Road trips and picking olives

September 26, 2016


Alright super busy week with just a ton of work getting everything prepared for transfers! It's going to be insane next week so hopefully I'm still alive by the end of it! The biggest thing this week was transfers! So we are officially opening 3 cities this transfer! Pogradec, Korca, and Kumanavo! It's so exciting!! We took a road trip last week with President and Sister Weideman to go check them out and they are way cool cities I'm super jealous that I don't have more time in my mission to go to them!  It was an awesome time being with President and his wife and we had such a great time traveling and just spending time with them.  I am so blessed to have President Weideman as my mission president!  With all the new missionaries coming in and with practically everyone missionary training - the mission is going to be so interesting. I will actually be staying on as assistant which is exciting. I guess President wasn't ready to kick me out yet! It'll be really fun being assistant with all of these new missionaries! 

  Kinda crazy that I'm entering into my last transfer! I'm excited though. As time has gone on in my mission I've really come to view things a lot differently and I have a gained an appreciation for things I thought I would never enjoy. And just really understanding the reason why I'm doing the things I do. I was trained to just put my head down and work as hard as I can which was awesome for me and I definitely needed it but it's easy to do that and never really end up figuring out why you're doing it because you're just so busy going through the motions and it's kinda embarrassing how long it has taken me to figure out the reason that I'm doing all this. I love God. Honestly He is so great and it's almost embarrassing to me how easy He has made my life. He has given me so much. I haven't done anything to earn it. And to think that I had other friends before this life that weren't born in to the church and have been waiting for me really just pumps me full of desire to talk to everyone. I'm so glad that I was able to meet B. and God could show me that this is why I am here! For people like this. I know that I still owe so much to God and it's going to be a lifetime of trying to pay Him back but in the mean time I can enjoy street contacting and getting rejected and having people not show up to lessons because each step just brings me closer to Christ! It's amazing how it all works. He really is the Master Architect. We just are too caught up in ourselves all the time to really think about it. Like this week we had to do a lot of office work preparing for this big group of missionaries and we went out street contacting for a bit after not having done it for a while and it was just so much fun and so exciting talking to everyone about the gospel! Its so cool!!

  We had a service project this week and we went with the sisters out to a lady's house who was MEGA poor. Like there is a cow that lives in her house and it's just decrepit. Some of the worst living conditions I've seen. So we went out there and picked olives, I felt like I was back in the New Testament times. But she fed us an awesome lunch. It's definitely something I have gained an appreciate for is just how ridicululously spoiled I am. I definitely need to use better all the gifts I have been given just so much potential wasted. I really hope I can just keep that in mind and not fall into that Book of Mormon pride cycle!! 

  Anyway next week will definitely be interesting so I should have some good stories! 

Love y'all Çiao!

APs road trippin with President and Sister Weidemann

Selfie with Sister Weidemann

Service project picking olives

Prishtina!

September 19, 2016

 Alright so pretty crazy week! I don't have a ton of time so I'm going to have to just write quick! 

Super awesome this week we got to go up to Prishtina and do an exchange there but on the way we stayed the night at a new senior couples house in gjakova and it was fun getting to know them and seeing how excited they were to start their missions! I also got to talk to the hydricks for a while which is always a treat! I love them so much! 

So then we went to Prishtina and it was my first time having a full day to work there since I served there! Man I forgot what a full day of street contacting was like! It was way fun though. Being up their always just has a cool feel. The best part was I got to see B! It had been forever since I saw him last! He's doing so awesome! It was sad though how I could barely understand him in Albanian. I just have lost the ear for understanding Gheg and so I really struggle to understand people when they speak up there! I hate losing a skill I used to have! 

  Other than that we didn't have a ton of time in our area but we were able to meet with some awesome people! We have a full week this week so we should be able to get some serious work done! We also are doing transfer calls on Saturday AHHHHHH! It's going to be insane!! 

Anyway I apologize but I really don't have much to say. I bet I'll have more next week!

Tri-panionship

September 12, 2016

 So I don't actually have my planner with me which means I don't have all my notes on things to write about right now so we'll see if I can put something together! 

