Another week in California #2

CALIFORNIA MUSINGS #2
The surroundings in which we find ourselves are truly beautiful, colorful and interesting. It’s no wonder so many people find themselves living here, including a lot of Armenians. I can do without all the cars (in Ararat there were hardly any), but if you time your comings and goings and don’t take the freeways, it isn’t too bad.

I like the streets that are lined with huge palms, sort of like 50-80 ft tall or more with a pineapple on top. Other streets have different trees lining them and they’ve grown so big that the trees from the opposite side of the street form a canopy that shades the entire block. We’ve walked in all directions from where we are living and managed to find a French bakery (darn, but really not) along the way. Sort of defeats the purpose of healthy walking, but a nice way to reward oneself for having done it.

We enjoyed Family Home Evening on Monday with some of the Armenians. There were a few investigators along with some member families…about 30 in all. Pizza and other foods were served after a lesson was given about what should happen in a family home evening as a spiritual start to the evening. The children were entertained by Lacey Ammar (who I’ve heard is an excellent violinist) and Wendy Santiano (mother of three of the children in attendance) before starting the evening, and Artur Yeritsyan led everyone in a game to finish up. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Henry Ammar is the group leader for the Armenians, but neither he nor Rod Santiano are Armenians, but have a desire to help and want to learn Armenian and be part of the group. Henry is Lebanese and Rod is Filipino/Hispanic (I think) and speaks Portuguese as he was a missionary to Brazil. He also knows a lot of Armenian.
We were able to get better acquainted with Hratch Baghdoyan, 80, and his son Armen. Hratch is an Armenians from Syria. Helga Gharibians is from Iran and her daughter Christine Andreasian, was born and raised in California and says she’s an anomaly because she is LDS and never been to Utah. Armen Gevorgyan, whose wife was part of the translation team for the Book of Mormon translation into Armenian was also there. His family is in Armenia currently while he is here working.
We also had our first missionary meetings this week with the full-time elders and Henry to do some planning and reporting. In the evening, we were able to go with the full-time elders to visit Susannah, one of their investigators. This woman is the one that Elder Craft met while street contacting in Gyumri (she was visiting in Armenia a while ago) and then as she was walking down the street in Glendale, she noticed the church and someone who happened to be outside at the time, invited and insisted that she come into the Armenian FHE which was in progress. She and Elder Craft didn’t at first put it all together, just thought that there was something familiar about each other. It’s exciting that she is taking the lessons and preparing for baptism on May 9th. It’s sort of funny, too, that when Elder Craft asked her if she knew what May 9th was, she said, “the day the Russians took over?”, and he said how about “Mother’s Day”. That’s a better day to remember your baptism, I’d think.

We also started to make contact with some of the less actives or those in other wards with Armenian names. We met with a couple, Gloria and Henry Vartanian, in their lovely home. He is an architect by trade. Gloria is the member, but not Armenian and Henry is the Armenian (through Iran), not interested in joining the church, but I think supportive of his wife going. They have a couple of older daughters, and an older son (he appears to be handicapped in some way) living with them as well a granddaughter. When Gloria attends church she goes to the LaCanada Ward and because she’s not Armenian she prefers to keep attending her current ward. She and her husband did say that they might want to attend an FHE.

It’s interesting that the one other family we’ve contacted is also named Vartanian. No one answered the phone, so we just decided to drive over and see if they were still there. A daughter, Annie, answered the door, but her mother was working. We later talked with the mother, Iskhanik (Susan) who came to the States when she was 16, but has moved all around. I asked her about family history and genealogy but she is really uncertain about it at all. We are looking at having families do genealogy as a way to get them back active and wanting to go to the temple to do work for their ancestors. There is a dad, Karnik, a non-member and a son Ara who moved to Pomona, and is going to school. There is also a daughter Mary who is 21 and then Anahid (Annie), 17. The children are all members and Annie sometimes goes with her mother who attends the Sunland Ward. She prefers to go to her own ward as it is only a few minutes away and not the 25 minute drive to be with the Armenian group. She might be interested in FHE.

We did splits with the missionaries, except we added Christine to Elder Peterson and I. We visited 4 places and didn’t find anyone home, or if they were home, not willing to visit with us. I guess rejection is pretty standard with missionary work. It appears one of our contacts may have moved and another had moved or the name on our list was spelled wrong. It’s nice to be able to clear up records as we go.

April 23rd:

We are continuing to make attempts to find people on the ward lists, and last night as we were going out with Elder White and Christine, we finally found someone at home who actually invited us in. It was nice to visit (mostly in Armenian) and be able to invite them to Family Home Evening coming up next Monday. They said they would come, but then, Armenians generally tell you what they think you want to hear and you can be disappointed if you count on it too much. So, we’ll see.

It’s really interesting here how every morning, other than birds, the first sounds we hear are of weed eaters, hedge trimmers and lawn mowers. Someone is always having their yards manicured; it makes for a very nice living area, however. Today, we went for a very long walk that included some trail hiking. If you know Elder Peterson, he loves to go exploring and when he noticed, the trail behind the Brand Library, up the hill we trudged. It was pleasant and, with good scouting skills, he maneuvered us past the French bakery and we just had to go in.

Tomorrow is the commemoration of the Genocide of the Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). We have noticed lots of signs on businesses that they will be closed and there are lots of protests (gatherings) all around the area…and considering this is referred to as Little Armenia, it isn’t surprising. We continue to do well and appreciate all your love, prayers, and support.