Missionary Tag or Invisibility Cloak?

Many possible titles for this week's blog post came to mind : 1)  Liar, Liar Pants on Fire 2) Noah in Armenia 3) Respect Your Elders 4) 3 Brothers? 5) And You think Cockroaches are Bad?  Here's Jared's letter!

Hello!

Well pictures aren't working this week for some reason. Which is a bummer because I went to the zoo here. It was really kinda cool. Oh well, I'll try again next week.

As for my first meal when I get back to the US, I think I would want a home cooked meal :) I brag about the food I ate at home all the time. In and Out can wait :) Maybe I'll go with Brody or something. (We were at In-n-out this week and were wondering what Jared might want for his first meal back in the states.  He has a year and half to decide!)

Anyways, so this week was interesting again, as is every week in Armenia. This week a couple Jehovah Witness missionaries came to our door and tried converting us. They started asking the deep questions like "Why do you think there are so many churches today?" and "Where do you suppose we came from?" So we answered them, and gave them a few of our lessons. They agreed to meet with us later on this week :p Two new investigators. We still don't know what their intentions were for meeting with us, but we like to consider them as investigators :p

So we had an interesting investigator this week. Let me tell you about him.  He explained about the Russian symbol for the sound "ch" which looks like a 4. He also told us he had turned 6 twice. (keep in mind his hands and arms are twitching nervously this whole time). He said he had met with the missionaries before and that he had the Book of Mormon. We asked him if he had read it and he said yes and he knew it was true. He had read it by putting it to his head and reading with his spiritual eyes. He informed us that the Noah from the ark was the same one that transported to the Americas and became the king during Nephite times. Now Noah resides in Yerevan. He's telepathic apparently, and can tell you your family history just by looking at you. (Oh Dad, you never told me that I had Indian, from India, blood in me.) He apparently found out that Thomas S. Monson, Hinckley, and the president of Russia are all 3 brothers of 11. He can teleport, and does, to Vega often. Pretty fun guy.

A blessing: We had run into some punk kids about a month ago and they kept us from teaching for about a half hour while they made fun of us and asked us stupid questions. This week, we ran into them again and they forcefully stopped us in the park. They grabbed me by my backpack and shoved Elder Lush backwards. Just then, someone who we both thought we knew came by and said hello and forcefully talked to the punks. It's way shameful here to go against something someone older than you tells you to do, so they backed off. We kept on walking and this one girl asked if she could borrow our phone real quick. She looked like she was in distress so we let her. We started talking to this old lady who was with her, when the punks started coming back. They stopped right by us and stared the whole time we were talking with the lady. Finally the lady was like "Can I help you?" The punks went off saying something about how they were pure Armenian and they had the pure church and that we were a lie and invading their country, defiling it. The old lady then went off and railed into them saying that she was Armenian Apostolic but that our church was called the Church of Jesus Christ and that all we wanted to do was teach about Christ and spread his love. And then she said something about how they poorly represented the Armenian people and what this people stands for, because they had poorly treated guests of their country. The lady using the phone finished and the old lady told us to go while she railed into them some more. Elder Lush and I both agree that we were protected in that situation. Things could have gotten really dirty if people hadn't come by and stopped the punks.  (I like this little old lady!!)

But anyways, it's funny, we figured out that our tags can turn us invisible. Whenever we walk on the streets, no one ever seems to throw a glance at us and ignores us. Sometimes they even run into us, by accident I'm sure. We are invisible of course. When we say "Hello" or "How are you?" the sound of our voice must be cloaked too. We tested this theory in church. Elder Lush leaned over and said to one of the sisters in our ward, "Hey Sister Arevik" which produced no response. He then repeated it three times. Then I leaned over to him and said "you still have your tag on, you're invisible" He then took his tag off and repeated the call. Sister Arevik looked over and said "Yes?" :) Theory proved.

Anyways, that was my week. We're headed for Ejmiatsin today which is the capitol of the Armenian Church. It should be way fun. We're going in normal clothes though of course. :p

Love you all and I'll send pictures next week!

Elder Hammer

HI MOM :D :D

So yeah, the mission definitely is not the easiest, but we have help out here for sure. It really is quite interesting what we run into out here.

I like how you freak out about the cockroaches :p It's probably the least of our problems with sanitation here. For example, the water, we changed our filters that week and the filters were....an interesting color. And expiration dates on food, I don't think I've looked on one of them since I've been here. They would just depress and scare me :p But the cool thing is, is that we have our immune systems AND the spirit fighting germs in our body. :)

Yeah, we seem to have a problem with fire. Elder Lush was playing with matches in the bathroom (we use them for air fresheners) and he dropped one onto his pants. That was probably the funniest sound I heard coming out of a bathroom ever. He had to change clothes after that :p

It's funny, people often ask us here if we're Christian, usually after we tell them what church we're from. We show them our tag, the Book of Mormon with "Another testament of JESUS CHRIST" written on it, and other pamphlets with pictures of Christ on them and they still ask. Satan really works hard to cloud their vision.

Well Mom, you're my best friend too :) Don't get too discouraged about school. Whenever things get rough here, they tell us to count our blessings, and it helps every time. "My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep. He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh" -2 Nephi 4: 20-21
 

A blessing that I always say thanks for is the fact that I was born into this church and raised by parents who taught me correct morals and attitudes. I thank him for my mother who taught me how to love others, no matter what they do or say. :)

I love you, Mom :)

Love,

Elder Hammer