21 years old tomorrow!

August 29, 2016

  Pretty great week this week! First of all district meeting was awesome! I love our district right now and Elder Crandall is my district leader which is awesome. It was way fun being able to be back with him. He gave an awesome training about prayer and for part of it we read the intercessory prayer of the Savior and it was so powerful reading it out loud and really listening to it and how he prayed. I think one of the most interesting things is how God has blessings waiting for us that are conditional upon us asking for them. Think about how many blessings we miss out on just because we don't ask! Of course that doesn't mean we ask for ridiculous things thinking we will get them but realistically God wants us to be happy, he wants us to have those righteous desires!  

  We also started preparing for transfers and man it was crazy looking at that transfer board! I've never seen that many missionaries to plan for! It really seems like we are doubling the mission! It's going to be so exciting to see what happens to the mission. All the missionaries that are coming in when I leave have already been called too. It's weird thinking I'll never meet them!

  This week we went with President to a beach close to Lushnje because there was a couple getting baptized there! I love the members in Lushnje, they are awesome. It's super fun being able to take road trips with President, I asked him about Cameron and I flying home together and he said he would talk to the mission department so that hopefully it'll happen! 

There was also some crazy flooding in Tirana this week! We were in our car and the water was up over the tires! It sounded like we were in a boat with waves and stuff! I've never seen anything like it! I thought we were going to get stuck but it only lasted like an hour then it died down.

  Something that I really am happy that I have improved on since being out here on my mission is being happy/positive and actually looking it! I tried to make it a goal to always have a smile on my face and just be happy and it really is a choice. It's so cool to have people actually ask you why you are so happy all the time! One of the bishops daughters is 15 years old and speaks english perfectly and is super funny calls me sunshine and butterflies because she says I'm always happy. So quite a difference from "with a smile on my face"!

  Last week Sunday was pretty crazy and we were really trying to get people into church and this one guy was lost and kept saying he was coming and so we kept having to leave and we actually ended up missing 4th Ward sacrament and when I realized that I was just so disappointed. It actually surprised me and made me realize how much the sacrament meant to me. I knew that I was going to be able to go down to 2nd Ward really quick and get it but it still was just kinda sad. I have realized that the time that I have taken the sacrament is the closest I can get to the feelings that I have in the Temple. Those few minutes when the sacrament is passed has kinda become my own little time in the Celestial Room. I've noticed as I try every week to only think about the Savior during that short time that I have really come to understand and value the sacrament more. Again one of those things I wish I would have understood before my mission as the sacrament used to just be that time that I fought the urge to check my phone.

  Something that I have begun to think about now that I have reached this point in the mission where I kinda "have it down". Like I know what I'm doing in most situations is its given me the opportunity to think about the WHY behind what I do. Not like the why of why I came on my mission but why do I give commitments to people? Why do I try so hard to get them to read the Book of Mormon? Or come to church, why is the message of the restoration often the first message I share with people? Why do I recite to them Joseph Smiths experience with his first vision? Of course the easy answer is it brings them closer to God, but one of the tough things for me is that it's not quantifiable it all works different for different people. It's all just too simple to be honest! Almost as if God uses small and simple things to bring about great changes (scripture come to your mind) that's been my conclusion of why. These things are all so simple. So simple they confound the wise and those who try to look at it intellectually! But an unlearned man will say I will read it and he will be changed forever! We over complicate things so often and it really doesn't need to be! God beats us all in complexity and yet we think His road is too simple to be right. The crazy thing is it works! As I've been talking to people now I have just been saying why NOT try this? Really though you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Ya it sounds crazy but it really does work and there are millions of other people that can tell you about how it's worked for them! God is good! That's all I have to say! I've really come to appreciate Him more and more as I've drawn closer to Him.

  Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes! 21 tomorrow!! Going to go party for sure! 

Love you all! Have a great week!

Coming of age in the 21st Century

August 22, 2016

 Alright so to start this email off I wanted to post a correspondence between me and President that made me feel pretty good, every week we email President and just talk to him about how our week went and experiences we are having so he can better help us and so this is what I said to him: 

"I've been thinking a lot about that story in Preach my Gospel about Heavenly Father being proud of Jesus and how I want Him to be proud of me too and it makes me wonder how God will introduce me to people. Like if he would say "this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased" it really makes me want to live up to the standard where I would merit that introduction it calls for working as hard as you can though, not perfection because he wants to say that about each of us!"

to which he responded:

"What a wonderful thought and I pray that you will always remember it, because a loving Heavenly Father has prompted you thorough the spirit to pay attention to this experience, so that you can say:"Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again." Elder Guymon print out your email you sent me and put it in a place where you always will be reminded of how much you desire that the Father will introduce you as:"Beloved son in whom I am well pleased." Well elder Guymon I can surely say:"This is my beloved assistant in whom I am well pleased." Thank you for not giving up when the work gets hard and putting your trust in the Lord."

