Week 70  I'm a mom again! Well, kinda 

So transfer calls happened on Monday and guess who I'm with?! Sister Mercer! For those that don't know, she was my trainee (as we like to put it in the mission, my child). So, I am beyond happy to be with her again for another 3 months. My last 3 months. What's funny is that in my entire mission, I have only had 4 companions. I served with Sister Van Brocklin, Arutunova, Mafi and Mercer. I am still in the same branch, but I did have to move to Varketili and I love it here! I am also STL (sister training leader) with Sister Mercer so this will be interesting. Ending my mission with a bang!. Ok, so the week:

Monday we were with all the missionaries since the elders (hunt and Christensen) were gonna leave on Friday. Next few days were just finishing up my time in isani. Few meetings. Met with my favorite member to go over one last thing about the priesthood. In the end we talked about her struggles and we cried a bit together. We are all on the path and sometimes you hit those very rocky moments. She is pushing through though. Thursday was transfers and I said goodbye to Isani and to Sister Mafi. To be honest it was weird the next day not to see sister Mafi since I have lived with her for 6 months😅 we set some awesome goals for the transfer, ending the mission hard! I'm stocked. We said goodbye to the elders. I got really close with those elders, they were like brothers to me. It was a sad goodbye but I know I will see them sometime when I get back. The next few days afterwards were weird, the mission has changed a lot. Everyone I knew from my first transfer has left expect for one elder. I'm a little sad to be honest because those times are over but I am excited to make new memories with this per say new mission although really it hasn't changed too much. Just two people left and we have two new people.

The next few days we had a lot of work (there is a specific word in Georgian for this and I can't translate it into English😑 its საქმე) I have been translating the children and youth program into Georgian and it is mostly done. We are having a friend of ours look through it for any mistakes at the moment. Sister Mercer has been working on the format. The primary kids, and youth, need to be doing this and it isn't their fault it's not translated. I knew it wasn't going to be translated for a long time so I decided to do it. It is almost done. We are having an activity on Sunday to explain it. Let me tell you my brain is fried, but I have to say I have learned a lot in the last few days. Sunday was interesting like it always is. In sacrament meeting sister Mercer was translating and was struggling a bit. I think I remember telling you this but Georgians are very blunt here. So a member next me was complaining a bit that when she bore her testimony that Sister Mercer's translation was bad. Well, I was not gonna to listen to that so I went up to bare my testimony about weaknesses and remembering that we are all trying, ourselves and others. I know pretty bold, but hey, its Georgia that's how you do it here. There is no beating around the bush. I shared my favorite scripture of course Ether 12:27. Later sister Mercer told me she was about to start crying but when I went up and shared my testimony it really helped her out. So yeah for the spirit pushing me to do that! Second hour I partially translated for RS, but then a member took over, which I was chill with. I was doing fine but he wanted it perfect so I let him take it. He is a translator, so I'm not gonna say no. Which by the way Sunday school was great. They had a meeting and talked with him and boy did he step up!  Best lesson yet! After church boy my mind was everywhere. I had a bunch of people just swarm to me. Dealing with the doctrine and covenant translations (they have finished translating it by the way and the members are currently reading it as a proof read!), president asking about members, primary kids literally hanging on me, translating for the senior couple, and just all questions at once. I just stood in the hallway and everyone came to me. Man this it what it feels like to be an old missionary in Georgia...yah for responsibility😅. Something cool happened later on Sunday but it will be in the spiritual thought. That was basically the week. Nothing too special, we just have a lot of church business going on and so finding hasn't been happening. But, hopefully we will be done by Thursday so I can go knock!

Spiritual thought: This is actually a funny story. So coming back Sunday night we were hungry, but the only thing we had at home was rice. We wanted khachapuri real bad. So we started talking about buying it. Well it's the sabbath so we shouldn't do that right? Well we started thinking what if it's just a cultural thing in the church and is not actually a rule. Well standing outside of a bakery we searched all through gospel library to see if we could buy khachapuri on the sabbath to eat...well the more we read the more we realized that we shouldn't so we sadly left the bakery empty handed. Well, on our way home is a fruit stand. We say hi to the fruit stand ladies everyday. Last transfer the sisters did too but they never had a conversation with them. Well...today was the day. They stopped us an asked us a bunch of questions and it was a great conversation about who we are and why we are here. Walking away from that we both knew it was a blessing for not buying that khachpuri and keeping the sabbath day holy. I think God got a good chuckle from this experiences as well. So keep the commandments you'll be blessed! It works! Even if it's as simple as saying no to buying a cheap khachapuri on the sabbath. That night

ended with us happily eating our rice.

Well that is the week, til next time!

- და ჯენსენი