Week 54

February 22, 2016

 This week was great!  We had interviews with President which are always super awesome! I just really love being able to spend a little bit of personal time with him! He always makes me feel so happy and excited to be doing this work and always gives me suggestions of things I can do better! He also loved our house and Lezhe in general!

  We had a pretty awesome week of work! We have continued to meet with G. and he came to church again on Sunday with us and K.! It was pretty cool all of us going up together! We had a lesson this week with both of them for the first time and they got along really well! K. is such a friendly guy, he is a great member to have here to give us a start! If everything works out G. will be getting baptized on Saturday which is going to be super awesome!! G. also has brought this friend a couple times named Gj who is pretty cool. He has lived out in Germany for a while and is actually kinda atheist and really just comes because he likes us and G. tells him to but I feel like we are planting a seed inside of him. He is really cool and I hope one day he reads the Book of Mormon!

  We also have a super awesome investigator named Z., he is the one that accepted the baptismal date in the middle of our heated argument! He is doing really well and is now working on leaving alcohol and coffee so that he can get baptized! Sadly he wasn't able to come to church on Sunday because of work but he promised us next Sunday!

  It's interesting here in Lezhe because it's by far the smallest city I've served in and so we see a lot of the same people over and over and over and over again! There is this culture in Albania, especially for older men, but really just everyone where if they have nothing to do all they do is take walks around the city, like alllll day! And so we see all these people just pass back and forth over and over again! It's funny how different their reactions are to us, like some people are super friendly and say hi and smile at us every time while other people will pretty much cuss at us every time they pass! There are also a ton of crazy people here in Lezhe just like every other city in this mission and it's exciting being in a new city and not having other missionaries who can tell you who the crazy people! :) 

  

Sunday was a super big day! First of all we now have a senior couple named the Collins here in Shkoder! They are from orange county California and are super awesome! So Elder Collins will be the branch president! So that was a big deal obviously because for the first time in over a year Shkoder now has a solid real branch president! Then there was this investigator the other Elders brought who ended up totally taking over the lesson in 2nd hour and it was awful! He started talking about all this crazy stuff!! Then it just turned into all the members just specifically talking to him and what he needs to do and it was horrible! What was actually super cool from it was how well K. handled everything! He is the oldest (member wise) person in the branch and he was so loving to the kid and was trying to get everyone else to stop just talking to him and get back on the lesson theme! It was really cool. I talked to him about how he should maybe still go to Tirana until he gets released from his calling and he said he really feels the spirit that Shkoder needs his help more and that Tirana can run without him! I was like dang he has all his church friends in Tirana but is coming to Shkoder because he knows that the church needs him here! I don't know if I would have done that back in America!

  Also another super crazy thing that happened at church that we didn't know was happening is 3 of the members got interviewed for the Melchizedek priesthood! So basically we are going to go from 0 Melchizedek priesthood holders to 4 in a few weeks! (those 3 plus K.) So much power is moving into this branch right now!

  This week I decided to ask President if I would be allowed to Skype B. in prishtina so that I could talk to him and check in, and he said I could!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so happy I can't even tell you!!!!!!!!!!! I talked to him for a long time today - it was awesome! I miss that kid a ton but he's doing awesome!  Still wants to serve a mission!

  Anyway pretty crazy week but everything worked out! Pray for my boy G. that he can get baptized this week! 

Loves!!!

Lezhe Library

Cool old Catholic Church in Lezhe

We're in Lezhe!!

 February 15, 2016

Hello from Lezhe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's right! After much trial and tribulation it came to pass that Elder Guymon finally lives in the city of Lezhe! Quite an awesome week really! 

Don't really know if you all care to know about this but my boy ex-Elder Holm is officially engaged! That is my first friend to get engaged! Pretty weird! Anyway...

  This week I had the horrible experience of having to deal with more church executive stuff and tithing! Whew it makes me really appreciate the people in America that do this stuff because it was not fun here! We were running around putting money into banks and signing papers that needed authorized signatures and I didn't feel like I was authorized! It was wild! But the old ship Zion floats on! 

  Then we finally decided on the apartment we were going to get and so everything was all lined up and then a senior couple came out to do a final check and to sign the contract and we almost didn't get the house! There was just this one little thing that we didn't think was a big deal that they really wanted solved it was just so crazy. The worst part was we were like soooo done with living in Shkoder and the sisters had to start moving into our house so we had packed everything into our car that morning and were set on moving to Lezhe. There was a moment where we were like man we are homeless right now, what are we going to do if we don't get this house? Luckily we got it though!!!! Moved in that night!!! It's a pretty dang nice house, everything in it is brand new and we are the first ones to live in it! Also we have bunk beds which is ballin! 

