Week 43  Generous Old Men in the Park

So yet another week done and over. Woke up on Sunday and was pretty confused as to where the week went. Yeah time flies when you're having fun. We went to მცხეთა(mtsxeta) on Monday early in the morning for Pday. We originally were going to hike to a church...yeah turns out we would have to hike for 15 hrs to get to the church if we wanted to go by foot. We decided to wonder through the town and check out the famous church there instead. This church is the one that has the apostle Andrew's foot. Well we go in that specific room and in that same room they were doing a ceremony...this ceremony was interesting. There was a group of girls singing and a priest singing. They were conversing/praying through song. The girls would sing and the priest would say something in response through song. There was smoke in the air and incense...I felt like I was in a movie. We left after everyone started to kiss a golden cross. We had some cool/weird things happen this week so I thought instead of going through the days I would just tell you the fun stuff. Monday we had a guy come up to us in the park and as we were talking he saw our badge and asked us about it and we had a conversation. We got his number and he left. We thought he was done, but he proceeded to return with gifts. He bought us this type of bread that I feel if I even explain what it is you will get diabetes. It is fried bread with lard and sugar as the filling. That's right folks, lard and sugar. I had one bite and I felt like I ate a bag of grease. It's weird cause its gooey and clear and just doesn't seem right. We met with him later that week with the elders for a pass off meeting. Continuing on with the week we got some pretty cool contacts. One was a historian who knew about the church and about baptisms for the dead as well as family search. We gave him a BOM in English and in Russian (no printed copies of in Georgian have arrived). He named himself bloody historian in our contacts. Funny dude. We had a guy who went to high school in Colorado and has a friend on a mission in the Philippines. It blew our minds! Not only does he know who we are and has friends part of the church, but understands the whole mission thing! Another fun story...so we are sitting in the park contacting some people when an old man walks by. I thought why not say hello and he got so happy came up to us and asked for our names. Turns out he is a just any modern day doctor, no he is a herbalist (for a lack of a better word). He goes to the forest and makes medicine out of grass and stuff. I have no idea how I understood this man but I told him to show us some...well he comes back with two bottles and now we have free grass medicine for nails...I'm not sure if I'll try it. We had exchange this week and I was with sister Arutyunova and it was fun to be with her again. It's crazy how time flies it feels like it was just yesterday I was serving with her. Well, that's week today will be fun we are going to go have a barbecue with some missionaries/members/investigators/friends so I'm excited. I'm ready to be socially exhausted👍

Spiritual thought: I'm  going to keep this short, but I wanted to talk about the ceremony we witnessed in the church. Sister Mercer and I were talking about how unsettled we felt about the ceremony. Watching it just felt...for a lack of a better word weird. When I watched it seemed like something was missing and I think it was probably was spirit. I realized yet again how I know this church is true. Every time I walk into the any of our churches no matter how different it's set up is or how it looks I can always count on the spirit being there. And feeling the spirit, lets me know it is true.

Well that was the week, til next time!

-და ჯენსენი

Week 42  Not the Language I Learned in the MTC

Well yet another week down. This week was interesting...meaning I saw some really weird things...a lot of finding and sadly not a ton of success. Still a good week though. Monday we went on a hike that I thought led to a church. Turns out it doesn't, but hey it was a pretty hike. We ended up taking a taxi there. This taxi driver had no idea where it was and would  not trust his phone which was already on Google maps. He proceeded to go back and forth and then ask a lot of people through the car window where it was. What would have been a 5 minute drive turned into a 15 minute one. At the end he gave us his number said to call him up again if we needed a ride...don't know about that. Actually, right before we went to the church he got out of the car and to his trunk. He then proceeded to open up a secret compartment in his trunk and take out 2 bottles of alcohol to give to us. Rest assured we said no and moved on our way...but let me tell you that was not the only thing that dumbfounded me this week, but that is later in the email. The church was cool, got to drink some "holy" cave water. Very pretty church, a little creepy though. That night we did a bom stand, which sadly no success. We had some good conversations but no contacts. Tuesday was interesting, especially because of what I saw on our way to district meeting. So we take a metro ride up to the church since we live about 40 mins away. On the metro ride up this man across from us takes an empty cigarette out of his bag. I was a little confused at first, but I didn't think to much of it since smoking here is normal. Well this guy then takes another container from his bag out. It was an old butter container. In the butter container was a bag of weed and a contraption to put it in a cigarette. I watched this man role his own cigarette on the metro...man I almost laughed so hard. The things I have seen in this country just leave me, as Alma so greatly puts it, "exceedingly astonished". Tuesday was more finding, we did stop by some members and give some candy to them. Oh, we tried Wendy's pizza, which exists over here for some odd reason. Not bad. Wednesday was yet again more finding. Knocked a bunch of korpuses (apartments) and all the people were nice but none interested. English group was great, we had a ton of people come! We taught beginner class so that was interesting. always great to teach a language using a language you don't know very well. Good practice though. Thursday was cool. We got a text from the guy who came to church last week. I will call him ზ. So ზ has been reading the bible and the BOM everyday! Bible in the morning and BOM at night. He also came to church this Sunday and loved it. Sent him off with a printed chapter in the BOM in Georgian (said he has been struggling understanding the Russian one) and a restoration pamphlet. Also I guess him, the elders, and our branch president are having dinner tonight, so he is doing well.

