Death, Missionary Farewell, Wedding, Baby Shower

All of these events took place during the week of 2-16-10. Sorry these posts are so long, and so un-illustrated. But we are now caught up, kind of, and from now on they’ll be new, and maybe I’ll start taking pictures again, instead of writing 1056 words.

Tigran is a sweet young man who has been staying home from church to care for his dying mother. The Relief Society sisters and I took a solemn walk to his home to pay our respects. She was laid out in the spotless living room–where everything was draped in white, and she was in a tiny wooden casket, blanketed in gold satin. Tigran, and his grandmother, were stunned with grief. But we are hoping that when his mourning has softened he will be able to serve a mini-mission in preparation for a real mission soon. Beautiful Armenian flute music was playing softly, and even though it was funeral music, and even though their traditions are rock solid & they think I’m just plain weird, my sisters will help me get a CD of this lovely music which will be just remind me of Armenia in general, and not funerals in particular.

Anahit is the beautiful daughter of our Branch President. We had taken her to Yerevan to help her with her missionary wardrobe. And more shopping again here, and more struggling to convince her that mid-calf doesn’t mean at the knee, no matter how cute the skirt is. She had wanted to dye her hair blond, but I think we convinced her that blond Armenian girls send the wrong message. Our new American Sister Ferguson , serving in Gyumri, had considered dying her naturally beautiful blond hair darker, because, well, it attracted unwelcome attention. But the minerals in the water are taking care of that for her naturally.

Anahit had several going away parties, and danced until she dropped to get all the dancing out of her system for 18 months. The party we had at her home made me feel as if I’d been initiated as one of the girls. They love missionaries with a fervor and treat us as if we were visiting royalty. But this time they let me into the kitchen to do dishes afterwards! And I saw how they manage to wash a gazillion dishes with no running water. Big pans of water were steaming on the stove, and they have an assembly line to wash, rinse, stack, dry—it took very few minutes to wash very many dishes. I think I was awarded this honor because I had brought a chocolate cake. Yes, I can now bake a cake without burning it. Life is good.

We worked hard to prepare a special musical number for Anahit’s last sacrament meeting in Vanadzor. I accompanied her, Elder Blunck, and Elders Santo and Stephenson, singing “The Olive Tree” (a seminary song on lds.org) and it was amazingly beautiful, even though she had a bad cold. I wanted to do it again for the closing song. Now maybe people will join the branch choir which President Heleyan just called me to lead, as a bribe so that he would allow me to work in the Primary, which just lost their pianist, and maybe be a Primary teacher instead of Gospel Doctrine teacher. I think I can learn more Armenian in Primary than teaching about the Abrahamic Covenant which I did last Sunday, too. I prepared a handout in Armenian —-I have better Armenian handwriting than English, for sure.

We took Anahit and her family to Yerevan for her setting apart. She kept saying “This is like a dream!”, and I kept replying that yes, it IS like a dream to be a real missionary. She is going to Ukraine, and has already served 5 mini-missions. We will miss her lots.

We stayed to attend Elder Tadevosyan’s wedding to his beautiful Christina. (We served with him in Georgia). They will go to the temple as soon as they can. It was a happy time, and we saw old friends with whom we had gone to the Swiss Temple, and talked to his mother who is the Armenian lady who had a conversion story in the Ensign last year. (Different last name—many Armenian women don’t take their husband’s name.)

She is a very strong member, and will have a four-generation LDS family as soon as Grigor and Christina give her a grandchild—-she’s counting on that as soon as possible!

We came home yesterday to join the Relief Society sisters to troop over & meet Araks’ newest grandson—Davit—who was dressed from head to toe in pink ruffles. (More than in the picture, which I took later.) He has two older brothers (age 1 & 2) and they really wanted a girl, and had prepared accordingly. A family of ten lives together—mostly strong members of our branch. His mother is a member, and he has an endowed grandma and a returned missionary aunt, and his little cousins, another boy and a girl, all come to Primary.

We have eaten many Armenian feasts, but this one topped them all. I had brought a little gift for the baby, and the sisters had pooled their resources and brought a nice money gift, but we were completely outdone in the generosity department. I wish I had brought my camera. I’ve been very lax with pictures, because I over did it in Georgia.

If I could do roast chicken and potatoes half as well as Araks and her daughters—well, I could rave all day, and not come close to describing how flawless it all was. They showed me how—-next time I can face a cute little chicken head I’ll give it a try.

