Last Monday we had a family home evening activity with our group and did an easter egg hunt and decorated eggs. Armenians paint them and they are so cool. much cooler than just dying them. but the families we invited didn't show up so we didn't know if we'd end up having them look for eggs. but they all loved it! we had our older members running to look for them! It was awesome.
Tuesday we had a little tuft with the other elders at our early morning meeting with the mission leader so we had to work that out later in the afternoon. turns out i'm a pretty good mediator and counselor of some sort! We gave a blessing to a less active and her autistic little girl who wouldn't keep her head still and her mother busted out laughing during the blessing. Kinda funny. We went out to lunch with the AP's since I bought one of them lunch the other week. Got a lengua burrito from some little mexican place. I like the Armenian preparation a little better. But tongue is tongue! We taught an awesome ESL class. We have a good 5 ish people coming every week. And we hope to start teaching one or two of them! but we visited Hambarsoom and gave him a DVD player while he is sick and we gave him a couple church videos.
Wednesday was awesome. Up at GCC at the booth we set up for the Institute, I had two people come up and initiate the contact with me and asked me questions. It might have been my brown shoes though that go so well with the navy pants and pink tie. Oh in other news, our car got keyed on wednesday also and we had to call the po-po and report it. Took forever and not even sure the officer got the story straight but we had to report it for church policy. We visited a family whose daughters names are Poulet and Bennet from Iran. We knocked into them the other week. They are super nice but are really having a hard time finding jobs. they say every place wants experience that they don't have. they said they'd love to talk with us but its hard to focus because they don't have money for a lot of food. So we ended up going and grabbing extra food from our apartment and leaving it there for them on their doorstep and ditched it. Definitely never thought I'd really see someone with malnutrition that extreme in Cali. Then we also visited the Uzbeki family that Elder Twelves and I moved in. We ended up meeting the whole family. The dad is Muslim but the family seemed pretty open to learn more about us and our message. Didn't get to quite teaching them but we hope to soon. And before we went home we stopped by some guys apartment who we met on the street. He is from Guam and is super cool. He and his girlfriend invited us back for Pakistani food next week (she is from Pakistan).
Thursday. Was the last district meeting of the transfer. So it had a somber feel and we took pictures. Anticipating that people would be gone the next week. Had a nice lunch at Red Robin and had to rush up to GCC for a lesson with Melinda. Finished the P.o.s. and said she is reading the BOM. then I probably had the best street contact thus far. Her name was Luse and she has been attending the seventh day adventist church. I asked some really good inspired questions and she ended up asking if we could meet because she was confused. Love it! Taught another awesome ESL class. Had our regulars come back and we are developing a good system of teaching together on multiple levels of english knowledge.
Friday was super busy. We didn't get to end up weekly planning we were so busy. We had a pot luck with our district again before our scheduled planning time. Had a little too much fun with our st. patty's day green beards. We had to move Susanna move out of her old house and pack everything in storage... sounds too much like home! Had to run back and have a lesson with Christine which was interesting to say the least. But the rest of the night was supposed to be crazy but the family we wanted to teach weren't home so we visited Poulet and her family. they have lived here in America for a little less than two years and they were asking questions like they got there the week before. Kinda funny to explain how american's dance and such.
Saturday we had a pass of with the Sisters. they introduced us to this Armenian Lady, Tina, who is awesome and crazy and all over the place and because Elder Dicus and I were playing dress up with all her antique stuff in her house, she loves us. Had a sushi buffet as a last meal with the ZL's Elder Fochs and Tovey and then had a second dinner right after that with Antonia and Bella where we talked about Easter and they explained how they make such cool eggs! and the kicker of saturday was.... I'M NOT BEING TRANSFERRED AND I GET TO STAY WITH ELDER DICUS! Super stoked. This will be an awesome transfer with him.
Sunday was probably one of the best days of my mission so far. We had a combined church meeting with the first ward and one of our leaders gave a great talk about easter. Minas the recent convert showed up and explained that he had to come to see us. Even though his wife thought he was at the Armenian church. Love that man. he gave us some colored eggs. he'll be back. Hamarsoom didn't show up until 10 minutes before the church meetings ended. I guess he never got the message about the earlier start time. But then we had to get ready for the baptismal service... oh yeah I forgot to mention I baptized a guy named Anthony Tanilian yesterday. I'm not sure if i've talked about him but Elder Dicus and I found him and taught him the first lesson and invited him to be baptized about a month ago. But he speaks good enough english so we passed him off to the ZL's in the singles ward and I got to baptize him yesterday! best experience ever. not even going to try and describe it. The rest of the day we had a nice easter dinner with a less active. then went to the farewell Despidida for those missionaries departing today or tomorrow. It was such an awesome day.
And i'll leave it at that. Love you all and I hope you all have a great week. Thanks for all the love and packages parents! Love you. Happy EAster!
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