Really? They Called First?

Really cool statue that shows what every man over the age of 55 does here :p

Hello!

Okay, that was cruel. Those are five of my most favorite meals. (Carl asked Jared's opinion on the meal we should make for our family reunion.  Not really nice, huh?) But now that I have to choose and think about them for the rest of the week, while you get to eat them, here's my answer from #1 to last:

Taco Salad

Lasagna

Enchiladas, chicken

Tacos

Spaghetti

:( I miss Mexican food. 

But that's okay, Armenian food is still realllly good. 

So I'm allowed to print emails from family, but I'm not even allowed to receive emails from anyone else. As for your emails, I just read them here and keep them in my box. I'm planning on organizing them and saving them for when I get back.

Well, my Armenian is coming along fine. I can understand anything people say now. I had to translate last Sunday and I was doing a lot better than I thought I was in understanding. I was able to catch every sentence, so that was good :) Speaking is a little bit more difficult, but I'm doing alright :)

So I did a bit of service this week. Nothing planned, just little acts every now and then. I always try to see how I can help someone. It usually involves helping older gentlemen carry their bags, because they always carry way too much. They usually ask us not to talk about religion at the end, but that's okay.

The people our age are willing to talk to us, but they talk about stuff that we really don't want to talk about. Like going to prostitutes and smoking and drinking. So it's kind of hard to connect. 

In general, I think the Sisters in the mission find more success than the Elders, mainly because we have to pass off our Female investigators to the Sisters, and normally there's a 2:1 companionship ratio between Elders and Sisters. So they get a large flood of investigators that they don't usually have to find. But that's okay. I guess. :p

So anyways, big story for this week:

On Tuesday night I get a call, while Elder Bott is in the bathroom, from the other Elders in our district. It starts off, "Okay, Elder Hammer, we're staying calm because we don't really know what to do," which caused some alarm in me before they even told me what happened.

"But, the apartment above us is on fire. There's ash falling and pillars of smoke coming from above and it's really hot!"

So I told them to get out and use the stairs and that I'd get a hold of President Carter. So President comes over and picks them up and they ended up staying at our apartment for the night :) Which was pretty fun. Staying over isn't allowed in the mission except for extreme circumstances, so it was a nice change :p

Well, since everything is made out of concrete in this country, the fire stayed in the apartment above them and didn't touch theirs, so everything turned out alright. :)

In other news though, Elder Bott had a baptism on Saturday for some people he found in Ajapnyak. It was pretty cool :) It was a baptism for 5 people at the same time, and one of them wanted Elder Bott to baptize her. 

Quote of the week:

Random Guy on Street: "Hey, what is your thing again? Buddhists?"

Us: "No, we're Christian"

Guy: "Yeah, but that's what all the cults say"

Us: "Not the Buddhists..." 

That's an interesting thing about the people. If it's not Armenian Apostolic, then it's a cult. Doesn't matter if it's Catholic, Islam, etc. It's all the same to them. They don't understand that there are more Christians in the world than them. When we tell them we're Christian, they're like "Wait, so which monastery do you go to?" And then we explain how we go to our own church, not the Armenian ones.

So yeah, that's it for me :) I love you all! Have a nice time at the family reunion :)

Elder Bott had a baptism on Saturday for someone he found in Ajapnyak :)

This is what the washing machine looks like. It's poop.