Monday: Pretty awesome p-day, emailed quickly (sorry for the summation of everything) and then we went ROLLERSKATING with the zone - think it was the first time I went actually rollerskating and it was awesome! Only had a few casualties - elder twelves hurt his wrist and had it wrapped all week, I fell pretty hard but no injury. After, finished emailing. Went to the pad - showered got ready. Bradley picked us up and all four of us went to Rita's for a meal she made for us. it was this bomb baked pasta stuff and then some stuffed eggplant. Then went to Joey and Ella's with Bradley. Wasn't home for a while so we stopped by Zhorants at his shop. He was happy to see us. He checked out Bradley's car. He told us his shop isn't very succussful right now. He wants to move. So keep him and his business in your prayers! then went to Joey's and talked with him for a bit. Not a very good lesson. he was all over the place. Invited him to the friday night bbq and the end of the month picnic.
Tuesday: Got call from Office saying Elder Twelves and I needed to find our own apartment asap. Biked up to Central building to get zl's car. Went to try by Melina and Rodrick with whom we had set an appointment. Not home. Started to scour Glendale for an apartment for under $900... which is ridiculously impossible. We spent a good three hours just going up and down streets. Not fun when we couldn't go on craig's list. we met up with the Burbank Elders and knocked in their area. I went with Elder Shcropple. Who lemme tell ya is a BALL of fun and energy. We found some good potentials. One lady, Anoush, wanted us to come back and pray with her. Another family was having a son visit from France and he was astounded I spoke such great Armenian from learning it in America. Elder Twelves went with this other Elder who was having some companionship issues and he said it was pretty good. Then we went to knock Linden. AND AND AND we found Zaven!! who had just moved from his jw friend's apartment and they wouldn't let us get his address but we were knocking on linden and found him and his family!! guess they really need to meet with us! That night we didn't go on exchanges because Ashot and Aram cancelled but we had to stay at the church and translate for Anoush who wanted to meet with Bishop but had to meet with Townsend first about some things that were happening in her family. Keep her daughter in your prayers as well, her name is Manushak (means Violet). So that took forever and then Twelves translated for Bishop while I was waiting with Eligio (one of the G1 Elders investigators) who wanted to meet with Bishop. So not much happened that night.
Wednesday: After studies Brother Clonts from G1 took Elder Twelves and I out to this place called Din Thai Fung. Which I guess is a pretty famous dumpling place but man was it good. Just these super juicy meat dumplings and a bunch of sides. Pretty pricey too. Had a good talk about Brother Clonts telling us to travel the world while we are still young. Then we did more apartment searching... for another 4 hours and got nothing in our price range. Most of the signs up that say 'For Rent" werent actually for rent but they just still had the signs up. So that was frustrating. Got some knocking in that evening. Knocked Thompson. Found this one nice lady who worked as a flight attendant and she was trying to tell me how busy she was to meet but THANKFULLY I just so happen to have a mother who works as a flight attendant as well so I am very familiar to their schedule and I told her that and she said she could make some time. HA! TAKE THAT. Got into this other house of Verzh and Rina who were from Iran. they couldn't really understand our Hayastansi dialect while we were trying to teach but we said we'd come back. They gave us some nice deghdz though. Got picked up later by Brother Bradley who wanted us to try by and remind Frieda about Church on Sunday. She was busy having a tutor come over for one of her sons but she said she was going to come to church.. she didn't though which was a bummer. But then we stopped by Edwin and had a great lesson with him and Verzhik and Edwin's mother and sister. We hadn't seen him for over a month and we came at the perfect time. Edwins mom had been a car accident recently and talked about that and how our work was going. We talked about chuch and families and Edwin asked why everyone was so in a rush to eat the last sunday he came (which was fast and testimony meeting and we had a break the fast after) and we taught him about fasting which led into faith, repentance and baptism. We invited them to the bradley's bbq that friday and they said they'd try.
