It's Christmas, Smile!

To all my Friends and Family-

Well it has been another good fun week here in Armenia. I really love my mission, I love all the Armenian people, and I love all the great missionaries and people I get to serve with! I am really glad I am here and I hope you are all happy wherever you are and whatever it is you're doing… it is Christmas after all, who can’t smile!

First, let me say I didn’t have the most exciting week in the world, but there were a few highlights. The first being we have a Branch Activity on Friday and guess who gets to be Santa Claus… me! It will definitely be interesting and I will be sure to take lots of pictures and fill you in on the excitement in 2 weeks. On that note, I will not be writing next week… it is New Years, so we will be moving our preparation day to Friday and we will be watching movies… so no time for email, sorry!

We went to Nork’s District Meeting this week which was fun, I got to see my old District again even though only 2 of the missionaries were left… Sis. Fuhriman and Elder Williams, but still fun. I also went on exchanges with Elder Crook which went well, it was a good training experience and I think I was able to help him out a lot. It was an enjoyable experience being back in Nork. It was a lot of fun on the exchange too, we chopped tons of wood and even almost cut our hands off a few times. The problem was we were cutting kindling so it was logs getting smaller. And, well you know 20 year old boys with sharp things… we aren’t careful. We actually did get our hands a few times, but no big deal! [Such a nice thing to mention to your parents, we hope Michael comes home with all his appendages]

Thursday was a rough day, I lost my companion, Elder Carlson was transfred to Vanadzor, and I was on exchanges with Elder Stutz until the evening when Elder Simonsen arrived. We had a huge transfer in the mission, literally every companionship was effected by it. In the south we also got 3 new District Leaders which I am excited about… Elder Williams, Elder Gull, and Elder Stutz. I have lots of great hope in these Elders and I know we are going to work great together to turn the South Zone around!

Elder Simonsen and I are getting along great, it's fun reminiscing about the MTC days together. For those who don’t know we came to Armenia together and were in the same group in the MTC so that is fun.

Other than that we had a few small miracles yesterday at church, first off this random lady just walked in and said she was looking for peace and decided to come in our building and see what was going on. She ended up staying for all 3 hours, really enjoying it and now we are going to meet with her today! Her name is Anahit by the way. Also at church we got a Referral from a member and we went and saw them last night… it was a way cool willing family… 3 New Investigators! It was just a lot of fun and a good reminder that the Lord really is involved in the work and is helping us out a ton. Another really cool thing that happened was this less active member who I have been working with a ton since I got here finally came to church yesterday. Her name is Azniv, and we have taught her tons of lessons to try to get her to come, then a couple days ago we just reviewed the Joseph Smith story and the restoration of the church with her and I think it just sparked her testimony again because there she was at church! Plus there was extra time in the meeting so the Branch President asked her to come up and talk a bit, so she talked about temples and it was actually an amazing talk! I just love missionary work!

O, I forgot, we went to a baptism from Shengavit on Saturday. Elder Simonsen just came from Shengavit so that was cool. Plus, I got to give a talk at the Baptism. I seriously don’t think I have given a talk at a baptism since my Alaverdi days… cool.

Other than that, not much else to my week. Sorry this is short and lame, but nothing else to say. In 2 weeks I will have tons to write about so just wait until then!

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I love and miss you all and appreciate your letters and support! Remember the real meaning of the Holidays and I will write again soon!

Love,
Elder Piercy

Merry Christmas

Dear Michael: Just wanted to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hope you don't forget about us while you are having so much fun in Armenia. I put the photo up so you won't forget what we look like. Oh and what a Christmas tree looks like also. I guess you notice a few people missing in the photo, we're going through downsizing right now so there may not be a position for you when you return. Love, Us

To all my Great Friends, Family, and Blog Viewers!-

First, I hope you are all having Happy Holidays and a soon to be Merry Christmas wherever you are! It seems like the Holidays just do something to people to put a little cheer in the air, so I hope you are all finding that cheer in your lives.

Other than that I guess I should get started since everyone is going to President Dunn’s house today for a Christmas party. Sister Dunn made tons of Turkey soup apparently from the leftover bones and meat of the 8 turkeys she made for our Zone Conference meal! I am looking forward to it. I guess we don’t really understand how much preparation and care so many people take in our lives just to help us have an enjoyable holiday season… I will work to thank them and I hope every one of you will show your thanks to the people who help and make a difference for you.

