Football, Intense Balloon Battles, and Doing Sick Stuff

Yooo what's up my fam? It's a pleasure to once again be writing to you for my weekly episode of events. It would be more of a pleasure if I got more emails from you guys, but oh well I guess. I'm not bitter. Things are great here regardless shokët e mia. Të vazhdojmë? Mirë you don't have a choice because I'm going to keep writing anyways.

As per usual, us Gjirokastër Elders, being so isolated and having such a large area, we're in many different places. We actually got to meet another referral from a Facebook ad down in Saranda and that was really sweet. He's a neat dude and we hope to continue to meet with him. You may or may not remember, but we met another referral from Saranda almost 2 months ago and haven't had any in person contact with him since... Hopefully we can continue to meet with both of them because they're both awesome dudes and it would also be great to have an excuse to drive to Saranda all the time. It's a beautiful city right on the coast with pristine blue water so we love going there. I've only been 3 times (twice on pday lol) so we gotta rack those visit counts up. Anyways, Afeis and Andi are great, are both very openminded, and now both have Book of Mormons. Cool stuff.

We also had a super exchange up in Fier this week. It was such a blast. Not only did we get to hang out with the Elders and Sisters in Fier, but we got to play football (soccer) with mEmBeRs and some other friends they have up there. If you're not familiar with our situation in Gjiro, just know that we don't quite have enough young bodies in our group to play a good game of football... meaning we pretty much have zero that would want to or are capable of doing so. It was definitely needed for me to just have some genuine physical activity as missionary work so I am counting it as a major blessing. Elder Qose is also the branch president of Fier right now so I got to see what it's like to have the responsibility of doing some good old branch work/financing and stuff. Chances are I'll have to be doing some of that stuff in the future so I'm glad I got a sneak peak even though I'd rather just focus on being a missionary haha. I've really taken not having a branch to take care of for granted because we have so many less responsibilities there. 

Balloon Battles. In pure Elders fashion, after we had finished up our language study we decided to get some brief physical activity in to wake ourselves up a little. What resulted was one of the funnest things I've ever done in my life. You know that game you play as a kid where you try to keep the air-filled balloon from touching the ground? Super fun. Now imagine that on steroids on a very competitive level with 4 Elders who have been cooped up inside a church for the last few hours. To say the least, once the sisters noticed what was happening they were very entertained. Also got some quality footage from Sister Meredith that is now shared in the album below so kudos to her. 

SICK STUFF! Take that literally. I woke up Saturday feeling like vomiting haha. After doing my best to recover in the morning with no success, we decided to go out anyways. After taking our car to a shop to get some scratches fixed we stopped for lunch at a traditional restaurant and that's where I discovered I still was not able to eat anything without my stomach getting very upset. We promptly went to a pharmacy and got some stomach medicine and returned to the house where I received a blessing and a much-needed nap. Long story short, the rest of Saturday was spent resting which didn't make me feel very great but I'm grateful for it in hindsight. 

Other fun stuff too: we have a senior couple that was supposed to go home on Monday, and they tested positive for COVID. As a result, everyone they were in direct contact with is now quarantined which includes the Fier Elders and Vlorë (almost our entire district). Since we had close contact with Fier this week as well, if they test positive then we too will have to quarantine. We are definitely praying that doesn't happen but until then the work goes on I guess. Even though I had to be vaccinated to come out here, I've been wearing a mask just in case that bug I caught is actually corona. Let's hope that wasn't the case because that'd make the vaccine kote. :/

Today was a good day as well. We stayed down here in good ol gjiro because our beloved Fier Sisters wanted to finally make it down here and see around. We're already an hour and a half away from Fier (which is the closest area to us) and the Fier sisters, until Friday, we're living in Berat which is another hour past Fier. So, with all that, they weren't allowed to come down to Gjiro because it was too far. But NOW we are mirë and we had a great time helping the sisters tour the castle and do some dank shopping in the bazaar area near the castle. Fun day for sure and we didn't have to drive 3 hours which is very nice.

I love you all! You're all the bomb.

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Një Ditë e Veçantë

 Pershenfreakindetje my dudes. This week really behet my qefi. Many moments came and went that I will remember forever. Let's get right into it shall we?

