Elder Jared Hammer: Bullies

It looks like it was another challenging week in the mission field. He mentions that he got sick this week. He could really use our prayers. But he's still there and doing the work! This week it will be one year since Jared received his mission call and we began to know and love a little country on the other side of the world. Time flies! Here's the news from Armenia.

Hello!

Thanks for the advice you send every week. I really appreciate the insight and the creative ways of connecting things to missionary work :)

So this week I got sick. It wasn't fun at all, but I'm getting through it. Yesterday I had to take the evening off to rest, but the good thing is that it looks like it's working. :)

Anyways, lots of crazy stuff happened this week. Some of the stories will just have to wait until I get home :p But know that your prayers are heard and answered out here :) It's really interesting seeing the hand of the Lord when it comes to certain things.

We met one old man this week named Lova Papik, which means Lova gramps. We met with him the day after we found him on the street and he was way nice. He wanted to feed us so we went into his kitchen and tried to help him out. He gave us a can to open and we both tried opening it but couldn't to save our lives (and I've been doing my push ups every day). So Papik gives a little "aghh, give it to me" and he places it on the table, then goes on to smash the lid with his elbow several times (he's 82 by the way). He then picks up the jar and lightly removes the lid :p

Anyways, he told a story about how in 3rd grade there was a bully who would always take his books at school and told him that if he said anything he would cut him with a knife, that he brandished every time. So eventually he got kicked out of school because he just wasn't learning and couldn't tell anyone why. He still remembers that kid and said that he curses him still.

So sad story, but even more sad, at the end of our meeting we were about to walk out the door when his grandson comes in and asks what we were doing here. We said we were here because of our faith. And then he told us to never come back. We said that we were invited by him and he said that it didn't matter. Papik then asked what he was doing and the grandson said he'd tell him later. Because we didn't really want a conflict, we just left. I couldn't help but compare his Grandson to his bully. Both kept him forcefully from learning things that would change his life.

Well, you win some and you lose some.

We also met an Iraqi-Armenian this week. His accent was crazy and it was almost impossible to understand what he was saying. He wasn't quite interested in the gospel, but he was Christian and said we were doing good stuff here (that's something that doesn't usually happen here).

Fun fact: We live right next to the (one and only) air force base here in Yerevan, so quite often I get distracted by MiGs flying around doing routine practices every day :)

Anyways, that's my week. Sorry it's a bit short :)

Love you all :)

Elder Hammer