One Year in Georgia

 

August 17, 2020

გამარჯობა კარგებო

As of today, I have been living in Georgia for a full year. That's absolutely crazy because it does not feel like that could be the case. The week has been good. We are largely done moving everything out of the Rustavi apartment. We still need to clean some things up, so we'll likely go back down in a week or two. I've only ever driven through Rustavi when going on an out-of-town trip. Rustavi is spoken of so highly by everyone that serves there, so I'm glad I've finally spent some time there. Elder Springer was really in his element. He may have only spent 6 weeks there, but Rustavi is his place. It was cute to watch. 

Something that I thought about this week was the context of my mission. Obviously, I didn't expect anything that has happened in the last five months to happen. To be honest, the same goes for much of the seven months before that. The interesting thing is that none of them has felt extremely out of place. Even at the moment, much of it seems like it was meant to happen this way, which is of course was. The crazy landmarks (everybody leaving in March, the first night with only us and Sister Mafi, etc.) are exceptions to be sure. Those moments were too strange to feel that they were meant to be. They were, but the heat-of-the-moment feelings do not confirm that fact. 

As I'm sure I've said before in these emails, I've been over the Saburtalo Area for my entire mission. There are two metro lines in the city. The mainline and the Saburtalo line. Tbilisi is pretty much two straight lines of land, and Saburtalo is a perpendicular strip of land that is about half the length of the first one.  I've spent so much time on the Saburtalo line during my first seven months here and I haven't been back for the past five. I'm writing today's email from Lisi Lake which is just north of Saburtalo. It's good to be back. The weather is just fantastic! August is typically the hottest month and about 90-100°F, but right now it's about 60. Absolutely wonderful.

As long as I'm telling you about unimportant details of the day, I'll tell you all that I got a haircut. Some of you may know that my first haircut ever not done by my mother was in the MTC. No, not at college. In the MTC. The first haircut I paid for, cost 5 lari (which is about $2 US dollars). Every subsequent haircut has been the same. Over the past five months, I've had two haircuts both by Elder Crapo.  There's your useless story for the week.

Okey dokey. That's the week. Anyway. Goodbye. 

სიყვარულით, 

უხუცესი ფიშერი

missionaries on apartment balcony

dinner in Rustavi

Time for a Real Email

 August 10, 2020

ოკ, გამარჯობა კარგებო.

So, first off, I'm sorry. I really haven't given a quality email in a long time. Hopefully, I can put some real quality into this one. The four of us here are having a grand old time together. It's tough because we all have a lot of work. We are going to be closing down two more apartments in Tbilisi as well as the one in Rustavi. We got that news, and it made us all a little sad because, to us, that's a sign that we won't be getting new missionaries for a good while. We found out an answer to the question. We will not be getting any new missionaries until President Picard has access to the country.  So when the Armenia/Georgia border opens up, hopefully, we'll get some people returning. Nobody thinks that'll be until the new year, so that's unlucky. 

There are three stages that we have to go through before we get back to full scale, regular missionary work. As of Sunday, we are officially in stage 2 (Armenia is still in stage 0), so now we can use public transportation.  Oh, how I love riding the metro! We can start meeting with people in their homes too. The American families invited us over for dinner and that was amazing. They're so sweet. 

Next Saturday we'll be going down to Rustavi to start moving all the stuff from the church building. We also have some great news. We extended a baptismal date to one of our friends. His name is Lado. He's been learning for a while, but he has a few reasons why he doesn't want to get baptized soon. He set the date for May 17th...so we'll try to get it moved up. He may think he needs more time, but as far as we can tell he doesn't need that much time. He knows a lot because of all he's read, but he doesn't quite realize how much more there is to learn about the gospel. 