First off, Nora was baptized on Friday!!! It was such an incredible experience. It has been awesome to see her change over the last 2 months. I have just seen this light build within her as we've been teaching her and especially now that she's been baptized you can just feel that something is different now. She has embraced the Savior and we couldn't be happier for our newest member of the Gjirokastër family. :)

You may remember, that Nora's daughter was also going to be baptized. And actually, all went well and she was there with all of us the day of the baptism ready to go. However, the baptism itself was a little unorthodox you could say. We did it in a river near Gjirokastër in good ol classic fashion (because we don't have any sort of font) and two things made that a little bit more difficult. First off, the water is pretty low right now so it was only up to about mid-thigh on me (and I know it's been a while since any of you saw me so in case you forgot, I'm not tall), and on top of that, the water was very cold. I'm not exactly sure how old Nora is but I'm guessing she's at least 55 years old. Thankfully Nora herself is very short, but regardless, she didn't do very well with the water. I had to redo the baptism 4 times to get her completely under the water. After the fact, she told us that she didn't want Elona to be baptized because she was really worried about how she would do with the water. Elona has been sick as of late and she already has some health problems, so it's completely understandable that Nora would be worried about her when she herself had a lot of trouble with the baptism already. Initially we were worried that Nora wouldn't let Elona get baptized at all, but thanks to some good reasoning skills from the fluent Albanian speakers among us, we concluded on pushing back Elona's baptism until she has recovered and we are planning on having a font brought out here or even having it in a pool nearby. We hope we can get that all squared away, but who knows how it'll go. Regardless of all that surprise, the baptism was incredible and the spirit was truly felt by everyone there. It was a very special day for everyone that attended. 

And also a side note, it is pretty rare for a trainee like me to baptize. The only reason I was doing so at all, was because my companion and I would've both been able to do it. But, the unplanned occurred and I happened to be the one who baptized Nora rather than Elona... haha kinda feel like I swiped the baptism from Elder Basham since he's been teaching her for so long... Hopefully Elona will be baptized soon so that he can still have a part in that. (Not that it matters a whole ton but I still feel kinda bad rip)

The baptism was kinda the focus of our week and a lot of fun stuff came along with that. Whenever someone is baptized, they need to have a baptismal interview from the district leader just to make sure they really are ready for baptism because it's an important step. But, since I am the district leader and I have taught her, we had to have the zone leaders from Elbasan come all the way down and do it. They spent a solid 24 hours down here helping us with all things baptism-related and it was a good time. Elders Christensen and Rowley have both been here a while and have a bunch of experience under their belt so it was super cool and good for me to spend some time with each of them. Again, we've got some fun missionaries out here in Albania. 

We also heard a rumor (not confirmed yet) that the new trainees will actually be arriving a week earlier than we all expected. If that happens, they will all be here in about 3 1/2 weeks and there will for sure be some mega transfers happening. Pretty stoked to see how it turns out because pretty much every area in the mission is due for a change of sorts. Knowing President Burdon, the exact opposite of what we expect will occur. Updates to come there! I expect to stay in Gjirokastër for at least another transfer after this one, but we'll have to see. :)

I'd also like to add that I definitely live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. For P-Day today we spent some time exploring some of the scenery near Tepelene and it is breathtaking. The river that runs down through the valley here is a stunning blue all the time. We enjoyed exploring along the edge there and wading through the shallow parts. I also finally ate paçe koke today! If you look at the English translation, it literally just says "lamb head soup". Very delicious stuff let me tell ya. And no, that is not sarcastic. It was actually so dang good! It's just a bunch of the meat from the head of the lamb (use your imagination) and presumably some brain as well thrown into a soup. Very fatty and very flavorful. After getting over my initial nausea, it was some of the best food I've had here so far. I will for sure be having more of that in my time out here. 

Another thing, the mountains here never cease to amaze me. They are so incredibly steep and rocky and MASSIVE. There are some amazing drives here. We took a 30 minute trip up a highway above tepelene which literally ended up doing switchbacks all the way up the mountain. It is so beautiful up there and the views were absolutely breathtaking. We did some good exploration off some very steep and rocky trails from a small town way up in the mountain. We were supposed to find a waterfall, but unfortunately it's a little dry right now so it was a small trickle... hahaha we'll have to return in the spring :)

That's all I've got for you this week folks! Love you all! Keep in touch!

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1000 Kilometers in a Week

 Howdy all! Sorry this email is coming in a day late again. I need to figure out a better system for a time to sit down and write. Lots of things to improve around here but hey that's what life's about. 

I'll address the title here really quick. We drove so much this week. We easily put at least another 1000 kilometers on our vehicle from how often we had to commute up to different cities for things. We were in Vlorë twice (I had residency work there and also district counsel on separate days), way up in Elbasan on Sunday, and then in Fier again for good ol P-Day. Many hours of sitting driving back and forth, but it's alright. That's what you get when you serve in one of the most remote areas of the mission. I'm just glad we still have a district to meet with every week. 

Let me address Elbasan really quick too. Elbasan is a big city up near Tirana and it is the location of one of the only two real church buildings in Albania. Because of that, it is the location for many meetings for all of the members of Albania. They held district conference up there on Sunday (basically stake conference for all the branches in Southern Albania), and we got permission from President to bring our one active member up with us! It was super fun and I can tell it was really good for Dritan to meet other strong members from Albania. I believe he enjoyed all the messages shared too and we had the opportunity afterwards to spend some time with the 4 Elbasan missionaries and have lunch before heading back down to Gjirokastër. Very good experience and very worth the 3ish hour drive each way. 