Thursday: Zone meeting which was talking about the Doctrine of Repentance, Finding and a the 3 week experiment which is just a super condensed calendar basically of meetings with investigators to speed up the process of sorting out those prepared and not. Got some lunch at Taco Bell. Going to try and go there more because one of the workers is Armenian and she is super impressed that we can speak the language and she also works at a baklava factory and said she'd hook us up. AFter we did more apartment shopping and we found 2 thanks to Nate looking on Craig's list for us. One was decent, a little old and pretty far from where we want to be. Then we called on this other one and the owner said he just put it up that day and was having his first showing in an hour so for us to come there then. So we did and there was an Armenian family looking at it and the one lady basically told us they were going to take it and we shouldn't waste our time to look. Which was funny because elder Twelves was just going to walk off saying it was the same as all the other apartments. But then the owner came and told us to look so I walked in there and looked around. It is teeny tiny. But clean and nice. We walked out with the owner and after a few minutes he told us that we were the preferred tenants because he was familiar with our Church and he wanted us to help him with the other Armenian tenants. So we jumped right on it and called the office and got it that day. So it really was a steal of a deal :) Biked up to knock. Nothing too exciting the rest of the night. We stopped by Minas Sarkissian later and had a good talk with him at his door. He went from stubborn and not really wanting to talk to us to friendly and saying he'd come to church at some point before Twelves goes home. the power of prayer and the spirit really worked on him in that short time :) Gave a blessing to a guy that night as well at the church who said he had broken his neck a few years earlier and it was hurting again. He was really thankful for us having the priesthood. I love being able to give blessings.
Friday: Studies. Weekly planning. Elder Twelves kept falling asleep on me mid sentance. It was rather amusing. Went up and knocked Ruberta after both of us felt good about that street. Got kicked out of another building by some neighbor of a family we were talking to who was nice to us. Later found this super nice woman and her son who loved that we spoke and she wanted to help us learn better and speak better. Her name was Margarit. Very intelligent and educated. Kept saying she wanted to speak russian to me because I looked Russian. Super nice AND she wanted to know what we taught people and families. But she had talked so much and was reading us POETRY that she had written which was beautiful by the way, that by the time she wanted to hear what we had to say, we had to go. Then we were late and had to haul home to meet the other elders and head to Bradley's for the BBQ. Matanyan's and Gagik and his daughter, Hambarsoom, and Joey came! Super stoked that Joey came. WE had a really good time. Gagik's daughter Violet was a great singer and sang a few songs for us. She said that they knew some of the sisters and Elders who I was in the MTC with. Pretty cool.
Saturday: made flyers for our picnic at the end of the month. It took a lot longer than we thought and ran into some problems. then drove up to burbank and knocked with the zone leaders up there. Went with Elder Bertoch again. He is a stud. Really good Elder. Got a few good potentials we are going to try by tonight and we taught a lesson to this Aethiest guy who was super frustrating. Bob. Had slips of paper with websites on them that 'proved' the bible to not be the word of God and told us that when he finally accepted that there wasn't a God he felt just so much lighter... most ridiculous thing I've heard in a while. He was just frustrating. he wouldn't listen and then he had the nerve to tell us to keep asking questions and stay open when he wouldn't even let us say a closing prayer. So dumb. Split back up. Greg Derminjian cancelled on us and also told us he wouldn't be at church either. So we went and figured out the flyers. STopped by this lady Chaneta who was super nice and wanted us to come back Friday. Then we had an appointment that didn't show at this super sketchy part of Sun Valley in like this industrial part of town. And he told us he wanted to meet at 9... he didn't show.
Sunday: I translated for Armen Gvorgyan in Sunday school. He is difficult to translate for because of the complex vocabulary he uses and the Russian words and all the idioms that I'm not familiar with... so that was rough. Anoush taught relief society. Then I along with Gagik gave a talk in Sacrament. I was very nervous but it was a pretty good talk. Not my best but it was simple and to the point on Obedience. I only put a few people to sleep :) I stayed with Elder cook after while he taught a music lesson and Elders twelves and tavoian went with Debra to visit a referral she had for them. Found out Elder Twelves had forgotten to fill up the font for some spanish Elders who were having a practive baptism for their inviestigator with health issues and they had to have five people in the font to lift this guy in and out of the water... it was interesting to watch! Afterward we had some food. biked and started visiting some potentials on linden. visited Zaven. He was home with his family. Review the restoration with his wife and then his family friends came over that were jehovah's witnesses and they started to try and argue and told us not to pray and to basically leave. I was super frustrated. I'm very, very not happy with Jehovah's witnesses. It wasn't even their house and THEY WEREN'T EVEN JW'S. But we will try again and see if they are still interested after all the stuff their so called friends will feed them about our faith. Then we stopped by Edward and Roubina but they were about to go out and told us to come by tonight so were going to do that. Everything else fell through. so we headed to Helga's after cutting up the picnic flyers. Had a good persian soup that I guess was famous. It was good. Talked about leadership with Helga. Had a good visit with them.
So yep! That is about all of my week! Nothing too exciting but every week is a new adventure :) I love you all very much and hope you have a great week where ever you may be. Talk to you next week!
Elder DeBry
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