Elder Guymon's Awesome Adriatic Adventures: Avash, avash

April 20, 2015

(slowly slowly, they say that about like everything here I swear)

Anyway hello again my American friends I had a pretty different week but I definitely feel that this is my best week yet! I think the more comfortable I get with the language the happier I will be here for sure!

So last Monday I gave my first priesthood blessing here! It was for a member Marion Marco who actually is one of the guys who does the voice of translation for conference so its kinda cool to talk to him about that. He served in England so that's how he knows English. Anyway it was like half Albanian half English, I was half hoping that the Lord would grant me like the Matrix gift of tongues and I would suddenly be like, "I know Albanian" :) (I at least know dad will get that reference) but alas, I'm still going to have to put in more effort.

We got to continue to teach our amazing investigator, I dont think I have told you about him. His name is Faton and he is prepared by God! Holy cow! So we met this guy just by walking down the street saying Hi to everyone and got his number and since than we have met with him like every day! He is 23, studying law, has read the quran and bible, comes from a muslim family and has a slight stutter! He read the BoM to page 145 in like 3 days!! He keeps every commitment that we give him and whenever we pray to receive an answer or something he always says he feels such positive energy (we are trying to switch that over to the holy ghost)! He came to church this Sunday and it was AWESOME!

Wednesday was a pretty rough we had 6 lessons planned and we got to actually do 1 (Faton) but that's kinda just missionary work I guess! Also my companion got kinda sick this week so that slowed us down, it is definitely hard not to be out working but luckily he doesn't like to waste time inside either so a few times this week he would just sit on a bench and I would do all the street contacting! I definitely struggled a couple times but it was a great experience for me and everyone couldn't believe that Verushi made me do it alone and I was like hey it was my idea!

I also finally found a working charger for my camera! A big recommendation for those leaving the country on missions is to not lose chargers!!! They don't have any American things here so my charger is actually this weird as crap Japanese universal charger, I'll have to get a picture of it it's pretty different!

Oh man the ice cream here is so good! It's like not actual ice cream more gelato and it is so cheap and so good holy cow! 3 scoops is a buck!

So this week we wanted to get more people to come to our english course and so we printed 5000 little fliers to hand out to people! granted those are shared between 4 comps. but still! Its awesome so whenever we are on our way somewhere we just use those and give them to every person we see!

So Friday was kinda a different day for me. We decided to go to one of our investigators who has been dodging us, at 9:30am because his mom who is a member said he would be home so we showed up and he was asleep so we just like chilled for 30 minutes for him to get ready and then taught him but since then we have actually been able to meet with him...so WORTH! Then we went to a bakery on our way home to grab some bread and little did I know that Elder Verushi was messing with me and took me to one where the girl that runs it is known for flirting with Elders! It was different to say the least! We also went into an Orthodontist office because Elder Verushi is probably going to have to get braces! It seriously was like being back home for a little bit which felt both good and bad! It's funny how similar everything was though! Something interesting that I heard this week is that Elder Temple is the best non Albanian Elder with the language, and guess who was his trainer.. Elder Verushi! So that gives me a lot of hope but also now I feel like I need to match him but I'm sure it'll come! In fact I gave a talk on Sunday! The bishop called at 9:30 Sat. night and said that he needed one of us to give a talk and since Elder Verushi gave the last talk that a missionary gave it was my turn! So I had like 30 min the night before and like an hour the morning of to prepare! Needless to say it wasn't perfect but I don't think it was too bad! Faton said he really appreciated it so that's awesome!

So remember last week how I talked about how Albanians stay young? I can't believe I forgot to tell you about my favorite ward member! She is like pretty dang old like I don't know really 80's or something she doesn't have any teeth or anything but for real by how she acts you'd think she was 25 its hilarious!! She totally jumps around and messes with us missionaries and is just the most awesome person ever! She is super short but she always pulls me way down and makes me give her hugs! I'll have to get a picture with her before I leave so you can see her!

Something that I'm beginning to notice is I definitely have ups and downs with the language depending on the day! Like some days I'll be pretty on it and can almost stay with most things and there are some days where I mix up numbers and am just not there (those days aren't fun) also something that's hard not to do is zone out, like when people talk for a long time I can pretty much get the message if I focus but a lot of the time I just don't have the focus and just end up totally zoned out and its gotten me into trouble a couple times during lessons!

So something different here for me is food that we eat for snacks and stuff! I'm always hungry at night because they don't do dinner here but they don't really have American snack foods - really the main things we buy are just fruits and vegetables! So I now eat a cucumber almost every day and I'm really starting to dig straight cauliflower! I'm dying for some hickory barbecue lays let me tell you!

So last night I had a very interesting experience that made me incredibly grateful for my family. We went to go visit a family where the father is an active member but has some issues he hasn't repented of and his wife and daughter are inactive. We brought 2 members with us and we started out by talking about charity and it was going alright for a few minutes and then everything went crazy! We ended up being there for like an hour and it was almost like a therapy session because this dad was just kinda dead beat but he still went to church and so it made the church look bad for the wife and the daughter and they just had so many problems and there was a lot of yelling and just no spirit in that house. I felt spiritually just out of funk after that lesson and I didn't like the lesson but I'm so glad I had it. I never realized how lucky I am for the family I have - like wow. I know that my words won't have the right effect but I hope that you all appreciate how lucky you are to have the families you have. Especially your fathers. Man, I just can't describe how grateful I am to have a dad who actually cares about his family and supporting them in literally every aspect - I am beginning to realize it's something very special!

I hope you all have a great week and remember to thank you Father in Heaven and your father here on earth for the family that you have because you are so blessed!

me shume dashuri, Elder Gajmen!