Anyways I guess I'll start my week. Let me just tell you their has been another change in my mission but I will get to that later.

Last Monday was interesting, turns out it was the 20th anniversary… I think of the huge Earthquake that devastated Northern Armenia (Gyumri and Spitak) there wasn’t a ton going on in the city though, probably because it wasn’t effected as much. I remember last year in Alaverdi we saw a huge memorial gathering thing. Other than that it was just a normal day, we went to Gold’s Gym to eat and talked with Jim which is nice… the unfortunate thing is it seems he will be leaving soon now that the Gym has a foothold, someone else will be coming in to run it… it's unfortunate but I have enjoyed my time seeing him.

Tuesday was a good District Meeting we went to Elder Larson’s District Meeting, it went well, then at the end I think we gave a really good thought on attitude and how a good attitude will change each person and how they do missionary work. I just hope people accepted it and will try some things we talked about. Leadership is just a hard thing, we are always worried about others and trying to find ways to help- so I just hope when we do give suggestions people accept them.

Wednesday was a pretty good day, we did well with all our meetings, our planning has been a lot better this week so there hasn’t been quite as many fall throughs lately, and our investigators are all doing well. Other than that it was just a pretty standard day. I did make the greatest meal I have ever made on my mission- Sweet and Sour Chicken. I totally made it up and it turned out amazing. I cooked some chicken breasts, cut them up while I made a sauce of Bell Peppers, Onions, Pineapples, Orange-pineapple Juice, Ketchup and Hot sauce. I mixed the chicken and the sauce and then put it all over rice and believe it or not it smelled and tasted exactly like real Chinese food! Overall I have just really found I enjoy cooking on my mission and I am actually pretty good I think.

Anyways, Thursday it finally snowed. I have been saying how cold it has been lately and Elder Carlson told me to wait until snow and then it will be warmer… KEESE! It did not get any warmer… at least it has melted now, I thought it was still very cold. Other than that we saw a cool miracle. We got on the wrong bus, then didn’t have enough coins on us to take another one so we walked to the place we needed to go… on the way we met this really cool guy who was accepting of us and willing to meet so we got his Contact info… I know the Lord puts these people in our path. We also had a meeting with our investigator Narine and her sister Nelli said the closing prayer and it was so cool because the girls are all kind of less active but are starting to be active again, Nelli just gave the coolest prayer asking to have courage to share the gospel and asking for knowledge and strength so she could be more like us… it was just really cool and we are seeing the growth in her as well as Narine as we teach them all together. We also picked up a new investigator from a neighbor of a member. We were visiting a family and they invited their neighbor down who really liked us and wants to hear! That was another miracle.

Friday was a bit of a disappointing day. We had Zone Leader Council which went really well, we had a lot of good things to talk about and we heard a great talk from President Dunn on Crossing the Rubicon. It was a shortened version of the Zone Conference talk he will be giving later in January so I will just wait until then to tell you about it… it was good though. The unfortunate thing was we also saw what happens on the next transfer cycle… Apparently I'm getting a new companion again… no joke. I don’t know what I am doing but I just cannot keep a companion since being trained. Elder Carlson is going up to Vanadzor to be with Elder Harris and Elder Kyle Simonsen will be my new companion. That will be good because Elder Simonsen is from my group so that will be cool, but I am definitely going to miss Elder Carlson a ton. I guess I just have a lot to learn from a lot of different companions because they have all been way short.

Saturday was another pretty normal day, I did go out to do a Baptismal interview in a village for Elder Simonsen and Garner which went well, she passed and it was a fun interview to do. She was a younger girl, but knew everything really well I was super impressed. Other than that we also helped a member prepare a talk for church but he got mad at us because we wouldn’t just write it for him, we were just helping him… whatever.

As for Sunday it was another interesting (good) Sunday. Church was OK except once again they did the 3rd hour in practically all Russian since they were reading from that Russian Welfare guide… what can you do though. We did pick up a new investigator which was great! He is an older guy who was super accepting of everything, that can be really good, but also kind of bad… I guess we'll see. He said if Joseph Smith really saw God and everything, it would be the biggest thing ever, so its cool he recognized that.

Other than that, everything is going well our investigators are doing good, we are helping build strength in the branch and I am happy, healthy, and well. I hope you have a great holiday and an amazing week, talk to you again soon!

