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.