March 30, 2015. The End

This is my last letter. I can't believe it. 

My mission will always be something that I truly cherish. I've learned so much about myself, about life, and about the gospel. This isn't the end!! This is the beginning of the next chapter of my life.

I know that Armenia is in good hands. We have such strong, dedicated missionaries. The Lord is definitely going to carry the work forward, whether if I am still in his "official" army or not. :)

Wow, the Lord loves us so much. I can't believe that I'm finishing my mission. Man.

I'm so excited to see my family again though. :) 

So we're going to be headed down to Yerevan on thursday to help match up the three new sisters up with their trainers. The next day will be transfers/meeting up with my parents. We'll be in Armenia until April 8th (Wednesday). Then we'll head to Paris, be there for a day or two, and then head the rest of the way back. We'll be probably getting back into Scappoose Saturday night at around 10-ish. It's going to be a crazy two weeks!!

This week one of our investigators was baptized. It was amazing! We've had to push off her date for about 2-3 weeks because of extenuating circumstances. She made it though!! We were super happy. That was my last baptism in the mission. Dang. Well, at least I got to go out with a bang!

It was so funny because Helb from the Bishopric was baptizing Mar, and right after the he said the prayer, he said, "gnatsink" which, in this situation means, "Let's do this!" And then he dunked her. It was SO funny.

Well I'd like to bear my testimony really fast.

Yes shat shnorhakal em vor yes unetsel em as hnaravorutyun tsarrayelu Hayastanum. Gitem vor mer yerknayin Hayru shat e sirum mez boloris. Misht hishir vor inku kogni kez amen inchov. Yes gitem vor sa Asttso Ekegheci e. Gitem vor Hisus Kristosu mer prkichn e. Yes SHAT em sirum dzez bolorid. Kutesnuvenk sireliners!!

Love you all! See you soon!

Sister Fielding

March 23 2015

Hey all,

I only have 11 full days left as a missionary, and then I'll be heading back. How crazy is that??

I've been having those end-of-mission thoughts again. Whenever I dwell on me leaving Armenia, I get a little bit freaked out because it's a change. But then I think of all the things that I'll be jumping back into--school, family, friends, etc. and I get excited. It is starting to get a bit confusing. I'm doing okay though. After all, I'm in the best area ever!

Things are going good. Sister Bergin's awesome. She helps me in so many ways. I love her!! 

M has been doing well. She should be getting baptized this week. She is going to have to have her baptismal interview again because she started drinking coffee again. So we'll be jumping on that again. She's going to be such a sweet addition to the ward. :)

It was a miracle this week because El came to church yesterday. She has been really depressed with her life lately, and she's been starting to blame it on the church. But when she came, she looked a lot better. We were just amazed that she came because she was saying that she never wanted to come back. So that was definitely a miracle!!

We had another sick day on Friday. I wasn't sick this time. Sister B is still sick. It's caused her to have an earache and fever. She started to have a lot of build-up in her ear, and it tore a little bit in there. So she occasionally has watery blood leaking out of her ears. Super grose. There was one point when we were in the middle of saying a prayer at an appointment, and she felt it start to drip down her neck. She was silently like, "Aaah!! Grose!!" Haha 

Love you all! Take care!

Sister Fielding

By the way, Elder P. down in Artashat thought it would be funny to grow out his pinky nail. Just his pinky nail. Haha So grose. We got this from the Assistants to the President:

"P.S. Elders in Armenia, we've been asked to not grow out the nails on our little fingers.  Thanks!"

SO funny.

March 16, 2015

Barev dzez!

We were sick yesterday. It was kind of torture to be in church because we weren't feeling well. We spent the rest of the day inside, resting. Both of our bodies were SUPER achy and we were just feeling terrible. I felt pretty nauseated in church.

We're having a really rough time on finding. We're going to try to fix that. It really stunk that we didn't find anyone last week. We gotta get that going so that next transfer they'll be having lots of success. 

It seems like all of our investigators are dropping us. It has been a little bit depressing. I just keep thinking that "the Lord can do his own work." 2 Nephi 27:20-21 I'm going to try to make this last run really worth it. 