Love,
Elder Piercy

Mission Conference and Turkey Dinner

To all my Friends and Family-

Let me start out today by letting you all know that we played Basketball this morning for P-day and it was way fun. 5 on 5 good competitive fun, however we always seem to realize that we all get winded very easily and are looking forward to being able to play longer than 5 minutes when we get home. But for real it wasn’t that bad we played for 2 hours and were all pretty strong through it.

Well, I guess I will get to my week.

Last Monday for the end of my Preparation day Elder Carlson and I went to Nork and hung out with my old mini (and brother) Arman (it was his birthday). It was a way good time, and I am glad we were able to go out there and hang with him for a while… plus his mom made some really tasty cake, like always! It was fun, the problem was it went by too fast since we had to be back at the office by 6pm to pick up Elder Lucas and Elder Bennet… the Georgians who were staying with us.KEESE!!! That is the next story, one of the Georgian taxi’s broke down and the 4 that where in the broken one were going with us and the Assistants, so we waited a long time for them. They finally made it to the office at about 12am (midnite)! Luckily Elder Kyle, Ellison, Carlson, and I found some couches to sleep on for about an hour so it wasn’t too bad. We sure were happy to see them when they finally came though! Plus I got to hang out with my favorite Brit Elder Lucas again!

Tuesday was our mission conference. A mission conference is just like a Zone Conference except we have both the North and South zones there, just in case you were wondering. It went super well, we had an activity, where I taught about Referral lessons and the best ways to go about getting those, then we had a talk by President and Sister Dunn, both were really great! Sister Dunn talked about developing Christlike attributes. Then President Dunn talked about Preach my Gospel a bit. After that President and Sister Schwitzer addressed us. Sis. Schwitzer gave a really good talk on how if we are going to be here… be here, which was great; and finally Elder Schwitzer gave a talk on being sanctified. It was really interesting (true) because he said one of the main reasons to be on a mission is to sanctify ourselves and if we don’t do that then really a large part of the 2 years we spend out here goes to waste. I guess I definitely have a new goal to work on… note to self: get sanctified. After his talk we had another amazing Thanksgiving lunch! Turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie, the works. Holidays aren’t bad at all on a mission!

After lunch Elder Schwitzer gave another talk on the Book of Mormon and interesting things from it. The main purpose he said was to show that General Authorities really have a testimony of the Book of Mormon and really believe and use it’s words. It was a really powerful and super cool talk. What a pleasure it was having those 2 at our Conference.

After the conference, I got the opportunity to have a short interview with Pres. Schwitzer which was really cool. He basically just asked if I had any questions and asked me a few. The coolest part though was he promised that if I continue doing the things I do and improve on the things I see are my weaknesses, I am going to be a very successful, good missionary. It also made me feel good because Elder Carlson had his interview after me and he said Pres. Schwitzer said I was a really great guy and a really good missionary! It is nice to hear compliments from people, I am going to try to give more compliments to others.

Well, as for the rest of the week, it was another hard week of Missionary work. Unfortunately we had to thrash most of those boys since they won’t ever meet with us, but hopefully they come back one day. On a good note we picked up 2 new investigators this week. One of them is a girl named Narine, she is the sister of Marine and Nelli, two of our members. We don’t really know why she was never baptized, but we are working with her now and taught her a really great lesson on recognizing the spirit many different ways this week. We have a lot of faith in her though and hope she can work out and join the church! As for the other investigator, it was this guy named Meruzh who just came into church on Sunday. We had a short little lesson with him about Joseph Smith and the Great Apostasy, and the coolest part was when we told him that the Priesthood was taken from the earth, he said “Yeah, I agree with that, it was taken.” He is a really cool guy who I guess has been studying every church for a long time and isn’t satisfied yet… all he has left is us and the Jehovah Witnesses. Hopefully we can say something to prick him and help him feel the spirit so he recognizes the truth here.

Other than that the work is going on, we try to talk to a lot of people on the streets, we meet with a lot of our less active members, basically we are just trying to really help build the branch. We did get a really good compliment from one of our members this week though, Lusine. She has been a member for about 15 years… basically since before this was a mission and said we are only the 3rd set of missionaries she really enjoys having at her house. She says it is because we bring the spirit, try to help, and have lessons with her. That is really exciting for us but also crushes us that there have been so many missionaries who haven’t given their best… what can you do.

