Letter 10 Arcadia California

Hello everyone! 

There is so much to talk about but it has been so long so I don't know where to start. I arrived in the field Tuesday morning and had to go over a bunch of paperwork and stuff. Then I got to meet the mission president and later my companion. His name is Elder Stucki and he is awesome. He was actually born in Santa Clara and we have the same birthday but he is a year older. Also, he didn't get the full MTC experience because he had a surgery and when he got better they shipped him straight to the field. 

Apparently everyone also thought somebody else was going to train me. He is the newest Armenian missionary besides me so this is going to be interesting because we know about the same amount of Armenian and neither of us are very experienced. Well the first day was really long because I was up since 3:30 and once we ate lunch we just started proselyting. It was awesome all though most people we talk to speak English but we did meet a few Armenians though.

For the rest of the week we have been trying to find people mostly because we don't really have many investigators set in stone. It is kinda hard though because there are so many different languages here so when we bump into Spanish or Chinese people we can't talk to them at all. Yes I forgot all of the little Spanish I knew while I learned Armenian. However, we do have one investigator named Ysubella. She is nine years old and comes from a part member family and they all speak English. She loves learning the gospel and we were going to push for her to set a baptismal date but this week she chose to set a date and it is really soon too. We are so excited for her. 

We also have a new investigator named Artur who is Armenian. However, he also speaks Russian so we can't understand his Armenian with the Russian accent. We can barely understand it as it is so that makes it hard but he does speak a little English. And he also came to church this week! It was awesome! I also translated in sacrament meeting yesterday. Elder Stucki has only done it once before and he just decided to have me do it right then and there which was a huge mistake. Luckily only one or two people really use the translator which is good because for each paragraph a speaker said, I translated about a sentence in incorrect grammar. It was an experience though that's for sure.

The group here is great but it is really struggling. In fact, it may be dissolved soon from what I have been hearing. Hopefully Elder Stucki and I can save it with help from the members and the Lord. We are just both so new here and it is hard to learn the language when we don't hear it everywhere we go but we will keep practicing together and trying to talk to others. I am excited to see what is in store for me and I hope you all have a great week!

Երեց Ջենսեն




 






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