Lamb chops

Momma!!
This week was a great week!

Sister L: So I'm really sad that I cannot say names. But our Branch Presidents mother is the person that I will refer to as L. Mom, I have always felt your love for me. I've never doubted your love. But..... This lady might love me more than you do. Let me explain myself: when she sees us she says, "My sweet dear! My little doll! My kitten! My cherry! Oh, I will eat you up! There is not a candy in the candy shop sweeter than you! I love you!!" All the while she is pinching my cheeks and kissing me and hugging me and I'm never quite sure if I'll make it out alive. I love her!
She just has the BIGGEST heart and I know that she is going straight to the Celestial Kingdom.

Locked out: Yes, again. This time the lock wouldn't just hammer in easily like last time. How many Armenians does it take to break in a door? Well, apparently 1 and 10 to stand by and watch. It took a good couple hours to hammer the darn lock in again. But we finally got in. And the solution to the gaping hole that is now in our door is....a bandaid.

Lamb: So we were at our missionary coordination meeting with our Branch President and the elders when two girls from our ward walk in. Our BP said, "These girls just slaughtered a lamb and you are going to buy 4 lbs of it." I guess you could say that our Branch President thinks that we have a lot more money than we actually do. So we now have 6000 dram worth of bloody lamb in our freezer. Bless his heart.

Investigators: We have picked up 2 families and 2 couples in this past week! We are so excited! The two coulples are especially exciting because the men are awesome and we could use a few more strong preisthood holders in our little branch right now. I can count right now on one finger how many priesthood holders don't have a word of wisdom problem in our branch. So this will be great!


Love, Sister Mads

P.S. Don't forget to pray! And read your scriptures! And go to church! Those are all commandments you know, not just suggestions :)

Fruit drying season

Wool beating season

count carefully

One of the surprise pictures my comp took

On our way to Kate's old companion's house

Long day - so pathetic

This picture is one of my favorites - so middle eastern looking

P-day hike to an old church

Great family

So this past week everything fell through. We had appointments lined up with members, investigators and less actives and all week they fell through. We were so devastated. But as we were walking yesterday we started talking to a tatik and her grandkids. She eventually invited us in and we did how to begin teaching points. Her hars then came in and we taught most of a first to all of them. Some how it got brought up that the husband is agains the church so we got a little nervous. Right as they said that, he walked in the door. He came in and sat down and started to kind of pick at us a little bit. And then the tatik and hars started defending us! We had to go shortly after that. But the dad was joking and laughing with us by the time we left and we think that we won him over. They are a great family. We have another lesson with them tonight so we will see how that goes. Anyway, that lesson made the whole week worth it.

Today we got locked out of our apartment (typical Armenian missionary problems :)) We went and got our groceries and then went home to put them away and our key wouldn't work. We called our landlord who is a recent convert and then we waited outside our appartment for like 45 minutes surrounded by our groceries snacking on anything we could for fear of starving... and then he finally came. He couldn't get the door open either so he ran down the stairs and then came back up with a hammer. And then the most Armenian thing happened: he just hammered in the door. I mean, it worked. The door opened after a few swings at it. But now we need to get our door repaired. I thought it was hilarious but I think sister was a little annoyed..

So I just wanted to say that sometimes email time stresses me out because there are so many people that I love that I would love to write long emails to but time is very limited. So I hope no one is offended when I don't send very detailed emails. I love you all so much and appreciate and feel all of your support. I wish so badly that I had the time to email everyone.

Love, Sister K.

The language will come....

momma,

I am so sad I missed Jilly's baptism but I am so proud of her!

This week nothing happened really just because we are still pretty new to the area. We have been meeting with a lot of potential investigators.
We are teaching two very elect ladies right now that are both so ready for baptism. We are so excited. The spirit is so strong in our lessons and I can't wait to see them as members.

Fast sunday: Again?? Wow. I love this privilege that we have to fast once a month. I definitely had plenty of things that I was fasting for. I hope everyone took advantage of the great opportunity to fast yesterday. I can testify of the many great blessings that we receive from fasting.

