Letter 16

So Conference was super bomb this week! So many good talks and on top of that it's like missionary vacation!  It was a busy week though with zone conferences the day before but I had a really good time listening to all the talks.

 

I really wish I paid more attention to Conference before coming out here because it is amazing. If you didn't watch Conference you should at least watch some of the talks because they were all super good. Also, members feed you really well over Conference so that is just a plus.

The beginning of the week involved a lot more finding and unfortunately dropping. Hopefully we will find someone who is ready for the message of the gospel and not just ready for a one time lesson or a two hour service everyday. We did find a lot more new investigators though so that was good. Unfortunately I have no pictures his week so sorry for that but it was a really good week for us still and my companions really like to work hard which is very good.

I hope you all watch Conference if you haven't all ready and appreciate the messages we are given. I took Conference for granted before my mission and now I realize that these messages are super important because they came from prophets and apostles. Who knew that these are prophets in our day? 

It's amazing but sometimes we forget that but I promise as you watch with a specific question or concern in mind, Heavenly Father will answer it. I hope you all have a good week and keep working hard to be your best!

Letter 15

I finally got to try a little bit of Armenian food this week. Well, kinda. I'm sure you could find it anywhere you go but I'm gonna say it's Armenian nonetheless.  So this week I can't actually remember anything that happened. Wow I know something had to have happened this week.

Oh yeah, so we found a Parska-hai (Persian Armenian) family. Armenians from Iran. They are super awesome and the family consists of a young girl about 12 years old, her mom, her uncle, and her grandma. We are super excited to teach them but the uncle isn't home often so that makes it hard for us to schedule a time to go. Luckily, we have trio power and therefore and go into peoples homes now even when there isn't a male present.

As for the unfortunate turn of events, they speak western Armenian with a Persian (Parskastansy) accent. We have a difficult time understanding a lot but thank goodness Elder Meppen is a little more capable than us.  It would still be a good idea to bring some Farsi members because that's the only language they can read and so they probably speak that one the best. They are amazing and we are super excited to keep teaching them.

Most of our investigators right now aren't even full Armenians they are either part Russian or Persian. We keep getting referrals or finding people who speak Russian and Persian and we are over here just like, "these aren't even the same language why does this keep happening."

I love it though. We've gotten very good at using resources. So pretty much that's about it. Sorry not much this week but I do have a few pictures.

Elder Meppin with a praying mantis. Me eating Gatan. A comp pic. And then me before drinking Tan (also known as drinkable yogurt). Gatan is super good and everyone should try it. Tan... is not very good but try it anyway. It's disgusting.

Letter 14

Wow I am super pumped right now! I love Glendale, even though people here are super weird, and we all agree we should move more of the Armenian work to Burbank area. They are younger and more receptive so hopefully we will be able to go out there often to work. As for weird Glendale people, we were doing service for a recent convert of the zone leaders and before we started, he introduced us to his friend mike. Mike is a light bulb. The recent convert is planning on reincarnating him with an invention he made. Awesome. So there is that fun stuff. Weird stuff like that pretty much happens on at least a weekly basis. 

Anyway, things were pretty normal this week and nothing different really happened but we did pick up a new investigator (sort of) named Vestanik. He is awesome but speaks no English so we have to always have members there to help us. We also finally got a hold of Artur and met with him! So we had a pretty good week.

Now for the best part, I came in the middle of the transfer and so transfers were this week. Of course I'm training and so Elder Stucki and I were pretty sure we weren't moving. That is until we got a call from the zone leaders. We had the phone on speaker when Elder Stucki answered and they asked for me. It was still on speaker and they said "hey Elder Jensen, you will be picking up your New companion tomorrow." Elder Stucki got really nervous right there it was super funny.

Fortunately, Elder Stucki isn't leaving. We will be in a trio and our new companion is Elder Meppin. We are super pumped to have him back because he has been in English work for the last six months and he is glad to be back as well. Also now we have a companion who is a little more fluent In the language which will be a huge asset. Anyway, I will try to get a picture with them but there is a lot going on today so it might not come until next week. Hope you all continue being awesome and working hard. Remember that the church is true and there are miracles everyday, you just have to look for them! Have a good week!

Letter 13

Wow it has been a crazy week. Well not really, it just goes by so fast. The good news is I finally got my iPad figured out so I was able to get the rest of the people on my email list. For some of you this might be the first email, so sorry about that. Well, it has been a pretty normal week for the most part. We did a lot of service again because a lot of people live in really messy areas and people are constantly moving so we didn't have a ton of lessons this week, but it was still really awesome. 