Also coming up this week, we will hopefully have the Baptisms of Nora and Elona on Friday! We are super stoked and right now we're just working on trying to coordinate the baptism. We have to find and decide on a good spot for the baptism (Which may or may not be in a pool as of right now because the water of the river is so cold and rapid). Updates to come on that! We will literally be doubling the members here in Gjirokastër with those two baptisms and that's exciting too. :)

P-Day was also good. We met up at a kalçeto (covered soccer field basically) and got to play some good wholesome soccer with the elders from Durrës, Lushnjë, and Fier as well as the Fier sisters. Later on, we were joined by even more missionaries from Berat and Elbasan and spent some good time at a sweet beach. Lots of cool rocks and big waves so we enjoyed that. Again, I'm very grateful for the missionaries and the culture we have here together as a group. We're so tight and it makes any get together a blast. 

Thank you all for supporting me out here! I can feel the prayers. :) you guys are dank. Good luck with everything you've got going on and don't be strangers!

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The Key to Finding Friends

 Hello all! Welcome back to this week's episode of skip through all the writing of the email and just view Jacob's weird pictures! Lowkey if that's what you've been doing, respect because I understand my emails can be a little long and weird. I'm glad to entertain all of you in any way possible so no shame if you want to scroll to the bottom and get right to the good stuff. Ju befte mire.

Okay, let's start of with some little quick updates. This week was a good one but I've definitely had better. This was the last full week of the transfer, and I kinda realized that I'd been falling into some less helpful routines and that bothered me a bunch haha. BUT, I've set some new goals now and so far, all is going great with those. I'm very optimistic that I'll be able to turn a new corner and have a great next transfer. Speaking of which, I'm not really sure you could even call this transfer a transfer, because only a few people moved at all. We still have our power district so we are hyped about that. It just means that next transfer, when the new missionaries get here, is going to be absolutely massive. That will definitely be fun to see. Odds are, I'll be staying in Gjirokastër though to lead the area, and from what President has been telling us, it is fairly likely that I'll be training... Definitely don't feel ready for that but I've got another transfer to learn all I can I suppose! Updates to come on that. 

Being the district leader so far has also been so awesome. It's been giving me so much more opportunity to connect with the missionaries in the district and I love that. Everyone down here is hype and I'm so grateful. I'm learning a ton from it too which I'd say is also a bonus.

Story time! After district counsel on Thursday, we were looking at possible spots for baptism near Gjirokastër for our friends that are *hopefully* getting baptized next weekend! The level on the rivers has changed a lot since the last baptism so we kinda had to start from scratch. Anyways, we looked for a while and didn't have much luck, so we decided to head out. We get back to the car, only to realize that I had dropped the key somewhere while we were walking along the river. We start looking for it, and 10 minutes later after having no luck, we decided to say a prayer for guidance and help. We started the search again, and this guy wanders over and, in classic Albanian fashion, is super friendly and asks us how we are and what we're doing. We told him we were great but we'd lost our keys and so we were looking for them. This guy, being the legend he is, puts down all his fishing stuff and starts helping us look. The search continued, and it began to get dark and I began to feel quite frustrated with myself. After wandering back and forth over all of the area we walked several times, we ended up back up by the car with this guy and just started talking to him. He's an awesome guy and he ended up telling us he was Christian. We talked for a while more, and then resumed our search. After just a second of looking, we asked our man if we could say a prayer together for help from God to find these keys before it got dark. Without much hesitation at all, this guy starts offering a great prayer for us. Less than 5 minutes after that prayer, our homeboy comes running over to us with a grin on his face holding up our keys. :) It was quite the miracle for us and a good reminder that God works in mysterious ways. The keys were found in a place we had searched several times at that point. If I hadn't had been so careless and lost the keys, we wouldn't have met this guy. He asked for our facebooks so hopefully we can meet again one day. I was very humbled and grateful after this experience because it was a prime example of how the Lord turns our weakness into strength. Our mistakes and shortcomings may be exactly what the Lord needs to get his work moving. 

That was definitely the most exciting moment of the week, but we also had a bomb P-Day near Vlorë with our whole district and Lushnjë at the beach! We partied and had a picnic sort of thing which was super fun. There was lots of spikeball and Frisbee and this other dank game (with a strange name that I cannot remember) that Elder Esquivel taught us. I got quite sunburned which means it was a good time. We also built a sand castle/mountain thing which was dank! Love the missionaries here. 

Peace out fam! Good luck wherever you're at and keep me posted on how you're doing! I miss you all!

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