Well the final cool thing from this week was at church. It was fast and testimony meeting, of course, and Meri got up and bore her testimony! It was so good, she is a great member and just loves everything about the church, I am really glad I got to be a part of her conversion to the gospel. Plus, we got to hear a lot of great stories from people since a group of members just got back from the Switzerland temple 2 days ago. What an experience it is for some of them to go all the way there and have those great opportunities. It will be nice next year though when the Ukraine temple opens up and it is not as expensive and more people will have the opportunity to go!

Well I lied, there is one more cool thing. President Schwitzer gave the missionaries here 2 pieces of counsel , they are interesting but for sure we will do them since they came from an inspired General Authority. First, he told us that every missionary should bear his testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting on Fast Sundays. That's interesting I thought it would be more important to give the members the time if they are going to use it, but for sure I will be up there doing it now. The other, was to use our Priesthood as much as possible to help the Armenian people. That was really interesting because this week Elder Carlson and I have given so many blessings to people (we gave 3 in one meeting last night), it is really fun but also really spiritually exhausting. But, you bet we will keep looking for more opportunities to do it, if President Schwitzer says we should, God says we should, so we will do it!

For real, this time I think I'm done, sorry if my letter was a bit long or boring this week but I really just like trying to keep all the people I love informed on what is going on with me. I hope that you all have a great week and just keep enjoying life to the fullest.

Love,
Elder Piercy

A note to Arman Grigoryan

Arman: Happy Birthday! We received your wonderful letter and would love to respond. Please post a comment to this note and give us your personal e-mail address, I will not publish your comment so your e-mail will remain confidential. Thanks so much. We anticipate your reply. The Piercy Family

Elder Piercy's Update

To all my great friends and family!-

Well, what a week of excitement, fun, and hard work… plus some disappointment too, but I won’t waste your time and I will get to it!

Well last Monday was pretty fun, we didn’t really do anything but go to the office and watch “Saints and Soldiers” which actually was a pretty good movie, I enjoyed it. Next week we are playing Basketball, it is going to rock (don’t worry Mom, I will wear my brace). We also got a lot of convos and stuff, just to show people that you can get convos on P-day.

Tuesday we went to Shengavit for District Meeting. It was good. It was fun seeing Elder Simonsen and Sister Davis, but it doesn’t really seem like anyone wants to hang with us anymore… whatever, the loneliness of leadership right?! Well as for the rest of that day we had a way cool miracle! When we got home we grabbed a basketball and went to the court by our church and shot some hoops in missionary clothes. It was our creative finding tool for the week and it worked! A bunch of kids came over, and we played Ball for a bit, then we actually went into our church and had 2 different meetings and picked up 4 New Investigators. The kids are all kind of punks, but I think the 4 NI’s have a lot of potential… they were pretty genuine and seemed to really have good questions. The Charentsavan Queers just baptized a really big punk who turned around a ton, so I have some hope for them. We also had a cool meeting with our Branch President Tuesday to find out how we can help him with the Branch which was good.

On Wednesday we went and did Charentsavan’s apartment check which went well, I really enjoyed seeing Char again… I miss all this stuff that used to be so normal to me. I am not going to continue with this daily review because nothing really that amazing happened the rest of the week, well except Thursday!

Well I am sure most of you know Thursday was Thanksgiving, last year if you remember I had Rotisserie Chicken and French Fries… this year was better. We ended up going to the Dow’s apartment, one of the Senior Couples here in Armenia… it was amazing! Sis. Dow had found a turkey at the Supermarket, plus we had Mashed Potatoes, gravy, stuffing, etc. It was the works and awesome. Plus for desert we had Ice Cream and this apple pie stuff and some chocolate pie stuff too! Overall it was great and for a couple of hours I just felt like I was actually in America. It was really cool of the Dows to let us all come over and it really might be one of my most memorable thanksgivings ever.

For the rest of the week we basically thrashed all of our old investigators that Elder Ellison and I had… they just can’t meet and we can’t keep wasting our time, so basically we are starting from scratch. It was fun though, Elder Carlson and I spent tons of time on the streets and actually ended up getting 109 gospel convos this week! It was awesome!

I am still really enjoying serving with Elder Carlson, we are focused and pounding it!