We are still struggling to find new Armenian investigators. We did meet this one guy named Azad who is super polite and loves it when we come over. He loves learning English and he knows a lot so he wants us to teach him in English but we want to teach in Armenian. We do a little bit of both and it's a lot of fun. We gave him a Book of Mormon this week and he said he would read it but he can't change religions. Just like other Armenians, he is part of the Armenian church. However, he loves to learn about Christ and so we actually talked to him which is better than what the other Armenians let us do. 

We don't have a lot of people in our teaching pool so we do a lot of finding. However, we do have one exciting thing this week and that was Ysa's baptism! She was baptized last Saturday and we are super proud of her and her family. They used to be less active but now, they have begun to come back and enjoy church. Ysa has progressed so much and we are so proud of her. She is seriously amazing and so smart in the gospel. She and her family will really benefit the ward.

I will try to send some pictures later when I get them. Well that's about it for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful week as well and don't forget to share the gospel with people! Missionaries really like referrals so always be looking for people who need the gospel.

Have a great week!

Երեց Ջենսեն

 

 

Letter 12

Hey everyone!

Man it seems like during the week I feel like I have so much stuff to write but by the time P-day rolls around I forget it all. I should start reading over my journals again before I write these. Anyway, this week has been a pretty great one and we saw a ton of miracles at church yesterday. First, this random Armenian guy just walked in with a pass along card to church yesterday. That like never happens.

We also had a bunch of less actives show up for church that we have been teaching and even more less actives stop us on the street because they recognize us and want to visit with us. It has been awesome! I also translated in sacrament meeting again. Elder Stucki and I switch off every week. I did way better and by that I mean it was testimony meeting and so I only had to translate testimonies. Instead of me only translating 10% of what they said into grammatically incorrect Armenian, I was able to translate 50% of what they said into still grammatically incorrect Armenian! That's mostly because a lot of them say the same thing but it's ok I felt pretty good about it and I do think I am getting a little better at it.

As for our investigators, Ysa is still progressing perfectly and is going to be baptized this Saturday! We are so excited for her! We haven't been able to get a hold of Artur but he called us and told us we might be able to meet next week. We occasionally pick up new investigators but they have a hard time progressing and choose not to meet with us or we just can't get a hold of them. As for the rest of the general Armenian public, they are all very loyal to their church. We met one lady the other day who wasn't part of the church but she didn't want to hear our message. It was good to meet someone though who didn't instantly reject us because they already go to a church.

Well, that's about it for now. We have been doing a lot of less active work lately for English and Armenian so that has been good. We need more attendance because when we invite Armenians to church they can't understand anything because it is mostly in English. The only thing in Armenian is Sunday school and that is still a little bit of both English and Armenian. Hopefully we can get more attendance so that investigators who don't speak English will feel welcome. Anyway, that is all for this week! I wish you all the best and hope you have a great week as well!

 

 

Letter 11

I don't have much to write about this week because we haven't really moved forward with our investigators. We did however find a less active member who is really prepared to listen to the gospel again and we are excited to see what is in store for her. Also that guy in the other picture is brother Twelves. He is a return missionary who came and visited us. It was pretty great because he gave us many helpful tips and he speaks Armenian perfectly pretty much. We went and visited many people when he saw how bad the situation of the group was so hopefully that gives a little boost to all of those less actives. It was fun to go visit all of these people with him and we learned a lot about how we can improve ourselves and the mission.

As for our investigators, we have no idea what happened but they didn't come to sacrament meeting. For all we know, Artur might have gone to visit Russia from what we heard because we couldn't get a hold of him. Hopefully we will be able to be in touch and help him keep progressing when (if) he comes back. We are having a great time here and the members are awesome! They feed us all the time and it is always super good. 

Unfortunately, none of the Armenian members come out with us for lessons and help with the work but we think we can get them to come if we keep working. For now, the English speaking ones are doing excellent. To be honest though, the hardest thing about this mission is that everyone is super dedicated to the Armenian church. Also, the people in Glendale are super old and we can't find a single Armenian family but we are hoping that if we look around a bit, we will be able to find an Armenian family. It has been good so far and I hope all of you have a good week as well!

(Pictures below!!)










 

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