On the other hand, Sir got baptized this week. She was SO excited to get into the baptismal font. She practically raced up the ladder. Also, one of the new converts in the ward got to baptize her. That was really exciting. Usually Bishop baptizes them, but he was in Yerevan and wasn't going to be able to do it. Well, Ser said that he couldn't baptize her. Well Ar (the new convert) was there, and we asked him if he wanted to do it. He said no, but in a way that showed that he DID want to but was being bashful. Then he said, "Yeah, I actually DO want to." So he got to!! It was his first time ever baptizing someone. :)

It was so funny because one of the investigators (who later dropped us) had us over, and she turned on her little heater. Well she said, "This is my husband. He warms me up." It was SO funny. We were laughing so hard.

One of the members' husband died this week. He was kind of out-of-it whenever we would come over. He would just sit there and smoke. It was kinda crazy because we heard about how we died. So we brought over some flowers to sympathize. We went in there, and there he was--laid out on the table in a small coffin--with his family members just crying and wailing over him. 

I found out that like how they did in Bible times, they sometimes hire wailers at funerals here. So crazy. Also, the whole time here in Armenia another missionary said that they kept a bowl of their blood underneath them at the funeral. Yep, total myth. haha Don't believe it.

Courtney will be excited to know that I now know TONS about Dr. Who now. When Sister B and I are bored, she tells me ALL about it. It is SO entertaining. Haha I now know about weeping angels, Amy Pond, River Song, and all that jazz. I might just watch the show now. =D 

We were supposed to have two people baptized on Saturday, but one of them called and said that she couldn't because something had happened and she was bleeding. Then she kept saying something about a field. Sister B was confused and thought she must have cut herself on something in a field. Or maybe the doctor had come with leeches and was bleeding her...in a field. She asked if that happened in America and Sister B said no. Then she gets off the phone and tells our member who was with us that M couldn't be baptized because she's bleeding in a field or something. 

Me and our member start laughing because  the word for field is almost the same as the word for period. (Dasht versus Dashtan) She was on her period. And Sister B told her we don't have those in America.

It was SO funny. 

Love you lots!
Sister Fielding

March 9 2015

Hello everyone!

My shirt got caught on fire this week.  I was trying to make chicken pot pie, and apparently the flames from the stove caught on to my shirt, and thus on to part of my skirt too. It was CRAZY. So now there's a gaping hole in my shirt. It's about 4 inches long and an inch wide. I don't have my camera with me. Sorry!!

Also, we started this thing called "embark" in our zone. It's SO much fun!

In order to get the mission pumped about finding families to teach, the Georgian zone leaders came up with a fake twitter-type service called Embark. (Like embark in the service or our Lord.) Each zone has a texting list of everyone in the zone and changed their name to twitter handle names with @ in front of it. Every time you teach a family (it has to be a husband and wife, which is hard to come by here with all the men in Russia or just gone) you can "tweet" your zone about it. But it's hilarious because a lot of the missionaries have never used twitter and don't know how to hashtag. They either write out "hashtag" or put spaces between the words. #newbies

Here are some of the good hashtags we've received:

#missionariesagainsttatikdrinking (tatik means grandma)

#stopsatan2015

#goingtothetemple

#soldieroftheHelemanarmy

#notexactlyarmyofHelaman

#nozoksprobs (zaks is a marriage license. Few people here have them and you can't get baptized without one).

Sister B tried to have our contact name be @Berfie, but I  wouldn't let her, so we're @FieBer instead. The Alaverdi elders are @Bant because they say they're in solitary confinement because they're so far away from everyone.

Anyways, love you all!! =D

Sister Fielding

From Mom:

We are worried about having clothes in Paris and Armenia, is there a place to do laundery when we get to armenia?   We'll be in paris for 8 days before armenia, so we can bring enough clothes until we get to armenia but only if we can wash our clothes when we get to armenia (are there laundromats there) or do we need to find a laundry in paris beforewe get to armenia?

Where should we eat when we get in at 11pm on april 3rd?  We'll be in yerevan- we might be able to pack in some food but we were just wondering if there were late open restuarants or places to eat.

Also, how do we get a taxi in armenia when we land?  what should we say and tell them what hotel?  What's the regular wage just in case they try to overchage us?

Thanks

Mom

Yeah, good thing there are laundromats in Paris, because there's nothing like that in Armenia. Also, there aren't dryers here either. So yeah, make sure to get that done before you get here. 