Friday was so cool! So we are doing a BOM stand and this guy comes up with his friend. Grabs the Arabic one and starts to read it. He speaks Georgian at first to us, then switches to English. Later gives up on the Arabic one and goes to the Russian one cause I guess that's easier. We talk to him about what the Book of Mormon is and the role it has in the church. He then asks a question of how the BOM is connected to the bible and the Koran. The moment he asks that, a gust of wind flips the book open to 2 Nephi 2:25 which talks about Adam and the fall. He says oh it opened to something about Adam this should answer my question. Because of this we had a great conversation about how we know why Adam fell and how we know God has a plan for us. Because of where he is from he said taking our number could cost him his life if he went back to his country. We said no worries and he was off on his way. After that 3 guys come up only speaking Parsi (persian). We communicated only through WhatsApp so they could translate, said they would come to church. One of them went off to the corner and proceeded to text us "the prophecy of Christ is correct". It was a very interesting exchange, very cool though! Saturday we had a meeting with the Magnums (Senior Missinaries) and a investigator in a different area. Her husband is a member and she is taking the lessons. They needed someone to translate. Well I tried my best, yeah sometimes I had no idea what she was saying. Her house was...well let's just say I was very humbled in that moment. Her house was almost an abandoned house. They had barely any furniture and the house looked like it was falling apart. The floors were broken in and there were holes in the ceiling. Very sweet lady though. That night we just met with an inactive member in our area with the elders. Sunday was a little crazy. So we had branch council and then 2nd hour we had to be both in YWs and Sunday school cause we had a part to teach. Well turns out the missionaries that taught the first part of the Sunday school lesson took the whole time so we had a fun time in YWs. That night we did a BOM stand. We had a guy come up and talk to us. He wasn't really that interested but really good Georgian practice. While I was talking to him another person came up and looked at the Persian BOM. Sister Mercer talked to him and she gave him our number. So we got some cool convos from the night. Well that was the week. A few ups and downs. Not a lot of success, but hey can't be easy all the time. Excited for the next coming week, let's see what other miracles happen.

Spiritual thought: I thought I would talk about the little miracle we had with the guy at the BOM stand. The one where the book just opened to the right page. I realized in that moment, even more now, the Lord is going to provide. If you trust in the Lord and align your will with his, life is gonna be fine. I've  seen that with the language. Sometimes I have to remember if the person is ready the Lord will make up for my language skills. That is not to say I don't learn the language everyday and go out and teach, but if the person is ready the Lord will be there to prick their heart. So "trust in the Lord and lean not unto your own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path". (Can't remember the scripture verse but the scripture itself I do). 

That was the week, til next time!

- და ჯენსენი 

Week 41  Book of Mormon Stand Magic!

