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!
No comments:
Post a Comment