Fist Fights

Hello!

Well, this week we went to the old Erebuni fortress ruins, which are apparently super old. But that's just what they say :) Regardless, they still looked pretty old.

On Saturday, Elder Bott's group also went to Vernisage, which is the giant market tourist shuka thing. It's pretty huge and has a whole bunch of souvenirs, both hand made and factory made. It's pretty neat.

This week we celebrated Armenian Independence day. I think we might have been the only ones in Nork celebrating. I'm sure in Center they were doing something, but up here there was hardly anything. We put an Armenian flag on our apartment wall outside and we bought a cake  and ice-cream. :) It was pretty fun.

 A fight broke out in church yesterday :p I'm not quite sure how it started, but at the end of sacrament meeting, two of the men in our branch exchanged words...and then blows. Branch President took care of it though. :p It was an experience I'm just not really going to get back in America.

Well, finding people to serve isn't really a problem. It's just trying to get people interested in the gospel. The people that let us help are always thankful, but never really want anything else to do with our church. We did run into one lady that we helped carry her bags. She was completely shocked that we were here on our own money and just came to help people and spread Christianity. She said that we were the only true Christians that she had ever met. Then she asked to see our book, and she was like "Ohhhhhh. You're Mormonists." which turned her off a little, but she still invited us to come back some day. So I guess it's still okay. I just wish people would get past the title of the book and actually read it.

So that was my week. Not much but still fun. People still love yelling at us, but it's a normal thing :) Thankfully there are still people who love us to death.

Elder Hammer

Small  part of Jared's letter to Mom

So yeah, we're using the balloons a lot. We did one for our investigator and he flipped out! He was looking confused yet amused at the balloons we were twisting, and then I put the eyes in the body of the snake and he was like "ohhhhhhh!!! char odz e!" which means 'ohhhhhhhh It's an evil snake!' He said that it was awesome and put it on display :)

Erebuni fortress ruins from 700 b.c. (or so) (or so they say)

Balloon plane :D

Someone in my district made this for me during district meeting. I wish he were paying attention :p but, it's still pretty cool

Found another cat in our yard. So we played with it :)

Vernisage

Jared's Hospital Visit

This is Jared's mom.  We got a call from Jared's mission president last week letting us know that Jared had been taken to the hospital for some heart palpitations.  Carl even got to talk to Jared for a few minutes. (Yes!  I was jealous!)  Sorry we didn't let everyone know earlier.  We weren't sure he wanted people to know. But he's out now and here's his side of the story!

Hello!

Well, this week was, well, very different :) And educational. What did I learn? That even Kaiser is better than the best hospital here :) (Editior's Note: Actually our family thinks Kaiser is very good!) Though I can't complain. They took very good care of me and the doctors and nurses are very friendly. I also learned a lot of new words in Armenian. Such as ultrasound, thyroid, examination, and beat (specific when describing a heart beat). So that's good :)

Well I'm assuming you all know about everything.  (Sorry!  Wasn't sure he wanted to tell everyone!  Heart palpitations ended up being a thyroid issue.) Probably more than I do. Elder Bott would come in to visit and be like, "So what's going on with your thyroid??" and I'd be like "I don't know! What's wrong with my thyroid??" The nurses told him more than they told me. I just sat there while they pushed me full of shots and weird medicines :p

It was an interesting experience. Not fun, but very interesting. By the third day, I was very happy for a shower right after they took the monitor off of me. Brushing my teeth was also nice :)

The first and second days they kept me in intensive care, where I saw a whole lot of....interesting things. I got to make really good friends with all the nurses though. I made friends with all the cleaning ladies too. They're super nice. Halfway through the second day they sent me up to something called the "palat" which means palace. It's essentially a hotel room with a medical stretcher bed instead of a real bed. Once I was moved up there, Elder Bott was allowed to stay with me. He slept on the couch that night. After we did studies and stuff, we got kinda bored (you can only do scripture study so long) so we started making up our own games with Uno cards.

But really, I'm just glad to be back and able to work. I never knew how much I took for granted being able to do simple things whenever I want, such as shower, shave, use the toilet...Whenever I had to use the restroom, they had to unplug me from the machine, and then unhook me from the IV, and then set it all back up when I finished. So I learned to hold it :p

Well anyways, on to better things :)

There's not much else I did this week. I gave my first District meeting. That was pretty cool. It seemed to go alright :)

Okay, well I'll have more to talk about next week. The hospital took most of this week :p 

Today we're going to an old ruin of some settlement in Erebuni that dates back super long ago :) The museum is closed on Mondays, like everything else in this country. Hence the Pday change :)

Love you all!

