Week 52  Opera Concerts and Baptismal Dates

Well talk about a fun week! Seriously, it was so fun and just amazing! Starts out with Monday. An old investigator invited us to an opera concert because her daughter was singing in it. Afterwards she proceeded to introduce us to everyone and make us take pictures with everyone. Tuesday we had a blitz in Rustavi. Our whole district went down there. We tried to do our own version of Mormon Helping Hands. One of the elders even made t-shirts for us, so that was fun. We just cleaned a neighborhood and we had a few people join in with us. Wednesday was great. We had a meeting with our main investigator, Em, the one with the dog. Well, we went over and the dog was silent during the entire lesson. We went over the restoration with her and she expressed that she knows that the church is true. In the lesson I felt that we should commit her to baptism. It wasn't this giant wave of the spirit just this subtle knowing. Well she accepted! So if everything goes well October 19 she will get baptized! Thursday was a blast. Me and some of the elders had to go the border to renew our visas. It's only yearly so I only have to do it once. We went through the Georgian border twice...because we didn't know if we had entered into Armenia....the border workers I think were very confused. Saturday we met with visionary man and we cleaned the church. The visionary man insists that he has to clean the sacrament room before Sunday every week. I finally cleaned out the primary closet. I turned into my mom for a few minutes. Literally, there was just so much crap that we did not need to have n there. It is now organized and clean! Sunday we called Em for church and she didn't answer so we sent a text. We were super worried. I told Sister Mafi while we waited for sacrament meeting to start to pray hard. Literally two minutes later I felt someone tap my shoulder and it was her! She came! Made my whole day. Primary I taught with a member...well I taught while the member tried to keep her kids quite. Primary always is an interesting time. We had a meeting later with the elders and someone we recently met and her family. Going to her apartment we all crammed into a 4 seater car. 6 people, 4 missionaries and the couple. It was very interesting. She taught us how to make xachapuri and Georgian pizza. Very salty because that's how the cheese is here...I felt like I ate a block of cheese with whole cube of butter on top. We got home pretty late because they wouldn't let us leave. Yeah, that was the week. I missed some other things but I don't want to type anymore. In short such a good week. I am currently in a marshrutka with all the sisters heading to Ananuri so that will be fun. Sorry no spiritual thought not enough time...church is true! The gospel is such a joy! 

Til next time!

- და ჯენსენი

Week 51  ყაზბეგი!

Well talk about a week man. I am pretty exhausted to say the least. Monday was amazing! We got permission from our president to go to Kazbegi (ყაზბეგი) with all the missionaries. So we got in a marshrutka (taxi van) which we rented and headed there. 2 hours there and 2 hours back. It was so fun to be with all the missionaries and that the driver played some music. Made the trip! The mountains were so beautiful! I literally cannot describe how breathtaking the scenery is over here. There were parts that reminded me of Switzerland. We had a lesson this week with one of our investigators which went very interestingly. So she has dog and the dog loves us a ton...but can interrupt the lesson immensely because it will bark for attention and climb all over us. So that was happening this time and we were worried we wouldn't get through the lesson, but we kept pushing for an opening prayer. Once we said had the prayer and started to get into the lesson the dog stopped, chilled out and just sat there. We were able to get through the lesson just fine. We were going to give a baptismal commitment but it didn't feel right. I thought we could just introduce the idea so that when we invite her later in another lesson it wouldn't come out of the blue. Well I was about to talk about it but the dog started to bark again. It wasn't until we went back to what we were originally were talking about when the dog stopped and chilled out again. So the spirit wasn't exactly a quite whisper this time...instead sounded more like an obnoxious dog. But, I'll take it. We met with visionary man again and we got some more "prophecies". He told us to go to a street at a certain time to find a Georgian lady that we could teach. Well we went and but we didn't feel anything and the only time I did feel something was when I felt we should turn back and go the opposite direction. Well, because of that feeling, we met the old elder's investigator that had lost contact with the elders for a long time. Got his contact  information again and the elders are contacting him now. It wasn't exactly a lady but close enough. Still made for a fun spiritual experience. We had exchanges this week and they were amazing! I was with Sister Arutyunova and it was great to see her again. She has become a really good friend in the mission. Sad that she will leave to go home after this transfer, which is Russia so I wonder if I'll ever see her gain. Anyway, we had a quite the busy day. We went from meeting to meeting to meeting. First one was unexpected. We were originally going to go do a Book of Mormon  stand. We were at the church grabbing some BOMs when an old investigator walked in. We talked for a bit. She said she missed the church and now that she is back in country she wanted to come by. In that meeting we taught the entire plan of salvation. I will go into the meeting in the spiritual thought cause it was quite touching. After that we met with the Russian referrals since sister Arutyunova speaks Russian. I have to point out...I remembered how to get to her house the entire way. I've only been there once and in the dark, yet we made it! Woot! Later we went to the sisters area to help teach with the elders to a newly baptized family. Well the wife isn't a member. We taught the wife and she expressed that she wants to learn more. It was quite the meeting. Sunday yet another doozy...I translated for relief society. Yeah it was...well it didn't start out well but it got better later. What was funny is that the teacher would teach in Russian, then translate into Georgian for me and I then I would translate into English. Was it perfect...no. Did I make some things up sometimes...yes. But you live and you learn. Practice makes perfect. I still struggling with the language, its a hard one,  but hey at least my accent sounds good. People always think I'm Georgian so I'll take it. [parent note: her language can't be all that bad if she gets mistaken for a native]

