Claire's Mission in Armenia: "Another talk on the Word of Wisdom, it's New Years in Armenia..."

Dear loved ones,

Well I must say that I had the most wonderful Christmas of my life last week, and let me tell you why... First of all it began with a trip to the mission office on Christmas eve for a delicious dinner of ham and funeral potatoes and texas fudge cake, then a hilarious white elephant gift exchange and then a beautiful trip through the history of all of the Christmas hymns sung or played by different missionaries. Then we watched the Nativity and then I sang "O Holy Night." We were all together as a mission and it was so good to see all of my dearest pals and just talk with them forever. Then we all got into cars and went to a little orphanage for mentally handicapped kids and we sang and gave them all slippers. Oh it was beautiful. the way they smiled as we held their hands, the way they petted the fuzzy slippers we handed them. I can't even explain how my heart rejoiced to be there with them. Those precious little souls. Our Heavenly Father's valiant little children.

Then we came home and slept with all sorts of dreams of sugar plums fairies and such, then we awoke to banana bread ( I had put all of the ingredients together the night before) and it was lovely as we opened presents and got ready for our skype debut. Skype, that perfect, wonderful miracle of technology! My goodness. To see my dear and loving family, to see my dear new to be brother in law!! (Charlotte's engaged, ahh!!!!!!!!!!) and to see my dear McCall family. It was heaven, pure heaven. I loved just how normal it felt, just like I was in the room with them, just chatting away. too fun. And then all at once it was over. and I was on cloud 9. Back to reality, we grabbed our song books and went our caroling to some members and nonmembers and it was wonderful. One man, our elders quorum president, just started crying as we were singing because he said that never in his 12 years of being a member, had anyone come to sing  for him. It was so wonderful. I was just hit by the power of this time of year, by the pure hope and happiness that it brings because of what it means, that our Savior was born and because of that, we can return to our Father in Heaven. We headed to Yerevan and had a lovely dinner at our senior couple's house and we watched my favorite mormommessage, "O come O come Emmanuel" by the PianoGuys. you all need to find it and watch it!! We then dashed to the big square and saw the giant tree and then got cinnabon and then we came home on the train. It was just what Christmas should be. Being with family, singing to everyone, eating good food, and basking in the Love and Life of our Perfect Savior.

So that was Christmas. Other than that the week was great. It was kind of all just basking in the light of that loveliness, and we had a great meeting with our shining-star investigator and he bore such a powerful witness of the Book of Mormon, it was really inspiring.

We had our Ward New Year's party and it was lovely. Santa Claus came, lots of people came and there was dancing, which is the most important part of any Armenian party. Also the Relief Society sang the slowed rendition of "The Spirit of God" you have ever heard, but it was okay. We danced and met all sorts of great people and it was a big success!

So New Years in Armenia means you cook for a week and make every yummy thing you can think of and you put it on a big table and for two weeks you eat. You eat at your house, at your mom's house, your sister's house, your brother's wife's mother's best friend's house, etc... eating. lots and lots of eating. There is quite a bit of alcohol that is involved as well, and of course lots and lots of coffee. Thus the subject line of my email. Basically the ENTIRE Sacrament meeting yesterday was focused on living the word of wisdom. Stick to you guns everyone. you know what you believe, you know that you are not supposed to drink coffee, so don't! haha. It was great and I really hope that it helps people to remember what they stand for and act accordingly.

Today we went to a faraway town to visit a member who come 2 hours each way to church. She is such an amazing example to me of faith and devotion to what she knows is right and true. I hope that as this new year begins we can all think about our testimonies and think about where we are in the process of conversion and see what we can do to increase our level of conversion and our committment to our testimonies every day of this coming year.

 I can't believe its almost 2014. I remember when it turned 2013 and I thought to myself, I am going to be a missionary for this entire year. Well here I am, at the end of that year. crazy how fast time flies. Well I love you all so much! I wish you all good things for this coming year!!

xoxoxo forever and ever.

Sister Claire Haynie

The big tree in Yerevan! It was snowing.

A beautiful Church, Noravank, that we went to on our way to visit our member today! It was super cool and one day I will tell you all about it.