally love this or Mom would totally love this.
• Sister Van Broklin is super nice and so is everyone else. She is so excited about the work and knows Georgian very well.  

Week 10  Finally in Georgia!

Rachel has been looking forward to seeing this church since she was called. It is one of the largest churches in the world. It is called the Holy Trinity Cathedral, aka Sameba.

Rachel in Georiga. They are holding a very typical treat in Georiga. It's called Churchkhela. It's either hazelnut or walnuts dipped in flour, sugar and grape juice mixture. She didn't say if she liked it or not. 

Hey everyone! I am finally in Georgia. It's been a crazy past week. It went from finishing up my stay at the MTC, traveling, traveling some more, and finally doing missionary stuff in Georgia. My MTC stay was awesome I met some pretty amazing people. To my teachers who might read this, y'all were amazing! Because of you and you pushing me to my best, I am able to do things here without fear and just dive in which I never thought I would be able to do. 

Rachel's trainers in the MTC. Brother Muir, Brother Van Allen, Sister Reece, and Rachel

Traveling to Georgia was a process. It all started Utah where we travel to LAX. I saw Elder and Sister Black on the plane in Salt Lake City. They were flying back to Chile after visiting Utah for a granddaughter’s baptism. [parent note: Ken and Janelle Black are from our home ward in Livermore, and are serving a senior mission in Santiago Chile. Senior couples have different rules than regular missionaries. They can leave their missions for family events. Rachel has known them her whole life.] It was good to see some familiar faces. Los Angeles was a whirl wind. Trying to get to our gate, call our families, and eat all while trying to stick somewhat together. Calling home for some was a struggle, many of missionaries calling cards did work or only gave them a few minutes. Luckily, mine worked just fine and I had a long phone call with the family [parent note: Amy and I were at home and dad was on speaker from his car. He was on travel for work.  The call was 40 minutes long, but felt like only 4] The flight to Moscow Russia I was lucky because no one was sitting next to me so I passed out for a good solid 10 hours, my body was exhausted! From Moscow Russia we flew to Yerevan, Armenia and then drove to the mission home. I was there for the night.  It was there were I meet up with a Georgian sister missionary who had been helping out at the mission home. Together we travel another 6 hours to Tbilisi, Georgia by car. The car ride was so bumpy with a lot of turns and twists, I even got car sick and I never get car sick. By the way drivers here are insane, almost got into a wreck like the first day on the mission. When we got to Tbilisi one of the roads were blocked so we had to get our luggage and walk for 5 minutes to the church where I met my trainer/companion Sister Van Broklian (I think that's how you spell it in English....). After that we went to our apartment in Saburtalo. We are the farthest away from all the missionaries and it takes a long time to get to church. Sister missionaries actually haven't been in the area for a long time so that's really cool. Friday I had a “cultural day” and saw a bunch of sights and had dinner with the all the missionaries. Georgian food is sooooo good. Saturday we had a baptism which was all in Russian, so that was interesting. After that we went caroling in the city. I did some finding there, but most of the people that spoke to us spoke English. Sunday was cool because the branch that I am in has people from all around the world. I heard 7 different languages during the entirety of church. I gave a talk that Sunday which was chill. What was crazy was that I wasn't even nervous for it. Church is small, but the people there are great. That night we went to an American family house for an activity with the Georgian members. We made ginger bread houses which was cool. They have a dog. So I finally got to pet a dog! There are dogs everywhere here, but we cannot pet them.  So heavenly father is testing me. The only reason I got to pet that dog was because it was American. And now it’s today. We got a lot planned today so I’m really looking forward to it.

Pictures from her "cultural day" in Tbilisi.

Other stuff: I have like no idea what anyone is saying which is cool. [parent note: Rachel sarcasm coming through] I'm not stressing about it too much though, I am just happy I have a companion really. I talk as best as I can and my companion helps with the language barrier at times. My thing is I can say more than what I can understand...so that's good and bad. It’s chill though, I am just surprised I am taking it this well. I thought I would be freaking out, but I’m not. Just taking everything one step at a time. Whats weird is that even though its only been like 4 days in Georgia, it feels so right. I can feel the spirit testifying to me that where I am is where the Lord needs me. I have never felt that in my life before and it's amazing. I think because of that it helps me to feel peaceful and calm during times that I would normally be freaking out. Being a solo missionary in the MTC I think really helped me to get over a lot of my fears and just do what I can, as well as wait for the Lord to make up the rest.

Well that's the week...kind of. I have a lot more things this week and a lot more teaching. Til next time!

-და ჯენსენი 

I guess they can trace back their lineage of trainers. 

Bulletin of in coming missionaries at the mission home. 

At the mission home in Yerevan, Armenia

Week 9  Leaving for Georgia

December 4th-6th

Salt Lake City to LAX to Moscow, Russia to Yerevan, Armenia to Tbilisi, Georgia. 

A Salt Lake local took this photo of Rachel's district on the shuttle to the Salt Lake City Airport and posted it on the Armenia/Georgia Facebook page!

Another local in the airport took this photo and also posted it on Facebook page.

Ironically Brother and Sister Black from Rachel's home ward were visiting Salt Lake City for a niece's baptism and were on their way back to Santiago, Chile to continue serving their mission when they ran into Rachel on the flight to LAX. (small world) 

Mission President Bostrom and his wife took this picture of these missionaries when they finally made it to Armenia. Rachel spent the night at the mission home in Yerevan, Armenia. The next day she traveled by car up to Tbilisi, Georgia. We had heard its a long and hard ride through the Caucasus Mountains. It was recommended to take Dramamine for car sickness. 

Georgia/Armenia Mission President Bostrom and Sister Bostrom

Rachel made it! This photo was sent to us by the senior missionary, Sister Donovan. Rachel finally has a Georgian companion!

Rachel wrote a short email letting us know she made it. It said: 

"I made it safely to the country, many stories to tell as well as many stories to write down. Love you and miss you."

-და ჯენსენი