Week 34  Stuck at the Border

So interesting week, transfers happened...well not really for me and sister Gehring (other trainer). Our trainees got stuck at the Georgia border in Armenia and couldn't cross over.  The Tonga sister's "missionary visa" expired the day before she was to arrive in Georgia.  They are stuck in Armenia until this Friday.  The sad part is the it takes 6 hours to travel by car from the mission home in Armenia to the Tbilisi, 5 of which are in Armenia. They drove a rough 5 hours through the mountains for 5 hours just to find out they could not enter. More on this later. So this week I'm with sister Gehring and we are taking care of two areas both of which are in different branches....that's been my life for the last few days and let me tell you it has been quite a ride. I'll start from the beginning: Monday we did a sister's pday together since we had 2 sisters leaving. (Myers and Van Broklin) We did some normal tourist sites like the old fort and the mother of Georgia although we (us and sister Gehring and sister Heydorn) we thought we would see it Friday since we would have cultural day with the newbies. Tuesday was the last district meeting together and we had a meeting that night with M and Y with the Delisi elders. M was sad since she treats sister Arutyunova, Elder Anderson and Layton and I as her own kids (so cute by the way). The entire time she was talking about how great our duty is as missionary and how valuable we are to the Lord. She was doing missionary work on us! Wednesday was transfers and it was a little sad. Some goodbyes needed to be said. I gave a spiritual thought too, the APs said to try to motivate us for next transfer...I think it was good. I basically just thought of what my dad would say and went off of that. 👍I was with sister Gehring for the day. We stayed in Saburtalo (suburb of Tbilisi) for the night since we had English group later in my area. Thursday was the interesting day.  A normalish morning, we set up the Saburtalo apartment for my trainee and then went to Isani to set of theirs. We quickly went knocking before heading to the church for a training meeting for trainers. That was when we found out that one of the trainee's Visa (the one from Tonga) had expired. The church made a mistake and it expired the day before. They we alone t the border which was probably really frightening. They figured it out but it takes 5 days for the paper work to process. So me and sister Gehring became temporary companions for 2 areas. We had our meeting and then went to the other churches English class and then went back to Isani. Friday was planning day and it was a little crazy since we had to plan for 2 areas. We will basically be ping ponging between areas. We had games that night and ate out with elders and a few members afterwards. Saturday was in Saburtalo and we did a big finding day. Knocked and then later tried to find an old investigator. Sadly the guy is lost, he moved. In between we had a new member lessons with the elders. Lia(I will call her that) is so sweet and a very fast talker. I understood a good 40-50% of what she said. Whats kinda sad is that was really my legit first Georgian lesson. Because of the area I am in right now, I have only taught in English. Saburtalo is considered to be the foreigner/immigrant land...so I don't have a ton of Georgian practice like the others. It definitely is cool cause I meet people all over the world...but I am not as good with my Georgian because of that. I think that is probably one of the reasons for me training, to push me to talk more in Georgian. Sunday was kinda crazy because I was supposed to go to the Temka church and sister Gehring to the Avlabari church. I had branch council I needed to be in and sister Gehring needed to be in the other church to teach primary...so we did splits with the sister training leaders. After church in the Temka we had a linger longer, which are always fun. Afterwards we went to the Isani area since it was Independence Day in Georgia. We tried to go talk to people...but there were way to many people so we ended up just going home to finish studies and then to have a meeting with M and Y. That was basically the week. The trainees don't come until Friday, so it's more ping ponging between the areas. There is only 4 sister missionaries in Georgia right now...which is kinda crazy. Saturday there is a baptism!!! Its the Delisi elders investigator, which I can't tell you his name, but he is awesome! Sister Aryutonca and I got to know him a lot last transfer. I am so excited!

Spiritual thought: Well I thought I would give you the same thought that I gave to the missionaries. So 2 Nephi 28:30 talks about how God gives us knowledge line upon line, precept upon precept. Throughout our lives God gives us experiences to not only help us in the moment but also in the future. He needs you to be the you at certain times during your life to help other as well as you. I have seen that so far in my mission. Meeting people during times that I was ready for. I think this week was a good example for me. God knew I needed another week of learning and slightly gain more confidence to be the missionary that my trainee needs me to be.

Well that was the week, next week I will have my trainee! Very excited I'm still nervous but excitement over ways it. 

Well till next week.

-და ჯენსენი