Week 26  Tacos and Adventures

I am alive! I am all good everyone so no worries. I think it was just a virus running it's course because I am all better. The blood results were normal besides low vitamin D, but that is an easy fix. The week went by pretty fast and it is crazy to think that it is already Monday. Monday was just doctors. Tuesday we had exchanges. Tuesday we had meeting with...lets call her MK. She was a very interesting lady who switched from Georgian to Russian to very little English...I was a little bit more confused that lesson, but it was chill. That night we started exchanges. The STLs this transfer are Sister Van Brocklin and Sister Myers. I was with sister Van Brocklin so it was back to the good old trainee days. Wednesday was the full exchange. We went to a member's house for her birthday with all the sisters to celebrate. It was an actual house so it was super cool to see what Georgian houses look like. After that we went finding before heading to the church for a lesson which sadly fell through. Thursday was interesting. We tried to hit some inactive members but most of them we weren't home. We went finding and met a lady that recognized us on the street. Super friendly and we want to meet with her soon. That night we met with a grandmother of a member. We haven't been able to meet with the member so we met with her relative to understand who the member is and to grow a relationship with the family as well. Super sweet lady and she showed us all her family photos. I tried to really focus during that lesson understand what she was saying, but it was definitely a struggle. Friday we went finding and again tried to hit some inactive members. Game night was so fun as usual. I have learned some pretty fun games, which I am very excited to play with my family when I get back. Pretty complicated ones too but super fun ones. That night when we were coming back home someone that we had met in my training stopped me. She recognized my bag and said that she has been wanting to go to English group. We had lost contact with her in my training so it was so cool to see she remembered me and she was still really interested. Saturday was good. Sister Arutyunova didn't feel well so she took a nap while I did my studies. I spent 4 hours writing my talk for Sunday. After that we went to the church and got ready for sports night. Sports was fun, although when the men start playing soccer it gets pretty dang competitive and intense...that is when I usually step out. Sunday was so interesting. I gave a talk during sacrament...and it went ok. I looked at my papers when I went up and all of a sudden I couldn't read Georgian. I definitely got a little too nervous during it. Also since the speaker before me took a super long time, I had to rush my talk which threw me off a little bit. After church we had a linger longer which was fun. Then the night happened and let me tell this was an adventure. It first started out by all the missionaries going to a members house for dinner. We had tacos and boy did I miss tacos. The member is super cool and is only living in Gerogia for a little bit before returning back to the United States. Once that was done we tried to get home...and this is where the adventure happened. We got lost and I mean we got really lost. Which is funny because this member lives in our area. We just took all the wrong buses. We took one which took us to the middle of no where and actually away from where we wanted to go, but at the time we didn't know that. So we got off that bus to go to another station. Now the bus we got on said it was goes to station square...it did not go to station square. Turns out it starts in station square and ends in წხნეთი...which is outside Tbilisi. We went up into the mountains and the whole time we were just super confused. I kept telling sister Arutyuonva," sister I don't recognize any of this".  At one point it started to snow. We went on weird back roads in this old bus that was probably made in the 70s. But we thought this was probably just a weird back way to get to station square. Wrong. Finally we asked this lady if this was close to station square and she looked dumbfound. She said that station square is in Tbilisi and that this is წხნეთი. We got off in the middle of no where. By then is was past our curfew...we just couldn't believe it and just couldn't stop laughing. We got onto another bus that actually took us home. It was like 10:10 by the time returned home. Very interesting experience and I will send pictures next week of this whole adventure. Overall a pretty fun week.

Spiritual thought: So this week I asked for a priesthood blessing. I haven't had one of those since...probably when I was set apart as a missionary. This priesthood blessing was probably one of the most powerful ones I have ever had besides that of patriarchal blessing. In this priesthood blessing I received many specific answers to my prayers and questions. At point in the blessing I was told something so specific that I almost couldn't believe it. It had to be revelation because without it there was no way this elder could of said it. I almost thought to myself, did I tell him about that? But the only person I slightly mentioned about it to was my companion. My and my companion were pretty dumbfounded afterwards and she asked me if I had told the elder about the situation.... I told her no and we both were just in shock for a bit. Overall priesthood blessings are amazing. They are truly opportunities to hear direct revelation, blessings, and guidance from God. I suggest to anyone that is going through something hard, either it in need of comfort or guidance, to not forget the priesthood blessings are available to you. 

Well that is it, until next week!

-და ჯენსენი