Anniversary Outing!

Yesterday, November 20th was our 39th Wedding Anniversary!  Wow! Time has gone by fast.  We celebrated by going to a yummy Chinese Restaurant.  This is our first outing since Elder J. got sick.  He is doing much better, just weak and tires easily.

 I ordered a lemonade to drink.  It is kind of joke now for me to see what I will get each time I order lemonade, because it has never tasted like lemonade yet.  And every time I order one in Armenia, I get something different.  This time it was peach, and very delicious.
Sometimes labeling loses a little in translation. Note: "Fizzy Drink"

Apparently they care about my teeth here, because this is what they gave us after dinner.

Before dinner we did a little shopping!  I got this:

It is made out of the following wood: beech, mahogany, mulberry, walnut, pear tree and apricot tree.
 I love it

I also got these:

Did I tell you how much I love doilies?

This doily took six months for the lady to make. She said it had won exhibition prizes in Russia.  It is a the most beautiful workmanship I have ever seen.  It isn't crochet, it is either like netting or tatting.
 (The kids are pretty cute too!)

This is the lady that made it.

Yes, there are a lot of short people in Armenia.

Just one more view of this gorgeous doily

"And It Came To Pass"

In the scriptures it always says:  "It came to pass," never it came to stay (the same). 
One prayer God never answers is for things to stay the same.

Elizabeth Sherrill

Our lives have been turned upside down these past two weeks.  Things definitely haven't stayed the same.  Elder Jones has been extremely sick, the mission doctor in Germany says he thinks he has had a Viral Intestinal Infection.  He has been treating many patients with similar symptoms throughout Eastern Europe, including some here in Armenia.

What a terrible way to lose 20 lbs in one week!

The doctor here in Armenia told Elder J. that it was like a earthquake going off inside of his body. Amen!

He is a lot better but still not able to go to the office.  He has pretty much existed on Priesthood Blessings, Prayer, and Power Aid.  We are sure that he wouldn't have made it without all three.  Thanks to all, for your prayers and support.  We appreciate it beyond words.

This sweet girl spoke some English and stayed by Elder J's. side, while he got IV's

The Lord knew we needed a bright spot this past week and look what we got. THREE Christmas packages from home.  Thanks, Brooke, Raegan and Pauline.

Raegan made these table runners.

and Pauline made this beautiful, cuddly, Christmas Quilt.  You can't see it, but it has our names and Christmas Greeting on it.

One parting thought from Mother Theresa:  "God said he doesn't give us any challenges beyond our ability to handle it...God must really trust me"

Love Sister J.

Book of Mormon STORY

Yesterday I was asked by one of the Senior Missionaries:

"Any chance that there might be a copy of the Book of Mormon in Bulgarian on your store room shelves? We have an English group attendee that from age 9 to age 20 lived in Varna, Bulgaria with her family. She is Armenian but just returned to live here."

I knew that we had Book of Mormons in several languages, but I was nearly certain that we didn't have any in Bulgarian.  I ALMOST emailed her right back and said,

“We don’t have one but I can order one, and it would probably take a couple of months to get here, are you sure you want me to order it.”

Then I kept having this little feeling to go organize all of the Book of Mormons in all of the languages.



As I did so, there among five shelves and 22 languages, Croatian, Portugese, Spanish, Persian, Arabic, Albanian, Chinese, Danish, Hungarian, Greek, German, Sinhala, Polish, Italian, Turkish, Swedish, Romanian, Latvian, Russian, Armenian and English - - was one Bulgarian Book of Mormon.

Yes, the Lord cares about the “one”.  I know he cares about this Bulgarian woman.



Name the Cost $$$

The price of things are so random here. Without a lot of thought I totally got brave and had my hair colored and styled. This is the result. (JK)

Not bad huh?  COST??  3000 drams or less than $9.00, considering they don't use curling irons just  different sized round brushes and I'm sure the brushes are shared by everyone as a peice of long black hair kept hanging in my eyes.  I also noticed a different stylist putting the blow dryer between her legs when she had to use both hands for styling.  They don't use conditioner or any products on your hair either.  I tried not to notice the gobs of black hair laying all over the floor.  Hey, it was the end of the day! 

Actually my stylist Asa was super nice and knew a little English. She asked how she could learn more English. Well, the government says the Church can't have English classes, so we have English Conversations and I told Asa about them, but she has to work on those days.  I am going to tell the Sister Missionaries to come and I will introduce them to her.

and to her. 

 She was hanging out the beauty shop and said I was nice, so I asked if I could take her picture.

I made my sisters guess what the cost of my coat was, the closest guess would get to pay for it! (hehe)

Yikes! $226  I'm happy to announce that PAULINE is the winner.  She guessed $200.

Now these veggies cost .75

& these veggies cost $2.40 at a different veggie stand.

The coat IS really nice and I didn't bring one from home because I didn't have one at home...and and

This Week... A Little Bit of This and That!

Cute Little Lia from here in Yerevan has received her mission call to the Temple Square Mission in SLC.  Her English is already really good and she also speaks Spanish.

She got her call on her birthday!  What a great day..  she will be an awesome missionary!  Her nonmember Mom is worried that he is going clear across the ocean to serve.

Elder Jones at his desk.  Looks like he cleaned it.

 Sister Jones at her desk.. Looks like she didn't clean it.

It rained on and off all day Friday.  First real rain storm since we got here. Big claps of scary thunder.

 This generation of  ladies typically dress and look like this.  Most Armenians of any age don't look very happy, except for the little children.

A lot of Armenian men spend a lot of time standing, talking and smoking.  These nice men do maintence on the church buildings for us and are very cordial.

 This was lunch today.  It was a full roasted chicken with potatoes. The enclosed rotisserie roaster was on the street. Then the guy took it inside to cut it up for me.  To get it home he wrapped it in lavosh (Armenian bread, like a thin tortilla) It was actually very tasty, seasoned with dill, celantro and ??? 

THINGS THAT ARE STARTING TO SEEM NORMAL

Keys to open everything. AT THE OFFICE - The refrigerator, In the kitchen - Each cupboard with a different key.  I use keys to get in my office, for the supply room, each cupboard with a different key, Deseret Industries closets, each cupboard with a different key.  Elder Jones is in charge of keys and he has a case with hundreds of keys.

The first time I saw this I was appauled, now it seems normal.

A small beatup Nissan type pickup delivering bread to stores, the bread is not wrapped, just stacked in the back of the pickup.  The truck does have a shell on it.  No matter what store most bread is not wrapped. One day one of the Senior Missionaries watched a bread delivery man carry all the bread in his hands, yet he had two more loaves, so he just stuck them under his armpits!

One of the nicer grocery stores is called SAS (sauce)  We can see the back of the store from our window.  The groceries are delivered in random trucks.They unload vegetables on to the ground then SAS employees put them into containers . Then take them in the store.
Bob saw unwrapped hot dogs fall out of the back of a delivery truck, the driver just scooped them off the ground and puts them back in.


This is what the ground often looks like.

Just another day for me now!

I would tell you about our Relief Society Activity last Wednesday night, but it would probably take 4+ hours to do it.  That is how long it lasted.  What a Cultural learning experience for me.  (I ain't in Moapa anymore) It was on Beauty.  Just think disco, Santana music, Armenian music, slide shows, beauty panels, manicures, facials, hair cuts, dyes, Whoa!  I could go on and on.  Everyone seemed to be having a great time, including me!