If you don't know what Hadjika Vadjika means, you'll either have to go back to the beginning, or just not worry about it. It's really hard to come up with titles. This is the front of our former yoga studio. We still go to yoga, but at a much more inconvenient time, and in a YMCA pre-school room which doesn't have really great karma. Just lots and lots of stuffed animals--- by far the single most important element in Armenian interior design. Really. I'll tell you about it at home.
"Kalina" is a bakery run by Armenians who speak very good German and make excellent baklava. So the sign is actually in German, not English. There's a lot more snow and ice on the ground since this pictures was taken, and once again angels are protecting me from slip slidin' away.
This is Gagik, our yoga guru, and the living Armenian embodiment of the 13th Article of Faith. He and Elder Blunck are BFF's and he has said, and so have we, that we may very well have been called to Armenia just to meet him. Preach My Gospel talks about the "Questions of the Soul", and of course, there's no doubt that the Gospel can answer those questions. His questions are uniquely poignant and we have spent hours and hours of quality time with him exploring, listening and learning. He and Elder Blunck have climbed Mt. Aragats, we've gone to classical music concerts together, and drunk endless cups of herb tea in his studio and in our home. We've met his beautiful wife and three wonderful children, and have made 3-D snowflakes with his youngest daughter, gone to his son's rock concerts, and watched Gagik and his friends perform jazz on the sidewalk on a hot summer night. Plugged in.
He attended all three meetings last Sunday, and then asked "Do you have any more meetings I can go to today?", then came back for the baptism of a 9 year old girl from Aliverdi. He smiled the whole time and made a special point of congratulating her. He reads scriptures and prays with us, at yoga and in our home, and he stopped in for a minute today before Sacrament meeting to ask to be excused because he had a friend who needed his help. He likes our Church. He has searched for truth all of his life, and spent a year in an Indian ashram and loved the introspective spiritual lifestyle there. He believed in Lenin with his whole heart, might and mind and because of his profound disappointment when he learned the truth about that whole era-----which has affected the people in Eastern Europe more than we can ever imagine----he is understandably taking his time before he will wholeheartedly embrace the Truth because he has to know for sure. We talk a lot about freedom, and choice, and trusting our feelings. He, like everyone here, lives with extended family. His mother, who stays home to care for his ailing father, is reading the Book of Mormon, page by page. She just picked his copy up one day and can't put it down. You can be sure that you will hear more about Gagik.
Next time I will write about Mari, pictured here with Father Christmas. His day job is second counselor to our branch president. (Since then, he's married, had a son and is now first counselor.)