Breaking and Entering

Hello!

So speaking of the weather, it was terrible this week. Right when we thought spring was rolling around and everyone was putting away their winter coats, a freak snow storm blew through the north and froze everything. It was really terrible. And now, all the fruit bearing trees, including the apricots, all lost their yield this year, so prices are going to be really expensive for fruit. Plus it didn't make us very happy, because our heater doesn't work. So we went to bed shivering....as usual. Our dumb little apartment :p

Well this week the big news is that I baptized a lady named Luiza. She's an investigator of the sisters and she asked me to baptize her. It was really a great baptism, but one that required a lot of faith and miracles. So the night before, we were called to go help the sisters because they were stuck in the church. It was locked and their key wouldn't work. So we came down with our coats over our PJs (it was already well past 9:00) and freed them. As they were locking the door though, their key got stuck. As sister Nelson was trying to pull the key out, the entire lock came out of the door, sending the little pegs flying everywhere. So we somewhat jerry-rigged it to stay shut until we could do something about it the next morning. When we got there the next morning, it wouldn't open for us at all. Thankfully locks aren't very secure here (...) so it just so happened that the sister's house key opened the side door to the church. When we got in though, the water was shut off because the day before a pipe broke in the city of Vanadzor, so we couldn't fill up the font. After a few hours of stressing, we figured out the water actually had been turned back on and that there was a smaller control valve in the bathroom that opened up the water to the font. We turned on the water, but to our horror it was freezing cold. All of the gas in Vanadzor was shut off that morning at 3, so our water heater wouldn't work. After periodically checking every half hour or so, the gas came back on at about 12. The only problem was that the baptism was going to be at 3 in the afternoon and the font always  takes at least five hours to fill. So we left it and just decided to rely on faith. Would you believe it? The font filled up in 2 and 1/2 hours. :) So the baptism went on as scheduled, with the font ready and filled a half hour before, just like it's supposed to be.

Well, our investigator Karo just quit smoking last Monday, so he's getting ready :) And he said he could never quit :)

Hey, I love you all and I think you're great!
Love always,
Elder Hammer
 

Old train photos we took during a lunch hour. :)

Me, the sister missionaries and Luiza :)

A family of investigators we have in Alaverdi

Alaverdi is getting greener!! :))

We had to break into the church....I can explain.

Chopping wood for service

 

It's okay...I'm fine here

Me next to the "huh" for 'H'ammer

Hello!

This week was very very busy. Monday was translating, Tuesday was Preparation day, Thursday we had a baptism in Gyumri we went to, Friday we had Zone conference, and then Saturday and Sunday was general conference. Besides that, on Wednesday we went and did service for one of our members. We shoveled poop. We finished up their garden and now they need to fertilize it :p Funnnn....

Well, I always love General Conference out here. Sure I had my traditional nap somewhere between two 70s talks, but I stayed awake for most of it. General Conference means something more to me now, now that I've been out here in Armenia. I wasn't very good about studying the gospel before my mission, to say the least, but now, general conference is just one of the greatest testimony builders besides the scriptures I have.

 It was kind of funny though, all the Armenians kept on wandering into our room and sitting with us. We let them know that conference was going in Armenian in the main room, but they were always like "It's okay. I'm fine here." :p We were like "No really, it's totally fine if you go into the other room." (They would always bring their kids in and they would just go nuts making noise everywhere) but they were always just like "Oh no, thanks. I'm good here." At first I was kind of annoyed, but then I realized, they just liked being around us, and then I felt kind of touched. :)

Well, funny little nothings that happened this week:
Got to see hail in Gyumri this week. First time in like 10 years.  We went to the store real quick on preparation day right before we headed in for the night and Elder Wood just goes "Aghhh!!!" and he looks over and we both see that he had no tie on :p So we walked around for 30 minutes without him having a tie.

Well, I love you all!!!
Stay well and healthy!

Elder Hammer

The Armenian letters monument

Me doing service, scooping pig poop from fertilizer...