Old Tblisis sketch

So the week is over and off to the next. We had a lot of meetings this week so I have some fun stories to tell. Monday we went to dry bridge which is like a flea market with a small art add on section. I love the art section of course, but hey what can I say it's in my blood. I talked to this one guy selling pins and he actually ended up giving me a free pin. He wanted my badge for some reason...I told him no of course and after a bit of talking he ended up just gifting me a pin. Also, talked to this artist there who had this AMAZING pencil drawing of Tbilisi. I talked to him and I don't think he realized that I was foreign cause he said that he wanted to sell the work to tourists so he wouldn't sell it to me (then again the price was 800 Lari so I wasn't gonna get it). So I wasn't mistaken as a tourist so that was dope. I get that a lot here, some people think I'm Georgian. Guess I look it or I hope that my accent just doesn't give me away. That night we called to set up a meeting with a guy we met last week, the guy who recognized us on the metro. I'll call him "metro guy" (since I can't write is actual name). We called and asked if we could set up a meeting for the next day but he couldn't. He said "well I'm in the park so does now work?" So we had a meeting with him right then. We explained more about the BOM gave him one and said we would love to talk more about the church. He said he was down so we hope to do a "pass of meeting" with the elders soon with him. Actually, the next day we had the same thing happen again. Called a guy from another BOM stand, met in the park that same day, talked about the BOM, said we would love to talk more about our church and again another yes! The next few days are pretty boring just a lot of knocking. You have some good weeks and some stagnant weeks. We followed up on a lot of people from last week but didn't get any new people this week. We had some contacts but no potentials sadly. Hey but God can't give success everyday or that wouldn't be an adventure. Friday we had a meeting with a lady who we helped a few weeks ago. She is the lady with with the two down syndrome kids who love English. She was in the village for a bit and would be leaving soon again, but she called us up and asked for us to come over. We hoped that this time she would ask about the church. She did! She still is faithful to her religion and that is ok, but now she knows who we are and that the church is good. She actually invited us to stay in her village on Saturday and stay the night tile Sunday evening. It took a lot of willpower to say no. She proceeded then to feed us a ton of sweets. I will include a picture of the table set up for all us of to eat the sweets. I have no idea why she thought we could eat that much. She put 2 of everything on the table. Saturday was great. It was zone conference and we got to meet our new mission president. President Picard and his wife are from France and are very sweet. Our president has family ties to the middle east so he is very close to home here. They told their stories and man talk about some amazing faith they have. They are still in their 40s and to give up everything to go on a mission with their family is just amazing. Sunday was great! Another one of the people we met at a BOM stand a while back came to church! He stayed for both hours and he loved it. A lot of the members stepped in and really made him feel welcomed. Overall a really good week, used a lot of Georgian this week. Actually used a lot of Georgish (Georgian but typed in English letters). Some phones here don't have the alphabet in Georgian so they use English letters to make up words. Example: gamarjoba rogoraxart? Me kargad var. Eklesiashi viyavi chems megobrebtan. Looks ugly in my opinion and so hard to type, stupid auto correct! Anyway great week and I'm excited for the next!

Spiritual thought: At our last Zone Conference of this transfer we had leaving missionaries bare their testimony. There was an elder who talked about something their dad said before going on a mission. He asked this elder why do you want to go a mission? He of course answered well it's a commandment and I would also like to help people come into Christ. Pretty simple and common answers but still very good. This dad turned to this elder and said those are all good, but can I tell you why I went on a mission. I went because at the end of the day I love the Lord. Because I love the Lord I went on a mission. All the things you said are good but they all fall under one thing, you do those things because you love the Lord. That mad me think for a bit and realize that I need to remember that in all my doings and especially on a mission. I'm doing all of this because at the end of the day I love the lord too.

Well that's the week, til next time!

- და ჯენსენი 

Dry Bridge/Flea Market

Week 40  The Last Sacred 10 Minutes

I realized I should start titling my emails so I'm gonna start now. Anyway...talk about a good week. Also we reached halfway mark of the transfer which is weird I feel like the transfer just started! Well for normal missions the transfer would be over but its not like that over here.  Transfers are every 12 weeks, not 6. That's because there is only 6 sisters in the whole entire country. Monday, for pday, we met with the all sisters and we went to a Korean restaurant and let me tell you no matter where you go Korean food is just so good! Afterwards we were going to go bike by Lake Lisi, but they weren't renting bikes so we just chilled there and enjoyed the wind, LOL. Some good mediation if you know what I mean. Man was it beyond windy. Tuesday was amazing. We started out by knocking and then did a BOM stand at night which basically we set up a bunch of BOMs and say გამარჯობა (hello) to who ever walks by. The interested people come to you! It's my favorite way to find. Sadly we don't have the Georgian BOMs yet...so we just hope someone knows Russian and or English, we even throw a few Arabic ones on the stand. So at the BOM stand, we had about ten minutes left and we had no success until this guy comes up to us. He explained he saw us in the metro not too long ago and was interested in who we were. We explained who we where an what the BOM was and he was actually really interested! I told him we could meet and talk more about it, he was down! Made my day!! Wednesday was normal knocking found a few nice contacts. Thursday we did another BOM stand and again no success til the last 10 minutes this guy comes up and said he would look our church up online and find the BOM in his language and he literally goes to a bench near us and looks it up! Super sweet guy. We have realized that almost all our potentials come from the last 10 minutes of a BOM stand. So if you put the work in God will always give blessings no matter how late it is. Friday we cleaned the church, the president's office kinda flooded so that was fun. We did another BOM stand in a new area. We had this guy come up to us and tell us that he loves Jesus Christ, so I of course said well if you like Jesus Christ then we have the book for you! He was very interested and said he would go read it in the park. Saturday was the blitz, its where the district comes together in one area and just "finds". It was very exhausting and literally an hour after we ended we had to head to sports night with members and investigators and locals, which we played to the end of the day. That night we only had time for personal study. Man was I exhausted. Sunday was interesting. So there was some confusion...so last week since it was a fifth Sunday and the missionaries were going to teach but the Sunday school teacher thought he had to so he had prepared a lesson. So this week we thought we were suppose to teach...but it was relief society and priesthood. But we had no teacher for relief society and for the first 20 mins after sacrament we had no idea where to go. It didn't help that more than half of our members are on vacation or in the village...so we are really low on members. I think maybe 20 showed up? Very quite Sunday. We ended up just discussing this weeks reading from Come Follow Me with the young women. Well the week went by fast and I can't believe we are on for the next.

