A Day in Armenia

So this last week I was in Armenia. Let me tell you. Armenians are WAY nice. Much nicer than most Russians. Russians value honesty over anything else. Armenians value kindness. It was great. I met this guy on the plane who just loved the idea of the Book of Mormon, and I promised to get him one in Armenian. It was great.

I'm glad, though, that we only have to go to Armenia every couple of months for visa trips. It's terrible to not be able to do any work at all for an entire day. 

On Sunday there was a stake conference broadcast for all of the Eastern Europe area of the church. Our little branch in Red Army consists of mostly middle-aged men accept for cute babushka, Nadejda, and the Relief Society president, who is married to the Branch President. They're all a little technologically challenged (I'm grateful that I had parents who were technologically challenged as well; it helps me understand what they want to know even if I don't really completely understand the problem). However, everything on the computer is in English for some reason, so not only are they technologically challenged, but none of them know English. It was kind of on our shoulders to get the branch broadcast up and working last Sunday. Gratefully, it did end up working, but only after a lot of middle-aged men staring at the computer screen while Sister Misuraca and I tried to explain how to dowload a video and transfer it to a flash drive a few times over.

After church, we were able to go out on the streets practically all day (we had a lesson fall through) and talk to people. It gets dark here really early now, though. 6 usually feels like 8 or 9. Sister Misuraca and I were getting cold and tired, but, after a short break on a bench outside a Russian Orthodox temple, we decided to press forward. We've been praying to find a family to teach for weeks. At literally 8:45, 15 minutes before we had to be home, we found them. We found the family that we had been praying for. It was such a miracle. They are the happiest Russians I might have ever met outside the church members here. Their faces glowed with happiness, and I cannot wait to meet with them again. I don't think I've ever laughed so much with strangers in my life.

Sometimes being a missionary is the last thing I want to be when I wake up in the morning. Sometimes I don't want to leave our apartment to go talk to people on the street who yell at us or laugh in our faces, but I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. I know that the Book of Mormon is of God and that the message contained in it is the way to find happiness in this life and eternal life in the next. I know that I can help people find happiness in their lives. The kind of happiness that seeps into the soul and stays there, and (like a good wine) overtime grows. 

I go out everyday because I know that I have the salve to every injury anyone could have ever recieved in their life and I can help them heal. 

And then, you find people who want it. And those people are wonderful, and it so filling to be able to help people come to the Foutain of Living Waters and never thirst again.

And that's how Sister Jarvis sees it.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Jarvis