Work!!

April 25, 2016


  We had a pretty awesome week! I have never had this much work in my whole mission and of course it's during my time as AP when I have the least amount of time to meet with all our people! Definitely not complaining it just makes it tough to help all the people we are working with as much as they need!  I'm seeing lots of blessings for us doing the best we can!

  We are working with this super awesome kid named E.  Elder Mero and I taught him while we were on an exchange together and then he came to a baptism afterwards and when the person got baptized he asked us when he could do that! We were like holy cow! He is way cool and we have a ton of hope for him! 

We also are working with the father of one of our members which is super cool. It's my first time really working with a part member family! The coolest thing was that our first lesson with him was just kinda alright  - he talked a ton and it was hard to really teach the lesson! But then the 2nd lesson he had read the book of mormon and was just totally different.  Way more spiritually prepared and into the lesson, it was a cool testimony of the power of the book of mormon and how it can change people!

  We also have another part member family and really it's just the younger brother that we are working with! It's super cool because I just randomly called the number from the area book not knowing who it was and they let us come over and it turned out the older son is a member and has been for 3 years  - he is 19! He is super awesome! Unfortunately he hasn't been coming to church for a while now because he has been really busy with school and just has some problems with his dad but he has a really strong testimony of this church! He waited 6 years to get baptized before his dad finally would sign the form! But what is awesome is he hasn't been super close to missionaries for a while and his little brother has never met with them but Elder Befus and I went over to their place and it was like a match made in heaven! The younger brother who is 14 is super into computers and computer games and we just starting talking a ton about that stuff  like that and I might even help him build a computer if he gets the parts! His older brother is pretty into cars and stuff so he and Elder Befus got a long super well talking about that! Definitely a testimony that I was called there for a reason!

  We went to the first Ward Council for the 4th ward like ever to my knowledge and man that was exciting! I have been to a few Ward Councils here in this mission now and it just makes me so curious as to how things work in America.  I imagine a lot less yelling and a lot less calling each other out for being hypocrites but hey I could be wrong!  :)

  Anyway life is awesome! I had mexican food today and obviously got a chimichanga so that was super awesome! Ummmm ya. I know I've gotten way worse at writing these but what do you do! 

Next week I get to go to Prishtina so you can bet that I will be meeting up with B.!!!!

Have a great week!  Love you all!!

Our Macedonia tags!!

P-day games!

This week we went to jail :)

 April 18th, 2016

We had an awesome week this week! 

First of all it seems like every week we are in the office less and less which is awesome! 

It's funny I have realized my love for street contacting as I haven't been able to do it as much lately.  My mission for the last 9 months has just been straight street contacting and I feel like I've gotten pretty dang good at it! It was funny after our first day of a lot of street contacting I was like man if there is anything that I have learned to do on my mission as of yet it is to street contact!  Haha I love it!!

 So this week we went to jail! It was pretty crazy, the other elders had an investigator that dropped off the map and they had no idea what happened to him and then randomly his sister called them and told them he was in jail! So we went out there to see him and it was so depressing! We got to share a message with him and we are pretty sure he is innocent and will hopefully be getting out soon so that'll be good!

  One of the tough parts about the mission here is that there are super solid people that get baptized and you're like man they are awesome and are going to be a big strength to the church.  But the thing is a lot of  times when people join the church their life gets a lot better and they get more successful and they end up going to other countries to have a better life and then you're just right back to where you started in trying to strengthen the church here!  It's tough because you are happy for them but at the same time you're like we need you so bad here!!!

  One of my favorite parts of the week is I got to go on an exchange with Elder Mero!! It was soooo much fun! It was awesome being back together again! We also had a super successful day together contacting and teaching! We had a lesson with this awesome kid who had such good questions and then came to a baptism afterwards and asked when he could get baptized! It was crazy but super awesome!

  Anywho I feel like a ton happened this week but at the same time I just don't have a lot to write about so sorry about that! I'm doing awesome! Love you all!

