January 5, 2015

Shnorhavor amanor yev soorb tsunoond!

(Merry Christmas and a Happy new year!)

So this week was completely crazy because of Nor Tari. (Nor Tari=New Year's) Man, talk about a hit on missionary work!

The last couple of days before Nor Tari, there was a sort of excited hum in the air as everyone got ready for the week-long celebration of Nor Tari. The stores were all SUPER busy. I'd never seen Vitamin (the little grocery store next to our house) so busy.

We were told from Moscow (the Europe East Headquarters is there) that we were supposed to be inside by 6:00 pm on December 31st because of all the drunk people around. (I personally think that that was more directed towards Russia, because I hear that TONS of people drink up there.) It was cool though. We did our weekly planning that night, and then chilled around the apartment. Oh! And we played Egyptian Rat screw. Sister B. had never played it. (What the heck?) It was so fun.

On December 31st, we hit the sack at the usual time: 10:30. However, I just so happened to wake up about five minutes before midnight. And man, you could tell EXACTLY when it became 2015. All these people started cheering from the town square, loud booms from fireworks were going off, and people were going up and down the main street honking their horns. After a while I thought, "Okay, woohoo it's 2015. Can we go back to sleep, now??" Haha 

Then it was Nor Tari, the first day of the torture, oh, I mean the fun. ;)

We went to a bunch of members' houses. It was so funny because we went to S and A's house. When they opened the door, S had a santa hat on, A had aSanta hat with white braids on, and L (their friend/awesome member) had on a headband with with two bobble-headed Santas on springs. It was SO funny. Those three are the cutest!

The first day of Nor Tari is always the best day. It was pretty fun, actually! Every Armenian that you meet is super cheerful and friendly, and everything is just great. The f

But then the second day came. We went to about four different meals, plus our English class (recently approved by President Carlson woohoo!). As the day went on, I started to feel more and more terrible. So much food, and with it getting old/bad, was not good. We went with the H's to an appointment to translate for them. When we got out of the appointment, I felt terrible. I had all sorts of cramping in my stomach, and I just wanted to go home. It was about 7:30 at night-ish. 

Well we had an actual teaching appointment (the only one that we managed to get for the whole day) and so we had to go to it. So we did.

The investigator we were going for ended up not being there. However, his mom and grandma were there. They're both our investigators too...but they were both sick with bad colds. So we sat there. After begging them to not feed us dolma (we'd had it nearly 10 times in the past two days) they gave us some tea. My stomach felt terrible that we finally shared a quick verse about Jesus, and then went home.

I got SO sick. I was just miserable in the bathroom. 

I hate nor tari. 

We were out for the count for the next day. I was SO happy that I didn't have to eat any more dolma or blini. :) Our mission president's wife prescribed me Coca-Cola to drink (apparently the coca-cola syrup soothes stomachs). So Sister H was nice enough to go out and buy me a 2 liter of that. Whenever I felt nauseated, I drank a little bit of coke, and it totally worked!! The nausea would go away.

We got so much done in the apartment. Sister B. cleaned the apartment, including washing down the bathroom, organizing the spice cupboard, vacuuming, etc. (She is awesome!) I sat on one of our armchairs, propped my foot up, and drank coke. Just kidding. I did stuff too. I completely updated the area book (the book with all the records for our missionary work), made lots of calls to people, knitted, and looked up a bunch of words to learn for January. With all of that, we still watched 17 miracles, listened to music and general conference, and even watched some 1990's Old Testament seminary videos (we were REALLY bored by the time we got to the seminary movies).

And hey, I drank that ENTIRE 2 liter thing of coca-cola. I never drink pop, so that's crazy. I took before and after pictures. :)

The next day was sunday. I woke up and my stomach felt terrible, but after jumping in the shower, the hot water relaxed the muscles. So it didn't hurt anymore. And there were occasional times when I felt a little sick during the day, but it never stayed for more than 20 minutes.

So yeah, that was our week! I think that the missionaries going home this transfer (they left in the middle of December so that they could go to school at the beginning of January) lucked out that they didn't have to do Nor Tari this year. Pretty much the worst week of the year, I think.

I hope I wasn't too much of a debbie downer today.

Well that was our week! This week is transfers. We don't find out until tomorrow though. President said, a couple weeks ago, that he was putting me in all sorts of areas, thinking about where he would put me for my last transfer. 

Sister B. has been somewhat freaking out about it. I've been trying to prep her by saying, "You never know, you could train next transfer." She says, "Ahh!! Don't say that!!" 

I highly doubt that I would train again. The missionary department in Salt Lake has told the mission presidents that they should try to have more younger missionaries train, because they're supposed to be able to train the minute they finish their training. I count myself lucky that I was able to train when I'm such an oldie! ;)

Love you all! Again, happy new year!

Metz sirov,

Sister Fielding

1. We REALLY party over here in Armenia! Just kidding. This is cherry juice. 

2. Our light over the door. The plastic part over the light fell down at midnight on New Year's because of all the explosions from fireworks.