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!

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