I don't really know about restaurants that stay open super late. I'm sure there are, but I haven't really served in the city for very long. If anything, you can run into one of the stores for food. There's a place called Sas, a supermarket, that you could get stuff at. Also, "Yerevan city" is a really americanized supermarket that you can go to. Yeah, we've never been out that late. You should just count on going to sas or yerevan city. Sas is open 24 hours, and so you can go there. Don't get lost, though!!

There are usually taxis that are near the airport. 

I just realized that we're already going to be done with transfers that morning. So I'll just be hanging out with President and Sister Carlson for the rest of the day. So I'm just going to give you their numbers. President Carlson's is 091-40-12-79. Sister Carlson's is 091-01-18-76. Call us when you get in. We can either hop in President's car to come and get you, or you can hand your phone to the taxi driver and I'll tell him where to go. 

The Carlsons will most likely get you something to eat if you're hungry. So you really don't need to worry about that. Also, there are a lot of beds at the Carlson's house where missionaries who come in sleep in. You could just cancel your reservation and sleep at their house. It's really comfortable. The Carlsons wanted to have us over for dinner too.

Also, the taxi should be 600 dram. If they don't have a meter, then give them that. Taxi drivers with meters, can just point to how much the meter says. It will most likely just be 600 dram though. 

Hope that answered your questions. Any others??

Love ya!

Sister Fielding

March 1 2015

Hey all,

We're doing good here in Vanadzor! We're hoping to baptize two more of our investigators this week: Mar and Sir. I'm super excited especially for Mar to be baptized. She's SO humble and good. She loves Christ so much. We were a little worried because she couldn't remember some of the doctrine. I prayed about it though, and I just thought, "Well, we'll take care of her and make sure that her testimony's really strong so that she won't fall away in any way." I think that she'll be really active. =)

Sir is harder to meet with, and so she still needs to have her baptismal interview, and her husband's permission for that matter. However, she doesn't have any question 4 problems. So that's good. 

Don't tell anyone (for the people who know people in the mission) but there's big sister splits on Wednesday. It's where all the sisters from Armenia come in to Yerevan, split off, and "have a party" for 24 hours. Splits are so much fun. They don't find out until tonight. :) We're not supposed to tell them very far in advance, because they would get distracted with it. I'm going to be with Sister Ste from Artashat, and I am so excited!! She's one of the trainees. It's going to be a fun split. It'll be cool to gauge how she's doing and all that.

We picked up this lady as an investigator, and it was amazing! At first she was really concerned about being baptized again. But we took Ser with us, who helped assuage her of her fears, and she now wants to be baptized on March 28th! Yay!! I'm super excited. Yay for miracles and tender blessings.

Hey, I know I shouldn't be thinking about this, but there's only 41 days left until I'm in America. How wierd is that?

I can't think of anything else tp write about. Absose (Too bad.) Plus, all my pictures are non-sendable, because they have other people in them. Kunerek! (Sorry!)

Love you all. Make good choices!

Sister Fielding

February 23, 2015

So many funny things to write about this week!

First off: You know you're in Armenia when the Bishop decides to start giving out baby/kid blessings practically throughout all of sacrament meeting. The little kids in the ward--from Alaverdi and Vanadzor--were all lining up to get blessings this week. They seriously gave NINE baby blessings, but to little kids. They said, "Well...if they're younger than eight!" We were all like, "Are you serious?!" It was hilarious though because at the end, the Bishop called up Ren, our recent convert, as a joke. She got up, and he burst out laughing saying, "No no! You have to be under 8 years-old." That was funny. She's like their adopted daughter since all her family is in Russia.

It was adorable because Bishop had this little four year-old give the opening prayer to sacrament. SO adorable. 

Other than those highlights, church was torture this week. All of Alaverdi came down, and then there were our members. We were sitted in the upstairs sacrament room for THREE hours. After a while, we stole the Alaverdi Elders planners and started writing all sorts of funny things in them. They stole ours too. Elder P. started drawing an American flag on one of my pages, and then totally forgot what it looked like. So below is a picture of how it turned out. He called it the hick American flag. Haha

By the way, I'm writing a lot later in the day because I had to go to the mission office in Yerevan to renew my residence card. 

