Man, this week has been crazy! First things first, we just had a baptism on Saturday which was insane.  When we were giving him the gift of the Holy Ghost you really could feel the spirit.  I love seeing the people's willingness to change here and come closer to Christ by getting on the right path back to our Father in Heaven.  My testimony has been strengthened so much and I really do know that this is the only way back.  This is all real, we need to be doing our very best to bring our lives in harmony with Christ's teachings and truly seek out his blessings.  

I’ve been helped out a lot this week, not only by my companion, who is super awesome, but also the freaking Holy Ghost.  My goodness he helps me out so much.  I really do know that it he is the teacher and that I need to do everything in my power to be a worthy instrument in his hands.  The language is coming along super well and its super exciting.  I love talking to people everywhere because they are all super nice!

My companion is super cool and we teach really well together and we think a lot of the same things.  He trusts me a lot and it’s awesome that it’s only been a couple of weeks and we're already close friends.  He is insanely smart and good at the language and literally knows everything that is going on, it’s ridiculous and he’s only been here for four months.  He’s helped me out a lot and I can tell that the Lord knows that together he and I can help others around us.  there are people that are being prepared to receive the gospel and we do our best to prepare ourselves spiritually and strengthen ourselves so that we can help and strengthen others. 

I hope that I’m not sounding boastful in any way.  I know that I cannot do anything without God, and we need to always being praying, whether it’s in our hearts our out loud while kneeling or whatever, but we always need to pray for help and guidance so that our work can be consecrated.(2 Nephi 32:9, Alma 26:11-12) my two favorite scriptures.  I know that with God we can do all things and when we are humble and submissive we can receive guidance and revelation on things that we need to do, and I also know that when we pray for the consecration of our performance, God really does bless us with the Holy Ghost so that we can fulfill our duties.  

I love everything about this gospel.  I really do know the Christ is our redeemer and that the Holy Ghost does help us in our lives.  If we continually seek out guidance we will receive it and this is the only way back to God.  Hope you are all having an amazing time wherever you are and are sharing the gospel with everyone! Love you all.

This week has been really awesome.  Every day we have been super busy.  We have a lot of amazing members here and a lot of amazing investigators.  The spirit has been so much more subtle here and its awesome.  

We have a baptism this week and we're hoping that everything will go well.  I'm feeling a lot more comfortable here, the only thing that I wish could happen is that I could understand what people are saying.  I can understand for the most part, but a lot of the times what I thought they were saying was the exact opposite.  Its super fun to listen to the things that people say though when I do understand.  

The start of the week we had tons of progress and everything was going really well.  Towards the end of the week a lot of our appointments were falling through, but we met a lot of amazing people during those times.  We had part of a day where everyone just thought we were bad people for no reason, it was really weird, but at the end of the day we had some really good lessons.

The things that I have learned on my mission have been so great. Everything that has happened whether it was good or bad, has helped me to grow a ton! I hope that all of you are having tons of fun at home! But, I will say that this place is the best place in the world and the people are amazing! 

My companion has been trusting me a lot of the times to be able to teach a lot during lessons and everything is going really well.  We had a lot of great testimonies that we bore and the spirit has been super strong.  I hope everyone is reading from the Book of Mormon and praying every day, because God wants to help us every second and we can't be helped if we don't communicate or put in the effort to be helped. 

 

Oh, one more cool thing is we are teaching a super cool guy who prays for 2 hours everyday and is a hippy. He doesn't usually listen to us and just preaches to us but he's an awesome guy.  He believes in a lot of the things that we do but doesn't believe that Christ is Gods son.  It's hard, but he's a great guy.  

Just remember that we do know that Christ is God's only begotten son and only through him can we be saved. (read Mosiah 3, it helps a lot with this question) 

Love you all! have fun! 

Where do I start? My first week in Armenia has been amazing! My mission president and his wife are super nice and I can already tell that they've helped the church progress so much here.  The plane ride here was super interesting, mainly because I didn't sleep the entire time, but I met a lot of amazing people on the way! When we landed in Paris it was super foggy so we couldn't really see anything but the ground.  when we landed in Yerevan we pretty much just went to bed because it was super late.  We got to know the President and his wife better the next morning and after we went to some historical sights which were awesome.  On 
Friday I got my new companion who is awesome! My new area is called Vanadzor and we went straight to work when we got here.  I've never been so confused with what has been  going on my entire life.  I can barely understand what people are saying, but i still love it because everyone is super nice.  We have tons of baptismal dates and new investigators which we're super excited about.  I've gotten to try a lot of new foods and have gotten used to always being freezing cold outside.  All of the people here live in such humble circumstances and its really hard to see, but we are doing our best to rely on the Lord for help and guidance and were trying to help them realize that too.  My companion and I have been thinking the same things lately on what we should be doing and we have definitely recognized Gods hand in it.  I love it here and i just want to let all of you know that I'm alive and to know that through the Christ anything is possible.  I'm going to learn so much more on how to rely on him and always remember that this is his work and not mine.  My mission has changed me so much and I'm super glad for this.  I hope that all of you can remember what this life is really about and remember that we all have the chance to help everyone around us.  I'm going to need a lot of prayers if that isn't to selfish of me to ask.  Pray for the investigators that we meet with, that they can feel the spirit and that we can teach by the spirit! Love you all and have fun where ever you are because we can help everyone!

Just a heads up that Andrew is safe in Armenia!  We talked with him twice... the first time was from SLC airport where some guy passed out so his wife asked Andrew and his companion to give him a blessing (right place, right time?).  He was on fire.  Some lady saw them and took this picture and texted it to me and all the other parents (what a nice lady, right?):

The 2nd time was from Atlanta airport and he was tired and talked about some gray tie he wished I sent him and he will never be able to find nice ties in Armenia. (remember, he was tired, but still Andrew)

Then we received his arrival picture and e-mail:  Thanks for your support all!!!  Life is B-YOU-tiful!

From Andrew:

Just wanted to let you know that I'm here in Yerevan right now, we got to go to the Genocide Memorial and see this really cool Russian memorial there as well.  We ate out at an Armenian restaurant which was fun and tomorrow we are leaving to our areas and I'll let you know on Monday what place I'll be serving in for my first transfer! It's definitely different here in the sense that it's not America, but i feel like I'm at home so it's going to be great here and I also know it's going to be extremely hard, but I know that the only way that weak things become strong is by going through trials and learning how to do hard things. I'm super excited and I can't wait to tell you and dad more about it!

Pictures of last week in the MTC.  January 2015