Feet hurting/street contacting. :)

October 24, 2016

 So it was an interesting week this week for sure! We had a lot of street contacting time and I was like oh boy how did I survive all day street contacting everyday in Prishtina! I really don't know how that was my favorite time in the mission considering how tough the work was but I think it was definitely just how much the Lord helped us. Like there is no way I could have worked that hard without some extra strength! It was good though, there is a good feeling about getting to bed and your feet just hurt because you have been walking around so much talking to people! We have been planning so many lessons that just don't show up it's a little tough.

  Thursday was kinda crazy - I gave my last training as AP! I didn't even realize till after I finished too! It was a training for the district leaders and it was really great. They are an awesome group of missionaries. That's one thing I definitely feel I have improved on since being AP is giving training's and just public speaking in general.  It's still not something I really enjoy doing but I've done it enough that I don't feel like I'm going to throw up every time I stand up there! :) 

  Then Thursday night we started an exchange with the South Zone Leaders and I stayed here with Elder Farnsworth. It was super awesome! Its' been a super long time since I have been on exchange alone with him so it was sweet being able to talk to him. We got to meet with this one guy a second time who is way cool and really believes in Jesus and he says that if he feels that this is the direction that Jesus wants him to go then he is ready to follow it. So I really hope he keeps reading the Book of Mormon and praying because it'll definitely get him there! 

  We also have this investigator named E. who is super awesome. We met him street contacting and he was just a super friendly guy and we have met him twice since then! He talks a ton and tells a lot of pretty crazy stories! I really love meeting with him though because he is honestly such a happy positive guy. Like he prayed and his whole prayer was just thanking God for letting him be so happy and giving him so much! It's awesome because honestly there aren't too many people like that. He has not had an easy life but just works super hard and tries to help other people out and things have just worked out for him!

  Church was pretty great yesterday! This RM just got back from his mission this week from England and he is already called as our ward mission leader! He seems like an awesome guy and I'm super excited to have a ward mission leader again so hopefully we'll see some good stuff come out of that!  I have 2 Sundays left in 4th ward! It's going to be kinda rough to leave to be honest. I've really put down some roots here and grown pretty comfortable, feels like home!

Well, that's it for now.  Have a great week!  Love you all!!

Work

Së pari do ta permbaj emrin e Sonilas qe nuk do te me ngacmoje më. HA! Te thashe qe do beja!

October 17, 2016

 So this week was pretty awesome because we got way more time working in our area so I was super happy about that, we now actually have a few people we are working with that are solid! 

Also one of the best parts of this week, yesterday was the year mark for B's baptism! Pretty awesome, I'm way excited to be able to go to school with him when I get home!!

I don't know if I have talked about this before but missionaries seem to be magnets for crazy people, which makes for some really interesting experiences! It's especially fun because there are some that seem to turn up wherever you are and lots of missionaries know the same ones! There is this member from Shkodër who popped out of nowhere this week here in Tirana, it was really fun talking to him though, he is hilarious he was off to go visit a friend in jail so he hasn't changed much since last time I met him. I'm going to miss crazy people for sure, I remember when I first got here they used to make me super uncomfortable. I just love them because the spice things up!! 

We also did an exchange with the Tirana zone leaders which was a lot of fun I went with elder Anderson so it was like back in the days of lezhe, it was a lot of fun talking about all the hilarious stuff that happened. We had a super good time together and I never go to that side of Tirana so that was a lot of fun as well. It's almost like a different city.

Other than that just pretty excited that we are finally getting some work going. We found this new area in 4th ward that is this big boulevard like Pristina that was hidden back in this neighborhood that missionaries haven't really been to and we are having a ton of success there. It's awesome being somewhere that not everyone knows who you are! 

Anyway I'm doing awesome sorry this is a little shorter I'm writing it on the senior couples iPad so that's why! 

Love you all, have a great week! 

Inspiring week

October 10, 2016

Alright so big email for the week! We had a pretty awesome week. We had missionary trainings wednesday through friday and then saturday and sunday was conference so lots of inspiring messages this week!  

One thing I noticed that was kinda interesting for me is we have really been working on taking EVERY opportunity possible to share the gospel, like we always talk about talking to everyone and for the majority of my mission that has meant when you are street contacting always try to be stopping people but now I'm realizing it is literally talk to everyone like when you are in line at the grocery store or waiting for a cross walk light or stuff like that. And it's funny because I never have considered myself a shy contactor but in situations like that I feel so awkward! So even after 2 years of this I still have a comfort zone! I guess there is always improvement. Just when you think you have something down you try doing something new and it totally changes it! 

