Week 69  Soup for Days

Talk about a week! Started out with a wheelchair project. Last year we did this too. We unloaded a whole truck of donated wheelchairs and man talk about a tiring day. Later went to a digital space museum with the sisters, super cool! We had exchanges this week and I was with Sister Gehring which was so fun. We met with a few members and did some finding together. We taught about the Melchizedek priesthood to a member and we had the elders with us so she could do a small "interview" with them as she called it. Also, we met with a member family here that I am in love with! Their daughters are adorable and seem to always cling to me. Turns out one of the girls gets baptized a few days after I leave which made me soooooo sad! Looks like I am face timing in! Then Thursday happened, the big day. We had the area president come for zone conference, President Golden. He is from South Africa. Awesome guy! Interesting accent. Turns out he did a stake conference in Livermore back in 2010!-hence the reason I don't remember, I was 11. He showed me a picture of him and the old stake president, President Alexander. Talk about a small world. We had a fireside that night. He actually interviewed me which I will talk about later. Weekend was chill. Currently translating the children and youth booklet into Georgian. We have a few kids qualified and I am working on having an activity where we go over the program. Sunday was chill didn't have to do anything really, for once. Yay for breaks. Though I didn't have the best day. Some days I wake up and I'm like I can speak Georgian...other days quite the opposite. I was having that day. Also didn't help that half of relief society was in Russian...so couldn't understand anyway. Although at times it was in Georgian, but my brain just couldn't figure it out. So frustrating. OK now to the reason of my title. We have been making a lot of soup recently cause it is soooooo cold and it's nice to eat. We told that to one of my favorite members and she asked if we have tried Borshe (russian cabbage soup which is literally purple) and I said once but it wasn't very good because a missionary made it. She said she would make it for us. Well, Sunday I walk into the sacrament room and she hands me a bag with a container of borshe!!! I love her so much! It was actually pretty good, so borshe, highly suggest. Transfers happen this week and as of right don't know where I am going. This is my last transfer...which is crazy to think about. I really want to stay in this branch! My favorite people are here! My last bit of time left I want to spend with these people.

Spiritual thought: I don't know how spiritual this is for others but it was spiritual for me. These past few weeks has been kinda ruff for me to be honest. I've been just pretty hard on myself and beating myself up. It's just hard when I feel Georgia deserves so much better. There is so much to do here since the church is so new so it sometimes feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. I want to be the best at this, but at times I only see myself failing. Anyway that's been on my mind recently. Broke down actually after a priesthood blessing which freaked the elders out😅. I got a bit better. Well, when President Golden came he wanted to interview a few missionaries and I was one of them. I told him a few of my thoughts and he just looked at me and said "stop that, stop beating yourself up". He proceeded to go on about a few things that I was thinking about. Basically a lot of things I really needed to hear. He then said he knew we needed to meet so I could end my mission without these thoughts. Also said not to think about that type of stuff for the rest of my life not just on my mission.😅  God loves me and is proud of me was the gist of it his message. I have seen in the past few weeks with having certain experiences where I can feel God saying I'm doing ok and keep going. This was the cherry on top. With that in mind I know just how much God loves his children and truly cares about them, even if it's just a good pick me up.

Well that is the week,til next time!

Forgot! It was my companions, sister mafia's, birthday!

- და ჯენსენი

Week 68  Bible Bashing with a Priest

[Parent note: This is a picture of Rachel she sent to us this week after her first haircut in Georgia . She was so afraid of getting her hair wacked because an old companion had that done on accident. She also had to wait until she knew enough hair cutting vocabulary to describe how she wanted it cut. This is such a classic Rachel pose and expression]