Elder Hammer

Part of Jared's letter to me:

I've been in Yerevan now for well over a year. This has kind of become my home. I love it a lot. People are super surprised that I'm still here :) But I really really like it! I love Yerevan. It's just so full of life and a ton of people. (Plus it is also nice that Nairi Hospital is here. The only American-safe hospital in the country :p ) (I included this part of the letter because I was happy to hear that there is a safe hospital there and that they aren't asking him whether he'd like clean or dirty needles!)

P.S.  Apparently, even though Jared didn't mention it, it looks like Jared got our most recent package.  We sent him balloons and a book about how to make balloon animals. We thought it might be a way he could talk to families and kids.  Who doesn't love a good balloon monkey?  

Elder Bott with his balloon sword attacking the snakes.

Monkey with a banana! :)

My 2nd attempt at a snake. Much better.

My butterfly

Me and the flower

Elder Bott and his snake

Me and the snakes :p

My flower balloon :)

Elder Bott's snake on the left, mine at the right

My first attempt at a snake...

Our 'pet' cat we found in our yard :) We fed it yershik (sausage thing) and milk :) It's our friend now.

 

We bought a ton of matchboxes and we found out they had Farsi Sudoku on the back :p

me :p random (Beautiful random picture!)

Geese :) at center

The burial process

The end result of the burial

Armenian Funeral

Hey there!

So I have had chances to play the piano, much. I was the pianist in Malatia, but organs don't exist in this country, so I haven't really had a chance.  I often get to play the piano though, because I play for district meetings and a lot of other meetings that our mission has. So it's good :)

Well, so news for this week. This Thursday, I was made District leader :) Right now it's actually the biggest district in the mission. Elder Bott is still my companion, but they wanted me to get experience in while he was still here so that I could get trained on being a district leader. So that's neat. I give my first district meeting tomorrow :)

Another interesting thing that happened this week. I got called to be part of a quintet to sing for a member's funeral. It was way down in Artashat, and actually happened to be one of the first, if not the first LDS funeral in Armenia. So we went and sang "God Be With You Till We Meet Again" and then we all went down to the grave site.There, the deceased's son, Elder Minasyan of the 70s, dedicated the grave and then they placed the body in. What happened next was pretty interesting. The Armenian culture is for everyone who wants to put a handful of dirt in, and then everyone takes turns using the shovels. Once one person is tired, some one standing right behind them taps them on the shoulder, and then it's tradition to make sure the handle of the shovel touches the ground before the next person picks it up. So I got to take a turn with the shovel. It's apparently a sign of respect for the family of the deceased.

 

After that, we went to the family's house, where they had a huge dinner set up with chicken, beef, lavash, greens, and all sorts of stuff. Before you walk in, there are two family members who wash your hands (also tradition). Once we got in, there were about 50-60 people all seated at long tables. During the meal, whoever wants to can stand up and say a few words about the person who died. So it was a really neat cultural experience, and also a good missionary opportunity for the friends and family who weren't members of the church.

Well, enough about death. A little about service now. This week we had a few random opportunities for service. As we were heading home for the night, we passed this one lady who always sells books in the underpass. She was putting away her thousands of books and it looked like she was struggling. So we asked if she wanted help and she was like "no, no everything's fine" and we were like "are you sure, you look like you're having a hard time" and she said "no, no, really" so we said "okay, well we're going to help" and she said "thank you so much; I broke my back and it's hard to carry things" :p So we never believe anyone anymore when they say they don't need help.  We also had a chance to help someone fill up their car tires....by hand. That was a little difficult. 

Well that was my week :) I love you all!!!

Elder Hammer

Tsoghik Gets Baptized!

Elder Hatch, Elder Bott, Tsoghik, me :)

Hello!!

Who did I help this week? Well, we helped this one crazy guy :) He was dumpster diving for clothing, so I ran back home, got him two ties and Elder Bott grabbed him a Book of Mormon (which he wanted). We then helped him carry all his clothes back to his home. He kept on talking to himself and had a few other problems, but he seemed like a nice guy :)

So, about my companion Elder Bott. He's from Peoria, Arizona. He hasn't gone to college yet, but he plans on going to BYU Idaho and then transferring to Provo. He has only one brother, so our families are the same size. He's really good at art and the guitar, and plans on going into animation after college. His favorite Ice cream flavor is vanilla (bleagh. I just stir in cocoa powder), and likes anything from Asia. 