 

  Basically President is the most awesome guy ever, he honestly has helped me to learn so much, it seems like every week something else happens that is just a confirmation that he was definitely meant to be my mission president! So ya that was an awesome spiritually uplifting experience that I had!

  I took Elder Eddings and Sister Ariza home this week! It was pretty sad, Elder Eddings is such an awesome guy I'm going to miss him a ton. It was weird saying bye to him because he was just like "well I'll see you in a few months!" AHH! Kinda weird to even think about. It's comforting knowing I can see these awesome people again though! #goUtah Which I guess made taking Sister Ariza home extra sad because the chances are pretty low that I'll be seeing her again! Lucky us that we live in todays times with modern technology!

  I also wanted to explain what Summers do to Albania, it makes missionary work pretty rough. Basically end of July and all of August everyone goes on vacation to the "plazh" (beach) and all the cities just become skeletons of their former selves. Like church attendance plummets (except in Kosovo which is a land locked country so I didn't notice last year) and pretty much all the numbers go down. It just gets so hot here that people just don't go outside in the afternoons they just sleep and then head out in the evenings. So that's just another little struggle that we are dealing with right now. Everyone is just like ya I'm not in Tirana right now call me at like the end of August. All the members that do still come to church are all straight brown! Then I'm just here like well my back hasn't seen the sun for 2 years! It's great though just another interesting thing about the place I serve!

  Something that I realized this week which kinda took me by surprise was that I honestly love the Albanian people. To this moment I can't believe I'm saying that! A year ago I wouldn't have believed I would ever say that, not that I hate Albanians or anything of course not but I'm just so immature/impatient/prideful that I just used to get so frustrated with the people I served all the time! But this week we taught a couple people who just didn't really seem like they were totally understanding our message and were going off about all their problems which is when I would normally just tune them out and roll my eyes and stuff but I just realized that to some extent I understood them. Like I'm not saying I'm Christ or anything and have perfect compassion for anyone but I truly believe that as I have served these people I have been given just a small view of how He sees them. I really don't think there would have been any other way for me to feel like that if I hadn't just come here and tried it for myself, really tried to serve the people as best I can and help bring light and hope into their lives because I know I need it every bit as much as they do. I still know that I have a lot to learn and a long way to go but I never could have imagined that I would feel this way honestly. I keep seeing so many things that I know I needed to learn while I am out here. I wish there was a nice little matrix computer program that you could just plug yourself into and you could download all these experiences and all this knowledge into your brain in an instant but it doesn't work like that. I could have never reached this point if I didn't work for it. You truly have to go though it all to be able to learn some of things that you will learn on your mission. I just don't think there is any other way!

  Anyway maybe this email was a bit self reflective but it was a big deal for me! If yall don't want to read the new hit novel about coming of age in the 21'st century then you don't have to read it! haha 

Love you all have a great week! Try not to miss me too much while you are surfing in Mexico!

Another crazy week!

August 15, 2016

 Alright so I had a super crazy week, like crazier than usual! 

To start off with something interesting is that our whole mission started getting these weird anti mormon texts from some guy who signed his texts as "Amulek B" just sent a bunch of anti mormon material and even quoted some stuff from the temple which was not good! We have kind of an idea of who it is but we just had all the missionaries block the number and not respond to the texts. It was super strange though! 

  Also I did an exchange with Elder Mero this week which was way fun! We did it on his birthday! I I'm glad that we were together early in my mission so we could keep doing stuff together throughout the mission, it makes things fun! We actually had a ton of success together for our area which was awesome! Getting the team back together!! 

On our way back from the exchange though Elder Rogers and I had a pretty crazy experience!  We were driving back from Fier and we were going and all of a sudden this triple car crash happened right in front of us so I slammed on the brakes but we were going pretty fast it wasn't going to be enough time so I swerved super hard and we almost went into a ditch so I started swerving the other way and we honestly had like one wheel off the ground into the ditch like straight up almost rolled it but we pulled out and just kept going! It was soooooo crazy! Like adrenaline pumping hard!! Rogers was like man we should have just rolled the car, that would have been an awesome story! We are all good though! Definitely happy for the hand of the Lord there!! I have never been that close to a crash before and hopefully I won't be again!

