Stacked Exchanges

If you're reading this, close your eyes and imagine you are in Lushnjë, Albania...

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Do it.

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Yeah I don't know why you did that. Hope you enjoyed that moment if you actually did it. Thanks for being a good sport. Let's get going.

Definitely a little bit more of a difficult week just because we didn't do a great job planning haha so even productive time just didn't feel good which was rough lol. Planning is big! If you aren't intentional with the work you're doing, it doesn't bring much fulfillment or satisfaction. Anyways, we made sure to really plan out yesterday so we don't get a repeat of that haha. 

Anyways, the start of the week was bomb. I was able to head back over to my beloved city of Elbasan for a day on exchanges and, as it turns out, the zone leaders were also doing an exchange with Berat, so we had an awesome power squad of elders from Elbasan, Lushnje, and Berat all in the same city (and apartment) for a day. It was flipping sick because it was myself, Elder Christensen, Elder Koch, and Elder Wach. They're all legends and any time spent around them is good time. You just feel good and uplifted because they are just fun and happy and hard working guys. We had some good times working and then we partied back in the shpi after the day ended playing some skull King and rook while making transfer predictions and drinking coke. Transfers are happening this next week so we will see what ends up happening. Elder Starr will probably be booted out of Lushnje. 

Anyways, it was a dang good time. As it worked out too, we had to go to Tirana to help out with some new water filters that arrived that morning, so our exchange got extended a fair amount. To top it all off, we ended the exchange playing some sting pong with the whole district while we all ordered lunch because we all had to meet back up to end the exchange in Elbasan haha. Good stuff. Definitely my weekly highlight and maybe even my transfer highlight. It was good.

Some other cool stuff:

- we are working on some projects in lushnje and if they work out we will end up working outside in some fields pretty much every day and I'm so stoked about that. 

- we had a Mega pday in Elbasan with the whole country except for Gjiro, Shkoder, Korca and Durres. It was very good to see everyone but it was hard to have genuine time with anyone since everyone was scattered trying to hang out with all their friends (we have a lot of friends here in this mission haha it's sweet). Lots of sports and some more rook and skull king which we love. 

- I made oreo byrek 

- Elder Starr and I set up a food storage and ended up temporarily stealing two shopping carts to do it

Have a good week everyone! Remember to keep loving life because we only have one!

Cauuuu

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The most unorganized essay on gratitude you'll ever read

Hey all. I'm so happy to be writing to you again. Every week passes quicker and quicker and I'm very quickly approaching my year mark as a missionary. Kinda freaking me out but I'm trying not to think about that. Instead I'm trying to think about the needs of the branch here in Lushnjë and what I can do to support the members here! Works pretty well to be honest. This kind of member support takes a lot of focus and time and emotional/mental energy. Leaves me pretty drained at the end of the day but it is quite fulfilling. I love to serve and I've been given the perfect calling to do so when I have absolutely nothing else to do with my time except for serve. It's great. So grateful. 

Speaking of gratitude I actually want to share some of the thoughts I've been having recently. Serving in this calling here I've had a lot on my mind pretty much constantly. Obviously I'm concerned about caring for the spiritual and temporal needs of the members here, but also I've been thinking and pondering a lot when it comes to my own personal state of worthiness or my standing with God. It's led me to a lot of reflecting and recognition of a lot of great changes I've made in my life over the years, but also it has highlighted quite a few weaknesses of mine that have definitely at times gotten in the way of the work. One such weakness I have identified is actually a lack of gratitude. And now I write the things of my soul:

Gratitude is such an interesting principle. In my mind it can be described as being pleased or happy with circumstances or conditions in our lives. That is probably not the official definition but that is what makes most sense in my brain right now and I'm too lazy to look it up on Google so this is what you've got. I'm not trying to win any awards or good good grades with this writing so I'm gonna take the chance to slack off thanks. Anyways, gratitude is such a simple principle that all of us have learned from a very young age. Each person has learned at some point that it is good to say "thank you" whenever someone does something nice to you. As younger children, we start to correlate gratitude with the happiness we feel when good things happen to us. Now as we grow older and our minds develop to the next level, we are introduced to the concept of gratitude even for circumstances that we are not necessarily initially happy with. Those of us who are religious learn even more of this concept. We talk about thanking God for our trials because they will ultimately help us, we learn to be thankful that things are not worse because they always can be, etc. 

