This past week has flown by so fast. I honestly cannot believe it is my third wednesday here!! At the end of each day it really seems like each day is an eternity long but at the end of the week, the weeks just seem to fly by. I'm not sure if it's because i'm having so much fun or because I am so busy or what. But I am loving it! So since last P-day a lot has been learned studied, and happened all together. Thursday night after my p-day officially ended we had a lesson from one of our teachers Brother Carlson. Who, by the way, reminds me of kiel for some reason. but anyways, part way through the lesson, he opened our door and in came one of our supposed investigators, 'Vasgen' who turns up to be our third Armenian teacher bro. stutz! we were all blown away because we had all been so frustrated trying to teach him with such a language barrier. but they then announced that we would actually be instructred more on the language and grammar and such which we were all happy about and which has been very beneficial to us all because now we can conjugate simple sentences and such for lessons instead of going in on a script we had previously translated. Friday went without much event besides learning some deep doctrinal lessons and finding out more about our new investigators that we would be teaching. they also sprung on us the fact that we were going to be having a change up in teaching companions. so instead of teaching with our companion, we got assigned to teach with another Elder or Sister in our district. I got assigned to Elder Morley who is a convert to the church. He is a really cool, goofy kid who kind of likes to take things lightly and mess around a lot but when we actually get working, he is really powerful. It took some getting used to teaching with him though which ill tell later on in my letter. So Saturday was weird. i say it was weird because it was the first saturday that i actually realized that it was saturday and wished it was an actual weekend instead of just another day. But it was a good day overall. we had our first lesson from bro. stutz and he is kind of awkward i have to say. maybe it's because i keep thinking he is some teenage armenian kid who isn't a member and is stubborn. but he is a really good teacher so far. we also had a lesson from bro. white on stress management which we all needed. not that i have been extremely stressed but i have definitely so busy that it has been overwhelming at moments. but his lesson taught us to just lose ourselves in this work and we will be okay and that the harder we work, the easier it will become to deal with the stress. So then came sunday. and man was everyone right about sunday. what i'm referring to is the fact that sundays are like an all day church meeting and its really nice but its a little much to say the least. My sunday schedule goes something like this:
630 awake and prepare
730 breakfast
830 priesthood
930 branch presidency interviews/study time/ time to write a talk for sacrament that we may have to give in the spur of the moment
1130 lunch
1230 sacrament - trying to stay awake after eating and hoping not to have to give a talk.
130 temple walk
230 more branch presidency meetings/ study time
430 dinner
530 fireside
700 film
And i'm not complaining because sundays are really cool in the fact that the film that they usually play at the end of the day is really good. this past sunday we got to watch a talk given by elder holland at the mtc on eternal missionaries which was amazing. he became my favorite apostle after watching that talk. i'd highly reccommend looking it up to anyone who wants. Next came monday which was just like any other day. except it was the first time that elder morley and i taught one of our three new investigators named samvel who is an armenian man who is married and has two children. The lesson started out really really well just having small talk with samvel and getting to know him and his family with our minimal language skills but then once we actually started to go in the direction of a lesson, it didn't work out so well. elder morley and i just weren't on the same page with the lesson. we didn't exactly even have a lesson completely prepared because we were so busy doing everything else. but oh well. we will do better tomorrow when we teach him.
Tuesday is basically like a miniature tuesday. it starts out with service around the MTC. this most recent tuesday, elder littlewood and I got to clean bathrooms!! it was so fun!...... it actually wasn't that bad but it still wasn't as pleasant as it was cleaning windows last week. but we were all just really lazy after that and ended up laying around on the floor until lunch. but elder morley and i got to teach our first english investigator! it was actually so nice being able to understand everything and to say what i wanted to say! and elder morley and i were on the same page which was always nice. then wednesday just was a typical wednesday with nothing too exciting to report other than another lesson with our third investigator Artoor who is a 14 yr old kid who was very shy and didn't talk much which was frustrating.
So overall, this past week has just flown by. Having taught 8 lessons in Armenian as of today, 1 english lesson, am now able to read, pray and sing in armenian. Elder littlewood and i are really getting along so far and i'm kinda bummer we arent teaching companions. and another thing i'd like to finish off with is the fact that i am definitely glad i got brown shoes and no black suit because with my two suits and brown shoes and all my dazzling ties, i am the best looking missionary :) not to toot my own horn or anything.
I miss everyone and hope everything is going well! Feel free to write me during the week via email, dearelder or handwritten letter. i look forward to the mail everyday to see if anyone was thinking about me. so far, mom has everyone beat with sending me a letter at least once a day. one day this week she sent 4 including a package.... that might be a little much but i love her anyways. So long for now until next p-day!
Love, Elder DeBry
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