It was another interesting week.  One, we celebrated orthodox new years. We had the sisters over Monday (Mercer and Reynolds). We did proselyting before and so we had the night to party. Made pizza and did make overs. Yup, super girly stuff that I never thought I would do but here we are. Over here they have Georgian Christmas trees which they burn on the orthodox new year. So we did that. I didn't burn the big one I bought...cause I don't want to burn down our apartment building...looks like the Isani Sister's apartment is stuck with the tree for a bit😅. More knocking and finding this week. When we were walking home we got stopped by 2 guys. By the way, this is on a busy street, so mother calm down. Anyway they both were holding  beer...so I was like this might end interesting. They were nice and were just interested in why we were both holding the same book, yeah we were happy to tell them why. We talked about our church and well it turns out one of them was a priest...and he was all ready to prove us wrong. Yeah, I had to bite my tongue a lot. The other guy was chill and was helping us out actually...but the priest guy was just not having it. We eventually just told them we we had meeting because it wasn't productive. He was chill and kissed our hands at the end.  The blood was boiling a little afterwards but hey it's not a mission unless you get a little bible bashed at times, right? We met with one of my favorite members and she came all prepared. Last week we asked if she had read a certain book about the Priesthood we gave her. She was like "oh we don't need to know about the priesthood, that's the boys thing". Yeah we set up a follow up meeting real fast. We told her to read a few chapters before next meeting and she comes back and has taken full on notes and basically made our lesson without even knowing it. She is amazing! Oh we are teaming up over here with Carista which is a catholic charity group. Tonight we went on a tour of the place. We will finally be having regular service time through out the week! It was amazing and they also have an art therapy part and I seriously hope they let me volunteer there soon. Thursday we said goodbye to visionary man. He is gone for a few months to a certain country of which I cannot name. I thought it was my last goodbye to him but he gets back just a few weeks before I leave, so yeah! He gave me some advice before I left and man did he hit the hammer right on the nail. Everything he said was something I was seriously scared about or have been worrying about recently. He was like I don't know why I am saying this but it's coming to my mind. I of course was like that's the spirit, please continue. Friday we met with another member down in Rustavi and she fed us soggy xinkali...I had 6 cause she wouldn't let us leave unless we had that many. I did not feel good afterwards. Saturday we had a sushi party with a contact of ours with the other missionaries. He is super cool and it was a blast! Sunday was well a mess. I got out of it though so because I had to help in primary. I felt bad for the other missionaries though. I finally gave my talk this time, recall I was sick last Sunday. All the members really loved it, which was great. We went up to the primary room and guess what?! Primary has improved and we are actually having lessons. Yeah for progress! We mad an iron rod out of scarfs and jumping ropes. Kids loved it. While we were having a blast in primary, Sunday School was falling apart. We have been struggling with our Sunday school teacher for a while now. He speaks English but we English speakers don't understand most of what he is teaching and he usually teaches the doctrine wrong...well I left all the younger missionaries to translate and I guess it didn't end well. I basically had to straight out tell him he was wrong. Georgians over here are blunt. Us Americans and foreigners it can come off rude. But, for them it's normal. Well they just kinda drilled the missionaries about how they don't know the language...which I felt real bad about cause it wasn't even their fault. We have been struggling with the teacher because he doesn't make sense. It's hard enough to understand in one language let alone having to translate into another language, one you are learning. So looks like I'm probably translating next Sunday school. I'm officially old...missionaries are turning to me for things which is weird. I mean they started doing that this transfer, 3 months ago, asking me to plan things and do certain member stuff, but this made me realize even more that I seriously am the oldest sister missionary. I'm still a child! I don't get this😅!

Spiritual thought: I thought I give you little from my talk I gave in sacrament meeting yesterday. I actually basically gave my farewell talk I gave in america. I talked about the continual strengthening of your testimony. I gave my analogy of when I lost weight. I did small things everyday and I kept on doing them. It is a lifestyle because temporary changes do not have long lasting effects. Your testimony is the same. We have to do little things everyday to keep our testimony growing and strong, everyday! I talked about the three things that we need to do. Pray everyday, read the scriptures and go to church. All are simple yet very important and they help us deepen our faith which we need. I highly recommend listening to or reading Elder Johnson in the last October session. He talks about this and it is a great talk. 

Well that was the week, til next time!

-და ჯენსენი 

Week 67  შობა (Shoba)

Well, we had Georgian Christmas and it was fun. Got to see the parade thing again this year and it was amazing. Lots of incenses burned and priests going around a flicking holy water at people. What a day. It was weird to see Alilo Parade come to the big church again. Through me back a little. Wow how much time has passed. The mission has changed so much as well. We did some more "finding" this week. It's been a while. With all the activities and the hectic holiday schedule we haven't gone out finding too much. So back into the good old missionary work. We went knocking, did some Book of Mormon stands. Not really any real potentials this week but we will keep on going! We did have some meetings with some members this week. Friday was fun. We met with nail lady and her kids. We basically just had a dance party. What's funny is they showed me the new BTS song that came out😅. I guess I never have to worry about finding out what's new with them...it seems to always follow me.  We had another meeting with a member where she fed us this weird warm raspberry jello thing. Well, not really jello. It had the consistency of snot...tasted like straight up cough medicine and I think it was. Well that wrecked me for the weekend. My stomach was destroyed. It wasn't too bad on Saturday, but Sunday it hit...and yeah no good. I was supposed to give a talk, but we moved it to next week. It looks like every time I'm supposed to give a talk the adversary tries to poison me. Yeah so Sunday wasn't really that interesting. Oh, I forgot to tell you one of our elders left this week. He supposed to leave in 3 weeks but he got the OK to leave early. So right now we are pretty small mission....7 elders and 6 sisters. Kinda crazy. Today we are celebrating the Old Georgian New Year with everyone. Georgian's new years is on the 14th. So we get 2 Christmases and 2 new years. What a country!