Anyways, so the big news for this week: I baptized Tsoghik! It was actually kind of funny. She had one last interview with President Carter yesterday (Sunday), and as we were finishing up President Carter said, "So normally baptisms are on Fridays or Saturdays, but it doesn't really matter. What day do you want to get baptized?" and Tsoghik responded, "Can it be today?" :p President Carter was kind of shocked but said "Oh...well...I suppose it could." So we had a Sunday baptism. :) I had the privilege of performing the ordinance myself :) She is such an amazing lady. She already has a great support system. Her mother and sister are already in the church, so everything will be great. Her sister is in our branch, so she can come to church with her. 

Well that was the exciting news :) 

We found a water cooler thing in our apartment this week. You know like those Arrowhead or Sparklettes ones that pour out either cold or hot water. So we hooked it up, cleaned it up, and filled it up. :) Now we can either have nice cold water after being outside, or I can have instant hot water to make Ramen. :) 

We walked by this one guy who was kind of crunched over this week, so we stopped and see if we could help him. We asked if he needed help and he got up, smiled, and told us to have some fruit that was by his car. He filled up a bag and gave it to us (that's not unusual around this country). But what was unusual, was that after that, he crunched back over and clutched his chest. We asked what was wrong and he said his chest was feeling tight and that it was painful. So we got his family to call medical and made sure he was going to be taken care of before we left.  Armenians....Even when they're having heart attacks, they make sure their guests feel loved.

We found a fox this week :) He was cute and fluffy.They're smaller than I imagined. 

Well anyways, that's my week.

Love you all!!!

Elder Hammer

Elder Gropp, Natalia (other elder's investigator), Elder Bott, Avetik (first counselor in branch), Elder Hatch, Tsoghik, Me, Gayane (Tsoghik's sister)

Elder Bott trying to force the water filter chambers off. We had to change the filters and clean them last Monday and they were a pain to take off.

Funny English on our washing bucket thing, translated from Arabic

Arman (Stix) 's cat, rolled up in a burrito :p

A Tomato and a Loaf of Bread

Yerevan at dusk

Hello!

So, an interesting transfer happened this week. Part of it was that they pulled the other Elders from Arabkir and changed the boarders so that we have Nor Nork, Avan, Jrvezh, Arinj, and now Zetun as well as Kanaker. Our area is now the largest area in the mission. It's pretty stressful.

But yeah, the only other Elders in our district are the Zone Leaders, and they always have to attend Malatia for their district meetings because it's just two elders and two sisters. So our District meetings are just....us two. Elder Bott and I. So we'll see how that goes. :p

Another interesting thing. We had to renew our visas this week. This one should last us for the rest of our missions. It was a nice little reunion for our MTC group.

The hospital was another story. It was exactly how it was last year. We got "ultrasounded". I'm not sure why. It was really awkward since it was a 27-28 year old girl ultrasounding my stomach...and beyond. But then after that we got our blood pulled, and then they hooked me up to an ancient EKG system with things that looked like car jumper cables,  which was also operated by a 24-25 year old nurse... And then to end it all off they shot us with about 5 x-rays.

But yeah it was fun. And then we all went out to eat together afterwards. So it was nice.

We were meeting with some members this week, when all of a sudden some kids ran by and threw rocks at their windows. So I guess it's not just us that gets the persecution.

We got invited in from off the street this week by some people who we helped. After we took their building materials to their house, they asked us to stay a bit. They apologized that they couldn't hyurasirel us (basically giving food to guests is what it means) because they had no more food in the house. But then someone came out and said "Hey, I found food!" So they brought it out and fed us with the last tomato they had and a small loaf of bread. I was really touched, but not surprised, because that's just how the Armenian people are. The only food they had they gave to us.

But yeah, that was basically my week. We're walking around a lot, but that's okay. Elder Bott is getting ready to go home in less than six weeks now. Everything is normal and going well. We have an investigator, Tsoghik, if you remember her, who is about to get baptized. We'll find out next week :)

Anyways, love you all lotssss :)

Elder Hammer

Our group at the hospital this week

Abraham and I

Elder Bott and his butterfly that flew onto him :p

Cool and Crazy

Hello!

I'm super jealous about Anderson's Pea Soup. I remember eating there on the way back from Northern California, or Fresno. I do like our own homemade pea soup as well though, and the bread we had to go along with it. I do really enjoy Armenian food, but Enchiladas is sounding really good right now, or Lasagna.