I guess the last really notable thing to write about is some of the cool stuff at church this week. First of all in Sacrament Meeting, Pres. Poghosyans 2 kids had talks that were soooo good! The amazing thing is that Hovhannes is only 7 and his little sister Emi who also talked is only 5! I was so amazed, they are such studly kids. We also had a musical number of “As I Have Loved You” sung in Armenian, Russian, and English… given by our Young Woman in the branch… it was cool! The worst part of church was for the combined 3rd hour we read from this book of a talk Elder Hales gave on welfare that was all in Russian so Elder Carlson and I didn’t understand a thing. O, one other cool thing one of our members "Marine" came to church and was not sick at all… the cool thing about that was the day before I had given her a blessing that she would get better and by the next day she was already fine! I love being a tool for the Lord working to help these people!

Well other than that there isn’t too much else to say, o wait I forgot there is a General Authority here right now Pres. Schwietzer or something, I think he is in the Seventy, but he is part of our Area Presidency and is here doing a mission tour so that is cool. We also have a combined Mission Conference tomorrow, I forgot to mention that, he will be there too! Plus I get to be interviewed by him since I am a Zone Leader which is going to be pretty cool!

Well, for real, this time I have nothing else to ramble about, so I hope you have a great week and weren’t too bored from my letter this week. I love you all, I miss you sometimes, but I will write again next week!

Love,
Elder Piercy

Another New Companion???

To all my Friends and Family!-

Well, here it goes, another week full of changes, and another week to report on. It has gone way too fast. So I won’t waste your time, I'll just jump into it.

First, let me just tell you I once again have a new companion. I thought Elder Ellison would be my long one but, nope, I served with him for exactly 3 weeks. He is now one of our AP’s and I am serving with Elder Aaron Carlson in Davtashen. I am way happy though and he is such a big stud we are just going to pound it. I have loved this Elder forever he is in the group after me and now I am way happy to serve with him.

Me and Elder Ellison








Well, let me tell you a bit about our bowling experience. IT WAS STINKIN AWESOME, PROBABLY LIKE ONE OF THE STINKIN FUNNEST P-DAYS EVER!!! The best part was everyone was there, we had the whole place rented out and then out of nowhere they turned out the lights and made it cosmic bowling! I didn’t even know they could do that but it rocked. It was seriously just a way fun experience to hang with everyone and party it up.
Well on Tuesday we went to Artashat for District Meeting and got to meet the Senior couple from Ararat. They are cool and that District is doing great and Elder Stevenson is doing a great job leading them. We also checked both Artashat and Ararat’s apartments… everything was good.

That was also the day we found out about transfers… it was definitely a surprise, but maybe now Elder Carlson will be a long companion of mine. I guess I am so untolerable that I always have to get moved around… what can you do, lol.

Well Wednesday was my last day with Ellison so we saw a lot of members and investigators and took pictures and what not. It was good because we thought that our investigators were bad but we were able to meet and keep them going.

Thursday was my first day with Carlson, it was awesome! Friday was also great… just pounding it and just working hard and pounding the area. Unfortunately the investigators have been hard to meet with the last few days, but we just walked a lot.

Saturday was great because we had Meri’s baptism… it went so good, one of the coolest things was Mnatsakan came and saw it and I was talking to him and he was so happy to see me. The coolest thing was he told me that he prays for me everyday! I love that man so much, what a guy.



Well the last cool thing was we had District Conference on Saturday and Sunday so that was great fun and just an all around good time. My area is actually in the North District so I got to see tons of people I know. It was just great realizing that people really do love you, and I got hugs, kisses, and just warm welcomes from people from Alaverdi, Vanadzor, Gyumri… it was just great. It really makes me feel special when I know people appreciate and love me here… I love my mission!

Well that is about it for the week sorry that this is kind of short, but I will make up for it next week… I sure love you all and hope you have great weeks! I will write again soon!

Love,
Elder Piercy

A Great Week!

To all the Peeps!-

Well another good week has flown by… but what is new? This mission thing just flies by. I will try to write everything that happened in a short amount of time since we have the whole South Zone going bowling here pretty soon, basically to wish Sis. Peterson off who leaves in 2 days… so it will be sweet. I will let you all know how it goes next week.

I will begin, last Monday we had a way cool meeting! We met with these investigators Anahit, Alla, and Anna, who have been pretty iffy in our book. Basically they have been investigating the Jehovah Witness church, our church, and other churches and they don’t know what to do because they are confused that everybody says they should join their church… well we had a banging lesson with them all about the Holy Ghost and paying attention to our feelings and just praying to get an answer. Well, to keep this short at the end of the lesson we committed them all to pray and then told them we would call in 2 hours to see if they got an answer. We called and they were all so excited, they talked about how peaceful they felt and how good it was, and they recognized it as their answer! Yeeeahhh!

