Merry Happy New Year?

Me eating jello with chopsticks because we were out of utensils. They're clean now...don't worry.

Hello!

Christmas time is approaching...in America :) Unfortunately, it's a bit later on here, plus they don't really seem to care about it here unfortunately. There are always more preparations for New Years than for Christmas. All the alcohol companies stock up the stores real well and advertise more than ever (People will buy quite a bit of alcohol to welcome the new year.), fireworks are on display for sale (of all sizes) and people will usually start gathering up enough food to have enough to last the seven days of the New Year. The way it works out, is that the New Year celebration usually tends to cover up Christmas. It's quite sad. I asked a few people last year what they did for Christmas celebrations; A few said they went to the church and burned a candle, several said they just spend it at home with their family, and several others didn't even know what it was. In any case, it looks like western culture is starting to invade Armenia, so Christmas-based advertisements seem to be creeping in.

At the grocery store today, we did start finding Christmas trees. They were, unfortunately, at the cheapest 36,000 dram, about 90 - 100 dollars. So who knows. Maybe we'll find a Charlie Brown Christmas tree somewhere.

As far as warm clothes, I'm still doing fine from last year :) So everything should be ready for this year.

Well this week was a bummer. I got sick starting on Monday and it took me out pretty bad, as soon as I got better Elder Christensen got sick :p So our work got knocked out for this week. We did have Thanksgiving though with our Zone this week, so that was really nice.

For Thanksgiving, we went to the office building bearing jello and mashed potatoes, and after about an hour of prep, we got eating...and eating, and eating. :p Turns out we only ate half the potatoes, only one Turkey and we hadn't even touched the soup. :) It was way good though. For dessert, we had homemade pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, fudge, and cookies. (All homemade. Pies don't exist here). After clean up, we went and watched 17 Miracles, just like last year :) Unfortunately, it didn't snow as we were watching like it did last year. Snow still hasn't hit Yerevan. Waiting....very impatiently :p

On Wednesday, we went to an 8 year old baptism. It was really strange, because you never see those in this country. (Kids in our church can get baptized at 8. There aren't many young children in that country that are getting baptized apparently.) The church is still very new here. It was a really neat experience though, especially for the investigators we brought.

President Carter came to our branch this week, and I'm the one that has to translate now every week, all three hours. :p Thankfully I didn't do too bad, it's just a little exhausting.

Made taco soup this week :) It was pretty good. I made it up on the spot, because I thought it sounded good, especially with a cold.

Well, that was my week. Sorry it was short, but we were pretty sick :/ I'm doing better now though :)

Love you all!

Elder Hammer

The family of the baptized boy

Us around the table

The turkey :)

Oh yeah, the APs also made Tolma (traditional Armenian food. Meat, rice, etc wrapped in grape leaves) for Thanksgiving.

Me :)