District P-day up at Kruje

Elder Guymon with Elder Befus and President Weideman

This is the life!

April 11, 2016

Ok... Weekly email! Holy cow this week had so much stuff that happened.

  As AP something super awesome that we get to do is we have FHE with President at his home with his wife and a couple senior couples every Monday and it is soooo much fun! This last week, 2 of presidents daughters were visiting from Switzerland with their kids and so they were there for FHE which made it even better! There were 2 little girls that were barely 4 and I was like dang this is kinda like Grace right now it was super weird! It was funny because one of the girls was 7 and I was talking to her and she doesn't actually speak English super well (she is from Switzerland of course) and so I kept accidentally trying to explain things in Albanian instead because that's my default if they don't speak English!

  One of the coolest parts of this week was MLC (Missionary Leadership Committee) Which is when the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders all get together and we train them on what they need to train their zones and stuff! It was kinda scary, it was my first time giving a big training and I was like the new guy there so it was a little freaky. It was really awesome though super spiritual and super fun being with all the leaders of the mission and getting them excited for the work!

  This week we had a little more time to get out of the office and do some real proselyting and street contacting and it was actually soooo nice! I found out this week we are the only AP's in the European area that have a proselyting area with our office work! It blew my mind! Like in other missions here if you get called as AP you just stop having a proselyting area for 

 6 months! That would drive me crazy! It was sooo nice being able to do street contacting for me and just really get out and talk to people because I have been feeling super bad about not being able to get out there and do it as much! 

  We had some good lessons this week and had a super funny experience. We were teaching this one couple who owned  a coffee bar kinda place and so we were out back teaching them and then this old dude came and they pulled out this super old school communist looking medkit and used a heart rate monitor thing and checked his blood pressure, said it was high and then just gave him some mystery medication that he took without questioning anything! I was like are you a nurse or something? and she said no and I was like ok you're just an Albanian Mother! She laughed so hard because they love it here that like Albanian mothers kinda can do everything but it was just one of those things like man this would never happen where I was from! :)

  This Sunday morning was the craziest morning of my entire life I think! OH MY GOODNESS! So Saturday evening we get a call from Bishop and he is like Elder do you have the Sunday afternoon session of general conference and I was like ya bishop 100% I have it for sure! And he was like ok bring it because we are going to watch it for church and then do a combined sacrament meeting with 2nd ward and so I said of course! And then we get into bed that night and I was like ohhhh crap I have conference in English not Albanian!!! So we were like alright we will just go to the office in the morning and download it and it will all be alright. So we leave our house in the morning and head over to the office and realize we locked our keys in the house so we were like oh CRAP! Finally we get an office key from a senior missionary (we have spare keys at the office) So we get to the office in the morning and start downloading it and all of a sudden the computer shuts down! I was like oohhhhh my gosh what the heck! Restart it get it downloaded and fly over to the church and we were like ok we are here. So we plugged it in and then we realized that the remote for the TV was missing at the church! So we found out a member had accidentally taken it home with her so we get in the car and meet up with her, get the remote, get back to the church and turn on the tv and click to open my hard drive and.... it just sits there, for like 5 minutes. I was like oh my gosh this is truly a nightmare! I thought my harddrive was in the wrong format and so it wouldn't read but finally it did and it all worked out! I just went to the back and sat down with the other missionaries and let out like the biggest sigh of my life! It was just soooo stressful! I think I aged like a year! But we finally made it through and then the rest of the day was great so I truly have a testimony that God rewards us for going through trials. :)

  Anyway just loving the life! I have a super awesome district! It is way fun being able to be with Elder Muncy again! And Sister Jackson as well! It's pretty crazy because she is going home at the end of this transfer and we came into the mission together! I'm going to be taking my MTC sisters to the airport which I think will be really weird for me! It's kinda strange starting to become like the older person in the mission. It's annoying because I feel like I'm supposed to be some sort of example for these younger missionaries but I have just felt so under-qualified my entire mission to do all this sort of stuff! It's really just a testimony that God makes up the rest!

