5-2-10

Hey Mom,

Thanks for your letter. The Book of Mormon is a wonderful scripture, I agree. It's been a while since I've studied from the Bible, but I am starting again. I know that God the Creator in the Old Testament is the same Jesus, even Christ our Savior who is living today. As you learn about how God worked in older days, it should still help you better understand how he works today, since he is the same always and cannot change. I want to learn more about my Savior as well, so that I can better understand how truly indebted I am to Him and how great his love is for others. What a great brother we have. I hope I can become a little more like Him today and every day.

I don't have a lot of time if we want to go bowling with everyone else. Something I really enjoyed doing this week, though, was helping Ashot who is on cruthches move. A great guy from our branch came and helped us move his things down the seven flights. He didn't have much. He did, however, have some furniture that we were able to pick up and take to his new tiny apartment. It was pretty rough taking up all his things up five flights of stairs by ourselves, but we were exhausted and felt great afterwards. It reminded me of being able to help others move in and out of our ward and what a great feeling it is to serve others. I'm so grateful for my healthy body that helps me experience so many things. I hope I can always treasure and take care of this gift God has given me.

Thanks for telling me about your hummingbird experience. Nature is so beautiful and that sounds like a nice miracle. I'm sorry I can't write much, but I love you and am excited to talk next week. I hope it works out well.

Hey Dad,

Thanks for your wonderful letter and good thoughts. It sounds like things have been pretty busy there. I am also more happy as I am working as well. It also helps to be able to associate with good people. One of the things that I am still struggling with is talking to people on the streets. The standard is to get 12 gospel conversations. It's hard to figure out what I can do better, because sometimes we will talk to many people and sometimes, like this week, we struggle to get one good conversation. The times that I have felt the best, though, is when I am focused on my purpose and am trying to make people smile or say something uplifting. In all my work and in my life I have the example of the Savior, though, and the answer lies in following Him.

People have a very hard time telling the difference between us and Jehovah's Witnesses. I feel bad for Jehovah's Witnesses, because they are usually despised here. There are even posters up all over in the city telling people to beware of them and to keep the nation as one. I used to be afraid of looking like them, but I don't care as much any more. It's pretty funny how people can be talking to us and very interested, until we mention that we're not from their church and they might stop right there and walk away. They don't like the word "Mormon" either, but at least it's not as bad as Jehovah's Witnesses.

Despite that negativity, there are so many people in need of this Gospel and the peace and happiness it brings. We don't have any real amazing investigators that we're teaching right now, but we're still staying pretty busy. We really want to help strengthen the branch if we can at all. A neat experience that we had was with one of our great members, Taguhi (that means "Queen" which is a pretty typical Armenian name), who has been pretty less active since her daughter went to America and her son has gone a little wayward. She came to the Armenia South District Conference, which went very well, and was quite changed by the talk of President Dunn. He talked about spiritual maturity and how we can check our own by answering the question: "How do I respond when told 'no?'" I think it hit her pretty hard and she wants to find the old Taguhi that she used to be. What a wonderful Savior we have that is already waiting to give us a second chance. It was pretty cool to see that change in her.

It has gotten pretty green here, which I am so grateful for. I was afraid I would always have an image of a brown and dirty country, but the hills and trees are all green and beautiful. We'll have to go see some of the old churches in the hills while it's all green. It sounds like you all had a colder winter than we did.

That's so cool Bishop Decker did the Ironman! I wish I could have seen it. Have you been mountain biking lately, or hiking? Those are some of my best memories. I'm so glad the Earth is beautiful and that God wants us to enjoy it.

Well, I'll talk to you on Sunday Dad.
Sincerely,
Your son Elder Wainwright