 

  Something super cool for me this week is just lately I have really been thinking about how important home teaching is. Like if you don't understand why we do home teaching come see the church in Albania. It would just help with so much and I really feel I have gained a testimony of the importance of that and then Elder Holland gave that awesome talk about it during the priesthood session and so it was just cool to have that added on to the feelings I have been having lately. Like what a genius way to help the church, having all the members just looking after each other! It's so great!

  Conference in general was awesome! I really liked how two of the major themes I saw were repentance and having joy during hard times. There were some great talks, I loved Elder Ballards talk about where else would we go. I read a talk kinda like that a while ago just things to think about before leaving the church and it's just so true. Like where else can you possibly go for such awesome things! If anything just hang in there for that and eventually your testimony will come back!

  Also super cool news of the week - B. is officially coming to BYU!!!! He'll be getting to America in December! It'll be so sweet! 

As for me I'm doing awesome life continues to be great, especially because it's getting colder! 

Love you all!

Put your phones away! :)

October 3, 2016


  Well this week was insane!!!!! We had no time in our area just because we were going around all over the place taking care of the transfers, the trainees, and the new cities. I am so tired it's crazy. The worst is when you wake up and you still feel like you need to go to bed!  haha  

 So obviously transfers were this week, I'm still with Elder Rogers as AP, it's kinda funny because in our district everyone is training except us so they are all helping their trainees and it just makes me feel even older in the mission.  

  So after Wednesday morning my group is now the oldest in the mission which is pretty strange. Elder Chingas had his family come and pick him up and he has a 17 year old brother too and I was like woooohhh this is weird.  Also I got to take Elder Befus who was my companion to the airport which was kinda funny because we had been together taking other people to the airport.

  Then the next day the big group of 20 new missionaries finally got here. It was all kinda crazy getting everything ready for them and I knew it was going to be a lot of missionaries to handle but when they all stepped out of the airport,  I was just like ohhh crap...there are so many of them!   It was so crazy trying to keep track of all them, Elder Rogers and I actually thought we lost one of them at one point so that was awkward. Anyway I was getting super stressed out trying to figure out where everyone needed to be and what needed to happen which I kinda feel bad about, I know I need to be better and just take some deep breaths and realize it'll all be ok. As it always does with the Lords work everything worked out actually surprisingly well. They are a great group of missionaries. It was interesting choosing who would be training them because I'm used to getting to know them a lot better before we have to decide! So we really had to rely on the Spirit and just how we felt about everything but I really think it went right.

  It's definitely something that I have learned a lot about on my mission is how God speaks to us and guides us. Like I never expected to see a vision or anything like that but I have found that a lot of the times a prompting for me is much more subtle than I could ever have imagined and I've been taking way too much credit for myself. I have found when something just really makes sense to me or it just seems like it would work or anything along those lines that really it's not me but it's the Spirit. God speaks to our hearts and our minds! It's brilliant! He can help us out without us really even noticing it. I think about when I chose what school I would go to. I really wasn't sure where I wanted to go and BYU wasn't exactly the top of my list but I thought about it a lot and probably should have prayed about it a lot more but one day I just thought you know I can see myself at BYU and I went for it and just felt relieved like I had made the right choice. I always just kinda assumed wow I'm so good at puzzling things out by myself. But how could you deny the hand of God in that? Especially seeing how great the decision turned out for me. I loved my first semester and I love that school. I felt like this was really where I needed to be.

  Another thing that I have really noticed this past little bit is the problem of having your phone out at church. It's starting to seem like a real problem to me. You see the solid RMs come to church and then they just sit in the back and play on their phone the whole time and think they have already learned it all!  Or recent converts texting the whole time and you know that they couldn't tell you anything about what happened at church or what was said! You might as well just not go! I really don't want to be that person! I just want to be more detached from my phone in general and I know it's easy to say out here but it's a goal I have. But really people, we need to have more respect for the sacred things. Could you imagine Christ coming and talking to everyone and you have a bunch of people looking down at their phones texting!! So that's my latest sermon! Don't use your phone at church except for scriptures!!!!!!! I'm a believer in electronic scriptures used properly, it's a great tool!

  Anyway Love yall living in the life, this week is looking to be another crazy/busy one but it will all work out as usual! 

See ya!