2-15-09

2-15-09
Hey,

I missed getting a letter from you this week. I hope everything's going alright. I'm sure you have been very busy and exhausted lately. How are things?

Everything's good with me. We've been working hard this week and gave some of our investigators baptismal dates, which was nice. Suren, the guy I talked about in Mark's letter, is doing great. He's already decided he needs to quite smoking and is starting. One of the things that impresses me about him is that he knows the difference between worshipping God only through our words and worshipping through our hearts. We can draw near to God on the outside and do crosses and go to church, but still have pride and other sins in our hearts and not really love God, which is the first and great commandment.

I don't know if I told you about Narine and her sister-in-law that we are teaching, but they are doing good too, except they got sick and weren't able to come to church. We're going to give them a priesthood blessing today. I've given so many people blessings already, and seen some neat miracles. I'm honored to be able to hold the Priesthood power of God, and I know that we really do have God's authority in our church. Elder Richard G. Scott is coming to Armenia in June, I probably said that, but I am way excited. It will be such a blessing to hear the words of humble Elder Scott who is called to bring the gospel to the world. I also can't wait for the next general conference. I guess I should probably keep learning more from our last conference, though. I was reading from Elder Holland's talk on Safety for the Soul this morning. I know that if I stop progressing, I will be digressing, and that is how the elect will be deceived. I really believe that we can learn from every experience we have in this life, and if we are willing to listen God is always talking to us.

I'm excited to go back to Artik and see how many people we can meet with. The work is not going super fast out there, but I feel like it has some good potential. We also might have a huge group meeting according to a guy we talked to on the street. We'll see. It was pretty sad, though, Armine who is the member that lives out there sort of had a melt down the other day. She has had it pretty rough, and she is having a hard time being able to come to church. She does so much good, I know she will be blessed if she just hangs in.

Hey, I wanted to thank you for the chocolate chips, peanut butter, hot chocolate and things. We have been having a ton of delicious pancakes lately with chocolate chips. One bag is almost used, and I'm going to make chocolate chip cookies with the other one. I think the peanut butter is so wonderful just because it's simple and just feels good for the body. Our diet is pretty different here. I'm trying to sneak in more vegetables into our meals. Elder Larson doesn't really like vegetables, which is so hard for me to understand. We eat tons of bread, though, eggs, chicken, and baked goods. I love their lavash լավաշ (wow, I just figured out how to type in Armenian!) which is like a tortilla, but huge and fresh and good, and their cowbob քյաբաբ (like a ground beef shishkabob) and sharma շարմա (a delicious wrap with fried pork, potatoes, and veges). Ես կկարոտեմ հայկական սնունդը: I'll miss armenian food.

Alright, well let me know how you are doing. I love you all and miss you. Have a great week and don't be too stressed.


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