Now that we've covered the concepts of being grateful for both the good and the bad, it may seem like we've covered everything. But what if things seem neutral? What if things just seem like they happen and don't really have a lot of effect on things? What if things don't seem to benefit us or hurt us? I think now we have organized gratitude into 3 sections. Now that we've done this, I can explain kind of what my goal has been of late with gratitude:

I think gratitude can be deeply tied to the ability to see a need in all things. The good, the bad, and the in-between. Seeing the need, or the purpose in all things, brings gratitude *pleasure with conditions around us* in abundance because we can see that someone has perfectly created and organized this earth for each of us and you can almost physically FEEL the love that that act contains. So first, we recognize the need of things, then we become grateful, then we feel this immense love, and after that comes joy. Fulfillment. Existence. The quintessence of life (just because I have to quote Walter Mitty). It is such a powerful and valuable principle and tool we have been taught, and I am beginning to realize that it is very underrated. So many world problems could be solved if people could just stop and learn how to truly be grateful. I have found myself that many of my problems this last week have just disappeared as soon as I've decided to focus on gratitude. It is a source of immense happiness if we just learn to correctly use it, and you wanna know the best part? Gratitude is an infinite and eternal source of happiness and this tool can be used at any time, in any place, and in any situation.

So I've set a goal for myself to be more grateful. To look for the needfulness in all things. I try now to get up in the morning, walk out onto my balcony, look at the garbage littered in the street below me, and just think "wow. I'm so grateful that garbage exists. I'm so grateful for the bad smell it brings and I'm grateful that it becomes a source of food for these stray dogs that wander around. I'm so grateful that something like garbage can exist, because it enhances my life experience all the more." That was a little bit of an interesting example, but I think you get the idea hahaha. I'd just like to challenge all of you that have chosen to read this highly unorganized train of thought essay thing to set yourself a goal to have this kind of gratitude more. Life is better this way. It isn't ignorance or bliss, it is truly seeing things the way they are and realizing what a miracle it is. 

Wow thanks guys I feel good having gotten those thoughts written down somewhere. Hope you enjoy. I guess I can report on my week a bit. Yesterday was district conference in Elbasan (basically stake conference but we are very small) and so I got 11 people besides me and my comp into a sketchy bus and we rode over there and back. It was dope. Also I had an exchange with Elder Zinn who's from the latest group of missionaries and I love the guy. We had a good time. Enjoy the pictures!

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Mirë

I have no title for this week. I also have no clue what to write. This might be short hahahaha. I have two things and I couldn't think of a clever title for either of them so yeah. I've wanted to make sure those of you that actually read these still have your exciting weekly updates though so I am making this sacrifice for you rather than just not writing at all. Shijoje

First off - we had an incredible mother's day activity on Tuesday which was so hype. We had all of our active women come except one I believe and then another 3 that I didn't even recognize came! A miracle to be sure. They were very happy to be gathered together for an activity again finally. I think it's been since before covid that they've done anything like that so that were very pleased. We had a great lesson with them all, scrambled to get them sufllaqe and desserts to eat, then helped transport them all back to their various villages in the rain. Super fun super cool. I live for the old ladies now. Hopefully we can keep meeting and helping old nenas in the future. Love to see it. 

Other highlight - my boy Elder Koch came down to Lushnjë on Wednesday and we had a dope exchange. It was a party and it was our first time genuinely spending a day in the mission serving around each other since we were so tragically separated when we got the country. We have always been on opposite ends of the mission, until now when he is serving as my beloved zone leader in my very own district. I'm so honored and privileged. It was so good though. The guy is a dog and we did some good work visiting nenas and delivering food and stuff. We also had someone steal all our cookies and FHE which was hype. An experience to remember for sure. We've got some interesting characters here in Lushnjë. At the end of it all, we made some really really really fat byrek together haha. Definitely went crazy on the gjiz. I think I got some pictures of that for you guys.