  Then we just had some more changes to transfers that we had to prepare for and it was nuts. Like we didn't even have the transfers officially decided until the day we were making the transfer calls! And some people even changed during the calling process! Whew I got done with this week just exhausted with all this stuff going on up in my head! With the beginning of this next transfer I decided to set some "transfer resolutions" to improve some stuff so I'm excited for this good new start.

  Life is still hot here but it's great just getting out and talking to everyone about our Savior!! It's just a super rewarding work honestly. Like you come home exhausted but you know that tomorrow you are going to want to get right back out. I know it's like classic missionary moment to say this but I wish I was better at this stuff when I was back home. Like we have been playing basketball in the mornings and there is a kid that has been playing with us and it's not like we were proselyting at the time or anything but we just invited him to come to an activity with us and it was super normal and a lot of fun. Just makes me realize how lame I was!

  So ya awesome week, still sweating up a storm! Hope yall are enjoying boating and stuff! Love you! Ciao!

Power of the Book of Mormon

August 8, 2016

Well to start off this week, shout out to my 2nd companion Elder Holm who just got married on Friday. Super bummed that I wasn't able to be there but what do you do!  

  So last monday after emailing we went over to President Weidmann's house and had a celebration for Switzerlands Independence day. It was a lot of fun! His daughter came with her 2 year old son who was super funny! He is only 2 and is fluent (i mean as fluent as a 2 year old can be) in English, German, and French. I was like dannngggggg!! I had a lot of fun playing with him, but anyways for the celebration we had a classic meal they do every year for it from switzerland which consisted of bread, lunch meats, cheese, and yogurt. Then President told us a little about the history and we sang the national anthem. We also played a matching game about the difference in words from High German and Swiss German. Then we lit of some fireworks! It was awesome!! Fireworks here in Albania are pretty nuts.

  This week we started playing basketball in the morning a couple times a week and it has been a lot of fun. I haven't gotten up and moving like you have to for basketball in a long time, kinda sad how quick I got tired! We also played with Elder DaBell who is the senior Elder that works here in the office and he is awesome!

  We had a super awesome lesson this week with S. (the older guy we baptized last transfer) and we started talking to him and he brought up that he is in 2nd Nephi in the book of mormon and I was like that is weird I swear you were further than that last time I checked, turns out he has already started on his 2nd time through!! He is doing so awesome! He's someone that I have seen a huge change in from the first time we met, and he's sooo quiet about it. It's just soooo easy to tell when someone actually reads the book of mormon and when they don't. Like there are great members here but it's very obvious which ones read and which don't and really that is the difference maker, the Book of Mormon. It's really comforting to know that God has given us such an easy way to keep our testimony because sometimes life looks so hard and you just don't want to mess up but you can know if you make time to read the book of mormon every day that will keep you on the path! I love it!

  Something kinda interesting is I was reading through Preach my Gospel this week and I read a story about an investigator that read about how God introduced his son as "This is my Beloved son in whom I am well pleased" and it really hit him how proud God was of Jesus and how he wanted Heavenly Father to be proud of him too. It made me think how would God introduce me to people? Would I be someone that he could say my beloved son in whom I am well pleased? Obviously we aren't going to be perfect but when you think about how much Heavenly Father loves us even when we try our best and fail he is still proud of us I think. The question is are we putting in everything we need to to really merit that title? Because really it's up to us. Anyway just kinda food for thought!

  I have been so exhausted this week, and just kinda this transfer so far. Everyone always told me that the longer you are on your mission the more tired you get and I always just thought they were being babies and making excuses but holy cow am I tired!! And it's one of those tireds that sleep doesn't really fix. Lucky as you get more and more tired on your mission you also learn how to work harder and harder and so you don't let it effect you but I think I'm going to go into coma when I get back home!

   Our work continues to be tough here. It's a little frustrating, it seems like all last transfer the work just came so easy here in Tirana and all of a sudden we just hit this wall. Like we are working hard getting out there and we just can't really seem to come up with solid work right now. It's all good though I know it's good to have hard times every once in a while. We'll just keep working!

  Hope yall are doing awesome! I just realized this week that I turn 21 this month so that's pretty weird. I asked a little kid how old he thought I was this week and he said 30 so that was exciting! Anyway, love yall!

August 1, 2016

Alright so pretty awesome week this week, I feel like I don't have a ton to fill you in on but I'll give it a go! 

To start off the week we took Elder Rigby to the airport which was super weird. Each time I go to the airport now it's missionaries that I'm closer and closer to. It's hard not to feel like your saying goodbye forever even though likely I'll see most of them again #BYU!! Anyway Rigby was a super awesome missionary in Macedonia and I'm going to miss him a ton! 

