Glendale, California: Week 97

The husband of someone we're teaching passed away this week, which was really hard on her. We went over and did our best to comfort her and assure her of the power of Christ in overcoming death. Of course she was still very sad and in pain, but it was a spiritual experience. And as we talked, I felt my own testimony of Christ's resurrection being strengthened. It's amazing that we will all live again, and that through Jesus Christ, every single pain and discomfort won't have to last forever. 

Besides that, there actually wasn't too much unusual stuff that happened. We had a couple of dinners with some really nice older couples. 

I'm also very excited for general conference coming up this weekend! 

Well, I wish I had more to write about and more time to write, but hopefully next week I will. As always, have a great week!

Elder Clayton

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Pic: the sun randomly turned really red one evening

Glendale, California: Week 96

The mission got to go through the LA temple this week, and it was such an amazing experience! 3 zones met up at the mission office, then we rode on a giant bus through LA and eventually got there. As with most people, it's been so long since I've gotten to go through the temple. It was so peaceful and the spirit was super strong. I've never gotten to go through with such a large group of my friends, so that made it an even more special experience. 

So, we continue to be super busy each week (Which is awesome, not complaining about that at all!) Which makes sense because this area used to be covered by 8 missionaries! A year ago, there were 2 companionships of Armenian and 2 companionships of English in this area, but now it's just the 2 of us. But! There's actually a senior missionary couple from Idaho that just got here, and they are assigned to this ward for the next couple years. So they will be a huge help with doing member work, meeting with less actives, and also they can help us find and teach people. Their name is the Womacks and they are awesome. They kind of just got thrown in without much direction, so we've been meeting with them a lot and showing them how to do stuff.

We've also continued meeting with Don (the guy from Thailand that we're teaching), and this week we gave him a little tour of the baptismal font in the church building and talked about the specifics of his upcoming baptism. I'm so excited for him! In just the past couple months that missionaries have been meeting with him, he learned so much about Jesus Christ, who he previously had never really even heard about. He also hardly spoke English a few months back but his English is actually shockingly good now, he understands almost everything we say, except for some of the weird churchy words, which we explain to him. 

Love you all, have a good one

Elder Clayton

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Glendale, California: Week 95

Well, Elder Spens is now off in Africa. We got up at 3:30am on Thursday to drive him to the airport (I'm still recovering from that haha). So now it's back to just me and Elder Stephens.

We also had some interesting lessons this week. For one, we met with our friend Jeremiah several times, and he is super amazing. He's had a rough past, but it's amazing to see how much he's learned about the gospel and how much that's impacted his life. 

We also met with someone named Micha and her dad Edward. They are Lebanese and speak Arabic, French, and English (no Armenian though). Well, this time when we went over they kind of got in an argument, and it got really awkward with us trying (and mostly failing) to bring back the spirit. They kept shooting heated remarks at each other in Arabic while we were trying to pray and read a scripture. And when we were about to leave, Micha pulled us aside and literally forced a $100 bill on us. At first she said "I'm just so thankful for all you guys do for us and for coming over," but we were like no no no, we definitely cannot accept your money for that! Then she said "just pretend I took you out for dinner or something, use it on food," but we were still like no, we don't need $100 for food! Then she started actually getting mad at us and was like "take the money, if you don't take it I'm going to cry," etc. So we just took it cause she was already in an upset mood. Anyway, we're still holding onto it trying to decide what to do. 

Yesterday at church was also a really cool experience. In the English sacrament meeting two Armenian members, Arayik and his son Artur, gave talks. And they are both incredibly faithful and amazing people. Artur talked about his conversion experience with the missionaries back when he was just a teenager, and how he decided to serve a mission, and ended up being called to his own home country (He was the first native Armenian to get called to Armenia). Anyway, it was amazing hearing their stories and testimonies, and really gave me a reassurance that the preaching of the restored gospel among the Armenian people is making a difference, even if it is a slow process. 

Finally, this upcoming Wednesday, I get to go to the LA temple with a bunch of other missionaries! I'm so excited! Like so many others, I haven't gotten to go in the temple for over 18 months. As a mission, we've been preparing by reading a lot of scriptures about the temple and about points of the gospel, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Have a good one!

Elder Clayton

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 Glendale, California: Week 94

Վերադարձել եմ։ I'm back! And being back in Glendale and in Armenian work has already been super eventful! 

My new companion is Elder Stephens, who just got out of training. He's from Billings Montana and he's pretty cool! We're covering the Glendale 1st english ward as well as Armenian group, and there is so much work going on in the english ward that President put another companionship here to help out. However, the next day we got a call from President saying that due to some missionaries leaving the mission, the other companionship will actually cover a different ward. Also, we are in a trio for the week! Elder Spens, who was going to be a ZL, will be going to his original assignment in Cape Verde Africa next Thursday, so he's chilling with us until then. 

Seriously, we've been so busy every day. We have tons of lessons and it's hard to even find time to go finding. The only downside is most of our solid friends are English, and the Armenian work is still a big struggle. But we are teaching a really cool Thai guy named Don, and we set a baptismal date for him in our last lesson! We're also teaching multiple other promising people, several of which have been coming to church regularly! I'm very excited for the next couple months. 

Armenian church group is now back in person, with about 6-7 people coming each week (about the same as before). But here's the crazy part: There's a guy named Arayik who moved here from Utah for the purpose of helping to grow the Armenian group! And he is amazing! He used to be an area 70, he's Armenian, and totally willing to go on lessons with us and teach the group in church. That's a massive blessing!!! Also at church, there was a recently-returned missionary who served in Armenia. He brought his wife and stopped by in Glendale so that he could check out the group. 

Oh, another miracle from church! There was a random Armenian lady named Lida that showed up, and we've literally never seen or heard of her before. She had to leave before sacrament meeting started, but she wants to meet with us so we can "show her how to be a member" 

Also yesterday we visited a cool Armenian guy named Vahe and he had a beautiful house with some really neat pictures.

As always, have a good week!

Elder Clayton

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One of Vahe's pictures: