“Sh’norhavor Lini” (“Congratulations” in Armenian) Alex Olsen has been called to serve in the Armenian Yerevan Mission, reporting to the MTC on August 17th. After opening his call, the Olsens had to look on a map to figure out exactly where Alex is going!
The mission is relatively new; it opened from the Russia Rostov mission in 1999. In 2001 The Book of Mormon was translated into Armenian (it’s 97th language).
Armenia is a former republic of the Soviet Union. It struggles with the same social and economic issues (employment, politics, etc.) common to many developing countries. Armenians believe Christianity was first preached there 1700 years ago, making it one of the world’s oldest Christian countries.
In 2009 the population of Armenia was just under 3 million with only 2,748 LDS church members, or, 1 in every 1080 people.
Webb says that the Armenian people living in Russia were some of the nicest people and usually more receptive than many of the Russians. In Webb’s mission, working with Armenians was like hitting the jackpot so Webb thinks Alex is going to have a great experience in Armenia.
Needless to say, none of our mission guesses for Alex were correct; no one in the entire extended family guessed he’d be called to Armenia. Personally, I didn’t know the church even had a mission in Armenia.
“Vortegh E Zukaran?” ("Where is the Bathroom?” - a helpful phrase to learn in Armenian)
