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!

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!