It was SO funny because we were about to turn on to Vratsakan street when we see Sister Carlson crossing the street. We were all like, "Hey, we should call over something to her!" Sister Ber. said, "Dang girl, the back of yo head is ridiculous!" --Reference to a youtube video. Sister Carlson wouldn't have been able to hear her, of course. Anyways, Gri who was in the front seat heard that. He was one of the two people next to a window that could open. Anyways, we pull up close to Sister Carlson and said hi. Anyways, Gri, not understanding Sister Ber's phrase/slang but still trying to repeat it, said, "Hey, your back hair is gorgeous!!" Bahaha 

Sister Carlson was all like, "Uh...what??" Hahahaha I'm still laughing just writing it. Classic.

This week during zone conferences we got to watch, "Meet the Mormons." I was so excited!! They said that they had a surprise. After lunch, they said that we would be watching "Meet the Mormons." We were all like, "No way." I haven't watched a real movie in FOREVER. I think I've watched "17 miracles" about five to six times on my mission. And I don't even know how many times I've watched "The phone call." :) The next time someone goes on a mission, I'm gonna lend them TONS of church movies to watch on their mission. (Tucker I'm thinkin' of you, bud!)

We have a surprising amount of investigators out in Tashir. It's crazy. That area might have some potential of opening up some day. Although, we happened to schedule appointments on the day that it snowed super hard. We might have done a 180 degree fishtail spin on our way out there. But everything is all good and everyone's safe!

Sometimes it's super annoying to be an American girl in Armenia. All sorts of boys/men try to hit on you all the time. (They go crazy for blonde hair and blue eyes.) But sometimes it has its perks. We were walking from this one place in Vanadzor called Jungliner and were going to Dimats. We were hoping to grab a marshrutni (a small bus) to take us there. But until then, we were walking. Anyways, this marshrutni comes up, and we flag it down. We were the only ones on it. 

Well the driver would be stopping in Bazoom, waiting for ten minutes, and then would head to Dimats. So we're on this bus, and then when we got to Bazoom, we just decided to go the rest of the way by foot instead of wait. So we tried to pay the driver the 50 cents that it costs. He said, "No, no. Don't worry about it." We were a little confused. So we said, "No, we're paying you for the ride we took." He said, "Hey, if you wanna jump on that marshrutni, then you can pay him. But you don't have to pay me." Then it clicked and we were like, "Aww yeah!!" It's nice being a girl.

Anyways, we're walking for about 10 minutes or so, and that SAME marshrutni honks us down. So we're like, "Okay cool, we'll hop on it again to go the rest of the way." Well, when we get to our stop, we tried to pay him again. He whispered because he didn't want the other riders to see, "No." So we just let him. Haha Free bus fare. Heck yeah! It drives the Vanadzor 1 Elders insane. Haha

Anyways, that's my week!

Man, I can't believe that there's only six weeks left in my mission! What the heck? Where has the time gone? I feel like I have this big fat timer over my head. Crazy.

And why can't Armenian be a more common language, eli?! (eli means seriously.) I speak Armenglish like nobody's business. Nobody's going to understand me when I get back. And how on earth do people say prayers in English anymore? A year and a half of it being in Armenian, and you just can't go back. So wierd.

Anyways, love you all so much!! Astvats hetnerud. (God be with you!)

Love, Sister Fielding

Here's me by one of the Armenian churches in Vanadzor.

Elder P's American flag (the word below means "flag")

Me at the jazz cafe getting a milkshake thing. SO yummy!

February 16, 2015

Hey Friends and Family,

This week was challenging in many ways, but it was still good.

For El, it was SO hard to get her to her baptism. It was crazy. I think that Satan knew how much she needed this baptismal covenant and how strong she would be because she was hit really hard this week by him. 

She passed her interview and was so excited to be baptized, but then all the people around her were trying to convince her to not be baptized. They would confuse her by saying our doctrine wasn't in the bible. They gave her anti-mormon literature to read. They would plant all sorts of doubts in her mind so that when we came to meet with her, she was almost fighting against the things we were saying. She was super confused. Through it all, I felt like we just needed to get her in the water. Man, it was hard on the way there though. 

On the day of her baptism, it was like the light came back on. She was sad because she wasn't receiving any support from the people around her, but she was excited to be baptized. She was also really nervous. She was baptized and was so happy. 

Afterwards, she was ecstatic that she would be receiving the Holy Ghost the next day. On her first sunday that she came, Li was receiving the Holy Ghost. When she saw all the men place their hands on her head, El felt the spirit. She said that she had never seen that type of thing before, but she wanted it. 