You asked if we still say White Bible when referring to the white handbook (for missionaries) :p That was actually one of the first rules they told us in the MTC. Right after saying we all needed haircuts, they told us never to use the name "white bible". It had never entered any of our minds, so naturally we started saying it as a joke after that.

Anyways, I had a very tiring week. Quite a bit of walking, quite a bit of being cussed at (I know most of the cuss words now :p ) but that's okay. Things will get better.

The cool thing about being outside a lot, is a greater chance of seeing cooler things. For example, we saw a soldier just walking around with an AK-47 on the street this week.  Or like seeing some kids jump the wall of the military base, just so they can go play soccer on the field there. :p

We got to go help the other elders in our district. They've been stuck inside for two weeks now because of one of the elders has a leg injury. So we went on splits with them and helped them to be able to go do work outside now :) They enjoyed it.

Sometimes we talk to some really cool guys, and sometimes we talk to some pretty crazy people. We talked to these two guys that were pretty neat kids and asked us about ourselves and stuff and got us some sparkling water from their store (I had to choke it down). But then also this week, we met this one guy who said "Is it a sin to injure animals?" and we thought he was going to say something about the Armenian church doing animal sacrifices, so we asked him what he meant. He said "Like when I'm angry, or bored, sometimes I just burn things," and we asked "Like what?" He said "Cats, dogs, peoples hands." So we told him that that was probably a bad idea, left him our number, and then left :p It was a little weird.

Well that's my week. Have a nice week at school and stuff :)

Elder Hammer

The internet place we use to send pictures, but isn't allowed for normal email use, because of isolated computer stalls.

The statue and memorial of Gai

An activity in Priesthood, talking about listening to the one voice you trust to lead you and ignoring the other voices around you. :p

 

Service

Pictures of when we went to the church in our area :)

Hello!

So it's funny you should mention how you're surprised that our mission doesn't focus more on service, because just this week we had a big mission change. Now, we won't be reporting OYMs (Open your mouth), and we were asked to take a more concentrated effort on service. We had a large two hour meeting for our zone where some missionaries were told to share their experiences of opening new cities ( 2 new cities have been opened in our mission recently and the missionaries who entered them were asked to not report any numbers, and just focus on doing as much service as they can and make friends with those they meet.) We have also changed our schedule a little bit. Now instead of doing studies right in the morning, we leave the apartment at 7:00 until 8:30, and we do studies from 10:00-1:00. It's pretty neat. We're enjoying it.

Anyways, we've found lots of service opportunities this week. We found these two guys building a hair salon for themselves, so we were able to come back the next day and help them build the roof. We laid rebar and placed wooden framework for the concrete. It was pretty fun :)

Also this week, we were just walking down the street when this one guy stopped us. He said, "Hey you guys help out people right?" We were hesitant at first, because usually people just ask for $100, which we obviously don't have. But then he said, "Like physical work, if someone needs help right?" And we said yes. Then he said, "It's good you guys came, I'm really worn out and I need help." Then he had us wax his car :p So we took off our ties and waxed it. We thought he was just exploiting our willingness to help, but then once we were done he said, "It's really interesting how God knows what each one of us needs and he put you in my path so you could help me." So I thought that was a really neat experience.

There are always grandmas everywhere who always carry more bags than they can manage, so it hasn't been hard to find service opportunities.

Anyways, there was a big 6 point earthquake in Iran on Saturday, but it was only 3-4 point by the time it got here. We didn't even feel it because we were outside on the sidewalk, but while we were walking all of a sudden crowds of people just started spilling out of the buildings.

So yesterday was Elder Bott's birthday. :) It was pretty cool. I bought a little kinder egg for him while he wasn't looking and wrapped it up the night before, right before bed. Then in the morning I made pancakes for us, and then after church I made something called quesadilla casserole, which is a really good recipe I got from Elder Lush. So that was fun :)

Anyways, that was my week. I'm still super jealous that you got to go to the family reunion and have Taco Salad :p but I'm glad you guys had a good time :)

Love you all!

Elder Hammer

The fake In-n-Out they have here...it's not as good.

Violet and us

The concrete roof we helped build

Bott opening his presents

Quesadilla Casserole

Me and the Quesadilla Casserole

Me :) I don't like my hair, it's too short : (Mom disagrees!)

Our marshutni had a random badger skin pinned up in it :p

Pictures of when we went to the church in our area :)

Pictures of when we went to the church in our area :)