Love you all!

Meeting the US Ambassador to Albania!

Week 60

April 4, 2016

 Hello! From my own private computer, ya i know right it's ridiculous! But true. Anyway it has been a crazy week but it is starting to slow down!

  To start off with last week was pretty crazy, I got the call that I would be going AP and then the next day I got pretty dang sick and stayed that way! It kinda took the glamour out of transfers but beyond that I wasn't even feeling well enough to pack for myself so Elder Anderson was awesome and really helped me out!

  Anyway Tuesday came around and I was still feeling pretty sick but we had to go to Tirana and get transfered so we loaded up the car as best we could and took off (I later realized I forgot a bunch of stuff but I was just not in a state to remember everything). So we got to Tirana and the craziness began! Just so many missionaries to deal with and I was in charge of getting everyone where they were supposed to be and making sure they didn't just sit around in the office. Luckily Elder Befus knew I wasn't feeling well and really helped me out with everything. I felt bad because I just wanted to put on a good face and make everyone think I was doing alright and everyone just assumed I was super overwhelmed with all the AP stuff and I just told them I was tired! Luckily we got everything done and everyone got out safely!

  That evening was super awesome because we got to hang out with the missionaries that were going home and have dinner with them and the Weidamnn's homemade meal!! It was so awesome, the missionaries going home really had such great testimonies. Elder Rasband was one of them who I really love! He stayed the night at our house and then we had to wake up at 1am to take the missionaries to the airport and send them off so that was brutal! It was so crazy seeing missionaries going back to America! Then went back home got a little more sleep and it was back to the craziness! 

  We were trying to get all these fliers out for general conference because it was the first time being translated live into Albanian so we had to get those out to the other missionaries!

  Thursday was super fun because we picked up the new missionaries!! Man that was a cool experience! It made me feel super old. Actually since becoming AP it has given me such a different view of missionaries and missionary work. I just look at it sooo differently than before because I know so much more. I feel much more conscious of the other missionaries and how they are feeling and what is going on in their head! Something I never really thought I would have. Just very interesting how different this is already making me. The responsibility really is kinda heavy! It really sucks knowing things and not being able to tell anyone or anything it is super hard especially because I'm soo used to being the last one to know things and being able to talk to everyone about it! Anyway back to the new missionaries coming in it was hilarious! Just realizing that was me and trying to be super positive about everything! They are all so excited to start working. Taking them out to street contact for the first time was way cool. They just had no idea what was coming and got the full experience! It was fun having them stay at our house and listening to them talk about how excited they were.

  This week was conference so for Saturday and Sunday we were combined with 2nd ward and it was way cool going back and seeing everyone! It was also cool because they actually remembered me!   I was so tired during general conference from all the running around we've been doing and it was all in Albanian so I've  downloaded all the talks on my computer so I can listen to them in english and really take them in.

  To close things off, my companion Elder Befus is awesome! He is from American Fork, Utah and is super cool. I think we are going to get along really well. We already have had a super fun time together, but we have been so busy it's been tough to really take the time to get to know each other! It was interesting because we were talking and he said he was really excited for this transfer and to serve with me because he heard I was a hard worker and would push him and it made me think like dang that is how other missionaries are seeing me. Not really making me get a big head or anything but kinda made me think I need to live up this and show that I'm deserving of what of done on my mission so far. 

It's interesting because I've been serving in areas that are "removed" from the rest of the mission for the last 9 months where I've never really been with the majority of the other missionaries and now I'm right in the middle of EVERYTHING so it's just a very different change!

  I apologize this is such a long email with so much random stuff I'm just trying to give you all a little taste of what my week has been like! A lot of juggling stuff in my head trying to remember everything that needs to get done and failing! I'm super happy though, I'm around great members, get to be around President more, get to be around other missionaries more, and get to do some good work here in Tirana.  It's going to be a great transfer! Anyway, love you all! Bye!

Adam and his new companion, Elder Befus.