Elder Guymon's Awesome Adriatic Adventures: Interesting week...as usual!

August 10, 2015

Well this week, as usual, there were some interesting things that happened and best of all there was zone conference this week which was awesome!

So to start off just some random things. First the sisters are teaching two homeless people from Germany. Its' a super weird situation, I guess they had money and stuff in Germany and then they had a bunch of bad stuff happen to them on the way here and are now homeless but they were already investigating the church in Germany. We are being super careful to make sure they aren't just doing this for money cause that is a huge problem here. But they have been progressing and President Wieddman actually met with them and gave them a hotel room for 20 days to give them kinda a kick start so we will see how that goes!

Second something super cool that we don't experience in America or at least in Idaho are calls to prayer. These are like a huge deal here and we hear them all the time! They are super awesome sounding and happen 5 times a day. When they go off you are supposed to just stop what you are doing and pray but lots of people don't practice here so they don't but still anywhere in this city you can always here a mosque when its prayer time! Just kinda a cool culture thing I get to experience here!

Third is Bernd, this guy deserves his own paragraph just cause he is such a character! He is this German guy who actually is a lawyer in Germany but is currently working as a lawyer for NATO here in Kosovo. As missionaries here in Kosovo we are just around the same spots a lot so we have made some friends who we see regularly but aren't really interested in the gospel. Bernd is one of those guys although he has come to church a couple times! He is so funny though he hates it here in Kosovo and doesn't trust anything here! He has his water imported from Italy and pretty much only eats on the NATO base. He always tells us about the latest crimes that Kosovares have committed and says they are all animals! So ya not the greatest opinion of this place, he is pretty much just waiting to get out of here! He thinks our church is super interesting though that Serbians and Kosovares would worship under the same roof because normally they would be trying to kill each other so he is having Elder Hydrick right an article for him about our church because he is making a book about minor religions in Kosovo and he is going to be publishing it. He's a super funny guy to talk to though!

Anyway Monday continued to pour on us and I had my first experience of contacting under an umbrella which was just super weird! It was crazy because the streets are really in disrepair and some parts are just of dirt and they like literally couldn't be driven on because it was like muddy madness!

Wednesday I went on an exchange with Razband and it was really fun! We had a good time together on our exchange and we actually got into my 2nd tracting lesson! Sadly, Saturday we had mini transfers and he is being transferred to Elbason so we are going to miss him but he has served here for 7.5 months so we kinda saw it coming!

Then Thursday was Zone Conference! It was amazing! I'm going to be honest I didn't have the greatest attitude going into it and it just totally was amazing! So it was super weird because it was going to be combined with the Tirana zone and for some reason they were bringing them all up to Prishtina instead of sending us down to them which made no sense because there are wayyy more of them! It was pretty much just a field trip for the Tirana zone so they could come and see Kosovo. Then the scriptures they told us to read to prepare us for the conference were all about baptizing and stuff and the whole missions numbers have been kinda down and I was just like jeez I really don't think that this zone needs to hear that we should get more baptisms like we are trying really hard and doing our best! There is also already sorta a feeling that the North Zone (my zone, Kosovo and Macedonia) is a separate mission and whenever they talk about getting baptisms and stuff this zone kinda shuts down just because it doesn't really happen up here as much. Plus Verushi was coming up and I wasn't sure what it was going to be like to see him again.

So all of Tirana gets here and we start seeing everyone and I realize its' super awesome to see all the friends I made down there again! Plus there are some missionaries down there now that I haven't spent a lot of time with but I've heard so much about and I got to get to know some of them a little more, plus seeing the Macedonians is always awesome! Then I saw Verushi and it actually was way different being around him and not being his companion, it was actually good to talk to him and we went and walked around and I showed him the city and stuff! I also realized being with all of these other missionaries that being around Elder Holm has helped me to become more outgoing and stuff talking to people because I really had a great time talking to everyone whereas usually I'm not that out there! I got to see Motra Zollanger again which was way awesome and it was great talking to her and just a lot of other missionaries!

Then after we all talked a lot, zone conference got started and let me tell you, you all should appreciate how good hymns sound in America. Here in Prishtina I've been getting used to me being one of 10 people actually singing the hymn and it's not like I sing well! In zone conference we had 50 missionaries all singing and it just sounded so good!! Then we got to hear from all the missionaries who would be leaving at the end of this transfer (their dying testimonies) so I got to hear from Elder Holm and also Sister Zollanger which was awesome! Everyones final testimonies are always super powerful! Like it's crazy that I'm going to be there at some point!

Then President gave his training and it was so different from what I thought it was going to be! Rather than it being about us getting baptisms and stuff it was how obedience and diligence doesn't equal baptisms it equals blessings. It was really nice for me to hear. He talked about the one parable about the man who God tells to push a rock and he goes and pushes every day and nothing ever happens and he continues to do it but begins to get discouraged and after a while he asks God why he would ask him to do something impossible and God replies I didn't ask you to move the rock I asked you to push it, now that you have pushed you have grown strong and you have shown your obedience, I will move the rock now. And is was like a serious understanding moment for me! I'm not called here to move "the rock" I'm called here to push! And as long as I do it I'll grow and God will accomplish what he needs to have accomplished in the end! It was super awesome for me to hear!

Last night we had a branch council meeting which basically means missionaries and President Telli meet and talk about ways to help the branch and it lasted 3 hours! It was good though and I hope we got some things figured out! This branch is feeling pretty dang fragile right now so we are just trying to keep it all together and hopefully in these next few weeks we are going to have some new callings going out and stuff! The branch really relies on us missionaries and I'm not gonna lie, they love us!

Anyway that was my week! I love you all and am still having a great time out here in case you were wondering! Lots of work but lots of fun! I'm praying for you all!