Language: So you probably all know by now that this is a touchy subject for me. My mind doesn't seem to retain things very well therefore making learning a language very difficult for me. But I am going to swallow my pride for a minute for the sake of some people that I know will be learning a new language very soon. I feel that in the English language I am able to speak well. I am able to bear my testimony and say the thoughts of my heart and express myself well. Here in Armenia speaking the Armenian language has taken that from me. I cannot say everything that I want and am forced to say very little of what I actually feel and want to say. But I know that the gift of tongues is real. Learning a language is the most humbling, hard, frustrating, annoying things I have ever had to do. But it's worth it, because it is through this language that I will be able to help bring these people closer to their Savior. My companion is so amazing and takes the time to help me with the language. I have learned so much from her in the week that I have been with her. The language will come. To the person that I have in mind, I hope you know who you are, you are about to be an incredible missionary. You are about to be humbled more than you wish to be by the hard language you are about to learn but trust me it will be worth it and I am so proud of you.

I love my family, this gospel, my Savior and Redeemer and my Heavenly Father.
The church is true. I bet my life on it.
Love, Sister Mads
xoxoxox

Transfers!

Momma,

Transfers: Oh my heck. Such an uncomfortable thing. I have been transfered to a tiny town called Charanstavan. My new companion and I are white washing the area so it's been a stressful past few days. We're starting to get things figured out though. The aren't many members here but the few that are here are great. I've never felt so loved in my life. They LOVE the missionaries. Also we are supposed to moving into a new apartment today but from the looks of it we might be living out of our suitcases a little bit longer.

Waterday: So Armenia has a national, annual holiday called Water Day (Vardavar). It is an ancient holiday and legend goes that the Godess Asthgik spread love on Armenian earth by pouring water from roses. But after adopting Christianity the holiday has had changes and now it is in celebration of the event of Christ's transfiguration on Mt. Tabor when He appeared to His disciples in his brightened appearance. (Vardavar means transfiguration or brilliance). But some people also say the holiday is to celebrate Noah's Ark settling on Mt. Ararat (here in Armenia) after the Flood. He orders his sons to pour water on each other in remembrance of the Flood. Anyway, this holiday is exactly what it sounds like! It's a day where everyone runs around throwing buckets of water at everyone. NO ONE is spared. You can't walk out of your apartment door with out a bunch of people waiting to get you. So we walked around all day soaked from head to toe. Hopefully I can send some pictures. We lived the whole day in constant fear. They take this holiday very seriously and will not show mercy to ANYONE. I think we should start this in the states.

I'm lame: Sorry that this email is lame but we are SO busy right now with whitewashing. It is beautiful here. We have been finding lots of contacts on the streets and everyone is very kind here. It is about an 1/6 of the size of Vanadzor. You can walk from one end to the other in like 20 minutes. We would know. :)

Reading assignment: my new companion and I have been going and getting to know all of the members here in "Char" (translates into 'evil'). The verses that we have been sharing with them is Alma 31: 34-35.

I love missionary work. It is SO hard. But it is soooooo worth it. I can't believe I have already been here for almost 6 months. I hope the time slows down a little bit. I'm so sorry that my emails are all over the place but we're a little busy with converting people to the gospel and stuff :). I love you all.
Love, Sister Madison Kuykendall

Candy cane dress from our recent convert

A flower from the Haglunds, one of our senior couples.

Stop sign in Armenia??

First five minutes out on Water Day!

Alma 17-23

My week has been goodish. I love Vanadzor. Transfers are this week. I've been having some stess and struggling a bit. It will be okay though. I'm just learning so slowly. It's so discouraging.

So we've been lucky to find lots of new investigators this past little bit of time. But for some reason this week every one disappeared. We had an AWESOME family that we were teaching. Golden, golden family but they just all of a sudden stopped answering and we haven't seent them forever. Definitely a result of gossip. Same thing happened with another investigator of ours. She used to gush over us everyday about how dear we are to her and then she just...stopped. She glares at us now everytime she sees us. Our other investigator is thinking about marrying this man but he wont let her go to church or meet with us anymore. We also started teaching this adorable little girl who is 11. She was so excited about the gospel. So eager to follow Christ. But when we went back over there her dad forced her to give us her BOM back. I bawled the whole way home. We went from having 7 investigators to having none in 1 week.

This past 2 days we have had so many street contacts though. So many people ASKED for our number. They WANT to meet. So we have a few potential investigators!!!! That is a miracle.