Spiritual thought: To go along with the Last Sacred 10 minutes titled, I would like to write about a talk my dad and mom sent me. It's called Bread or Stone, Understanding the God We Pray To. It talks about how God is a fourth watch God in that he will wait to the end of our trail to relieve us, because he wants us to gain the experiences that we can receive through the 1st, 2nd, and 3^rd watch of the night. I feel like the last 10 minutes were our 4th watch blessings. We went through standing, trying to talk to people, stumbling over words, and getting rejected before receiving our potential contact. I realized because of all this I was able to speak so much faster and with ease because I stumbled through it with someone else. So when you going through trials remember that God will always bless you. You just got to remember that part of the blessing IS the trail and the struggle and the gift is waiting at the end. 

Well that was the week, til next time!

- და ჯენსენი 

Always studying vocabulary

Week 39  Seeing the Lord in your Life

I know I'm pretty redundant, but this week I'm not even sure if  it even happened. It went my that fast. I woke up on Sunday pretty confused as to where all the time went. Monday's pday was a BLAST! We went to კოჯორი (Kojori) with all the missionaries. We went to an old fortress and let me tell you the views were breath taking. I kinda forget sometimes I'm in whole other country out here, it's not just another state. On the way to კოჯორი we listened to some traditional Georgian music and all of us jammed out. Man do I LOVE საქართველო!!!! (Georgia) Tuesday we had a meeting with a part member family...the members are inactive and we have yet to meet them still. The grandmother who isn't a member is really nice. They have this old hairless rat dog and let me tell you I have officially found a dog that I can not call cute. Wednesday was cool. We went to go stop by our new investigators house but as we were going in the corpus (elevator) she came out. She had some things to do so we just knocked around her place in stead. On Wednesday we went  knocking to see if we could get more people to come to our English group, since our English night has slowed down a bit. We knocked on this one lady's house and she said that her grand kids love English but wouldn't be able to come with us so she invited us in to see them. Turns out they are both down syndrome and the grandmother learns English to then teach them. So we did some service and helped them with their English. She was an adorable grandma who loves her grand kids dearly and I was glad we were able to serve in some way. She then wouldn't let us leave til we ate and then proceeded to tell us we need to come and stay in her village. She even said we need to talk to our manager about it. She was very sweet. Maybe the good old Ammon effect might soften her heart for missionaries in the future. Thursday we did a BOM stand and then headed to Gldani for an exchange. The 4 of us sister missionaries ate an entire ice cream "cake" (basically ice cream shaped in a cake) and played UNO that night. That was such a fun night! Friday was the exchange, I was with sister Heydorn. We did basically all types of finding. Did a Book of Mormon stand, street contacted, knocking, and Facebook work. We knocked into a family which was cool they had a 4 month year old wiener dog puppy so that was a nice little cherry on top. Saturday and Sunday I don't have anything super cool to report. Church was great and Sunday school was very spiritual. I will explain about that later. Overall, pretty cool week. Also I have officially finished half of my mission. There is 78 weeks in a sisters mission and half of that is 39. Time really goes by fast. I remember when I just got here! Now look at me, in my third transfer(6 transfer for other missions) and I am training, gosh I'm getting old.

Spiritual thought: In Sunday school the question "are there times in your life where you don't recognize the Savior" was asked. It made me think, how many times during the week or even during the day do I let a blessing brush over my head; are there little things that happen that I don't see the Lord's hand in my life? I have been keeping a journal of how I have seen the Lord's hand in my life everyday since the beginning of the year. I have been seeing him more in my life, but how many more things do I over look? I committed myself this week to see him even more. I will even extend it you. Try this week to see/recognize the Lord more in you life.

Well that is the week, til next time!

-და ჯენსენი