My Dearest loved ones,
This week has been very rewarding with all the hard work we have been putting in to finding new people to teach. And along the way, some exciting stories have been made and will be told.
Tuesday the ZL's who live up above us went on exchanges with another companionship. Elder Fochs stayed in the area with Elder Winfield who has only been out for a month or two. It ended up that Elder Dicus and I went up to GCC campus to meet someone for a lesson but to no avail. I learned to appreciate the simple joy of blowing someone's mind when a little white boy comes up to some old lady or armenian man and starts inviting them to learn english. Pretty funny. Which we had our first successful class that night with 5 nonmembers showing up to class! It was awesome. And i'm learning that teaching English is really quite hard. Teaching Armenian would be so much easier. But it is rewarding to help them learn and have them in the church building.
Wednesday I finally finished my 12 week training program. Which means I'm no longer in training officially! Woo! It was a bonding moment with Elder Dicus though. We were watching some training videos and one was where this family gets baptized and Elder Dicus ended up... umm... getting something in his eye. Just a sensitive lil guy! That afternoon we had a bomb diggity lunch with our member Christine and some home made Armenian food. Nothing gets better than that. After lunch Elder Dicus and I visited Samvel our investigator and he was outside washing his car. And we found out that he did actually come to church last sunday but didn't know where to go. So I had the idea to invite him on a church tour so he would know where to go. And it turned out well but was interesting. When we started he was kind of hesitant and he actually said that our chapel didn't feel like it was a church at all because there was no cross or stainglass windows or anything. But he said he just felt that way because he grew up in the Armenian church. But we got into the baptismal font and was explaining baptism and I invited him to be baptized and he said yes to the date of April 21! So super stoked about that. later that night we tried to go visit Minas to help him prepare for his talk this past sunday but we showed up and he basically didn't want to talk to us. Something happened but we aren't sure what. He said he made a mistake coming to our church. So not too cool. That night we met with Bridget and talked with her to help her build her testimony. She is much easier to teach when Mike isn't there because the focus is on her. She gave us some good insight on how we can help Mike.
Thursday after District meeting, we had a lesson with a girl we met up at GCC last week and taught her about the plan of salvation. She was quite and not giving many questions but she understood it. Especially when we were explaining the fall. Elder Dicus and I hope to invite her next time we meet this upcoming Thursday. Then we had ESL that night and it was even better than Tuesday! We had 7 nonmembers show up! It was awesome. Kind of stressful because I ended up teaching the more advanced students while Elder Dicus taught the newbies. But it is awesome. Also found out that Bridget's bird named 'DeBry' was sick and she asked up to pray for her. I didn't want me to die!
Friday not much happened. We got invited to have curry with a member from the singles ward named Khou and he gave us a referral in the building he lived in. Then after that we went and picked oranges from Christine's tree again. Got another 5 bags. And then probably the most exciting thing was on our way back to the church to get our bikes, we walked past some couches that were put out on the street. So we carried the medium sized one back to the chuch so we could get it the next day to put it in our apartment! We needed a homely touch in our pad. We just hope it doesn't have bed bugs or that it has been a homeless man's bed for a while.
Saturday morning we moved the couch to the pad. It looks awesome. We gave a tour to one of our potential investigators and his wife. Then we went with Ashot and Hambarsoom to the LA temple visitors' center! It was strange because the last time I was there was for Kiel's wedding. But it was good. On the way there we drove on Hollywood Blvd. Saw some awesome stuff. Then we explained what we do in the temple to Hambarsoom and he understood it. And then we drove back through beverly hills and saw the mansions, 2 Ferrari's, Rolls Royce, Maserati's, and an Aston Martin. Total change from the Armenian love of Mercedes in glendale! Then we had dinner with a member from the English ward who is visiting from Utah. She and her son are famous. He is in movies and commercials and she was an opera singer on broadway. She played Carlotta in the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. Not to mention the little boy who is 11 is like a musical prodigy on the violin. Which he played for us. Pretty awesome. The rest of the night we had a lesson with Edmond and his family and extended family who were all there. Total of 9 people listening to our lesson. Pretty awesome.
Sunday was St. Patrick's Day and yes I did get your green package Mom and I wore a green tie. It was awesome. But Church was really good. We never got to meet with Minas so we didn't have anyone to speak so I gave a talk along with a few other members who agreed to bear their testimonies. After Church we went and visited one of our less active members, Varter, in the Hospital. She has really bad diabetes and she had to go to the hospital for it and so we just went to check up on her and offer a blessing. She is the nicest little lady who just makes you smile from her just saying Hello. She is hopefully getting released today. After that we rushed to Mike and Bridget's to meet with them. After some dinner, Elder Dicus and I re-inacted the first vision on Bridget's request. All because she said she was a visual learner. But it was good and we really broke down how Mike needed to go about reading and praying to get an answer. He still says he will try and make the date of Mar. 31 but he needs to put in the work. So we'll see. We stayed too long and forgot we had a lesson with Souren and his family. So we go there and the little 8 yr old remembered that she had asked a question and she wanted it answered. But we didn't have time so we rescheduled to answer her question on Wednesday but then we re-taught the lesson on faith because the mother was there, Hilda. And we had little Dallar and Devin teach it to her and it was awesome. I love this family. Then we had to rush to Helga's to have a lesson and another dinner with Her and her daughter Christine. And they liked our message so much that they gave us some steak to cook sometime this week. AWESOME!
So that is my week. Long. Busy. A lot accomplished and a lot still left undone. But I hope you all are having a great week and I hope to hear from you all soon. Love you all!
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