Elder Guymon's Awesome Adriatic Adventures: Second week in Kosovo

July 13, 2015

Alright so second week here in Kosovo!

This week we lost water for a few days. I had to shower by dumping a 5 liter bottle on my head. And we just had to use a bunch of reserve water we had for anything. (There's more of a story to this that I won't put in the blog)

We also had our first zone meeting this week and I finally got to meet the Macedonian missionaries. Holy cow those kids are crazy! I had a lot of fun with them for the half a day I hung out with them! The thing is they really are basically not a part of our mission just because no one ever goes there and they don't speak our language and don't come to a lot of things so not a ton of super vision! They are really cool though and to be honest their work isn't too much harder than it is here. It's just that they are stuck there for 2 years like that!

The food here is some awesome! One place we go to is called Tip Top and it basically looks like a 70's diner and the food is only $1.50 a person and it's pretty good but just super greasy and not very healthy so I can only eat there a couple times a week! :) It's so awesome how cheap food is here though! Also we found a soft serve ice cream place and it tastes exactly like frosties! Best discovery ever!!

Finally my gheg is coming along and I'm starting to use it! It for sure isn't easy but I understand people now which is better than last week! It's crazy I've been studying it more and there are just so many essential things that are changed it feels so different! Like you really have to be thinking to speak it one way or another it's not just a little slip into a different way to speak!

This week we met 3 really awesome people contacting! The first 2 are a couple who speak perfect English and are actually working for a Canadian company here - both agnostic but are pretty interested in learning more about what we believe and wanted to read the Book of Mormon to see if they really could find an answer.

The 2nd guy is Kosovar but he lived in Australia for 4 years during the big war so his English is perfect too and he was super interested in what we taught and talked about how he really considers himself spiritual. We taught him this week and he has some weird ideas but he wasn't too far off from the truth in some ways and just needs some little adjustments! What a help priesthood and revelation are holy cow!

Something funny contacting this week was I got to rebuff one of the classic Muslim arguments. I was talking to this guy and I could tell he was not really interested and just kinda wanted to prove he was right and one thing he said was why do you worship the cross? If Jesus died in an Electric chair would you worship that? And I was just like we don't worship the cross. We like to think about Him and the life he lived and the example He set for us. Then he got really quiet...he had no idea what to say!

Also something very crazy this week is I went to my first Funeral. Never thought that would happen out here on my mission. The 2nd councilor in the branch presidency's wife had been sick for a long time and she passed away this week and he invited us to her funeral and we really felt the need to go since we would be the only ones from the branch there. It was a muslim funeral though and man it was different! We had to take our tags off and there was this huge procession and all this stuff but all of it was done by the Hoxha and Nazim (the 2nd councilor) really had no part in the funeral or anything at all. Most of what they said was in Aarabic so most people didn't even understand anything that was being said.

We are going to go back this week and dedicate the grave.

Anyway I was kinda distracted today with other stuff so I hope this all made sense but I'm doing awesome and Kosovo is just so cool! This place is a blast!

I love you all and hope you keep doing the three easy things to keep your testimony! Pray, read your scriptures and go to church!!

Loves from Kosovo!!