Word of Wisdom

Hello!

Well if I didn't have a testimony about the Word of Wisdom before, I certainly do now, after being on a mission here. It's kind of funny though, because they just don't seem to get it here. More than once, this conversation has taken place:

Me: "You shouldn't smoke, it's bad for your health"
Guy: "No it's not, there's nothing wrong about it"
Me: "What does that say on the box?"
Guy: "Smoking is bad for your health"
Me "..."
Guy: "Well they just put that on there because the law says they have to"
Me: "You don't see the law saying anything about stuff like Kit-kats do you?"

It's just sad, because it's just not socially frowned upon here. In fact, it's almost encouraged. You can't step onto a marshutni without getting hit with a puff of smoke coming from the driver. It doesn't help that the government doesn't have the strength yet to enforce those kind of health laws.

One of our members just passed the 10 year mark of his wife's death. The night before he asked if we could come with him to her grave. So we got a "family friend" taxi that the missionaries always use and headed up to the graveyard. When we got up there (it was hidden in the ridges of the mountains) we saw these huge elaborate grave sites with huge grave stones. The further we went on, the smaller and smaller the grave sites got until finally we got to his wife's, which was no more than a patch of dirt with weeds and a singe rock on it. He had no money for anything else. It was probably the saddest thing I've ever seen.

We had brought some flowers with us, so we left that which we could, and then we moved on. We went over to his parents site as well as his wife's parent's site, and he wrote down the dates of birth and death. He's preparing to go to the temple soon and he's going to get his families work done for him :) After we finished, he turned to us and said, smiling, "This is a great church we've got here, huh Elders?"

It just kind of made me realize, that this gospel isn't a dead gospel. It's got living principles and living applications to people.

Well, we left that peaceful hill and went back down into the city, back into the real world, sighhh...

When we got back, there was a demonstration happening right in front of our church and right by our apartment because the president that got put into office is thought by some here to have not been the person the people elected. So that's always fun to deal with. We had to steer clear of the church that day.
Well, that's my week. :) Love you all!

Elder Hammer

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Part of Jared's letter to me:

It's kind of weird because Elder Hall has less than a month left and he's the group right in front of me. I feel like there's so much to do, and just not enough time to do it all. I'm going to miss these people so much. 
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Vardan (member) with his guinea pigs :p

Vardan with his turtles :)

The graveyard

View from the graveyard onto the city

Us along the train tracks. To get from one part of our area to the next (unless we take a 2-3 mile detour), we have to follow a path that takes us across them. Don't worry, we're super safe :) I'll point out details to these pictures when I get home :p

Us with the senior couples, at Lena's family's house. They're all members. All 9 of them :)

Happy Drundez!

Me, Elder Harrington, Serge, and Shushan, a member

Hello!

I'm always the last to know about things around here. Because the zone leaders are split, and Elder Hall is the senior zone leader, often times the assistants will call him without telling him to let me know, so I usually don't know about things until they happen. :p


And as a missionary, world news doesn't get to me very often at all. And if it does, it may not be the most reliable... I think I heard something about the pope stepping down because of health issues. That may be true, but there are a ton of rumors that go along with that that I doubt.

Anyways, today is elections day here. So we'll see how things turn out. People don't really seemed interested about it this year around. I don't really think there are too many competitors for the guy already in office.

So the new Senior couples came this week. That was pretty cool. They're the Haglunds. They seem to be really cool. Elder Haglund was in the Air Force ( :D ) which I found to be pretty cool. And he actually lived in LA for a little bit so he knew a little about Santa Monica and even knew my High School :)

On the 13th of February, Armenia had a little holiday called Drundez. It's kind of like Valentines day, except more....paganistic. :p So during the holiday, at night they light a fire at the church and let it go down to coals, and then couples jump over the fire. When you jump over the fire it's supposed to help both of you have....fertility that year :p So that's the tradition. And then after there's a big party and you invite all your family over.
On valentines day, I made a bunch of hearts and handed it out to a whole bunch of people :) That was fun.

Anyways, that was my week. I filled my one journal and now I'm on my next one :)

Well, I love you all!

Elder Hammer 

Our way to the baptism in Gyumri. Sister Nelson and Elder Wood

She lives out in this little village called Jrashen

Gonna Miss the Bread ALMOST as Much as the People

Me, stopped on the way back.

Hello!

Highlight of this week: We went up to Alaverdi this week to give the sacrament to the members up there. It was the first Sacrament meeting I've conducted, so that was kind of nerve wracking. It was fun though. I love the members up there. It's amazing that the few members up there stay so strong, so far detached from the rest of Armenia.

