The Tales of Elder Moore's LDS Armenian Mission: Lord of the Flies

Dear Party People,

Another rough week! And this week's title is not just to reminisce sophmore year english class being totally confused until someone explained Simon was innoncence (read it, its actually good) but there is a gross story to be told from Char. But good news first-

We saw a miracle this week! We see miracles every day if we look hard enough, but this was the hand of the Lord reach out smack you in the face miracle. We had come back from district meeting, which was centered on strengthening our faith in expecting miracles. We didnt feel we'd learned a whole lot, but did recognize our faith had been smacked and battered and worn out, and needed a boost. So during lunch we read some scriptures and prayed asking for more faith. Anyway then a random number called us and a guy said he was at the church and wanted to meet. We checked our planners, didnt see the number anywhere, and feared it was kids pranking or people asking for money (both have happened) but obv we ran right over and met Avetik- Elder Marco contacted him on the street 2 MONTHS ago, and gave him an Articles of Faith card with our number (we do that a lot when people dont seem interested/dont want to give us their number) Avetik said he'd been really busy since then, but felt impressed to call, so he did. We had a meeting in the church, our branch president was already there, and Avetik accepted a baptismal date for a few weeks. He's accepting, prays a little crazy (that's an Armenian culture thing I'll explain one day) but has a sincere desire and we're super stoked. The next day he came to tell us he had to go to a village for a few days to work and couldnt meet. We were disappointed, but that was literally the first time an Armenian has ever cancelled on me (usually they just dont show up/answer the phone) Avo is seriously a miracle and we were so grateful.

Now, after that, the week stunk again haha. We had 3 meetings, one with one of our awesome members. Our two baptismal dates have been 1. sick 2. busy, neither's doing well. No one came to church. But Sunday we committed to finishing the week stronger instead of just holding out till pday, and we had a good evening of contacting.

K now for the gross bit- FLIES! Admittedly, our apartment was kinda gross. We had a big trash can we hadn't taken out in weeks, cause itd gotten nasty and we're bums. Elder Marcos worse at cleaning than I am. And the apartment is hot without AC, so we open the windows during lunch to cool down, and theres no window screens. Friday morning I killed 6 large flies, and told Elder Marco that was unusally large of a number. He didnt think much until we saw 8 more (the windows had been closed all morning) long story short, the windows have been closed all weekend, but we've killed 78 big nasty flies since then. Big gross ones, like end of your ring finger big. They're all the same. So we dont know where, but somewhere in our kitchen a bunch of flies were born and grew up and all came out. Weve done a very deep cleaning and searched a bit, but we cant find where they come from. but i think this morning we killed the last few. we'll see. at first it was zzvelli (nauseating, great word) but then i got desensitized and enjoyed killing them all. but if you think about it too long it makes you sick.

lanes- everyone needs a good lost roadtrip story. mine was going to fin and feather in the city with wren to pet puppies. we never found em, and ended up paying like 6 tolls. love the beach story, dont worry i dont know your friends names. youll have new names for them when i get home anyway (cause they're not real)

alex, just admit you love jamesy and get it over with. i miss sonic super much. glad to hear the other side of the creek story, tyler didnt say he fell in. remember that time at the beach when linus got taken away by a wave and didnt come back for like 10 sec? that was cray.

dad- as for guns, very few people have them in armenia. i honestly have no idea how hard itd be to get one, i know one of our members has one but thats it. i know the mafia has a presence in armenia but i dont think its a particularly dangerous one. literally like no one has guns.

as for weight, im about 20 pounds down from the MTC but leveled out. theres plenty of junk food to eat here. my clothes are fine though, i got my shirts taken in but thats just not to look super american with a big baggy white shirt.

thanks for the car info, but i got another one that i actually think is fake- the Nissan Sunny. It looked super sketchy and its just such a dumb name haha. My requests for this week are a baby picture of me, and a picture of me with those strawberry pies you made for my bday last year. random, but oh well.

I love you all very much, and hope you have a good week.

Elder Moore