Woah woah woah woah it's been a while. 3 weeks I think. Sorry for my weakness in writing I'll have to work on that. I figured I needed to repent though because there's quite a lot to catch you all up on. You'll probably get the condensed version unfortunately but I'll try to make it good still. My memory also is pretty foggy not gonna lie so hang in there.
Eski and I hit things hard the last little bit with our bike finding and we actually fit an exchange in with every elder companionship before the transfer ended which was intense. We kinda procrastinated those and then needed to do an extra one out of the blue so it was nuts. Very fun to spend a good chunk of time with the other missionaries though! I've got to say that that was my favorite part about being zone leader. Anyways, it was awesome. Definitely lived my glory days with Eski that entire last transfer and we had a great last two weeks working hard and traveling all over. I returned to Gjirokaster, Fier, and Pogradec all within just over a week basically. This is such a beautiful country!
Another incredible highlight happened the weekend before last. Those of you that have followed my email may remember me talking about Martin, but if not, I'll give a little recap. He is a great friend and we actually met over Facebook several months ago when I was still serving in Gjirokastër. He had friended me, and I of course accepted it seeing he was from Gjirokastër. After he liked one of my posts, we began talking and became good friends. At the time, he was actually at school in tirana, but he had told me he would want to meet up when he returned to Gjirokastër for the holidays and grab a copy of the Book of Mormon from us. Flash forward a couple months, I get a transfer call to move to Elbasan, and as it turns out he was returning that weekend for Albanian independence day. We met the guy, gave him a book of Mormon, spent a good while walking around the old city with him getting to know him, and invited him to church the next day. He came. Long story short, I left Gjirokastër and stayed in touch and actually had the Tirana Elders reach out to him to invite him to activities up there. He ended up starting to meet with them and then when he returned to Gjirokastër for Christmas he received every single lesson from the elders down there and made the decision to be baptized when his semester ended. Well, that day finally came just over a week ago and I was privileged enough to drive up to Tirana and baptize the guy. I'm incredibly grateful to know Martin and to have had a part in this journey for him. I believe the pictures are in the Elbasan Week 12 album.
And that probably sums up the highlights of the last two weeks I had in Elbasan. And yes I am speaking in past tense because I got transferred this last week :((( Elbasan was such a great experience and I was only there 2 transfers, but all is well because it was well lived. Serving there with Eski was probably also the best thing that has ever happened to me because we got so much done and it was such a blast the entire time. Miss the guy for sure, but I am also hyped to now be serving in Lushnjë. It's much smaller so it kinda gives me Gjirokastër vibes, just without the castle haha. It's great so far and I'm serving here with the one and only Elder Starr. The guys a dog and it's easy to have a good time. The most intimidating thing about serving here in Lushnjë though is that I've actually been called as the Branch President of the branch here which is crazy. Its a big responsibility and I'm gonna have to learn a crap ton of stuff. The nice thing is that I've already had a sneak peak into the financial/welfare type stuff as the assistant branch clerk in Elbasan but instead of just having to work out the numbers now I'm the one (as well as my companion) who will have to withdraw and spend that money. On top of that is the subject of interviews for temple recommends and worthiness and everything like that which is something I never would've imagined myself doing as a missionary. Also conducting sacrament meeting is quite strange. I've gained even more respect for all the branch presidents and bishops out there. The members here (though they are few) are pretty awesome and I'm excited to spend some more time with them. Being branch president too means that I'm likely to have a long time here which is pretty nice. Honestly being transferred stinks because after 2 transfers you just get on the grind. U bëra lushnjarë
Pday was hype too. We did beach volleyball though it was a little windy which was hard. Still very fun though. Also random update, it was our last pday without tiwi screaming at us from inside our car. If you know what that is, you understand why we are so sad. If you don't know what it is, don't worry too much about it.
Yall are dope cau