As I have begun reading the Old Testament from the beginning, the condemnation of idolatry pops up again and again. Idolatry is so terrible that the Lord commanded the complete destruction of the Canaanites so that their idolatrous traditions would not find themselves among the Israelites. The real question is what forms of idolatry do we find among the children of God today? The first two of the Ten Commandments are against idolatry and false gods, but we can add a third if we take Paul's words in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5. Covetousness is idolatry. Why is that? When we covet, we put trust and care toward something that is not the one true God. Caring too much for the things of this world is, in part, a rejection of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is also, in part, the worship of a false god. Something that may provide temporary security in some things pertaining to this world, but not a sure defense against all of the fiery darts of the Adversary. We must be sure to put God the Father as our focal point of worship. We all must humble ourselves and see the false gods that are developing in our lives. They may not be physical things. Maybe titles, degrees, dreams for the future, affection from a certain individual. Obviously, these are wonderful things that we should work for, but all things in moderation. We must all go boldly before the throne of God and acknowledge Him and ask for forgiveness for not having our eyes single to Him. 

Anyway. I'll leave you all with that. Have a wonderful week because it's a wonderful life. 

--უხუცესი ფიშერი 

Dinner with American Families

 August 7, 2020

We are now able to meet in people's homes (Phase 2 of getting back to regular missionary work.)  The Holmgren family invited the missionaries to their house for dinner as well as the Dunson family.  It was great to spend time with the American families.

Mtskheta

August 3, 2020

Today was a visit to Mtskheta which is one of the oldest cities in Georgia and the former capital of Kartli.

It is about 12 miles from Tbilisi.  Mtshkheta was declared "Holy City" by the Georgian Orthodox Church in 2014.  Legend is that the church has buried in it the foot of apostle Andrew and the robe of Christ.

Down to Four

July 20, 2020

Gamarjoba megobrebo!

It's transfer time once again. Elder Crapo and Sister Gehring finished their missions so we are down to four missionaries in the country. In age order, we have Sister Mafi, myself, Elder Herr, and Elder Springer. This puts more of a load on our shoulders, but it's going good. Because Sister Mafi is living alone, we have to pick her up as her companions every day. Our rules for teaching people are different with her as well. Right now, we have three options. 1) All four of us teach. 2)We drop off Sister Mafi at her apartment before the three of us teach. 3)Two elders teach in the sacrament room while Sister Mafi and the third elder sit at the other end of the sacrament room and study or something. Really weird, but it's worked out well so far. 

We each have some specific "leadership" responsibility. Sister Mafi is a Sister Training Leader and Elder Springer is the District/Zone Leader. Elder Herr is in charge of administrative duties, like paying rent and bills. And I'm in charge of the Facebook page and all our activities associated with it. It has been good. We're still waiting for some clarification on a few roles, like who will be working on our language benchmarks. I really want to work on that because it was really fun helping Sister Gehring and Elder Crapo before. 

We have a lot of people to teach nowadays since we've now combined three companionships' workload into one. We're hoping that they can find a way to get Sister Mafi home soon. Her mission ends in October, if she can't get back to Tonga by then, it'll be interesting to see what happens. Anyway.

See y'all soon! 

--უხუცესი ფიშერი 

Saying goodbye to Sister Gehring and Elder Crapo

The final four

Logistical Update

July 6, 2020

გამარჯობა მეგობრებო!

Alrighty, it has been brought to my attention that I haven't really given a real update 
on the other missionaries here. Luckily, we just got an update yesterday about what 
will be happening. Unfortunately, I can't just copy and paste what I already wrote to 
some people because it is largely in Georgian, but here it is plus a little recap. 
(I'll give current ages of the missionaries in terms of transfers. Each transfer is 3 
months in country and we have a total of 8 transfers for Elders and 6 for sisters.) 

We have been in our apartment since March 17. All the missionaries except for Elder 
Crapo (8th transfer), myself (4th), Elder Herr (3rd), and Elder Springer (2nd) were
allowed to stay according to the deal President Picard struck with the Area Presidency. 
Sister Gehring (6th) got to stay with Sister Mafi (5th) because the borders of Tonga 
have been closed fairly early in the era of COVID. Trying to find a way home for her 
has been a high priority. We now have some restrictions lifted and can walk places and
meet with people if we social distance and wear masks. In Armenia, the numbers 
are not falling, so the missionaries there are still inside all the time with a couple breaks 
allowed each day to go outside.

