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

Botanical Gardens on P-day

June 8, 2020

For the first time in months, the Georgian missionaries were able to go somewhere on P-day.  

Lots of pictures of the National Botanical Garden.

Elder Fisher and Elder Springer

At the top of the hill is the house of the richest man in Georgia

Closer view of the house

More sightseeing in Tbilisi

St. George and the Dragon statue

Mother of Georgia statue.  She is holding a sword for her enemies and wine for her guests.

Enjoying Georgian food 

Approximately 370 Days Left

June 7, 2020

გარჯობა მეგობრებო!

Exactly one year ago yesterday, I was set apart as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. June 12th will mark my one year anniversary of entering into the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. If this occasion didn't pop up, I don't know if I would've written this email, so that's pretty lucky. In this email, I'll take some time to reflect on all that has happened in the past year by going through and highlighting the best parts of each portion of my mission. 

MTC

The MTC was a hoot and a half. It was nine weeks on that fairly tiny campus with a clear view every day of the exact room I slept in while I was at BYU. It really was super fun. Since we were there in the early summer, we got the opportunity to meet our new mission president, President Picard. That was a great experience. He really is an incredible man.  Plus I can always rub it into the other missionaries' faces that I was the first Georgian missionary that he ever met. Being with 10 Armenian speaking missionaries was fantastic but was not great for my language skills. Not having anyone to talk to except my teachers was not super convenient. It was also summer, so the teachers were gone for longer lengths of time for vacation. With all these factors in place, I was able to learn a lot of Armenian. Not to say it's not super cool to know some words, but the ratio of Georgian to Armenian knowledge is much too high. The MTC was also where I started to develop actually good study habits. That's right. College and high school were nearly useless for that. I actually became disciplined in my studies and I grew a great love for studying the language and the scriptures. It was such an easy life there in Provo. It was necessary. I learned a lot about myself, but the most important skill I developed was the ability to recognize the promptings of the spirit. 

Transfer 1: Elder Hunt/Delisi

After days of travel, I finally ended up in Tbilisi, Georgia. My first night in Georgia was weird. I didn't have many expectations, but the ones I did have were not high. I did not sleep well that first night, but that's just because I was sleeping on a garbage cot. My sleep was not optimal for my whole first transfer. My first full day was a zone conference and a baptism. That's super unusual. I gained a lot of insights that transfer with Elder Hunt. I learned some dos and don'ts of being a district leader. I learned some dos and don'ts of training. I learned some dos and don'ts of studying. I learned a lot of do's and don'ts. He was supposed to train me and I was supposed to be trained by him. I have no doubt about that. We really did learn a lot together. We could've been better at a lot of things, but that is the case with literally everything in life. I learned how to think deeper and pray more sincerely in those first three months here. That pondering and prayer has led to many great discoveries and pieces of personal revelation, including my own reasons and purposes for being called here to Georgia. 

Transfer 2: Elder Nilsson/Delisi & Saburtalo

My favorite Canadian! This was a really interesting transfer. We moved apartments, I broke my toe and I got made district leader of a four-person district. Elder Nilsson and I got along very well. Probably the best I got along with any of my companions thus far. We debated about something almost every day, which you might think were arguments, but I assure you they were in the spirit of learning and fun. We also learned a lot from each other and we had some very, very, very memorable experiences that I doubt either of us will forget. Christmas was also pretty good. Going to Armenia is always fun and spending time with the other 3/4 of the missionaries is good for us. 

My favorite part of the transfer was the last four weeks. At that point, another one of the most experienced Elders went home for a surgery that had to be done in the US. That same week, we found out that another district leader was going home the next week, just three weeks early. This turned our district into one of just two companionships. During the remaining three weeks, the four of us became very good friends. We grew to understand each other very well and we were able to teach and communicate with each other more effectively. There was a true sense of love and unity between us all and it was one of the most spiritually uplifting experiences of my life. During that transfer I began learning the importance of not only knowing but understanding. The connection between these two principles is applicable in just about every situation you find yourself in. Whenever you gain knowledge,  you grow and appreciate that thing about which you have learned, but when you understand something, you grow a love for it and you can work with it better. This is true for relationships, the gospel, music, math, and everything else. 