Well, we went there with Serge, the 1st counselor in the presidency, and Vardan, one of our good members. On our way back, we stopped by a river and had a little lunch of Yershik (sausage thing?) and cheese sandwiches. It was amazing. I'm going to miss this bread, almost as much as I'll miss these people :p Okay, maybe not that much. I love these people too much.

It was kind of interesting though because I was calling all the members up there to let them know, and I called one member and she said "I wasn't feeling too good and I was praying real hard that the Elders would come up tomorrow and do sacrament. After I prayed, the phone rang, and I knew who it was going to be." So that was pretty neat :)

We had a pretty successful Elders Quorum activity this week. We had a lot of members and investigators show up. Even ours! Unfortunately, his phone has been turned off since and we haven't been able to get a hold of him.

Everyone here seems to be getting a bug that's going around. It's a bad upset stomach and then a terrible headache afterwards. Thankfully I've been spared so far.

On Monday, we celebrated Elder Woods birthday which was last Sunday. We went over to the church and played ping pong and had a little bit of food delivered to us :) It was pretty fun. We have a really cool district.

Anyways, love you all!

Elder Hammer

Vardan, Me, Sago, and Mishik

Our branch prez

The Elders quorum

Elder Hall and Wood at the Elders quorum activity

The nicest supermarket here, where we go most of the time.

Ofelia :)

The Alaverdi group

Public buses in Vanadzor

This was walking the streets of Alaverdi.... It's a little rural.

Me and Serge

Our socket burned out this week, so we replaced it :) I feel like a man!

The Gyumri district

TRAIN!
I'm still a kid!

Last Winter

Me and Elder Harrington

Parts of Jared's letter to Dad:

Hello!
...But yeah, my Thyroid is doing great now. The tests they've been doing are all normal. The area doctor is suggesting I get retested in about 6 months. So we'll see how all that goes. I'm doing great though.
Toothpaste here is pretty good :p We get Aquafresh and Colgate that exports to Armenia, so it's pretty trustworthy. Thank goodness. The Russian toothpaste tastes like doo.

In terms of laundry, we always have to do our own because laundromats don't exist here. So we get these cruddy little Soviet washers where you have to take a hose (usually your shower head) and pour water into it, then you pour the soap in, and it just kind of spins it in a circle for 15 minutes. That's all :p Some of the nicer apartments are starting to get washing machines in them.
Anyways, We had a Zone conference this week and President Laurence came and spoke to us. It was nice :) Learned a lot. It seems like Zone Conferences are always a call to repentance. :p

Besides that, this week was kinda rough. A lot of walking around again and not a lot of people outside. So, the good thing is that I'm walking off all the winter weight :p I'll be nice in shape by the time you see me again.
It's just kind of hard to keep thinking that you actually are helping people, when hundreds of people every day just yell at you telling you that you're destroying their country and their people and that you're from the devil himself. But, I guess that's what prayer is for at the end of the night.
Well, our good friends the Griffeths left this Saturday for Georgia. They were transferred up there from Vanadzor. Oh well :(

Well, I love you all :) Have a wonderful week

Elder Hammer

Parts of Jared's letter to Mom:

Well the weather has mood swings, but for the most part it's getting a lot warmer. It snowed yesterday pretty hard but right now all the snow's just about melted :) So that's kind of creepy seeing the weather getting warmer. That means my last winter in Armenia is almost over. :(

Well, Sako kind of fell through and disappeared off the face of the earth. :( You know it makes it really hard to continue missionary work when something like that happens. It seems like other missionaries take it better than I do. But for me, I really give my investigators a piece of my heart, and when they disappear, it feels like I've lost that piece. It's really a crushing feeling.

But, move on to next week. Should be better :)

Anyways, I love you mom! :)

Bear

We visited the church up here

Our new missionaries :)

The church

Our Apartment

This month is Elder Harrington, Elder Wood, Sister Broadbent, and Sister Griffeths birthday. Those were for them.

The Griffeths, they just left for Georgia, the country.

Teaching Mr. Sako

Scenery from Gyumri to Vanadzor

Hello :)

I think everyone back home is getting a kick out of telling me how much time I have left :p It's kind of scary. I went from 6 months to 4 months in no time flat. The hospital trip didn't help at all either.