Reading assignment to get everyone excited about missionary work: Alma 17-23. Read it. You wont regret it.

love, Sister Kuykendall

Ping Pong, Pizza and Packages

Momma,

About pictures: So I am not allowed to send any pictures home at all that are of anyone other than just me. Or else you would be getting so many more pictures every week.

About the language: It's a really difficult language. Nothing really can translate over into English. You have to have a completely different mind set. But I'm getting there. I have come SO far since I've been here with the Lord's help. His hand in my life is so apparent.

2nd Coming?: So this week we had lots of suspicious things happen here in Armenia that maybe you've heard about already. First is that we have had a few earthquakes this week. Second is that we had a huge hail storm. I'm not sure I can really explain the craziness of this hail storm we had. They were literally the size of golf balls. Sister and I weren't complaining though because we were in a not very interested investigator's house when the storm started and so she was forced to let us stay :) and we ended up having a really good discussion and now she likes us again. And then the hail storm resulted in floods. Yep. It was awesome. But you know those really cute flats that I brought with the big bows on them? Yeah, I think it's their time. The weather got the best of them.

Belated Birthday: So after emailing last Monday, someone from the office came up and brought the mail when he came. I had all sorts of fun birthday mail and packages! Our district all got together in the church and played pingpong ate pizza and opened mine and Sister's packages that we got for our birthday's! Momma, I loved the package you sent! The food didn't last through the end of the day but that's just because it's always more fun to share. The whole package was just so exciting. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who helped put it together. I have the best family.

Testimony: I have a testimony of families. I know that they can live together for eternity. I love my family more than any words can explain. I want to do everything I can to make sure that we all make it to the highest kingdom one day. I can't wait for that day. I love this church. I am so grateful to have been blessed with a testimony. I will never be able to deny the things that I have felt here. The Church is true. I know it.

xoxoxo
love, Sister K

Independence Day and the stalker

Dear momma,

This week was the 4th of July. My favorite holiday (next to Easter). I am sad that I missed all sorts of fun celebrations in both Utah and California. As you could probably guess, Armenians do not celebrate the 4th (though they seem to celebrate every other day of the year. For example, they have a Kid's Day) but Sister and I made sure to have our own little celebration. We went and played soccer with the ward and some investigators and then tracked down some hotdogs (tough, grainy links of mystery meat. Yikes). We went home for a meal break and made our hotdogs and sang patriotic songs from the back of the hymn book. All day Sister was telling everyone we ran into that it was our country's birthday. For some reason not many people seemed to interested haha!

I hope everyone had a fabulous fourth and really thought about why we celebrate it. I am so grateful to live (not currently) in a free country. Especially now. I have many hero's in my life, one of who's presence I've felt with me all week this week.

Damsels in distress: So Sister and I have had to be really careful lately of who we say hi to in the streets lately. There's always going to be those annoying teenage boys that cat call or whatever. But lately we've had some interesting encounters. We were teaching in the streets the other day when I made the mistake of barev dzez-ing a man (greeting - saying hello). As we kept walking he started to follow a little ways behind. We started to kind of zig-zag from one side of the street to the other to kind of shake him off but he would not get lost. We happened to run into the elders after about 15 minutes of trying to dodge him. They pointed out that the guy had been following us for a while (like we hadn't noticed) and that they would keep an eye on him. The man disappeared for a while so the elders left and we continued to make our way home only to look back and see him following us again. We went into a little shop and called the elders. They said they were going to come get us and walk us home. As we waited inside the store we saw the man just waiting outside, pacing the doorway. The Elders came and we kind of hurried and skipped out. We got home safely. :) We saw him again yesterday. And he followed us again. We're not really sure what he wants because if he wanted to learn more about Jesus you'd think he'd just ask us and not be weird about it. Oh well. I'm sure he'll find something better to do soon. But until then, we have the elders on speed dial.

Fast: I hope everyone had a great fast sunday yesterday. I love the opportunity to fast. The Lord promises great blessings to those who fast. One of the many promises He gives us is that we will be more receptive to the spirit and for me that's what I need right now. I always fast for my family and friends. I pray that you're prayers will be answered.

Sister and I fasted to find new investigators a long with other things. We've got a few potentials now so I can't wait to tell you the result next week!

I love you so much momma!

                         You have no idea how excited we were about these hotdogs.

                                             Armenian missionary style fourth of July.