Glendale California:  Week 14

Approaching a whole month in the field! That's crazy! 

This week was good, although we still don't have many interested people to teach. So, we did a lot of door knocking and street contacting. 

Last Sunday evening was interesting. The 1st door we knocked on was a really nice Armenian lady and her parents. She invited us in, and we kind of hesitated for a moment, because people rarely invite us in immediately like that. But she said "Of course, come in! This is an Armenian household!" Which I thought was funny, because we've visited many of those and people almost never invite us in.  Anyway, we got in and started talking with her, and she let us share about The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. It was my first time getting to recite the first vision in Armenian! In the end she said she'd come to one of our church meetings when she got the chance, and sent us on our way with some fruit. 

And right when we left, there was a little Armenian party going on outside. Some of the guys invited us over and offered us some meat and alcohol. They tried really hard to get us to do a toast and drink with them, but of course we were only able to accept the meat. And they weren't really interested in our message, but they did ask us where we're from and where we learned Armenian. Really fun night overall. 

Then on Monday we had a family home evening night with our Armenian group. Elder Bell and I were in charge of sharing the spiritual thought, then we played a game where 2 people ask questions trying to figure out a certain word about the gospel. It was fun! Hard though, because some people there couldn't speak Armenian and had trouble understanding what people were saying.

On Saturday we had a mini missionary with us for the day, a youth from one of the wards in our area. We showed him a bit about life as a missionary, took him tracting, had a lesson with a member, grabbed some Armenian food for lunch. He had a good time from what I can tell. 

This week I've been thinking about weaknesses and missionary work. I often wonder why I, as an 18 year old inexperienced kid, have been called to teach people about the gospel. And I don't know what I'm doing, there is so much I don't know about the scriptures and the doctrines of the gospel. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever actually make a difference out here. 

But I can tell you without a doubt that God can, and will, turn your weakness into strengths if you put your faith in him. It's not me teaching people, it's the holy ghost. And I know that God can work miracles through us, despite our flaws and weaknesses. 

Unfortunately there aren't many interesting pictures from this week. Just some raccoons in a palm tree

Anyways, thanks so much for all the support and messages from home! I really appreciate it

Elder Clayton

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Glendale California:  Week 13

This week was pretty awesome, lots of new experiences. 

We did service for some people, including some that was totally unexpected. Someone had fallen in their house and wasn't able to get up, but they had to go to a surgery very soon that morning.  So we were able to rush over there and help them up and get ready, and they barely made it in time for the appointment!

We also went over to a ward member's house to assemble some shelves after she'd just moved houses, which was really fun. Plus she ordered pizza for us afterwards. We always love when people feed us.

We teach English class twice a week, and it's been cool to meet all the interesting people that come. It's usually 1-4 people that show up, with all different levels of English speaking.  There've been several Armenians, one Spanish speaker from Mexico, and the other day we even had a guy from South Korea. It was just us and him, but he already spoke English super well, so instead of teaching him English, he taught us some Korean. (Picture below)

This place is so diverse, it's kind of unbelievable. There are buildings with English, Armenian, Chinese, Spanish, and Korean words, and we've got other missionaries speaking all of those languages plus Tagalog. We literally carry around 4 Books of Mormon, and they're all different languages: English, Armenian, Arabic, and Farsi (not sure how to spell that. Persian). Since a lot of Armenians here are from Iran, it turns out many can't read Armenian very well. Also, everyone else says the Iranian Armenians are harder to understand, but to me they actually seem easier to understand. I don't know why, they just don't have as heavy of an Armenian accent.

Last week we were over with some Armenian friends of ours, hoping to extend an invitation to read from the Book of Mormon. But instead, one of them gave us a reading assignment! He wants us to read Jaremiah 35: 1-19 and Psalms 91:1. But he's just learning how to write in English, so when he wrote down our assignment I couldn't help but laugh. "Jermaya" and "Sanz" (I'll attach the picture) 

Finally, yesterday was stake conference. And there's one Armenian who's really good about coming to church, and who needs us to translate into Armenian.  So my companion and I got to sit up front and use the translation equipment, then we just kind of went for it. For reference, he's been here a couple months, and I've been here a couple weeks. So it was.. very difficult. I'd say it was like 70% silence, 25% attempted translation, and 5% actually correct translation. It would've been so much easier to translate a testimony meeting or something, but nope, we got stories about overcoming cancer and boat metaphors and such. It was a good experience though.  And the person listening to our translation thanked us for trying, haha

I keep finding more and more things to like about Glendale California!

I hope everyone back home is doing well. I love and miss you all! 

Elder Clayton

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Glendale California:  Week 12

Two weeks into the field! In a way, I'm shocked it's been 2 weeks already, but it also feels like it's been way longer than that.

I think my favorite days here are the Sundays. Church is always nice, and the people are so friendly. There were 6 people in the Armenian group this week! Still tiny, but hey, it's double from last week.  And I actually knew one of the Armenians! We had a TRC with him a while back in the MTC. Such a pleasant surprise to see him again, I guess he was just visiting Glendale for a bit.

I've noticed that the way the Armenians speak varies greatly from person to person. Sometimes I can understand entire conversations, and sometimes (usually with older people) I don't understand a single word. They just talk so fast!

This morning we woke up at 5 and went for a little hike/drive into the mountains. It was beautiful looking out at the city lights in the dark! Chilly though, there was actually a little snow up there. I attached some pictures, along with one of our MTC class.

It's been a hard adjustment coming out here to California. We're constantly busy, interact with all kinds of people, and I miss my family and MTC group.  But I've seen God's hand a lot in my life this week. I know God doesn't give us challenges we can't handle, he's always there and helping us with everything we go through. I came across Mosiah 24:14-15 this week in my personal scripture study:

"14. And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

15. And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord."

And these few verses really resonated with me. I know that relying on God to get us through difficult times brings real comfort. I've seen that these past few weeks more than ever.  No matter what kind of challenges you may be facing, I would encourage you to look to God and ask for help. I know he will make your burdens easier to bear.

I love you all,

Elder Clayton

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Glendale California:  Week 11

Hello all! 

I've made it to California, and the real mission adventure is finally getting started. I arrived on Tuesday and I've been exhausted ever since. 

I live with 3 other Armenian speaking elders, who are awesome. My companion Elder Bell and I are both fairly new, so it's definitely interesting. He is a great trainer though, and I am learning a lot. All the other companionships around us have cars, but we don't, so we rely on rides from other elders, walking, or biking.

The weather is nice here right now. I know it'll get a lot hotter in summer but for now feeling the cool breeze as we bike around is great.

Perhaps the hardest thing for me here is keeping up with the language. There are a lot of Armenians here, but we talk with plenty of non-Armenians too, plus  Armenians here speak English pretty well, so a big part of our speaking is in English. But I love the little Armenian group that gathers together after church. I met them for the first time Sunday and we spoke Armenian a lot.

We don't really have anyone we're consistently teaching right now, mostly looking for more interested people and talking with members. Church on Sunday was nice, I met lots of cool people and can't wait to get to know them better.

I hope everyone is doing well, and I will keep you posted on everything new that happens these next few weeks.

With love,

Elder Clayton