Traditional Georgian hat

Spiritual thought: Ok,  so the plan of salvation lesson: She comes from a country that practices Muslim beliefs so when we would explain some parts of the lesson she would explain parts of Muslim beliefs to compare. Well, when we were talking about the celestial kingdom and what it would be like she kept asking what is heaven going to look like? What will I have? And that confused us but then she explained. She said that in her religion they talk about what heaven will be like if you are righteous. You will have a palace. You will have gold. Your husband or wife (or multiple if wanted) would be more beautiful then certain actors or actresses. And so on. I realized (and this is not ridiculing Muslim beliefs or anything) that they are still relying on material things to bring them happiness. They believe that those things make up heaven. They worry more of what heaven will be like and we worry more of what heaven will feel like. We don't talk about those things (palaces, gold etc) when it comes to heaven. All we worry about is how we will feel standing before God and who we will be with. No palaces or gold, just family. Heaven is heaven because family is there. True happiness, joy, is found from family and from God. Not from materialistic things but from love and relationships.

Well that was the week, til next time!

-და ჯენსენი

An investigator posted this on her FB page. 

Week 50  Just Keep Strumming...

Well talk about a week my friends, a lot has happened. This was such a fun week so let's dive into it. Monday had a small melt down but I found through the experience sometimes God uses those (meltdowns per se) to get another outcome. I will explain. We were supposed have a meeting with a family from the area book that lived quite a distance away. I called the father and he wouldn't give me his address. He just said to call him when we were on the bus. FYI, I suck at directions in English let along in Georgian. We are at the bus stop waiting for the certain bus to come as I try to talk to this guy on the phone. I was pretty frustrated. What is the difference between telling me the instructions now verses when I am on the bus, I was thinking. He wouldn't tell me anything, just get on the bus and then I will tell you where to go. Well the bus wasn't going to come for a while (over 30 minute wait) and the travel time would be even longer since I had a small understanding of where his apartment is in the city, so we had to cancel and told him another time. I literally was close to crying on the phone. Just frustrated that I wasn't understanding and that I couldn't exactly turn to anyone for help for clarification. Well because the meeting didn't happen, we went back to the church where Sister Mafi was able to talk to her dad. Turns out this was the first time in a very long she has been able to talk to her dad. She has talked to me about it a little bit, but to sum it up and not give out too many details there has been some family problems recently. I got to hear Sister Mafi do missionary work on her dad through another room. If we hadn't canceled the meeting earlier, then I don't think she would have been able to talk to her dad. So all that stress and my close to melt down, was worth it I guess. Looks like God took away the gift of tongues for a second so that we would have to cancel so that could happen. Well lets continue on with the week. We got a referral from a member which was cool. We went really late one night through some pretty sketchy neighborhoods (mom calm down it was fine) to meet this mother and daughter. They only spoke Russian so we taught in English while our member translated. Talk about not the language I learned in the MTC, whoa. We went through the lesson and although with some small interruptions, I could feel the spirit in that room. We will meet with them again this week and since we will have exchanges with the Russian sister, my old companion Sister Arutyunova, the lesson will go a little more smoother. PARK FINDING! We went park finding this week with our ukuleles and it is so fun! Talk about a ice breaker. We had a lady that posted our pic on Facebook too. Had some people come beat box with us. Got to know some local street performers. And my favorite was saying hi to some tourists in different languages. Funny story: there was a group of Chinese tourists walking by and my companion said "gamsamida"(Korean word) to them as a hello...this word actually means thank you in Korea. So not only did she use the wrong language but wrong word. Flip I about died. I was laughing so hard. They also got a kick out of it to.🤣 

