So basically my life has never been so awesome! Sure I've had really great times in my life - but wow I'm having an absolute blast right now and seriously everything about this transfer is pretty much perfect!! Ahh! I just never realized how much fun this can and should be! I have sooo much to write about I hope I get it all and it all makes sense!
So to begin, Tuesdays were transfers. So we went to the mission office at 9am for meetings and training for District leaders and stuff which was good. President made an example of me a couple times just asking me if I was nervous for being such a young district leader and but it was all good. Then just so much craziness! I finally met Elder Holm and he is awesome - didn't really get to know him much at that point we just talked a bit. So our bus to go to Prishtina was leaving at 4pm so we thought we were going to have a lot of time sitting around but I was busy the whole time! A bunch of the new missionaries went to the Police office to do somethings with visas or something idk but they didn't accept three of our passport photos because "the background wasn't white enough" like what the heck these things are good enough for America!! So then we were running all over Tirana looking for a place to get passport photos done but we found a place. Then we had to help people with moving around luggage and stuff and getting it loaded into cars and by the end of all this craziness it was 3:45pm and we're worried that we were going to miss the bus and have to spend the night there! Luckily we made it and then began our bus journey! It was a 4 and a half hour bus ride and it was a super pretty drive up through the mountains and Holm and I finally got time to talk a lot and stuff.
So Elder Holm is awesome we get along super well and I'm so happy! He just got off a difficult transfer so we are both just super grateful to be with each other and we are pretty similar! He has an immense amount of geek knowledge like me! Like he has played pretty much every video game I have played and his favorite movies are star wars! Its awesome! He is also hilarious like everyone in the mission loves him just because he is so funny and fun to be around and he just jokes around with everyone! He didn't go to college before coming here but this is his last transfer and he is planning on going to BYU Provo and study mechanical engineering. We seriously just get along super well!!
Finally we made it to Prishtina and we went to our house where we discovered a pretty big clean up job waiting for us. The elders who were in our apartment last left it a huge mess!! Elder Holm really likes to have the house clean which is pretty awesome so those first few days we just totally deep cleaned the place and finally it's getting up to shape. Our fridge had some nasty stuff and we had to bleach out the whole thing which was a sucky job. But our house really is pretty nice!
So first impressions of Prishtina, HOLY COW ITS SO NICE! The city is super pretty and there are more trees and not as much trash and dirt. So the language is definitely Albanian but its pretty darn different! My first day there were a few people that I absolutely did not understand. And some people don't understand me here because my language is too Southern but it's getting easier as the week goes on. Also I don't know if you know this but we use the Euro here which is dope! The food has been awesome so far! They have a Thai restaurant here which is clutch!! SO money! And they give missionaries discounts because we have been coming for so long! For fourth of July we had burgers at a place that were so good. Like some real burgers it was awesome! Also Byrek here is made more like Spring roles which is super weird! Today we had Doners that were money, they were more Turkish than they are in Albania so they had more spice and stuff which is so good.
So in my district it's me and Elder Holm, The Zone leaders (Elder Kek and Elder Razband), Motra Ariza and Motra Cuni (a chilean and an Albanian! We don't have american sisters), and a senior couple Elder and Sister Hydrick! The zone leaders are so fun I love both of them and we do a lot of stuff with them! We also do a decent amount of stuff with the sisters too! And the Hydricks are awesome! So something funny about Prishtina is something called the bubble! Basically all missionary work is done within this little bubble. The church and all the missionary houses are within about 5 minutes of each other which means that us missionaries are together pretty frequently which is awesome and also the area where we do most of our street contacting (The Boulevard) is about a 7 min. walk down from all of our houses! It's so nice being so close to everything.
There are way more tourists and foreigners here in Prishtina I mean it's not over flowing by any means but you probably see a couple foreigners a day. Most are from Germany or Scandinavia but occasionally you'll get an American or British dude thrown in. There are actually these 2 girls who are doing internships from America that we have talked to a couple times! It's really awesome being able to talk to Americans and at first talking to them they were just wondering what we were doing and we talked about random stuff but then they are starting to ask questions about the church and are beginning to become interested, it's interesting to see the change. We aren't converting them by any means but I'd put money down that if they saw missionaries again back in America they would go talk to them.
So in Prishtina the work is very different! We pretty much do contacting all day. Elder Holm is pretty dang good at street contacting! Especially because here if you even mention Jesus Christ people will pretty much instantly just leave. It's interesting Motra Zollanger told me before I came here that my testimony of Christ would grow a ton because he gets ripped out here and it's true. I really miss being able to talk about Christ. Obviously when we teach and when we have church we get to talk more about Jesus but out on the street it just means you aren't going to have any success if you talk about him. So Elder Holm is really good at talking about families and we get a lot of good numbers doing that! It's also extra hard right now because Ramadan is going on so the more religious Muslims are fasting during the days and so they are a little more irritable and less willing to listen to us because they are constantly reminded of their religion. Most people are pretty nice though - there are some people that really try to argue with us and tell us we are bad people but that's all good! Something that has helped me is Holm showed me this talk from BYU called "Understanding Islam" and that is super important to listen to if you serve here in Kosovo.
So a little about the branch - Ya it's a branch and it has about 25 active members but of those 25 active members there are about 5 that are really solid like you can ask them to do callings or clean up the church or stuff like that, maybe 6, so if that puts things into perspective for you people in Utah. I never could have imagined what this would be like. There are these 2 really awesome members named Betim and Suade and they are both mid 20's and pretty smart guys, they speak English perfectly and are so fun! They are just super cool and a lot of fun to hang out with. They have also both been members for only a year but a lot falls on them because they are the only ones willing to do things! Then the branch went through a major change just a couple months ago where the branch president used to be an American from the base but it has now switched to an Albanian and there have been some problems that have come with that - Elder Hydrick is 1st councilor in the presidency and the 2nd councilor hasn't been able to come to church because his wife is actually about to die from cancer but I've heard he is a pretty solid member. The thing is The Branch President really is hard to work with but we have talked a lot about how we just need to support him so the branch can grow better and that he is slowly learning just like the rest of us! He has only been active in the church for 5 years! The missionaries do a whole lot for this branch right now and we are trying to slowly move away from that without causing problems.
So we actually had 4th of July this week and believe it or not I had a pretty good American time! People from Kosovo love Americans almost as much as they hate Serbians (it's a lot). In fact they not only celebrate 4th of July for America but they have a specific day set aside (I forget when) called thank you America day!! So the big billboard at the end of the boardwalk kept playing messages about happy America independence day and there were a few American flags and stuff! We also went with the other Elders and got some amazing burgers to celebrate! And the night before there was a branch party for it which was pretty fun - I got to listen to some good old stake dance music! Then that night there was a pretty awesome firework show but sadly it got cut short because of some threat or something idk?!
So ya life is pretty awesome just having a great time here in Kosovo and an awesome time with Elder Holm. I know 100% that this is God's way of giving me a little treat after my last transfer because ya I really did learn a whole lot but man it was hard!!
I love you all and hope you're having a great time! Because I am!
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| Apartment in Prishtina |
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| Branch party for 4th of July |
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| American food on 4th of July |
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