Bareback horse-riding shepherd. :)

Sister "Siranush" Muradyan, Sister Nelson's temporary companion.

Me and Lena, our 15 year old member who's super stoked about missionary work. Cannot wait the four years until she can go. 

From 60 to 1

Super rainy :)

Sorry for the late posting of the letter.  We didn't get it until Tuesday.  Plus it was a busy week here.  Only 7 more weeks to go until he arrives at LAX!  Here's Jared!!!

Hello!

Well, right now we have two main people we're working with. One is named Tigran, and the other is Karo. I think I've talked about Tigran a little bit, but he's a young man about 21 years old and we're getting him ready to serve a mission. He's been struggling with inactivity for a while, but now he's doing really great. We kind of dragged him out of exile and he pushed himself to be active again. He's way awesome. He'll be serving a mini-mission in a week, but after that, he's going to start working with the branch president and he'll get ready to serve a real mission. If he serves a mission, I will never again wonder why I'm in Armenia. I'm just so excited for him and we both love him so much.

Karo I think I've spoke about a bit as well. He's the man who started off smoking 60 cigarettes a day, and now he's done to just one :) He's almost done. His testimony is super strong and he's got a great family support system, so I think he's going to be baptized before I go home, which would be really great to see. :)

 Besides that though, it's been a pretty normal week. Not a whole lot more to report. A couple funny stories and a couple scary stories, but for the most part it's just been a good week.  Yesterday I was translating for President Carter the whole day which is why I wasn't able to write. Sorry :)
Well, I love you all so very much. :)

Elder Hammer

Us, inspecting the new church building in Vanadzor :)  

One of the boys in our branch.

American-Loving Armenian Cows

They had a cow :p I liked it.

Hello!

That's so weird that so few people showed up at the Young Women thing. There was an activity just this Saturday for the Young Women here at our branch and I'm pretty sure there were at least five of them there.

Wow, it's weird we're already talking about school and this summer. Bleagh. But yeah, I was planning on getting a job this summer before I go back at least. I was thinking about being a waiter or something. I would have rejected it before my mission, but I've grown in people skills since then. I have no idea though. What kind of pre-graduate jobs are out there right now?

In terms of housing, I would say just do it now. Housing gets really nasty, really quickly, so the sooner the better :p I'll just learn to live with new people. I've been doing it for two years now. :)

Okay, gross, done with that now. So this week was really crazy, there was a ton of stuff we did, but I probably won't be able to get into a detail of it all. It was a really good week though. We started off with service at our member's house. She lives way up in the mountains and has a decent size farm. So we came up and helped her till her ground so she can get it ready to grow garlic. Over there she has cows and chickens and pigs, and they wander wherever they want. So it was a little frustrating when the cow walked all over the work we had just done. But I liked the cow, I thought it was funny. :) It hates Armenians and bites them, but whenever Americans are over, it lets them hug it and pet it and get close :p

We had a meeting with one of our investigators Karo, and he's been having a smoking problem. So during one of our meetings, we just stopped and said "Do you believe in miracles?" He said, "Yes." We said, "Do you believe God can help you stop smoking?" He said "Yes." We said, "Do you believe God can help you stop smoking, right now?" He hesitated and said, "Yes." Then we said, "Then, take out your cigarettes. Put them on the table. We're going to say a prayer and then we're going to leave and the cigarettes will stay. When you get home, read you scriptures and pray for strength." And that's exactly what happened :) He hasn't stopped completely yet, but he's gone down from 60 a day to about 10 a day. :) Power of fasting. And he said he couldn't do it :)

On Saturday we went up to Alaverdi again. It was a great trip. Right now it's just starting to get pretty. All the wild apricot trees are starting to flower and it was like singing that one primary song about popcorn. The trees peppered the grey forests in the mountain cliffs and made it quite a scenic drive. Besides that though it was just a normal Alaverdi trip. It was Elder Wood's first time, so his mind was blown :) I don't think there's ever been a missionary who's gone there and hasn't loved it. 