  Tuesday we had district meeting and it was super good! Elder Lesi is such a stud! He gave a great training about how we have all had our own spiritual experiences and answers to get us out on our missions so we know we need to be out here so now we just have to work. It was great! It was also super cool catching up with Sister Jackson! It was kinda like when you were friends with someone one like 4 years ago and you finally meet up again! We just had so many things that had changed! She's the first person that I have served around that was in my MTC group since getting trained! We started in the same place but we have had so many different things happen! 

  This week we have met with some super ballin investigators! First of all G. is doing good! Not quite as good as he was doing last week but good! So for 2 lessons in a row he brought friends to lessons and it was good but his friends weren't really seeking for the truth or anything. Actually one lesson he brought 2 friends who were both atheist and it basically turned into this session of like question and answer with us trying to prove to them there really is a God. It was pretty cool because they were asking some really good questions that everyone has in their life but I just really saw the scriptural passage you shall not be confounded before men apply to me in the moment because I beat them in anything they said it was kinda awesome actually. It was a pretty cool experience for me even though of course I know I wasn't the one doing it at all it was cool to be apart of that! But anyway we finally got to meet with him alone again so we could follow up on a bunch of commitments and stuff and he actually hasn't been doing super well with them and we could kinda just tell it was interesting! We had this super long lesson where there were a couple of misunderstandings for various reasons but in the end he finally confessed to us that he was addicted to smoking and needs help so now we'll be able to help him even better! So not exactly what we were hoping for but still a big step forward!

   We also met with this kid named L. who is a stud!! We had an awesome first lesson with him where he talked about how much he loves Jesus and wants to follow him and do what's right and how he felt that what we are saying was true! Then the 2nd lesson we sat down with him and the first thing he said (holding the book of mormon) was "This book is awesome!" So obviously amazing 2nd lesson as well! He had read 116 pages of it and said he got an answer that it was true! It was pretty amazing  -he shared an experience saying that his dad hasn't had work and has been coming home drunk but that he prayed that his dad would find a good job and stop coming home drunk and it happened!! He said he knew it was because he was reading the book of mormon!!! Pretty amazing honestly!

  Then Sunday was super awesome because Kelvin (the member here) got to come to church with us! He was actually going to keep going to Tirana for a bit because of some drama that happened with the stake but the roads to Tirana were blocked on Sunday because John Kerry came to Albania! Pretty random but awesome! It was a great Sunday! Elder Lesi had 6 investigators in church essentially doubling the size of the branch! 

Today for Pday we went to the beach city of Shengjin.  It's only 10 minutes from Lezhe.  My first time going to the beach on my mission!

Other than that not really too exciting of a Valentines day! I tried to celebrate in the best way I could! Pretty crazy last Valentines day I was in the MTC with a bunch of Elders who were missing their girlfriends super bad! super funny though!  :)

  Well, have a great week all you! I get my first full week of only working in Lezhe which is going to be awesome! Also hopefully interviews with President this week so that will be great!

Love you all!

Valentines Day celebration!

Shengjin

AFC - Albania Fried Chicken. :)

This boulevard is dedicated to President Wilson!

Prishtina!!

Helllooooooo!

February 8, 2016

Helllooooooooo!

  I still feel so blessed to be able to open up the city of Lezhe!  I think it's going to see a lot of success, fingers crossed!

  So our number 1 our investigator, G. is still doing awesome!  He works at a factory that packages sardines and stuff. Like 12 hours a day! He is 26 and speaks Italian.  He came to church again and is excited to get baptized!!! We have just had so many awesome spiritual experiences with him, he is super cool! We taught him tithing and were a little worried about it and he didn't even think twice about it he was like of course I will! 

We also found a member in Lezhe! Some missionaries in Tirana told us they had a member in Lezhe so we called him and met up and he is a stud! He's been a member for 3 years and has the Melchizedek Priesthood and everything! He is so excited to have us in his city! We also found out there are a couple members in a town really close by that would come to Lezhe when we start a group there! So basically we went from starting from scratch to having a small priesthood base! It's like a super big deal!! He also wants to help us with lessons - which is awesome!

  Unfortunately the quest to find housing in that city still sucks!!! I swear there is always something that comes up where it's like super awesome.. exceppptttttttt _____ It's horrible! We have found a couple houses that are alright so 95% sure that next time I email we will be emailing from Lezhe and be living there full time because the senior couple gets here next Tuesday! I definitely don't want to do this for the rest of my mission though! 

Mini transfers were on Saturday night and Elder Anderson and I didn't think we were leaving so we weren't really worried about it because President only calls if someone is getting transfered so we were getting into bed when all of a sudden our phone went off and we were like ohhh crapp!!! So Elder Anderson answered and President was like Elder Guymon, he will be officially opening lezhe and he will be senior companion and he will be with Elder Anderson! I was like whewwwww President you scared me so bad!!!!