Well, yes, I'm back in Vanadzor now. We got back Saturday evening, so I haven't really had any time to do too much missionary work yet, excluding yesterday, which was amazing. Elder Hall ended up having some lung complications, so that's what kept us from Monday to Saturday. But everything's good now and he's healing pretty well. The wound is (pretty awesome looking) just about all healed up, so that's good.

Well I don't have to many stories because most of last week was spent at the hospital or at the office helping out the Eyres. But there is the story of Sako :) So we were just sitting in church when a random guy walked in and sat down. I decided to sit next to him so he could share my scriptures and afterwards I asked if he wanted to meet again sometime. He said he wanted to meet after church in the evening, so we met with him and he turned out to be a really amazing man that has a huge desire to be baptized and to learn about the church. So we invited him to be baptized and he accepted :) It was really kind of a miracle.

Well, NEXT week I promise my letter will be longer :p I'm so sorry. I love you all a ton though :)

Elder Hammer

Parts of Jared's letter to Me:

Hello!

You know, I actually had a ton of pictures I wanted to send off to you, and then I thought twice, and thought that it might be better to wait until I get back to show you the pictures of the Armenian hospital :p. So I have a ton of pictures, but I'll only send you the few nice ones :p.....

  So the Eyres (office senior couple) are going to be leaving in May, around the time I do, more in the beginning of the month, and I was talking to the Griffeths (senior couple up here) about some of their plans, and it looks like the Eyres are thinking about going down to Israel before they come back to the States. It turns out that there's a flight from here to Israel for about 200-300 dollars or so (with a connection out of Kiev) and the flight price from Israel to America is close enough to the flight from Armenia to America that church travel services would adjust the flight plans to go out of there with no additional cost. I have to admit I'm super jealous :p After being immersed in Armenian culture for a year and a half, I'm just so curious about the rest of the Middle East. It seems really similar to my people's culture from what it sounded like talking to the Griffeths and my Iranian family.
Anyways, it's something to put on my bucket list if I ever get the chance to head back this way.

Elder Hall :p

Erebuni Hospital

Hospital Visit

Hi mom! So we got discharged from the hospital this morning :D So I guess Elder Hall is doing well enough. It was definitely an experience to put in the journal. I'm sure there was a reason we were there. I hope we touched someone's life.

It was....boring though as well :p Spending 11-12 days in the hospital isn't exactly the most fun experience (though spiced up a little by the fact that it was no ordinary hospital. It was the Erebuni hospital, not the Nairi hospital that we all usually go to).

Well, we're out now though, and Elder Hall has a neat scar (or four) to carry away. I'll have to make this email short as well because we're at the mission home right now, and we have to give the laptops back soon. The Carters are so good to us :) They take care of us like we were their own children (Sister Carter feeds us really well, too :p )

I'll have to tell you the details of the story when I get back home :p For Brother and Sister Hall's sake. But anyways, I love you a lot and hopefully everything will get back to normal next week.

I love you a ton!!! :))))) Don't stress too much!

<3 Elder Hammer

Night of Miracles

We did not receive a letter from Jared on Monday.  But we did receive a nice note late Monday from Jared's Mission President's wife:

Dear Hammers,

Elder Hammer was not able to make it to internet today because he is being the companion to an Elder that is in the hospital after having his appendix removed.

Elder Hammer is a great missionary and we are so thankful to have him in our mission.

Our best to your family,

Sister Carter

The next day we received this letter from Jared:

Hello everyone! 

So sorry that this is going to be a short email, but I'm sitting in a hospital room using sister Carter's iPhone to write this :p . 

So it's been pretty crazy this week. We had to rush Elder Hall down to Yerevan from Vanadzor because he was having symptoms of appendicitis. Turns out it was a pretty serious case of it and they had to have an extensive surgery and keep him here for a week. Hopefully we will be out by this Thursday or Friday.

It really was a night of miracles when we rushed Elder Hall down to Yerevan. There's too many to say, using just an iPhone to describe it all, but it was like watching an unseen hand sweep the path in front of us, clearing the way to Yerevan. Other things happened to fall in to place, where the right people were notified at the right time. People who needed to know what was going on, but had no idea anything was wrong, just decided to 'randomly' call just to see if things were okay. Pathways which were supposed to be closed were literally plowed right in front of us.  Elder Hall is healing at a miraculous rate and getting better each day.

It was a situation which yes, was stressful, but ended up being one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. It was scary at points, but I knew the Lord was behind us, or rather by our side 100% the whole time. Talk about Zone leader bonding :p There's not a whole lot more that does that than hanging out 24/7 in a hospital with not much to do.