Tuesday, we went to Charentsavan for District Meeting, my old District, and Elder Ellison and I did their District Meeting. It actually went pretty good and we were impressed with how well everyone was doing with the language and how much they all had improved! Our lesson went pretty good too, the good news now is that we don’t have to worry about anymore District Meetings until next transfer cycle… which actually is soon I think. But it is a nice break, plus it was fun seeing Charentsavan again! We also had a cool meeting with a member on Tuesday, Pres. Hovakimyan and his family. He is the 1st counselor in the District Presidency and a way cool guy! It was a good lesson we did with them, and it was just fun getting to know more people from the branch.

On Wednesday we did some strange service for a member, basically we just carried a bunch of Garbage up into her attic. The craziest thing was this ladder we were climbing was so rickety and ghetto, I wouldn’t have even gone near it before my mission and now I just don’t even care! I guess that is just how a mission changes you. I have no fear! Lol. We also picked up 2 cool new investigators at a contacts house. The craziest thing about that meeting however was this painting they had on the wall. Right in the middle of their living room was this huge painting of a Naked Lady on the beach… it was the strangest thing ever… especially since it was 2 woman who lived in the house. It was super awkward trying not to look at that wall when one of them was sitting right under it… funny things you witness on a mission.

Well on Thursday we had a Zone Leader/District Leader correlation meeting. Basically Elder Ellison and I got together with our 4 District Leaders and talked about problems in the individual districts. Elder Ellison and I also talked about things that we have noticed and then gave a talk on “The Loneliness of Leadership” inspired by this talk that Pres. Hinckley gave one time. Basically we talked about how we have to stand up for what is right and keeping the rules no matter what other people think of us… overall it was pretty successful meeting I think. O, I also went on Exchanges with my son that day too! Elder Garner came to Davtashen with me and Elder Ellison went to Nork with Elder Krueger. It was a really good exchange and I was really able to see how my son has improved and give him advice so he can just continue to keep getting better and better!

Friday was just a pretty normal day, meetings and finding and what not.

Saturday however rocked! We went and took care of 2 more apartment checks, one in Ashtarak and one in Malatia. The cool thing about that was that Ashtarak was the last place in the mission I had never been too, so now I have been everywhere, including all the areas in Georgia! I thought that was pretty cool! I also finally finished the Book of Mormon in Armenian. I know it has taken me forever but I guess I just wasn’t the most diligent reader… but now it is done and I can move on to the Doctrine and Covenants in Armenian. The best part about the day though was that our investigator Meri passed her Baptismal Interview! It was so awesome too because she came out of the room, looked at us and did a double fist pump and said “I’m getting baptized!” It was the coolest thing ever to see her so excited about it! Plus this means that we are breaking the curse! There hasn’t been a convert Baptism in Davtashen for over 2 years... until next Saturday!!!! Curse is done, now we will have tons of success!

As for Sunday, it was another great day, but I felt like I was going to die by 9pm. We ate 3 dinners yesterday. The problem was first I made our dinner, Pizza… then the Dutsons invited us over for some homemade Beef Stew, amazing!... then at our Family Home Evening they fed us again. Now keep in mind we did all this in about 4 hours! It was awesome but a little bit filling. We also went to Center church on top of Davtashen church since we had investigators at both… we heard a way funny talk at Center though where the lady used a thing called “Everything I need in life I learned from Noah’s Ark”. Overall it was a good day and just a great week all in all. Elder Ellison and I are getting along well and just excited about everything that is going on in our area!

Well I guess that is it for my Weekly Update, but I hope you all have a rockin week! I love you all and just keep on partying!

Love,
Elder Piercy

Thoroughly Enjoying Armenia

To all my Family and Friends Partying in America!-

I hope this letter finds you all very well, as for me I am thoroughly enjoying myself here in Armenia just doing great Missionary things! I don’t have too many exciting things to talk about this week, but I will fill you in as much as I can.

To start out let me tell you all a bit about Davtashen. It is actually a really interesting place because it is in Yerevan still, but there are places that have a real villagey, northy feel to them, so it is pretty cool. Davtashen is a little corner neighborhood kind of place with lots of apartment buildings split into 4 sections. Our church building is here. There is also a place called Davtashen Village which like I said is just like a village in the North it seems, but a bit nicer. My area also includes Ajapnyak which has a more big city feel, but still not as much as Nork so it is also nice. I am close to the city, I can get to Center with a really easy Marshutni ride, but I still have some peace and fun like in the north. I hope that is a bit for you to think about, maybe I will write more as I learn more.