Hegine, the daughter who is a returned missionary, spontaneously gave us a lovely dance performance, to music on the TV, as we were leaving. She was as graceful and happy and beautiful to watch, in her jeans and bedroom slippers, as any bride on her Armenian wedding day. She now comes to our home every other day to read the Book of Mormon in English, and to have a private English lesson. She can’t afford to go to the university, and she works 16 hours a day, every other day, as a taxi dispatcher. We told her we would be her university, as best we can, and we love her visits.

Barev Dzez

I can’t figure out why the older posts don’t show up, even in “archives”, and why we can’t get pictures on right. My girls have such snazzy blogs, but their skills are their own—they certainly didn’t get them from their parents. We are having a million adventures a day, but blogging is at the bottom of my list of things to do. The local priest stopped the elders and literally ripped their name tags in half , so now they have unique souvenirs to take home. I imagine he thought he had done something important to stop the work, but, His Honor, the Priest, only made them more determined to get the Truth to these children of Israel. Noah literally landed in Armenia, because Mr. Ararat used to be here—-now it’s in Turkey. The mountain didn’t move, but the borders did. We do have mountains of tradition and indifference, and I get the feeling that the clerks at the supermarket make fun of us every time we walk in, but we’re all trying to do our little part which will add up to having a temple here someday. And we all hope that they will honor the architecture and incorporate some of the unique design of His Honor, the Priest’s, beautiful churches.

I have to tell you something we thought was funny. I made a burrito last night for David (it was very tasty), but I made it with lavosh, so the wrapper was roughly the size of a cheap bath towel. It was so huge that when I set it before him he asked “And what are we going to name this new baby?” Have we been here too long? Is that funny at all?

Bela's Feast

Bela invited us to attend her activity at 1:00 on Thursday. She had just been called as the Single Adult leader, for those 31 to 110. When we arrived she was in the kitchen preparing the hospitality. That’s what they call refreshments.

In a tiny kitchen, with two ity-bity tables, she had prepared plates of a carrot and pepper relish, plates of preserved cherries, and more plates of pickled green tomatoes, carrots, hot peppers and cauliflower, a potato salad, bread, and bottles of homemade cherry juice. She had a lovely cake waiting, potatoes boiling merrily on the little stove, she was cutting up cilantro, and tiny red onions. Everything was tidy, no messes anywhere and she must have hauled everything from home, including stacks of the saucer sized china which all meals are served on in every home. You eat little dabs on little plates and end up more full than when you eat way too much food on the manhole cover-sized plates at any American restaurant. Part of that is because Armenians never serve less than eight separate menu items, usually many more.

I have noticed two things during the brief time, and many meals, we have shared with members: #1 they are confident and good cooks, #2 I have a lot to learn from them. They work with the least amount of equipment and ingredients, and cook circles around anything I ever thought I could do. I think my cooking here is getting the elders ready to deal patiently someday with new brides who are learning to cook, and serving forgettable meals.

When everything was just about ready to serve she drained the whole potatoes, sprinkled them with a little salt (if you notice the salt shaker on the table of leftovers you’ll see that the lid has been pried off. There is something very appealing about the way they don’t shake salt—they strew it with their fingers in a very grand manner. I have started a collection—10 so far—of Armenian salt dishes) and then she piled them onto a tray with a flourish, festooned them with onions and cilantro, and served them steaming hot.

Bela is also a Gospel Doctrine teacher and a branch missionary, and she is also married, which makes me wonder why she has this particular calling. And since I wrote this she has disappeared—apparently to Yerevan to the hospital for her heart, but no one will really give me a straight answer. (As it turned out it was for her heart---she was leaving her husband, and we've seen her many times in Yerevan where she is happy, has new teeth and clothes and is loving life. And her former husband is a member who the elders love, and who occasionally shows up for church.) For this activity we read 1 Nephi 1. Then we feasted on Bela’s good food and visited. I sent poor Elder Blunck home for the camera—too late to take a picture before we had eaten most of it.

The members have all been challenged to read the Book of Mormon, and we have another activity where we all read together weekly, and Elder Blunck is in charge of that. The first time we read 1 Nephi 1 AND 2 and played “Old Kentucky Fair”, and had cocoa and bonchiks—only two menu items, American style. We’ve tried all kinds of hospitality combinations—raspberry tea and hot dogs for instance—but the Branch President doesn’t want people coming for just the hospitality, so he discontinued that, but now and then he surprises us with lamajos, or some other little treat. As of today we are now well into the Isaiah chapters. The members are mostly from the lost 10 Tribes—Gad and Asher, etc., and they don’t have any problem with Isaiah.