Oh and I guess another surprise thing to share. Today was the last day of "summer days" here which was super cool. Went to Elbasan for the big festival and ate some good cookies. We missed an epic concert which was kinda sad. But all is well because it was good regardless. I think I got a picture of the crowd as well. It was quite packed. Parking was a nightmare. 

That's all folks. Tune in next time to see if anything crazy happened in Lushnjë. That would be cool. 

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Non-Alcoholic Beer is Gas

Pershendetje everyone. I'm currently in a state of thinking about way too much at once and it's an experience to say the least. It's approaching the time where I need to start worrying about if I'm going to go to college right when I get home or not so that has been on my mind a fair amount. If any of you have any random advice or recommendations I will welcome them all. Turns out that focusing heavily on the moment and in the work can kind of make it difficult when it comes to making decisions on your future. 

Anyways thanks for reading that random small crisis I'm in right now. Not a problem at all and I still have over a year until I'm home so I aim not to focus on it too much but it is something I have to keep in mind. In regards to the mission work, things are good. Things have gotten overwhelming trying to help and support the members at times, but other times it has been really great and not a problem whatsoever. Having those kinds of ups and downs helps you to remember to be grateful for each moment so I appreciate that. The focus has been heavily on connecting with each member here in Lushnjë and we are making good progress. I never thought I would be doing this kind of work though - delivering food and wood and the likes. We are also trying to organize a way for all our old ladies in the village to get to church every week without them having to pay for the bus because that adds up significantly. - I've just found that there is a big to do list and you just slowly mark things off as you go. I'm learning a lot. 

Some fun stuff that went down this week:

- Zone Conference! - very enjoyable gathering every time. I definitely enjoyed it a lot more this time not having to organize it haha. I also got a blessing from President Burdon right afterwards too which was also great. Enjoy those pictures. 

- Like a grand total of 3 sleepovers - we had the Fier or Gjirokastër Elders stay at our house a few nights either because we had embassy work to do up in Tirana or because of zone conference. It's a great excuse to connect and hang out with the boys, but I found myself without as much sleep as I needed on those days as well so it's got its drawbacks haha. 

- 4th member baptized in Gjirokastër! - after I got transferred out of Gjirokastër, my good pal Elder Snider got put in there and has done some good work. They just baptized a 19 year old girl on Saturday and we got to attend it because they actually did the baptism in Vlorë (I guess the girl didn't want to be baptized in the freezing cold river).

- I learned how to make Byrek and ate like a king - Byrek is an amazing food I have probably talked about before. Its hard to describe but it's basically a really good, thin, greasy pie but they don't use fruit at all. They only use things like meat, onions, tomatoes, spinach, and something called gjiz which is basically really good cottage cheese. Anyways, this member taught us how to make it at her house and we had a very good time. That is something I'm going to continue to practice while I'm out here so I can become rich and famous selling it when I get home.

- Tiwi - so the new tiwis here are pretty bad. We all knew they wouldn't work very well here in Albania so I guess we were ready for the pain though. Tiwi, by the way, is the program the church uses in its mission vehicles to monitor driving. It tracks things like speed, location, and vehicle motion and gives annoying verbal warnings and reports to the vehicle coordinator when you drive more aggressively than it likes. Albania requires aggressive driving so that is the problem (you have to be here to understand its a whole new level but it's honestly so cool that it even works). On top of that, the speed limit database is fricked up so we constantly hear tiwi yelling at us for speeding when we are perfectly fine. We are the test dummies until the church can figure out how to make it work well. 

- BEER - Okay I almost forgot to talk about the title. There's some really good non-alcoholic malt drinks out here that I've discovered this last week. I've been having one every day at lunch. Something to note though: you have have get the flavored stuff because the plain beer flavor is pretty bad. I think my favorite so far has got to be the apple flavor because it was pretty much apple cider. Pomegranate and peach were good too. Next up I'm grabbing myself a strawberry flavored one. 

Well that's pretty much the rundown for now. I guess another cool thing is that we had a branch council on Sunday before church. It's so weird being the one to have to organize stuff like that. I'm just grateful that the Lord is so involved in this work otherwise I think Lushnjë would be screwed haha. 

Have a great week everyone!

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