Sunday was a mess. We had 115 people at sacrament meeting, because we tried inviting all the less actives and the Alaverdi group came down. It was pretty irreverent, but the worst part was joint Priesthood and Relief Society. They showed a video of Christ's death and resurrection and it was definitely not produced by the church. We enjoyed great scenes such as Judas hanging himself...Yeah...we talked to the branch president. 

Well after we got home on Saturday, we busted out the egg dyeing kit that you gave me last year, which was great. I'll send some pictures. 

Anyways, I have to write President Carter (the mission president) now, so I'll talk to you later. :))) 

Love

Elder Hammer

 

Our member's son

We did service for a member in our branch

Me and Serge

Me and Elder Wood (and Serge popping in again)

The end of our work

Anush making lavash traditional style :)

Us at Karo's house, eating Matzun (it's the same as that umer thing dad talks about) homemade, straight from their cow's udder...

Us and Karo and his mom (and their cow)

Me and Serge on the way to Alaverdi

Apricot Flower

All the white dots you see are all apricot trees.

Elder Wood mistook butter for cheese, so he had a niceeee big slice of butter on his bread

Us and eggs

Elder Wood's eggs :P I thought it looked like a dinosaur egg

Mine are the ones on the left of the carton

Why I'm in Armenia

Giant statue of a duduk (I looked up and found out that a duduk is a double reed woodwind instrument.  Apparently a duduk was used in the movie The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe when Mr. Tumnus plays a lullaby. Things you learn!)

Hello!

That's so weird that the ward building is all remodeled. It'll be crazy to come back and see it.

Well, the last transfer happened this week. Right now, I'm companions with Elder Wood. He's fresh out of his training in Vanadzor, and we were pretty good friends before the transfer, so we're both pretty excited. My companion Elder Harrington got transferred to Gyumri and he's a senior companion now. My Zone Leader companion (the zone leaders were all split last transfer) went back home to Kansas.

So yeah, right now, they decided to just keep me a normal Elder without leadership, which makes Monday mornings a whole lot less stressful. I think that'll be nice. Though I will miss the opportunity to work with a larger field of missionaries. I really enjoyed being a Zone Leader. I really loved my zone a whole lot. I am still the group leader for Alaverdi, so I'll continue doing the sacrament and stuff up there.

The new group is pretty big. Five elders and four sister, with only two elders leaving and one sister. So they had to open up a few more areas, including Nork!!! My old and longest area! :))) It made me super happy. But yeah, the Elders were all at least 19, but we had one 19 year old sister. It was really weird to see her picture, because she looks like she's just out of high school, if that. I hope she does fine. I'm sure she will. We have tough sisters in this mission.

Right now we're working with this one young man in our area named Tigran. He's a less-active guy about 21 years old. He'd always had a dream of going on a mission since he was baptized, but a lot of stuff happened that took him off track and got him distracted with other things. We met with him last night and it was incredible to see the change in him from beginning to the end of our meeting. He started off kind of wishy-washy saying he didn't know if he still wanted to go on a mission (even though we could still tell there was an inner desire). He said that he was one year away from finishing up theater school and if he left, he wasn't sure if he'd get his spot back. Then we shared the story of Lehi and Nephi and how the left a lot of things behind, and made a lot of sacrifices, but they trusted the Lord and were led to an even greater land. We said that's sometimes how it is in life. The Lord commands us to do things sometimes, and it might require a sacrifice, but in the end, it will always turn out better than what you had in mind for yourself. We then asked him "what can we do to help you to go on a mission?" That's when his eyes lit up. He asked us to call him several times a night and remind him to read his scriptures, and he also asked us to come over sometimes and practice the missionary lessons with him from Preach My Gospel. He then mentioned that he would give up his theater school and say goodbye to them all if he needed. It was amazing. He is one of our biggest focuses right now, and we're both super excited to help him prepare.This Sunday was the first time he came to church in about 6 months or so. He said he's going to make it weekly now.  This week I found out why I'm in Armenia.

