Like I said in my last email, last Tuesday was our P-day because it was our Zone day to go to the LA Temple. Which was awesome! So I don't think I told you about last tuesday so I'll do a brief recap. Woke up at 3am. When we got to the members house at 4 they weren't answering our calls and were making us nervous that we wouldn't make the first session. But they came out so no worries. Then went to the temple with our zone. Had the member, Sister Turley, drive us there and back. She is awesome and her family is kind of like a super family. One of her son's is a navy seal. Another one pitches for the New York Yankees. And the youngest one grew up with Denzel Washington's kids and grew up knowing him and his family. (She took us over to his neighborhood and showed us where his house was in Beverly Hills). And now that sons plays professional basketball for Mexico. And the mom Sister Turley grew up with Elder Bednar in Germany while he was a missionary. So not sure how I become that successful but I'm going to try! They are an awesome family. So she took us out to this BOMB breakfast burrito place called Lucky Boys after the temple and before we started out P-day. The day went as usual with a '3 AM wake up' drag to it. We played soccer with the zone for a bit and went to an Armenian CD store and Elder Dicus bought some CD's to listen to after he goes home. Christina Papillian is supposedly a good Armenian signer so she bought one of hers. When the day ended we had ESL which only had our usual people there but then Antonia and Bella came. Which is always nice to see them. Bella is getting quite good. Then we visited Mike and Bridget who fed us and then proceeded to wrestle in front of us... which ended up taking the rest of the evening so we left before teaching anything. It gave me an insight how young married couples spend there time!
Wednesday I went on an exchange with Elder Crumrine here in our area/investigators. It was good to be in charge of the area for once. Felt a little different without having Elder Dicus there just because I'm so used to him but Elder Crumrine is cool too and we get along. But the day kind of stunk because everyone we tried wasn't home or didn't have time for a lesson. We stopped by Tina who is this crazy funny armenian that speaks good english and she is going to let us clean her house at some point this week. Then we had lunch with Antonia and Bella and they were super excited to see Elder Crumrine because they don't see him very much. We tried by some other people but they weren't home and then just ended up going around to members and some other people to invite them to our Picnic this past saturday. We had a lesson with Elizabet and Sona which turned out to be really good. Elizabet was talking to us about her cousins Albert and his family. We are going to have them help us with lessons because Elizabet speaks fluent Farsi and French so she can translate better for us. But she was just asking questions that they have had concerns about such as the drinking coffee thing and such so she can help address them when she helps. Then the rest of the night we went over to help the other Elders with their Armenian class because they had to go teach someone so we taught the remainder of the time. I love teaching Armenian. Much easier than English to teach. Then we switched back. At the end of the day I'm super glad to be such awesome friends with Elder Dicus. The other two Elders don't get along super well together and they aren't really trying to make it work. But hopefully they will. Elder Dicus is just pretty hard to beat.
Thursday I went on another exchange with our zone leader Elder Tovey who is AWESOME. He is the wrestler from Oregon State and he is just a ball of muscle and laughs. After district meeting and running some ZL errands, we had a lunch with Khoa from the singles ward. Gotta love free lunch! But then I had to sit and chill while Elder Tovey talked with the Assistants to the President about their area (because they are in the same area) and I didn't get to participate much. Then the rest of the day basically consisted of stopping by peoples houses, hoping they were there, them not being home and then trying another person. Thankfully we got some MexiCali for dinner which is that member owned mexican place downtown LA and it was worth the boring day. Until we had the two set appointments not show and I had to sit through a super boring Ward Council for their ward. But I learned a lot from Elder Tovey. He is a great Elder and a good friend.
Friday I was finally back with Elder Dicus. After the morning studies we headed off to go to the church to weekly plan. But after not even being there for 10 minutes the other Armenian Elders called and asked for our help. Which we did but it was one of the most unproductive moving service I've done because the member Kris wasn't being helpful at all at what needed to be packed with what and where and if he was keeping stuff. So we didn't get to help for long before we had to go to Varter's for that lessons. Her doctor finally told her that she can walk so she is able to come to church now! So that was really good to hear. Then we were taken out to lunch by Frank to this place called Shakey's for one of the Elders Birthday. (Elder Selfridge). After that we just called and visted more people for our Picnic! Not sure why but with Armenians they need constant reminders of these things to ensure they will attend. We had a lesson with Souren and his family which was just on their reading of the Book of Mormon because they hadn't read as a family yet. So we read with them and it never gets old having the kids want to pray and be excited for our lessons. Then we went over to Albert's apartment where Elizabet already was and we attempted to teach them. I say attempted because I felt like we just kept focusing on one person at a time becasue they were all over the place.
Saturday was our group Picnic! And it was awesome! Ashot got there at 5 that morning to save tables. I guess it was a popular place on Saturdays. So at 8 Elder Dicus and I took the watch of the tables while the other elders helped Kris finish moving and Ashot went home to cook. We were there until people started showing up at 1130 but the majority of the people didn't come until 12 (an hour late) but then it was a party with probably 40 or so people there! Investigators, members and friends just all gathered around for the huge amount of food that people brought. The spring Tolma and home made hummus was probably my favorite! We played soccer, had water balloon games and everything! Oodles of fun! After everyone eventually left the day resumed with planning the rest of the evening because we didn't get to Friday which took the rest of the evening and even involved some wrestling caught on film!
Sunday was AWESOME. We had a productive morning with our Ward Council for once deciding who will visit whom this next week. But then church actually started and by the time it was sacrament, we had 49 people there! Between some investigators, a ton of our less active members (some of whom i've never seen at church), and even some visiting Armenians who live in Utah with their families! This one Armenian family from Orem was the majority of the program between the two younger kids speaking and the family singing together. It was awesome. Such a different feel to the meetings when we had almost everyone there! It was almost like it was a branch! After church we went with Mike and Bridget to Mike's sister's house. Bridget chilled by the pool, Mike graded tests and Dicus and I gardened with the Sister and Husband! It was really hot and I never thought I'd garden in my sunday best but hey that is what dry cleaning is for right? We were there for a while helping before we had a dinner with the Turleys at their house. Not much more to say about their family besides they are awesome. The rest of the evening we visited Edmond and finally got to answer the question we posed to him two weeks ago. It was a struggle, but we got across the point about prophets even though he kept going off on tangents.
Overall it was a great week. I love you all and hope you have a great week!
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