  

  Stake Conference is going to be on March 6th and Kosovo is coming to it so I realllyyyyyy hope that B. comes!! It's going to be amazing to see all my friends from Kosovo! 

  I finished the Book of Mormon because President Weidmann challenged us to read it in a week and as always I just got the most awesome feeling as I got to those last chapters of the book, every time I've read it those last chapters always just give me the strongest spirit confirming the book is true! So I finished it and I was like alright now I'm going back to reading through the new testament and I started it and then a couple days later we get a text from President commiting us to read the Book of Mormon in a month and to mark any scripture that talks about the Blessings and Power of the Atonement! It'll be awesome!

  Also something super awesome about Lezhe is there are a pretty good number of peace corps people there and we have met a lot of them I think. It honestly makes my day every time we see one of them and we get to talk to an American for a little! Alison and Roni, the couple that we met our first week there, told us they would love to have lunch with us anytime and we should just give them a call so I really want to do that! 

So we got new missionaries in Skhroder to replace the companionship that had to leave...one is Elder Farnsworth and he has grandparents that live in Randy and Krissy's ward so that's crazy! He is a super good kid, he is getting trained right now by Elder Lesi who is a stud Albanian missionary! 

  Anyway I'm doing awesome! I hope you all had a great super bowl sunday!! 

Love you all - have a great week!

Random pictures...

One year!

February 1, 2016


 Whew, alright biiiggggg week! 

First of all on Tuesday we had mission conference! It was honestly amazing - possibly my favorite of all of them. President Kearon really impressed me just by the way he ran the whole thing! He was sooo charismatic (the english accent helps)! He started of quoting the incredibles and he pretty much had me in his hand from that point on! He hit on so many points I could never really properly explain them all over email! Some of my favorite parts were when he talked about how being happy is a choice - you can just choose to be happy and if you are out telling everyone this message can make them happier than you should BE the message! He also talked about just really simplifying our message and what we tell people. For example, he said when you promise people blessings come from reading the book of mormon just tell them the simple truth! If they read that book it will make them have a better day! It was pretty awesome! I also got to see everyone which was great! I got to see my son Elder Mero! I miss that kid, but he is doing awesome! I got to see the Hydricks too which was super awesome! I miss them a ton! They are soooo great!

  After mission conference we got to teach this super awesome friend in Lezhe (we also talked about how we should call investigators friends because it's so much more natural and that's what they should be) named Geti! We have been having some really awesome spiritual experiences with him and he just seems like a super amazing kid! But right after mission conference we had a lesson with him and we talked a lot about identifying the spirit and we had just talked about that so it was really cool seeing how God prepared us for that lesson! He brought a friend to a lesson later in the week and man that was a crazy! This kid already knew some stuff about Mormons and started talking about Joseph finding plates by an angel moroni and stuff like that and we were like wohh! He also mentioned Palmyra! Turns out he is super into reading up on religions (but not all truth)  and totally hijacked the lesson just talking about the most random stuff like aliens and stuff and it was tough! We finally got it back on track at the very end but he was alll over the place!

  We had a super funny lesson with this guy we found off street contacting and he was pretty funny! He wasn't super sincere in his interest - like joining the church or anything he just kinda wanted to learn a little about our church but he was a Muslim and we had some pretty good respectful arguments about Islam and it was awesome! I was soo well prepared for anything he could say it was hilarious cause he was super surprised at how well I knew Islam! He also talked  super fast and I just decided it'd be fun to match him and I did pretty well! I don't think I can even talk that fast in English but it was super cool just being able to pull out some language skills too! At the end he was like "listen I've really enjoyed talking to you guys and I really hope you have success but you haven't changed my mind about being Muslim at all" and I just said "that's totally fine have a great day" and he was so surprised at that answer and he told us he respected us a lot for that! I just love that our message is, listen this is the truth but we don't want you to believe us, we want you to believe God. And if you're not willing to try I'm sorry but I still love you and respect you! It makes us super special!

  The end of this week was pretty crazy! The other Elders here in Shkoder ended up getting some death threats from one of their investigators and had to leave in the middle of the night -  so we are going to be getting some new missionaries here in Shkoder! It's going to be Elder Lessie (albanian) and Elder Farnsworth! Because the other Elders had to leave I was acting Branch President on Sunday and man that was a very interesting experience! It didn't really hit me until Sunday came around and I realized I was going to have to preside and conduct the meeting! Definitely never really thought I would be doing that! It felt like soooo much responsibility! When the sacrament was blessed and I was the first one to take it it just felt so different. It was really something crazy!

We still haven't found a place to live in Lezhe yet but we have to soon!  

  Of course I have to shout out to my awesome dad who turned 48 this week! He is so awesome and I definitely couldn't be here without him!

  I love you all so much and hope you have a good week!

Sacrament meeting program with me presiding and conducting

Me in Shkroder