So we had Elder Boom come to Georgia so that was the highlight of the weekend. He is in the Seventy and is part of the EuropeEast Mission presidency. He is from the Netherlands. We had zone conference with him, special devotional, and later he spoke at our church. I will go into something that was said in zone conference later in the spiritual thought. He actually came to our apartment for an inspection and we got to perform for him a little with our ukulele. So that was fun. Oh, guess what! We got permission to go to Kazbegi today! It is a city 2 hours away from Tbilisi. So today, Pday, we are headed over there. We have a rule that we have to stay in the city besides a few exceptions. Kazebegi was a big no no before, but we got special permission from our new Presidentto go! Flip! I'm so excited! მაგარია! ძალიან მიხარია რა. I will have pictures next week. 

Spiritual thought: Something that was talked a lot in our zone conference is how we can still feel joy amidst the hard times. That we are still blessed immensely in those hard times. We are just blinded sometimes and we can't seem to focus on anything else besides what's going bad. We focus on what isn't working out or ask why this happening and why Heavenly Father is letting this happen. We sometimes lose the vision to see how much God has already blessed us and how he is still blessing us. Sister Picard (mission president's wife) told us a story about when she has cancer.  One day she was in the bathroom throwing up from the medication. Her husband was in a another country for business, and she was just tired of being sick. She basically was pleading with Heavenly Father and asking him why. And she got a distinct impression amidst her complaining for her to count her blessings. She did so despite not being to happy about the answer to her question. The thoughts of gratitude came slow right then. "Well, when I do throw up I feel better." "My husband is in another country, but I do have a husband." "Treatment is available...and the list continued until she found her prayer changed thanking Heavenly Father for all the blessings she had received. I personally think gratitude and joy are linked together. If we aren't thankful and we aren't happy about the things we already have, joy is kinda harder to reach. We can forever chase after happiness but joy can be found right from the start, you just got to stop and appreciate even the littlest of things. So count you blessing this week😉

Well that was the week, til next time!

-და ჯენსენი

Week 49  "Sister, I got this!"

