Happy April

Dear family and friends. 
  yes i know last week was april but i had nothing else to put. and it was also april fools. i meant to tell you guys i was being transferred to the border with Iran, would prob pick up Arabic, but should be safe if i watch out of landmines, etc etc but i got caught up with Easter and forgot. oh well. 
  I havent seen conference yet! stop tormenting me all of you. Armenia gets it this next weekend after translation finishes, and we dont have a place to all gather and watch it in english till they send us the tapes this week. well get to watch it with our district and Hrazdan will prob join us. so ill talk to you all about it hopefully next week. 
  This week was rough. i went to Yerevan to get my physical/blood work etc to make sure im healthy and then we had a training meeting. so it was a good meeting but we did zero work in Char. then we had a zone meeting in Yerevan and a member said they were going to be in Yerevan and would take us all back but they took longer than we thought so that day was also not productive in Char. so it didnt go as well as we hoped. and when we did meet with our investigators who are getting baptized next, we had bad news. one of the daughters moved to yerevan to be a hars for her husbands family. he left her and went to russia, hes now there living with other women, and isnt coming back for a while, but she still decided to live with his family. the hars is the daughter in law- the culture is that the oldest son gets married and they live with the parents, the hars is now basically the slave. thats not an exaggeration either. theyre not even legally married and the guy is garbage, but she loves him for whatever reason. and her new fam wont let her listen to the missionaries there. so that was hard to take, and really hard on her mom, but her mom is still continuing to read and learn and has a strong testimony even though she doesnt undestand why this is happening. she was supposed to be baptized this friday but she isnt porgressing as fast  as needed so we'll probably end up giving her another 2 weeks to gain a stronger witness. were confident she can make it though. 
  our other serious investigator is still in Dilijan with family so we havent set a date. and we dont know if hes been reading and praying. we hope. were also confident he can make the 27th if he can quit smoking. 
  so that was our week. it was disappointing. but thurs fri sat we set big goals for OYMs- we just wanted to talk to everyone. i was confident that if we met our big goals on the shortened week that that would show God we were serious about finding new people, and we would find atleast one new serious investigator. Sunday evening we were both exhausted from church- just absolutely beat. it was hard to get out the door, and we still needed 13 OYMs which is kinda a lot, esp here. but we went out. 50 feet later we met 4 men really curious about our message, work, why we were here, etc. we sat down outside and talked to them all for an hour, we worked together really well. it went nowhere. not all of it was focused on the gospel, some of it was about money and how young we were, but we kept pshing through and teaching them. after an hour they kinda laughed and walked away, but we felt good that we had given it our best. we went to the church and Armen called a new referal, who's awesome. he accepted a baptismal date in May. he still has everything to learn but i feel good. We didnt meet our goal, but those goals are only there to push us to convert people. we showed our willingness to work and God rewarded us with someone new. i feel good about him. 
   I dont have any crazy stories, except a mom yelled at us not to talk to kids in the street that had come up to us and started talking. and someone made a point of driving super close and fast near us. i think if they actually wanted to run us over they couldve so no worries there. Oh! haha i forgot. we were going to yerevan, so we go to a circle where all the taxies go. we wait for one thats half full, when you split a ride to yerevan its like a dollar per person. we waited for a long time and finaly got one, but 50 feet later the drivers boss stopped him and wanted to "talk". he and the two other guys got out and walked over to a desk. when we looked back 5 min later, the boss and his crew of like 5 were beating up the 3 guys. they tried to get back to the car, so then the fight was surrounding the car and E Maughan and I had no clue what to do. finally it cleared away like 10 feet and we left quickly haha.so that was exciting. were not in any danger here though, everyones nice. the only ones crazy enough to want to be violent are the priests, and we stay far away from them. and the drunks, who we also avoid. 
  Good to hear everyones spring break stories, except for the deer that got hit. atleast he died fast. the van being smashed is a sign that were no longer a family that needs a van. were small and none of us but dad want to drive anywhere farther than georgia. alexs beach house sounds amazing, but id rather be at KD with lanie. if someone gave me a day off, i wouldnt even relax, id go skydiving. i miss being reckless and getting adrenaline rushes. but the baptisms we have coming are even more fulfilling. although i will go skydiving when i get back. 
  Im with alex about another dog. get a pug. something so cute you dont care how dumb it is. if Alex gets a bomb score on the ACT that should be the reward. study hard!
i love you all, and pray for you every night. i have lots of prayers for me between everyone at home and the temple people that pray for the missionaries and etc. my investigators need more prayers. anyway have a great week everyone. 
jerm