Transfer 3: Elder Bergeson & Elder Herr/Saburtalo & Quarantine 

Training! Just about every missionary in Georgia has to train another missionary at some point. I got my opportunity earlier on, but I did not get to finish due to COVID-19. But let's focus on the weeks leading up to this madness. In the weeks with Elder Bergeson I realized that I have a talent for patience. Now, I don't have anything against Elder Bergeson. He was a really motivated, hard-working missionary. Just about immediately after I met him I noticed the 'just-graduated-from-high school' vibe from him. It was in no way inexperience. That is expected anyway since no one knows what a mission is like. He was just the classic intelligent jock from high school and all that comes with it. This was the most negative of his attributes. The most positive was his absolute diligence in learning the language. He picked up on everything so quickly. He was learning things in his first couple of weeks that I had learned the week before he got to Georgia. He was good. Really good. I'm excited for his return. With him, I learned a lot about myself and how I want to perceive people and be perceived. I learned that having patience and immediately forgiving for the little things makes things go smoothly. I also realized that when one person in the companionship is committed to getting along with the other, things will work out nicely. Then the second person might get upset, but the key is knowing how much of that is your own fault and reconciling accordingly. If you get upset, it's your fault. If you upset somebody else, it's your fault too. But the ratio will change with each scenario.

Well halfway through the transfer, everybody went home. We all know this part of the story. We've all gone through it. We all had to adjust a lot of things. We had to spend our time differently and with different people. Our routines are messed up, but it's getting easier. The biggest thing I realized from those first couple weeks of uncertainty, was that everything has a way of working out the way it should. If you zoom out enough (pun intended), you'll find a place where it just all falls into place. You don't even have to take a religious view of this principle. It's just true. It just so happens that it's true in the religious sense as well.

Transfer 4: Elder Springer/Temka

This marks the fourth transfer in which I am over the Saburtalo area. I don't know if I've learned what I'm supposed to yet this transfer, but I have a guess. Repentance. When it comes down to it, that is all we are supposed to teach as missionaries. That is repenting or returning towards the ways of our Heavenly Father. This is a daily matter. Are you perfect? Then repent. Repentance is constant. We should always be working towards continual repentance and perfection. What else is this life other than our time to prepare to meet God?

This next year will be interesting. It'll all be in Georgia. I'll be the most experienced missionary in the country in five weeks. I need to step up. I need to repent just as you do. Yes, I know you do. Pray. Study. Do the things you find are needful in order for you to be in a better place with our Eternal Heavenly Father. I will too. I promise. 

Anyway. I hope everything improves for you all as it is for us. Have a good rest of the year and I'll try to have a good next year. See you soon. 

--უხუცესი ფიშერი 

More Photos From Quaratine

June 1, 2020

Restrictions are easing up in Georgia.

The Georgian missionaries are now allowed to go outdoors for personal study time and go for walks.

 Elder Springer and Elder Fisher on a walk near a metro stop.

June 3, 2020

There is a park within walking distance of the apartment that is nice for personal study.

Statues of Ronald Reagan at the park

June 7, 2020
All of the missionaries met together at the church again on Sunday for a church service.

Photos from Quarantine Time

May 25, 2020

Life in quarantine consists of staying inside all day except for a weekly shopping trip and exercising outside the apartment building between 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.

Staying indoors has given us a lot of time to study, cook, do puzzles.

Elder Herr and Elder Fisher both make Poutine for dinners.

At the end of May, the elders celebrated Elder Herr's birthday.

Elder Crapo, Elder Herr, Elder Fisher, Elder Springer

Milk shakes and birthday cake for dessert