Well this has been a week. Some good stories to tell though. So remember that visionary man I talked about last time? Well, he is back and we got some more cool stories to tell. So Sunday night, we got a call from the elders saying that mon (visionary man) said that if we go to the second floor in the Galleria (mall) tomorrow at 1 we will find a new girl to teach. Kinda crazy right? Well we did it. Elders joined us and we followed his instructions. We first ate some food and we passed by a table where a girl was sitting. Sister mafi felt that this was the girl but brushed it off and we continued down to the second floor. Well we went in some shops and when we were coming out of one we saw the same girl and we said hi. But it was kinda too awkward to do anything right then, so she went on her way. Sister mafi was like this is her, I feel it. I told her well "let's follow that feeling!" so we basically chased after her.😂 She headed to the bathroom and while we were catching up to her sister mafi turned to me, threw her water bottle at me and said "sister, I got this" and sped up and caught up to her. She talked to her and got her contact and we are meeting with her and her boyfriend this week. Man I felt like I was in a movie, talk about an adrenaline rush. This week was full with a bunch of meetings. A new member lesson and some area book people. One of the meetings the lady kept feeding me ice cream. I ate three whole ice cream bars...and man I did not feel good afterwards. But, at least it ain't sour cream sandwiches. What has been really fun is that Sister mafi has been bringing her ukelele to some meetings and it is really cool to see people soften up to music. Makes meetings so much more fun and open. We went to Rustavi this week and helped teach English to some people with down syndrome and the smiles they had on their faces when she played and sang would make anyone's day. So we are officially the traveling ukulele companionship👌. This week I learned something. So Mon ("visionary man") gave me some random advice. Elders called and said he wanted them to relay the message. Guess Mon felt that he needed to tell me to remember that our companionship, me and Sister Mafi, are one and we need to work together. He also said to beware of pride...so that got me thinking what he meant by that. I did some reflecting. I think I have been adding to my stress. I do everything sometimes because and I don't let my companion try. Good old perfectionism slapping me in the face, again. I felt with certain things that I could do it faster and better so I thought that I should just do it without even letting Sister Mafi try. Well looks like God really needed to tell me this this week because he had to get a middle man for the job. I have been doing a little better. Letting Sister Mafi do a lot more than before. Still struggling at times but hey I ain't perfect. Sunday was another dozy. I gave a talk and I was the chorister. We taught primary although there were so many Georgians and I couldn't keep up all the  English end, so I made sister Mafi teach in English in a separate room and I worked with the Georgian kids. Sorta crazy...but it was still good in the end. I translated a new primary song for them, so that made primary a little more interesting. Yeah in Georgian we don't have a lot of songs translated. So if you want a certain song you got to translate it yourself. So that is what I did👍. Well, that was basically the week, we have zone conference this week and Elder Boom (member of the 70 and a part of the mission presidency) will be coming to Georgia to address us so that will be exciting. 

Spiritual thought: well I listened to certain talk this week to uplift me. Be ye therefore perfect eventually by Elder Holland. It was on a not so good day when I felt like I was just falling short in every single way. I listened to the talk and it reminded me of what perfect really means. In Georgian, and most likely in other languages, the word perfect doesn't have the same meaning as it does in English. Perfect is სრულყოფილი in Georgian. To break it down for you non Georgian speakers: სრული means complete and ყოფნა is being. So to put those two together you will get სრულყოფილი: being complete.  So when it says be ye therefore perfect, it really means be ye therefore complete. We cant be complete in this life, nor can we be perfect and as much is that it hard to swallow at times we all know that the toughest pills to swallow are the ones that change us for the better. God didn't intend a quick magical transformation. He wanted something even better for us. He wanted a lasting change. He wanted us to be complete again, like him. So with every step you take not matter if it is two steps forward and one step back, we are all progressing. Little by little. Becoming a little more complete each day until one day we will look to Him and see that we are like Him.

Well that was the week, til next time!