Yesterday, after church and after having received the Holy Ghost, she came up to us. She said, "I felt it! I felt that warmth that you were telling me about! When they placed their hands on my head, I felt the warmth." We said, "Aww!! That was from the spirit!!" She said, "Yes, this must be why I was led to this church." She is going to be fantastic. 

We also gave her all of her new member books. She was especially excited to receive the Doctrine and Covenants. She knew of it because she saw it in the footnotes of the Book of Mormon, and also because we would share scriptures from D&C occasionally. She was asking for a Doctrine and Covenants before she was baptized. 

We know that she's going to stay strong because she really reads! She would always study all the scriptures that we gave her. She loves to read. She's going to devour the scriptures. I love it! And I love her. :)

For all of our new members, it's almost like it's hard to pin them all down to continue to have lessons with them. We're just thinking, "Hello! We still need to do your new member lessons/prepare you to be strong and active in the church." I love having so many new members though. It really has been such a privilege to bring these people into the church. I want so badly to help them be strong in the church for the rest of their lives. :)

We've been picking up so many members out in Tashir. It's crazy! They are showing a lot of promise. There could potentially be another five baptisms from out there. We are also going to try to talk to one of our investigator's husbands to open up the possibility of starting a group closer to them. I love going out there too because our member out there, Marg, really wants to go on a mission. She just doesn't remember any of the doctrine. Hah She was one of the members from Alaverdi that slipped through the cracks. If we can just get her on a mission, she would help Armenia SO much when she got back. I'm amazed at how committed she still is to the church after having next to no contact in about five years or so. She's been giving us tons of referrals! I love her so much.

Also, we were dying the other day. We went and saw one of our new members with another member. Our new convert was sick and in bed, and so the member thought that she would go and take her blood pressure. Well...she puts the blood pressure cuff on her FOREARM, pumps it up, waits a second, and then pumps it up again. Waits a second. I could see the little person in her brain saying, "Um...I didn't get anything from that...quick say something!" And then she said, "What have you been eating??! You need to eat lots of more sugar!!" And proceeded to give her more trouble. Haha It was ridiculous.

P.S. It is CRAZY that Tyler's back from his mission! (He's my brother, for those who don't know.) I opened up my letters and found out that he had to go home for medical reasons. That was super unexpected. SO crazy to have my cousin go home and then have him come home the following week. I'm just happy that he'll be able to head back into the field. 

Love you all,

Sister Fielding

February 9, 2015

Hello friends and family,

We're going to see another one of our investigators, El, get baptized this week. I am SO excited for this baptism. The Lord has prepared her for this day for so long. 

Other than that, our investigators are all somewhat new. With a lot of them, we're trying to visit them frequently, while at the same time gauge how interested they are. It's interesting because some of them are former investigators from before. One of them remembers going to watch her neighbor's baptism into the church. (The member got baptized a couple of years ago.)

One of the teenagers in our ward just confessed, with defiance in her eyes, that she has started to drink coffee and tea lately. She has been a really strong member for my whole mission. I admit, I bawled all the way home after I heard about it. It was really hard.

On the other hand, I'm really really happy for El. I am so happy that we were able to help her to become a candidate for the Celestial kingdom. She's definitely going there. She is so humble and so good. When we were going over the baptismal questions with her, we got to tithing. She was saying with true regret, "Oh, if ONLY I could work and pay my tithing. I would love that." She really can't work. She is ailing health-wise. I think it's mainly from malnutrition. She has no source of income whatsoever. All the food that she has is from her concerned friends, who are also poor. One time she gave us the last of the bread that her friend had given her. I hated taking it.

We have been trying to find creative ways to help her. It was her birthday the other day, and so we gave her a tupperware full of pasta--noodles and lecho. Along with a cut-up bell pepper, and cut--up carrots. She was so happy, but at the same time there was guilt in her eyes that we were giving her a gift. We said, "El! This is your birthday present!" She said, "But you two are my birthday presents!" I thought that that was so sweet.

This is a situation where the people truly need the welfare program, when they're literally starving. It makes my heart hurt.

We went on splits with the Charentsavan sisters. I went with one of the trainees! It was SO fun. I love it.

Also, we had our English class this week. When we asked one of the people to write out what "one" would be in English, he wrote "uno." We died. It was SO funny.

Also, we were passing off one of our investigators off to the Alaverdi elders. After the appointment, we were waiting for our taxi, and the little two year-old there was running around, and her pants start to fall down. So her mom calls over to her to tell her to pull up her pants. She then proceeds to pull up her pantlegs--confused at what her mom wants her to do. Haha

Love you all!