Sister Gehring's original plan was to stay here until August 15, a whole month after 
her scheduled release date. Now, she will be going home with Elder Crapo this month.

Where does that leave Sister Mafi? Here are the three options:

1. The border to Armenia opens up and she stays with the Sisters down there. 

2. She gets reassigned to a place where she can enter the country without a 
visa and not just a tourist. 

3. She stays here in the same apartment, but us three Elders go and pick her 
up every day to do missionary work. 

Needless to say, this is a very unique experience for all of us. Sister Workman was 
reassigned to Montana, so she should be coming soon with the new sister, Sister 
Anderson, who is currently reassigned in Missouri. Another new Elder, Elder Wilhelmsen, 
will be coming soon as well. Elder Nilsson will hopefully be returning soon too.

Anyway. Exciting stuff is happening. 

--უხუცესი ფიშერი 

Becoming __________

July 3, 2020

Becoming ______________

ჩემო კარგებო მეგობრებო! 

Let's jump right into it! 

We are getting along better and better, day by day. Elder Herr and I are busy every day asking Elder Crapo a plethora of questions so that all the prior missionary knowledge doesn't die. Obviously, we can just ask the past missionaries, but he's still here so we're asking while it's convenient. His language knowledge is certainly at the top of what we want to know, but I'm beginning to see that I know the language better than I give myself credit for. Although, I suppose most of the credit should go to the Spirit for dispensing the gift of tongues.

Every week I make a "Become" goal. I got this from my trainer who would be the same goal every week which was "Become [more like] Jesus Christ". Some weeks I focus on a
Christlike attribute. Other weeks I focus on developing a spiritual gift. Some weeks I have to keep the goal, but almost every week I switch it up. This week I'm going to become discerning. One of my favorite BYU speeches is by Elder Bednar in which he discusses the gift of discernment as well as the more specific gift of being quick to observe. He puts surprisingly high importance on both gifts, so I'm finally making it a focus as a written goal.

In the many months that I've made these "Become" goals, I've learned a lot that can only be learned by experience. The biggest thing that this exercise has taught me is recognizing the numerous ways in which the Spirit communicates with us. Each thing I focus on
becoming allows me to more greatly see the different promptings and teachings of the
Holy Ghost.

We had a very good meeting with members this week in which I spoke. I did a rough translation of the song "I Believe in Christ" by Elder McConkie. I love this song and it translates fairly well. I read the translated lyrics of the song and spoke a bit about what they mean to me. It was a short meeting, but worthwhile as always. Along with the theme of hymns, I have a new favorite: Lead Me Into Life Eternal by John A. Widtsoe. It's short but worth a read and a listen. I translated that one too because wow it was easy. 

Three weeks ago we were lucky enough to have a baptism. It was a lady named Omon from
Nigeria. Her family was baptized and received the gift of the Holy Ghost over a year ago,
but she was over here in Georgia. Her mom loves the Church and the Book of Mormon,
so she sent Omon a copy. After a couple months she decided to find the church building and start learning. The sisters started teaching her last September. It's been really cool to see her personal growth during this time. Her faith and testimony have grown so much.
We're glad that she chose to covenant with God and she really is too.

We had to keep the number of people small, so it was just the missionaries and one of the
American couples. Elder Springer got to baptize her and I got the opportunity to give her the Gift of the Holy Ghost and confirm her as a member of the Church. That was a very special experience for me since the only other times I've done so have been in the temple,
so I had to worry about giving a blessing this time around. It was a very spiritually uplifting time. Her family and some others were able to call in from America to support her which was very special.

Those are our highlights, so there you go.

სიყვარულით, 

უხუცესი ფიშერი 

P-day at Mtatsminda amusement park

View of Tbilisi from Mtatsmind

Elder Herr, Crapo, Fisher, Sister Mafi, Gehring, Elder Springer