So today is officially two months since I left the MTC. Crazy how time has flown and yet it feels like i've been here for at least six months in the field. Just with how well I feel like I have a handle on our group, getting to understand the culture and just the area in general. But alas its only been two months! Time is weird and I'll leave it at that. But this week was quite busy.
last monday was cleaning day (where we deep clean our apartment) and that means that today is Transfer day! Where usually people get transferred to different areas around the mission but we basically just go to the Armenians and don't really have a specific area. So we really only get a change of apartments every few transfers and we usually know who our next companion will be. Which is kinda nice. We actually have the next 5-6 months already figured out if things aren't too crazy. but the down side to this is that sometimes we don't get a fresh start with investigators/members. Which i've heard can sometimes lead to complacency and times when the work is slow because you feel like you have talked to just about everyone.
Anyways! Tuesday we had our 6 week training meeting in Arcadia. Basically it was just a follow up of how training has been going and a Q&A with our mission president about concerns and such. Don't really have any questions, comments, or concerns. Just need my newspaper in the corner and I'll be good! This week has been awesome for street contacting though. Elder Dicus and I have really made it a goal to not just park in front of peoples apartments but to walk inbetween just so we can meet more people. Even though by the end of this whole week my feel are tired of walking, it has been awesome. but at the same time lets just say people aren't always the nicest. For example, tuesday we had a guy tell us straight up " GO AWAY" when we just tried to ask him how his pizza was that he was eating on a garbage can. but then we met some guy that just invited us in off the street and let us teach him and his wife the first lesson. however the husband was a little more interested in watching the news that was on... and i saw why! Lets just say that Armenian news isn't quite child appropriate and leave it at that.
Wednesday Elder Dicus and I made our way into the heart of glendale into the Americana to go to barnes and noble to look for an ESL book. We need one so we can start teaching english classes in replacement of our bible study class that is kind of a dud. And wednesday was the first time i've had someone threaten to call the police on us! which was rather random because she had said nothing of the sorts the last time we had talked to her on the street in front of her house. she even seemed pleasant and enjoyed our conversation. guess not! people are just rude for absolutely no reason. before we even say something to them they just grimace and shake their heads and say no to us. But we had a great lesson with Hambarsoon this week. We brought our recent convert Christine and we got him to say an actual prayer! It took some push from Christine and some embarrassment but he prayed. felt very accomplished.
Thursday we got invited by Mike and Bridget to Mike's house for a family dinner again. Fortunately it was right after our Dinner with another member so we were extra full.... bleh. but one of Mike's sisters had this lil puppy that just adored me. it was a pomeranian/chihuahua mix and his name was Jay. I guess Elder Twelves never got to go to His Mom's house and that means they must really like us! but mike hasn't come to church in two weeks and missed this past sunday as well because they are going out of town.
Friday was planning/bike day and we had an epiphany about our armenian group and investigators. we feel like our group is just going in circles and not progressing becasue they aren't acting on what they know. which is frustrating because we teach and teach but they don't do anything about it. dumb.
Saturday was quite the adventure. Since we share a ward building with a congregation of Filipinos, we had some of the missionaries that work with that ward bring us some Balute before we started our open house of the church. So Balute is basically a fertilized duck egg... and we each ate one.... I'll send pictures. It looks disgusting but it wasn't that bad! But I can't even explain it. lets just say mine had some crunch from the duck being somewhat developed... after that we sat in the sun for a good two hours just trying to contact people and show them around our church. not so much luck but we did get one! not armenian but hey it works! later we tried by some park to play some old people in cards but this lady stormed up to us and very rudely said that the park was full of only armenians and that Mormons had no right to be there..... ummmm yeah.... pretty sure it didn't have her name on it but we continued talking to the old ladies who liked talking with us and agreed that the lady was off her rocker!
Sunday we had our stake president speak in church and had combined sunday school meetings. we found out after the meetings that someone had gone into the baptismal font room and turned on the valves so the water was going all over. this has been going on for some weeks now. but then we got a call from the other armenian elders later that day to come to a dinner appointment with them because the husband had left unexpectedly and they needed someone else so we had a delicious three course meal last night that was way too filling. Also met with an investigator and learned some Russian! languages are pretty cool I guess :) But that is all for this week! I'll write more next week! Love you all and hope you have a great week.
Elder DeBry
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