First of all on Tuesday we had a rebaptism! It was pretty interesting! This girl was baptized when she was 8 but never had her records made some how and she is 12 now and was totally active but had no sort of membership documents so we had to rebaptize her just so she could have the records and she asked me to do it! I'm always happy to be able to use my priesthood so it was great! I have gained a huge testimony of the priesthood on my mission. Like obviously I have a long way to go but I don't think I really valued it as much as I should have before my mission. It's such an incredible responsibility and opportunity! I remember the 1st blessing I ever gave in the MTC it was a really special experience for me. It was a sister who was really sick and having a lot of health problems and in the blessing I felt that I could say that she would be able to serve her full mission and that the health problems wouldn't stop her. Then like a week later she actually got worse and she was going to have to go home and I was like "dang why did I say that" kinda doubting myself but I prayed a lot to have faith in the blessing. It ended up that she was able to stay on her mission and actually extended and stayed even longer! I never talked about it but it was just a huge testimony from the Lord just kinda showing he's got my back if I am prompted to say something in a blessing! 

  We also got to start our tripanionship with Elder Crandall! It's been awesome! He is such a funny guys it's going to be an awesome couple weeks with him! We have such a busy schedule ahead of us preparing for the end of this month we are going to do a ton of fun stuff together! Like this week we went to all the way to Vlore to clear out a house! I've really come to love road trips on my mission they are so much fun!

  Stake Conference was this weekend and it was a lot of fun. We had a lot of preparing for that! I actually translated the whole thing which was exhausting but a lot of fun! I really enjoy translating, it's a good challenge. Of course as always my favorite part was just being able to see all the great people across the mission! I got to have my famous President Teli hug! Man those things are to die for! Sadly B. wasn't able to come but even better he got accepted to BYU for a semester so we are going to be going to school together!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was freaking out like I'm going to go to college with my recent convert it's going to be soooo sweet! 

  One thing that I have been thinking about this week is how cool it is to see members here that have been raised in the church. Yesterday in church when we were singing hymns I just noticed a young woman who was born into the church and just singing the song without looking at the book at all and I just thought about how awesome it was that she was raised in a home centered on the gospel! Just seeing these traditions being formed in their lives, that's the missionary dream right there! To start the generations that are in the church! A young man that just got his mission call shared his testimony in stake conference and showed us his first personal book of mormon that he received when he was 9 and in it he had written Elder with his last name and now he made it! SO COOL! I love this church it's awesome. We sure are a peculiar people but there is no better organization on this earth - if anything else that is a testimony to the truthfulness of this!

  This week I'll have some sweet stories for you! Going on a roadtrip with President and then heading up to Prishtina! I will get to see B.!!!! 

Love you all! Have a great week!

Another busy week

September 5, 2016

So my Birthday was this week, Wooo! It was fun stuff, we played settlers with the sisters during lunch to celebrate! Not much else you can do really! It was awesome though, Elder Mero got me a pretty sweet gift. And some members got me some stuff so that was cool! To be honest I'm not really sure what to tell you about this week! 

  I guess to start off we had a super awesome day on Tuesday which was definitely prepared by the Lord to help us train at zone conference! We had a couple people in the first lesson bring friends and so we were able to essentially double our "efficiency" at finding new people to teach and we were planning on training about that kinda stuff so pretty obvious hand of the Lord there! I also have discovered I have definitely gotten better at planning trainings as I have been on my mission like I still don't think that I'm very good at all but I can get by. There are some missionaries that give such amazing district meetings! I love how they are able to do that! Luckily my salvation isn't based off how well I can plan trainings, I just try my best!

  It all went pretty well though. I definitely felt the spirit strong while we were teaching the missionaries it really seems like these trainings are so much just for me personally than for the missionaries I just hope it helps them too! We talked about while you are out and about doing missionary work to just use the time you have to be the most efficient. Like not trying to work harder but just work better! It's really just the smarter way to do it since you'll be tired either way! President talked a lot about how we need to pray more and use the book of mormon more. Which I can always improve on! 

  Then... got to go to PRISHTINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Haha it was amazing as usual although I was sad I couldn't meet Beqir! We got to stay with Farnworth and Riepel who are just awesome! It was really fun to be up in the north zone and I got to see I. again before he went to Switzerland! He gave a testimony during the conference and gave me a shoutout for being the one to put him on a baptismal date! It's too bad he is leaving because he would be such a strength for the branch but he'll still be great! After the Conference President was like so Elders how did you feel and I just told him i felt great and he kinda laughed and said of course you feel great you are back in Prishtina!! It was funny, I honestly just love it up there so much it like makes my heart hurt! Such great memories! Its definitely a blessing to AP and to go visit every once in a while!

  So ya life is pretty great! Something exciting is that starting on Thursday I will be in a tri-panionship with Elder Crandall who was one of my companions in the MTC so I'm super excited to be with him again! He is hilarious!  I'll also be able to work with 2nd ward again for a bit so it'll be fun to go back to how it was in the beginning! Nothing else new really! Just living the life! 

Love you all have a great week!