Sister Fielding

February 2, 2015

Hey family and friends!

Congrats Anna!!! Can't believe that you're going home this week. Crazy!

We have the BEST investigator right now. Her name's El. We found her by following up on a referral to a family. The family didn't work out, but she did! I have never met someone who's so humble and willing to do everything that we ask. Man.

She has been putting up with SO much persecution from her neighbors/close friends, and yet, she hasn't wavered. When we invited her to be baptized, she said that she was scared. When we asked her why, she said that that family (the family mentioned above) said that if she got baptized, she was never to come back to their house. They're pretty much her family, and so that must have been pretty scary/hard for her.

When we heard this, our member present, A, said, "Yeah, those things are hard, but you should fear God more than man." And El was super accepting of that, saying, "Yeah, that's true." We didn't press her further for a date though.

Then later, the following week, she said during a lesson, "So...when is my baptism going to be?" We were freaking out. We were so happy. Her date is February 14th.

She has been referring all of her neighbors too, and they've been getting really interested. It's interesting because a bunch of neighbors keep telling her that she's being led astray, and that "the Mormons" are evil people. But she doesn't listen to them. She was so worried on Sunday because one of our members told her that she had to wait a year to be baptized. She was so distraught. She pulled us aside and told us this. We realized that our member had been talking about going to the temple a year after her baptism. El was so relieved. She said, "Okay, good. I want to be completely clean before God when I die." She's so funny. She thinks that she's going to die this year, but she's in her young 60's. (She has some health problems, but nothing serious enough to kill her.) 

It is amazing to find those people who are SO humble and good.

Splits this week were great. We went with the Hrazdan sisters. Our first splits as Sister Training leaders!

Also, L and K were baptized this week. We feel like they might just have been finally ready for baptism. It was really great to see them go down into the water. Yay!!!

P.S. We have an AWESOME mission goal to get 500 baptisms this year. It's going to be INSANE!!! In order to do it, every companionship has to get five baptisms every three months. It's gonna be amazing!!!! We're more than half the way through on our part this transfer. Yeah!!

Well, love you all!

Sister Fielding

January 26, 2015

Barev Dzez im amenasirats martik!

(Hello my favorite people!)

Georgia was SO much fun!! I loved it. We were able to do awesome things like set goals for the year!! When I found out that we were doing that, I automatically thought, "Wow, this was the best time for me to get into leadership!"

This year is definitely going to be one with miracles though!! The goals are definitely going to fulfill Elder Bednar's promise. I remember from Elder Bednar's meeting with the stake (in May) how he said, "The next time I come to Armenia, there will not be enough room in this room (the Marriott Center's ballroom) for all of you." It was something along those lines. It was insane!!! It was a prophet of God who said it. Meaning that that was a prophecy! He'll be coming back this summer, I think. ;)

Georgia was amazing! Wow. I loved the mission leadership council. I feel like I have a bigger connection with Georgia now. I think that these goals are going to change the face of Armenia and Georgia. I love it. Sorry, I can't tell the goals now because other missionaries are on this e-mail list, and I don't want to give it away.

I can't believe how Westernized Georgia is!! Georgia is SO beautiful. Wow. Sorry to dis on Armenia, but Armenia has nothing on Georgia's architecture. And they have Wendy's and AMERICAN PIZZA!!! No joke. We had American pizza for lunch on Friday. I couldn't believe it. It was real pepperoni and a combination pizza, and an all-meat pizza. It was like Domino's. Tashir pizza place just doesn't compare. And we had garlic bread too!!! 

Although from what President Carlson was saying, Armenian people are a lot more warmer and hospitable. Georgians are colder people from what they were saying. So that's interesting. So Armenians win in that regard. ;)

I was also surprised at how much of a responsibility it is to be a leader. I feel such a strong pull to be a good example. It's so true that other missionaries look to us for an example. I remember seeing things that the sister training leaders and thinking, "Oh, well if they do that then it must be okay." (They weren't being disobedient. Don't worry!) :)

We have two investigators approaching baptism. It's funny because it's K and his mom. (K was the one who was going into the army.) He apparently got out of it. So he's here still. We think that he really has been stopping smoking now. So he will be able to be baptized this Saturday (his original baptismal date) with his mom. We are really happy that we didn't bend under peer pressure, because now it's SO much better. 