Well, I love you lots, and I'll talk to you again on Monday! :)

Love, Elder Hammer 

It's a New Year!

Hello!

That dessert looks....tempting. I'm super sad that I'm all the way over here :P It's okay though. New Years brings out the cook in everyone here. It was a week full of desserts and very good meals. We tried as hard as we could not to get fed and instead leaving our own food (I made cookies). It didn't really work out that well though.

It's kind of interesting though, because random people will just invite you off the street into their houses. We got invited into this one house. They were nice, but it was weird because they were all Atheist.

On New Years Day I gave my first Zone meeting, which is kind of like a 2 &1/2 hour long district meeting. It was stressful, but way fun.

As far as medical goes, the hospital is still closed, so we'll have to figure something out. Merrrr......
I'm super sorry that I'm not writing much this week, but we have to go because weird circumstances brought us to Yerevan and we have to get back before the roads freeze :)

Well, I love you all so much and I promise to write more next week! :)
Elder Hammer
 
Excerpts from Jared's letter to me:

Well, I didn't make it to New Years :p We bought way too much junk food and watched movies and stuff (because it was P-day) and I didn't really make it past 10:40. We set the alarm for 11:50, but I didn't even hear it :p Elder Harrington did though.

The rest of the week was good too. We got fed way too much food despite our desperate pleas on the contrary, but it was fun meeting with our members in a different setting.

Gohar, one of our members :)

This is what Nor Tari tables look like (New years). Yes, that is a thigh of a pig with a knife sticking out of it.

A fish....

Our Christmas party for the branch.

We had a snowball fight with the children, using tissues :p

Santa came!

Release Date!

 MAY 31, 2013!!!

We received a letter this week telling us Jared's release date.  It looks like Jared will be released from his mission on May 31, 2013.  He'll most likely be home around June 1.  We look forward to seeing him!  The best part of this is that he will not miss his Madeleine's 8th grade graduation.  She's a happy girl!

Alaverdi

Hello!

This week was pretty stressful. :p We had lots of places to go. I wasn't hardly in my area at all. We had the Christmas party in Yerevan on the 24th, then on Christmas we went over to Gyumri to train the new District leader over there. On Friday we had lots of training down in Yerevan (and my birthday :) ) and then on Saturday we went up to Alaverdi to visit the members up there. It was way fun. 

 

Alaverdi is a small factory city from the Soviet era. There's still one copper mine factory working but besides that the whole city is full of factory skeletons. It's a way nice city though that's apparently supposed to be really green during the spring. 

 

The missionaries pulled out of there when I was in the MTC and the branch closed right after I got to country, so right now it's just a group, mainly because there's no priesthood. But once every month we make sure all the members get the sacrament, and one other time during the month we go up and visit them and meet with them and any other investigators. So yeah, that's Alaverdi. :)

We had a pretty cool experience this week. We were just walking along when this one guy just stopped us and said "Hey, I'm interested in learning about that book you're holding. How can I get a hold of one?" and of course we responded by saying he was talking to the right people :) So hopefully he'll be willing to meet either today or tomorrow. :) It came after a really hard week, so it was a nice breath of fresh air. 

The week before, we were having a pretty rough day, so I stopped Elder Harrington and said, "Hey let's say a prayer." By this point it was already 8:00 at night. Before we even let our arms fold, a guy from across the street called out to us to come over. He then invited us into his house where his wife, kid, sister, niece, and mother were. At first they were hesitant, but they warmed up super quickly. I'm not sure if they were interested in the gospel, but if nothing else, they're our friends now :) God answers prayers.

Well, that's my week. Happy New Year! I love you all!

Elder Hammer

 

Parts of Jared's letter to me:

 

 On my birthday, we had to go down to Yerevan for training meetings and conferences the whole day, so I had to wake up at 5:00. So while I was waiting for the taxi to show up, I opened my box while everyone else was asleep (Elder Harrington stayed in Vanadzor with the Gyumri District leader because he had work). Thank you so much for everything :) It was kind of neat because my district remembered me when they came to pick me up. So it was a fun (long though) day.

Me, Branch Prez. Elder Hall, Elder Griffeths, and Arturik one of our young members

We went to Alaverdi this last Saturday. We found these. You are what you eat. And you are what what you eat eats...

I don't know if you can see, but that was the thermometer on the way down to Yerevan. Right after I took the picture, it went down to -27 C.

This is one of our member families in Alaverdi