  Also we have been teaching this awesome family over skype and they have been progressing well and then all of a sudden the mission president in Germany wanted them to get baptized this week and we still had a ton to teach them so we were going to haul through the lessons but we called the sisters on tuesday and they were like "Hey we have news... The family is now back in Albania!" turns out they got sent back here and so hopefully we will be able to find them and do the baptism here.

  We had interviews with President this week and it was awesome. Honestly I'm sooo lucky to have President Weidmann as my President. He is just a huge example and such an awesome guy. One of the best parts about being AP is just spending more time with him. He's been talking a lot to us missionaries about safety and listening to the spirit to keep us safe because of how crazy the world is getting- kinda sad that it even has to be mentioned. We also got to start doing transfer meetings this week which was fun! I always start getting really excited for next transfer but it's still a bit off! Tonight we are having a special family home evening for the Swiss Independence day so I'm pretty excited for that!

  Probably one of the best parts of my week was Saturday evening. There is this super awesome guy investigating the church in Prishtina right now who is literally named I. and I had a lesson with him and he accepted to be baptized on the 30th of July and I told him I would call him on that day. So I called him and he was super excited and we talked for a while. He is way funny, he told me I had to let Farnworth go to a concert with him or he wouldn't get baptized. He had to move his date a couple weeks just to deal with his family because he told them and they all freaked out. 

Then of course while I was calling Kosovo I had to call B. and talk to him for a while. He has finished his mission papers and is going to get interviewed by President this week so he can submit his papers!!! So awesome. He was solid when he got baptized but his testimony has grown even more since then! I remember when he first got baptized we talked about how he had to come to church at least every other week because he would be in Peja and stuff and now Saturday night talking to him he was telling me how he is worried that he might miss one day of church and trying to think of how he can keep going. He is so awesome and a huge example to me. He told me I had to wait for him to get home from his mission before I get married and I told him I wouldn't make any promises and he just said "its ok I know its hard for missionaries not to get married after they get home" I died laughing. It always is just a huge spiritual boost talking to him. I'm sure you all might be sick of how much I talk about B. but he just means so much to me!

   This week was awesome, we went tracting out in a village and had some pretty good success so hopefully we will be able to get some good work going! Love you all!

We all went bowling for Pday!

Lushnje!

July 25, 2016


 Alright so this week was super crazy as usual! We have been running around a lot but it's been great. 
One of the cool things that we have been doing is we have been helping some missionaries in Germany that have Albanian investigators that are refugees so we have been doing skype lessons! It's cool being able to teach them and help the missionaries out in Germany and these Albanians seems super solid, it makes me wish they would move back to Albania! 

   We also got to meet with our really cool investigator J. again this week and it was awesome, he is a super happy guy and really loves the lessons. He isn't sure about a baptismal date right now but I think he will get baptized!

  The crazy thing this week is we were in the middle of a skype lesson when I got a call from President and one of the missionaries was going to be going to Germany for some medical stuff so we would be in a tripanionship for the weekend! Their area had a ton of work and had some solid baptismal dates so we just went down and spent the weekend in Lushnje! It was a ton of fun. I honestly loved it there. It is a small city with a ton of surrounding villages and there is just a ton of farms and stuff. It honestly reminded me of Idaho! Going out to peoples houses and seeing all their gardens and chickens and stuff was so great! There was a cool vibe to the city for sure! We also got to be with Elder Harlin which was super fun! He is an awesome Elder! So that was my first time living in a city south of Tirana! I actually liked it too!

  There were a lot of super poor people there though. Such a different style of living than Tirana. They have next to nothing and everything seems to be rundown but you always see the book of mormon on their table and it's just awesome to see that it doesn't matter what kind of circumstances you are in, the book of mormon can help you!

  It was also super nice being back in a small branch! Like I love Tirana and all the members but you don't feel as "needed" as you do in smaller areas and it feels much less like a family! After that first Sunday in Lushnje I felt like I was more of a piece of that branch than I was to the 4th ward which is kinda sad! 

  With all the moving around though there has just been so much in my head all week and man it has been stressful! It always seems like everything just happens all it once, it can't come just bit by bit. Like you'll have a normal Monday-Thursday then all of a sudden the weekend hits and everything changes! That's one of the few things that I won't miss about being AP is just having to have so much stuff going on in your head at once. To be honest I probably make it worse worrying about it, but really there is always so much going on, I don't know how President does it!

  Life is awesome though! Once again going to have a crazy week! We are taking Elder Rigby home so that'll be sad. Hope you all have a great week! Go jump in the pool for me because that is basically what happens every time I walk outside! Love you! Have a great week!

Lushnje!