Well, that was the majority of my week. :) I love you all. Stay healthy!
Love,
Elder Hammer

My new companion :p

Sister Nelson took an old cigarette box and rolled up pieces of paper with scriptures on them to help her investigator stop smoking :)

Planning

 In Alaverdi

Hello!

So transfers will be coming up soon this week, so keep a heads up for next week. :)

This week was interesting. I left my journal at home, so I'll have to do my best by memory.

 Well, yesterday we took a visit up to Alaverdi again and brought the sacrament to them. It was really quite fun. I always love going up there, especially when we get to give the sacrament to those humble members up there.

 We did a lot of planning this week, Elder Hall and I because we had to change the boarders for the areas in Vanadzor. That took a while because we had to make a map and then place markers where all the active and near-active and less-active potential active members live, and then break up the areas evenly. I think it all worked out in the end though.

This week the Haglunds were putting on a training meeting for all the branch missionaries. They took it seriously and set everything up beforehand, including writing the schedule up on the board and providing the refreshments. We told them it might be easier if we told everyone to show up a half hour earlier than it started so they actually showed up on time, but we decided it would be better to teach people to show up on time. Well, 4:00 came around and no one out of the seven people supposed to show up were there. Sister Haglund kept on changing the start time on the board from 4:00 to 4:01, to 4:05, etc :p I think we got started somewhere around 4:15.

The sisters in our district had a baptism this week. It was a sweet lady named Mariam. She's super nice and way humble. So that was fun getting to see that.

 Well, besides that, not much else happened. We had a little going away lunch as a district today for Elder Hall, who will be heading back this Thursday (technically Friday at dark:00 a.m.)
Love you all!

Elder Hammer

Me...tired

More Alaverdi pictures (I think this is Elder Harrington with Jared)

Vardan(member), Lyova (nonmember), and me (member)

Women's Day

Me and a couple kids in our branch (Don't you just love their eyes? Especially the kid on the right! Okay, the "kid" on the left as well!)

Hello!

This week, we had a zone meeting over in Gyumri. I think it went pretty well. Everyone thought it was great. I just wish that people would put into action what we actually tell them to do. Some missionaries complain about the same results, without having made any changes in that week. Something tells me this story won't really change, even after my mission.

 Well, we had a Family Home Evening last Monday and for the game at the end we played Pictionary. I don't know it means I'm really good or really bad, but it seems like I couldn't really draw anything before they guessed what it was. For example, I was only able to draw a circle and someone guessed "Car!"

 It seems like investigators are few and far between right now. But I absolutely love the one's we get. Like just yesterday we picked up a man who was a friend of an investigator of ours. We met him as he was playing chess with him. His name is Lyova and he was such a funny old man. He was making a whole bunch of jokes the whole time and kept on trying to cheat by pretending the king was a queen. As we were talking, he would always keep on slipping into Russian, despite our member continually yelling "Armenian!!" So after our member made several jokes about him not knowing Armenian, Lyova picked up our Book of Mormon and started reading the title page like a baptist preacher. Then afterwards he was like "hey, that's a neat book you have. Could I get a copy of it?" :P Our response was enthusiastic.

 Lots of good stories this week. They'll all have to wait until I get back though :p Remind me.

This March 8th was an Armenian holiday called Women's day. It's essentially just a day to celebrate women. So we had Elder Haglund go and get three flowers for us and give them to the sisters (including Sister Haglund), on behalf of the district (because we can't really...you know....straight up give flowers to sisters as Elders...)

So that's my week :) Love you all! Sorry this is short, but we have to bounce down to Yerevan for Elder Harrington to get his mouth fixed.

 Love you all!

 Elder Hammer

The kids again

In Gyumri :p No it's not real.

Relief Society activity on March 8th. Women's day

Relief Society

Teaching Sister Haglund how to dance Armenian style

Me and Elder Wood :)

Our Zone