Another Big News Story That You Would Never See in America

November 4, 2019

Another wonderful week has flown by. As we were in Borjomi last week I was considering analogies that could be used in missionary work. Borjomi is famous for its spring water. Interestingly, because of this, there are several cup vendors. Many of them by the street and others by the springs themselves. Each cup merchant that is set up by a spring will tell you that the spring that they are by is the best tasting spring water in all of Borjomi. Well if you take a second to smell, you would think the opposite. The water smells like sulfur. One may think, how could this water taste good if the smell is not pleasant. Everyone around, however, is telling you that it's good or its the best. In fact, they are distributing things to help you partake of this thing that they all say is great. Well, once you give into believing all these nice looking people, you realize that the water really is not very tasty at all. You have been deceived by everyone around you.

Springwater at Borjomi

There are several ways to draw this back to the Gospel, but here is one. Many things of the world are talked up by many people. Are these things really as pleasing as they say? They have the appearance of bad, but everyone is saying it's good. Just try it. Ya, don't do it. It really is bad. Don't succumb to the pressure of the world. Also, when we say that we have something good to offer, we need to make sure we help them accept it. Not only that, but we need to ensure that it is good ourselves.

We also went to Rabati. Its a giant castle fortress. Pictures included. Wow that was fun. Definitely worth going again. Good thing I can. 

Rabati fortress castle

Traditional Georgian wedding clothes cutouts

Traveling in the marshutka

Two of the sisters are leaving on Friday. It's really sad. I've only known them for these three months, but they are just so great! Goodbye to Sisters Aruytunova and Heydorn. Along with this, we will be getting three new missionaries this week. Elder Herr and Sisters Reynolds and Workman. It'll be interesting to see how things turn out in these next few months. Along with all of this, we got transfer calls today. Elder Hunt is leaving to go to the other branch across the city, and Elder Nilsson will be joining me here. Having the Canadian and the Alaskan together during what I assume is the coldest three months of the year, will really make this area thrive. Anyway.

Now for the news:

One of the main priests in the Orthodox Church here called the Patriarch gay because apparently, the priest had a vision of the gays. Now all the priests are calling each other gay. Wow. Before you go calling fake news on me, I have seen the video of the priest saying this, and we have seen it in the papers, and we've heard it several times from reliable Georgians. Yes, most of the time I can't trust the information in this country, but this time is actually true. 

Anyway. We'll see you later.