Spiritual thought: This will be more of a fangirl moment hope that is ok! Come follow me! I hope your doing it! What an amazing program and I am so excited for this upcoming year. Already I am loving the 2020 come follow me curriculum. I am excited to see what more I can get out of the Book of Mormon. I have read it multiple times and I'm intrigued to see during this year how much more I will get out of it. 

That was the week, til next time

- და ჯენსენი

Week 66  New Year 2020!

Happy new years and შობას გილოცავთ (Merry Georgian Christmas. Georgians celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January)! I cant believe that it is 2020. I feel like it was yesterday when I was in my training when the 2019 new year hit. Well, 2019 went by in a blur. Monday was the branch Christmas activity and it was so fun. The missionaries did a nativity scene reenactment that one of members put together. It was really well planned out, and actually went amazing. I was Mary or over here they call her Mariami. Tuesday everything started to close down. We had to be inside by 6pm for safety and the sisters came to our apartment (sister mercer and sister Reynolds). We partied hard, lol. We made pizza, ate a ton of sugar, watched the Best Two Years, and basically just goofed around until the fireworks. So here in Georgia new years is insane, everyone does fireworks. So it's a 360 degree firework show. We went on the roof and watched it. Almost got hit by a firework actually😅. People just shoot them off their balconies...probably not the safest thing but its super cool to watch! The next day Georgia is a ghost town, everything is closed and no one really is outside. We joined a meeting with the sisters investigator cause the guy they are teaching is moving and I wanted to say goodbye. When Sister Mercer and I were on splits we found this guy. He is super cool and has already finished reading the Book of Mormon and knows it's true. I got to use my Persian testimony on him too! H said I have a good accent. So "imma" going to learn Persian when I get home. Add that on to my Japanese. We deep cleaned the downstairs library/closet finally, there was so much unneeded crap down there, I'll will attach a picture of all the stuff we had to throw out. Mom would not approve of that closet. Friday we met with some members in Rustavi. Saturday we went to an old folks home with all the missionaries. It was the same one I went to last year around Christmas. We danced and sang and later they fed us something called ღომი (ghomi) which is corn meal and cheese curds on top...not a fan. I gave most of mine to the elders. Sunday was a little sad, one of the members passed away. It was cool however to see how many people went up to bare there testimony about the Plan of Salvation. I also went up if you believe that! I have never voluntarily went up to give my testimony. Usually someone has to ask me or I have born it at the end of a lesson or talk.  But, this time I went up. I shared about my experience with my grandmother passing. I talked about how I was a little angry at God for letting such a sad thing happen during the Christmas season, but later the spirit reminded me of the real reason we celebrate Christmas and that is Christ. So my anger turned to gratitude remembering that because of Christ our families can be together again. We taught primary after that and as usually it was insane...but it has gotten a little better so yeah for more progress. Monday we went to go see the family members of the person who passed away with the missionaries in the branch and some members...well we all got lost for like 3 hours only to find the place and then to find them not even there....yeah that was interesting.

Spiritual thought: Well, my year to the lord, 2019, is officially over...and it's kinda weird. (that's we call it on our mission, a full year of missionary service). Wow how much has happened in the past year and oh how much I have learned. God has been with my through all of it and it's cool to look back and see that. I wouldn't take back this year for anything. 2019 is year I will never forget. I have met so many amazing people, made so many meaningful memories, and have gotten so much closer to God through it all. I will cherish this time for the rest of my life. This year my resolutions are different, since last time when I made them I knew I was going to be a missionary the entire year...now I only got like 3 months....which is weird. I still have a lot of time...but not like a full year like before. Man how time flies. Overall I've never been so happy in my life and I know the main reason is because I never been this close to God before in my life. They're right when they say the gospel brings so much joy, because I can feel it.

Well that was the week(and year😉) til next time!

-და ჯენსენი