Well as for the week it has been pretty good, last week for P-day a bunch of us went flannel shopping at some 2nd Hand Stores in Center. It was successful, the best part was everything is so cheap… you buy it by the kilo! I got 2 cool flannel shirts… one in Yellow for doing service and junk, then I got a Christmasy red and green one to pound when we have our new years movie party! That was P-day… o plus Indian food!

Anyways as for Tuesday Elder Ellison did the District Meeting for Ashtarak District, then we went on splits with the Malatia Elders. It was really successful and helpful I think. I went to Malatia with Elder Stutz and we had a really nice time together. The unfortunate thing was they had tons of fall throughs, so we ended up walking around talking to people for 3 hours in the rain, but what can you do those are the most fun days. Stutz is a really cool, super good and smart kid. He was actually the one who replaced me in Alaverdi (Elder Harris’ son). We did get a couple of good meetings in though, one with their investigator that was sooo good, until her daughter interrupted and messed everything up… what can you do, it was still good though. Plus we made some bomb milkshakes at home and had fun just talking and getting aquainted. The Photo is me and Elder Stutz

Wednesday morning we switched back from our splits with a breakfast at Gold’s Gym… omelette and toast! Then it was back to work in Davtashen. One fun thing was we actually took our lunch at the Poghosyan’s house(the District President) and just played with his super fun, cute kids and talked with his wife, plus ate good borsh and other junk! That night we actually caught a bunch of punks throwing rocks at our church which was dumb. I don’t get it, they always brag about being the first Christian nation but obviously they don’t follow Christ’s teachings if they are throwing rocks at our church… what can you do though, we just scared them away.

Thursday was a pretty normal day, but we did meet with this one dude who invited us in during our finding hour in the morning… he just wanted to fight though. He kept telling us he already new everything about Joseph Smith and then we asked him to tell about him and he just said crazy weird stuff. He was telling us how Joseph didn’t think the Bible was any good so he wrote a new book and junk like that.I wish people wouldn’t believe all the lies about us so easy… whatever though. The cool thing was while he was rambling I was looking at his bookshelf and I saw he had a copy of жэн эйр (Jane Eyre) in Russian. It was small though so I don’t think it was a full translation.

Friday we had a Zone Leader Council, it was super good and really productive. Plus we got to see the other Zone Leaders and President Dunn. We talked a lot about the mission tour coming up at the end of the month where President Pearson is coming and then we had Mr. Toaster’s Pizza (pretty good) and watched the "Phone Call", some really old, lame, BYU movie that was funny. We also had a baptism from our Branch but it was a child of record… still the first baptism from Davtashen in 2 years. I also got a Giant Bible to go with my Giant Triple which was exciting! Sis. Dutson ordered it for me and it finally came in!

Saturday I learned a very interesting thing. First, for lunch I made some amazing Spaghetti! Just tons of good stuff veggies and what not. I did it like my mom though, and made a sauce seperately… but I finally figured out why my mom had this little screen thing on top of the pot… I went into the other room to plan for a while and when I came back, the kitchen was covered in Spaghetti sauce! Unfortunately I was mad at myself so I forgot to take a picture before I cleaned up but it was everywhere… the walls, cabinets, it was nuts. Next time I will put something on top of the pot, lol. Other than that it is our job to do apartment safety checks in our Zone so I got to go to Shengavit and see Elder Simonsen and Crook! Their apartment was good too, even had a functioning Carbon Monoxide Detector!

Sunday was just another good day of church in Davtashen the weird thing was a lady I knew from Vanadzor was down visiting, as well as a lady I recognized from Charentsavan… strange. We only had 2 of 8 investigators come though, so we might have to do some thrashing this week.

Well I will tell you about this investigator we have named Meri, she is about 27 probably and so good! She actually was an investigator about 2 years ago, then right before she was going to get baptized, her husband wouldn’t let her. Well now she is divorced and just sooo good! She actually has her baptismal interview this Saturday which is exciting.

On another note, my old investigator Arpine from Vanadzor got baptized on Friday so that was good to hear!

As for everything else, that was pretty much the week, I hope you all have a great time and I will look forward to writing again next week!



Elder Piercy with a new hair cut, or perhaps a new winter hat???


Love,
Elder Piercy