- და ჯენსენი

Week 48  Sour Cream Sandwiches

Well...talk about a week. Monday we had a water balloon fight with all the missionaries. We couldn't get into the churches backyard (cause the church here is a house) through the normal door so we went through the window and down a ladder. So that made part of the experience. It's really fun to be with all the missionaries and we get to do it a lot. OK, so the week....I'm going to be honest here. Real talk time: the beginning of the week was actually pretty hard for me. I hit a low again. Even further then last time. I've been pretty stressed lately. Although my new companion is great and we get a long, she is slow with somethings. So I have to lead a lot, it kinda feels like I'm training again at times and I do about 90% of the work. I teach and translate primary by myself. I am the only one who teaches English at English class. I'm really the only one talking in lessons...and the stress really got to me. On top of that I'm a perfectionist which makes doing certain tasks make me feel like the world is on my shoulders. We also haven't been able to find anyone new so that just put the cherry on top. It's been kinda tough. Luckily it's gotten better. I got a priesthood blessing and I was able to talk to one of the sisters about this which made a whole lot of a difference. I've started to push her more to do certain things like doing the spiritual thought with a member and turning to her lot for certain things. Basically pulling my trainer moves out from last transfer. And I think she got the hint. This of course is not saying she is a bad missionary or a bad person because sister Mafi is really great, but I think she got a little too used to not having to do certain things in her first transfer. Once the weekend hit things got a lot better. We had a cool experience with the elder's investigator. He is kinda of a visionary man. I have noticed, maybe this is wrong, but God speaks to certain groups of people differently and for him he speaks through dreams. He told us on Friday that we should go buy red flowers, specifically red, for a girl. This girl he did not know but he felt that she was young and went to church a few times. Both my companion and I realized who he possibly could be talking about, which is a former Isani investigator. So we met with ემ (I will call her) and dropped off some flowers and talked with her. Now the meeting wasn't overly amazing or anything but we got to know her, be friends with her and testified how she could find happiness and meaning in her life. Because of the meeting i think she felt more open with us and she even came to church and really loved it! Now I don't know if the flowers made a difference or whatever, but it made for a much more faithful experience. Saturday things got interesting. Let's just say the weekend was a weird one. We went to Rustavi and met with one of the elders investigators wife. She is a little bit against him being baptized so they thought it would be best if the sisters befriended her and made things a little bit better. So she does nails so we asked if we could get some manicures. Yup we got our nails done. Oh how hard missionary work is sometimes.🤣 Well the meeting went great and I was able to speak really good Georgian! Sister Mafi played the ukulele for her and we had a grand old time. We had to leave though soon afterwards because we had a meeting and she said that we should come over again because she felt that we didn't really get to talk since some people kept stopping in for other appointments. This by the way is in her house. So mission accomplished and if felt great. We left and then had a meeting with a member where she fed us sour cream sandwiches. I mean it was literally half a thing of sour cream in between two pieces of bread...the amount of times I got close to gagging was real. She said that this food is like water and that it is easy to eat...for me it wasn't, haven't felt good since. I ate the whole thing and Sister Mafi got away with only eating half and saving it for "later". We ended up heading back to nail lady because we forgot to pay but she wouldn't let us, said it was a gift. Turns out because we drove over there we met a cool guy and got a contact. So worth the trip back. Sunday was a dozy. So I was chorister again, and I think I got the hang of it. Then second hour...was pretty hard. So ემ came so sister Mafi went with her to Sunday school class. I went up to teach primary with a certain Rustavi member (for fast Sunday Rustavi group comes up to Avlabari) This member is great don't get me wrong but they wanted her in the children's class so that she wouldn't derail the Sunday school lesson. So primary class was a little crazy. Half in Georgian half in English. 3 groups trying to get my attention the entire time. One second it's the English group next it's the Georgian group and then next it's the member talking about some other random subject...man I about lost my mind. Turned out OK and the kids still all love me which is great just took all my energy out. With a few hugs and some cute pictures and letters to me afterwards it was worth it. I told the kids to write some letters to some people they love and write why they are thankful for them and they all gave me one at the end. Made the stress worth it.

Spiritual though: So I've been thinking about last transfer a lot and this transfer. I realized that I have been much more stressed and worried this transfer than I was a last transfer when I was training for the first time. Which is kinda weird but then I realized something. Mosiah 24: 13-15. God will help us with our trails or ours burden and will help ease them to where we cant even feel them even while still in the midst of them . I think that happened to me last transfer. Yes, the transfer was hard at times being with a new missionary, but I didn't feel like the weight of the world rested on my shoulders. I now see God truly was there with me my entire last transfer helping me carry the burden I thought I couldn't carry. So I guess the stressful week was worth it cause I got to see how much God was in my life last transfer.

Well that was the week, until next time!

-და ჯენსენი