New Missionaries Arrive in Armenia

Well, this is for all my great dedicated readers!-

I must say it has been a fantastic week... mostly because I got to do awesome stuff and... MEET MY GRANDSON!!!!!!!! Elder Garner got his son this week Elder Ervin... so I got my grandson... he is so great and I am so proud, hopefully I can get a picture sent home. I also got to go on a cool trip with the new missionaries and President Dunn, etc., but I will talk about that later. For now I will just start my letter. [left to right: Elder Piercy, Elder Garner, and Elder Ervin]

Well today we are writing a bit late because in honor of the World Cup we got together a group of missionaries this morning and played a rousing game of soccer. We had 3 teams of 4 each and every time a goal was scored the losing team rotated out... it was fun and we were all able to keep our energy up well. Then we all had lunch at our house in Davtashen and finally made our way to internet... hopefully I have time to write a descent letter today.

Well last week for Preparation day, we didn’t really know what to do so basically Elder Gull, Elder Carlson, Elder Williams, and I just went to Center institute and played ping pong for about 3 hours... it was pretty fun, but I did learn I am absolutely terrible at ping pong... what can you do though, I just wasn’t blessed with that talent, lol.

Tuesday we went down to Artashat for District Meeting, which went really well. We just sat and enjoyed Elder Larsen’s meeting on how to more effectively use Preach My Gospel, and I thought it was all really well put together and presented very well. We can always use Preach My Gospel better so overall it was great and there are a lot of things I want to do better now. Good thing I have plenty of time to use Preach My Gospel better! We went on exchanges with the Assistants on Tuesday, through Thursday which was sooo fun. It was Elder Carlson and Elder Piercy together again pounding Davtashen! We had a lot of fun and I think we both enjoyed our time talking and hanging out again.

Thursday morning we spent a lot of time talking about the south Zone with the assistants and getting on the same page. We also discussed some great ideas for everyone on how we can work better together and take care of everything in the best way possible. We also reflected a lot on leadership and exchanged ideas of how we can all be better leaders. I really enjoyed it and thought it was effective. Elder Gull and I also went to Charentsavan for a Baptismal Interview. Elder Gull did the interview and it sounds like the guy was a big stud and will be really good for the Charentsavan branch. We also had a very cool meeting that evening. Our Branch President invited President and Sister Dunn over for a good-bye dinner and they also asked us to come. It ended up being a really great dinner appointment. First of all the food was great! Plus, the entire family of our Branch President was there and it was really fun to be with President and Sister Dunn. I am always amazed at how great a man President Dunn is and how he is always just super polite and presents himself very well! It turned out to be a really nice evening.

Dad… I found out you posted my comments on the apostolic visit on the website from President Dunn... I was stunned... but whatever, I guess I am just getting really famous on the Internet.... started with my Blog and now I am hitting the big time writing articles for websites. [I posted Michael’s comments from last weeks letter on the AYM Alumni website to report on the General authority visit to Armenia]



Friday I had a great opportunity because the new missionaries came into country Elder Davis and ELDER ERVIN!!! New missionary orientation covers 2 days and they get to go to the Mother of Armenia statue, the Genocide Memorial, and Ejmiatsin. Well I have never been to Ejmiatsin so I asked President Dunn if it would be okay for us to go along. Usually it's just President Dunn, the Assistants and the new missionaries... he said it would be fine and it sounded like a great idea. So not only did I get to finally see Ejmiatsin, but I got to also go to all of the other places with them and get to know my grandson better. So turns out I knew all about my grandson before Elder Garner, yes! It was really fun and I will try to get some pics sent of all that too!

Saturday we had a new missionary meeting, where again I got to see my grandson and my son together this time! Elder Gull and I had to give a talk on how to learn the language when you are in country... and it seemed really good. Hopefully Elder Davis and ELDER ERVIN were able to learn something from it! I am impressed with them both already though... such studs! Oh also I did lose my temper on Saturday evening which was bad. We had a lot of plans fall through during the evening, well that didn’t bother me much... the problem was it seemed like all our street conversations were really dumb and pointless, people just kept saying stupid things and talking about silly stuff so I started to get frustrated. We saw this drunken kid like 3 different times and every time we saw him he would grab my arm and not let go and just do stupid stuff. I was trying to be patient but then after the third time when I was trying to walk away and he was holding my arm so I looked at him and told him I would beat him if he didn’t let go. He let go and walked away, but I felt really stupid and bad afterward. It really made me realize how much improvement I still have because that was definitely the wrong way to represent Christ. Hopefully I will see the kid again sometime and apologize, but I was really disappointed in myself after I did that.

Finally, Sunday was a good day like usual, church went great, we had a lot of good things said in Sacrament Meeting that I wrote down. I have a new goal to take notes in Sacrament meeting when I go home, so I figured I needed to build the habit now and it’s going well. I really think I am getting more out of the meetings since I have done that and I have already found some things that really helped me. Sunday was also Elder Simonsen’s Birthday so I will have to give him a Birthday shout out in the Blog!!! “HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELDER SIMONSEN!!” Other than that things are going well.

We had a great meeting with our investigator Emma, Mher’s mom on Friday, she seems to be doing well... the weird thing is I won’t see her get baptized. I always thought it would be weird setting baptismal dates with people who I won’t actually get to see baptized, but the important thing is she is doing well. We have a few other potentials who are doing well also, so we will see how they go.

I guess that is about it for the week, sorry if I bored you, but I will try to do better next Monday. Well I hope you all have a great week, I will write again, same time, same place next Monday.

Love,
Elder Piercy