Plus, we had a great experience with our other investigator, E. We had tried to extend a baptismal date to her, but she said that she was scared. Apparently our former investigators (who are practically her family) said that if she was baptized that she would no longer be welcome in their home. It was SO sad. Our member present was telling her that it was hard, but she shouldn't be scared of man, she should fear God. She accepted everything that our member was saying.

She is so faithful. During our last meeting, she came out of the blue and said, "So, when is my baptism going to be?" We were SO excited! =D it was amazing. She is an angel.

I love this work! Armenia is the best place in the world.

Love, Sister Fielding

There I am at the border!

And there I am at Wendy's!! (It was delicious!!)

January 19, 2015

Hey, so something that I forgot to mention last time: I'm one of the Sister training leaders now!! My bad for not saying so. :) Vochinch!

Hey, so one of the most exciting news: Because of the visa problems going on with the Georgian missionaries, WE'RE GOING TO GEORGIA for mission leadership council!! Not Atlanta, the country. ;) The Georgian missionaries might not be able to re-enter Georgia if they leave. I am so excited! I've never been to that part of the mission. The Georgians pretty much have their own mission because they're so far away. They call themselves the redheaded stepchildren because they only come down to Armenia once a year, pretty much.

We had an interesting week this week. So we found out that K will be going into the army soon. It has been a bit of a frustrating experience. When it was towards the end of December, we went over to their family's house. While we were there, they said that they found out that K was going into the banak on January 20th. After hearing this news, the following Monday, his sister passed her baptismal interview. As I was filling out her information, he said that he wanted to be baptized. Miracle, right? Well at that time, I asked him when he was going into the banak. He said, "Oh, I've been let go." So I said, "Well great! Then we'll put your date for January 30th." That way, he would have time to get ready for his baptism. 

Well it turns out that he wasn't let go. They were probably hoping that he would because of his bad knees, but no. So this last week, they were getting a lot more persistent about him being baptized. We were a little confused. On Monday of last week, K told us that he hadn't smoked that day. We were thrilled about that. Then the next day we found out from them that Karen was going into the banak on the 20th. We said that he probably wasn't going to be able to be baptized because he hasn't given up smoking completely, but we would think about it.

The next day, they all came to the church and started talking to Bishop about it. They got the ENTIRE ward involved in it. The Bishop, his wife, the ward mission leader, and other leaders in the ward. They had us come into the Bishop's office and were saying, "Hey, why can't he be baptized??" L (the mom) was saying, "Yeah, why can't he baptized? He hasn't been smoking for a whole week!" And we were thinking, "Um...that's a lie." There was suddenly all this pressure on us. 

That night we called you about it. And you told us to pray about it. I prayed about it, and after some reflection, I felt like he wasn't ready to be baptized.

Well, we told L that, and she is really mad at us. Or, more particularly, at me. She asked me for the umpteenth time if K would be baptized, after we had made it clear that he was not going to. And I responded with a firm, "No." She is super mad at me. 

It was really confusing though because a day or two later, we went to their house, bringing cookies to maybe help the situation. However, she was all cheery and everything, and she gave us three new investigators to teach. So that was interesting.

Then the next morning we called her (on Sunday), and she chewed us out. She said that she's helped us on all these things (with her friends and everything) and we are refusing to even let her son be baptized. She said, "Fine, then I'll go to another church and have Karen be baptized there. Then I won't go to church and I'll take all of my friends with me!" 

Then we saw her at church, she gave me a plastic smile, and said, "Of COURSE I'm not offended at you," when I asked. And then she gave us another investigator... Confusing, right?

So yeah, this whole thing has been a very confusing experience. I didn't just stop at that first prayer of whether or not he should be baptized. I reflected on it again and again. I didn't want to mess this up, especially since this was pretty important. But Sister B. and I have both come to the conclusion that it isn't right. Especially in light of all the manipulation to try to get us to let him be baptized.

It has been rough.

On the upside, Li got baptized this week!! She is so fantastic. She is going to be so strong for the church. We realized this week that her daughter, Sv is probably too mentally handicapped to be baptized. So that's okay. We didn't realize before that she really didn't know what was going on. So we've dropped her, but that's okay.

We hope to really get the work really bursting up here. I'm excited to participate in Mission leadership council. :)

Love you all!!!

Sister Fielding

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