I Caulked The Kitchen!

Γεια σας τι κανετε;

There you go there's some simple greek greetings so that the email looks legit. Speaking of legit, today I rode a camel. 

But hey, Cyprus is treating me well, and when I say well I mean real well. It even blessed us with having to wage war on the bugs in our kitchen. It's not something I've had to deal with until now actually. All of the apartments in the north countries are really nice because they're cheap to rent. They don't have many serious problems. Down here it is not the same haha. These apartments look a little bit more like what I expected from missionary apartments before coming out. They are pretty good, but of course they've got their quirks. They're definitely nicer than the apartments we stayed in when I did sales though, so I'm at least grateful for that. 

Anyways, this week I have been very grateful for my father and my uncles for the service they've done for me in teaching me how to caulk. As we were cleaning the kitchen and spraying bugs trying to send them into oblivion, I was realizing that there were a lot of open cracks between the wall and cupboards and windows and such that had never been filled in with caulk or seals that had long ago been compromised, so I had the genius idea of buying a caulk gun and just taking care of it myself. (Waiting for the landlord to do stuff is the worst because it takes forever/they never do anything). We spent a grand total of 4 euro and came home with a good ol gun and some caulk and I returned to my roots. Pretty fun. There's still bugs but we are trying to starve them now by continuing to spray and keeping all food on our table on the other side of the room. We think it might be working. Updates to come.

The work is going great. We have had a lot of referrals come in since I got here and the majority of them have been really solid. We've met with a lot of them and given them copies of the Book of Mormon/taught them about what it is. Gotta say, doing so many Book of Mormon lessons has been really powerful for me. Something about doing them in English too is just really good. I genuinely love this book so much. It is powerful and changes lives and it's just so cool to be able to be giving a lesson and to look down and see the Book of Mormon in my hand. That probably doesn't make a lot of sense but I've had some really cool moments in the last couple weeks. 

I've also finally started studying some Isaiah in order to actually keep up with the come follow me manual and man, it is so good. I've been using some podcasts and other old testament student manuals for some help understanding but I am having a good time. Isaiah is so dope. 

Now I have a request for those of you that have read until now. When I first got here, I told the short story of a guy named Alex that we randomly called from our contacts and came to church. We had some amazing lessons with him after, but starting last week he told us that he has something going on and hasn't been able to make it to our meetings. We have asked him if everything is alright, and he told us that it wasn't but that hopefully it would be better soon. If you guys are willing, I'd like to ask you to pray for Alex that whatever is going on might be resolved and that he can continue to progress and grow closer to God, the best source of guidance and comfort in this life. 

Okay yup it's been dope. I miss Albania a lot and all of the missionaries up there, but it's still great down here. I'll learn to settle in with these guys here as well, given time of course. 

God bless! 

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Ω ναι

Hello my faithful following. Always a pleasure. I have now been in Cyprus over a week which is dope. I'm actually starting to remember names, but there is still so much to learn and do to get on top of things haha. It's kinda crazy having to move between two areas every 3 days, but it has for sure been an adventure. This country is beautiful and I'm excited for whats ahead. Some cool stuff that has been going down:

- I am now pretty much used to driving on the left side of the road which is nice. I thought it would take a little longer. I only drove on the wrong side of the road once and we are chillin. 

- we had an amazing lesson with Alex on Tuesday and he came to church again. We will be meeting weekly from now on and we are stoked

- did more lessons over video call than I ever did even in the MTC probably

- can now read the greek alphabet but we are far from anything else. Working hard on being able to say a simple prayer

- lots of good doctrinal discussions with Elder Nilsson

- africans are so dope

- our kitchen has bugs

- mcdonalds

- I love Jesus!

- Elder Nilsson has the ring spinning record of 54 seconds

Yeah thats about it. Talk to you guys next week! Take it easy.

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I'm Back in Modern Civilization

Γειασος from Cyprus! Man, there's a lot that's happened. Let me start off by saying that I have restarted my mission essentially. It is SO different down here. It is also flippin hot and humid because its a desert island haha. BUT it's dope. Elder (Theo) Nilsson is such a homie and we've been vibing. I told him he's basically my trainer and he's been a huge help the last couple of days. I've learned a ton of greek which is super sick. A week ago I didn't know any greek except for how to say hello and owl. It's also a big adjustment work-wise. These areas are RIPE for the picking, we just gotta put in the effort which is so awesome. There are so many people living here from all over. Of course there's the cypriots, but there's also a lot of british people and africans and they're dope. The africans are amazing too. I haven't met very many people still, but the africans have definitely made the biggest impact on me. They are amazing. 

Anyways, we finished up a busy week in Lushnjë doing some service, visiting everyone before I left, doing FHE and such, but I gotta be completely honest... Cyprus has been so eventful the last couple days that I remember almost nothing from the rest of the week. It was a good last week in Albania though. Lushnjë has taught me a lot about myself and it was and is pretty hard to leave. The last 7 months there have been long, and very difficult, but I wouldn't change that for a second. Lushnjë gave me more than I could ever have given back to it. It taught me trust in the Lord and his timing, and it taught me appreciation for even the smallest things. Truly, we can be happy and fulfilled in every circumstance. Everything can be going to crap and we can be deep in the most difficult trials of our lives, but with Christ we can keep a genuine smile on our face amd laughter in our souls. He gives us light and that light brings us more fulfillment and happiness than any accomplishment or progress we could ever achieve. I do and will miss being a part of that branch. Those are my members and I will likely pray for their wellbeing the rest of my life. 

I flew to Cyprus on Saturday morning, so of course we used the opportunity to meet with good ol ex-elder Qose and Martin for dinner in Tirana the night before. I love those guys. It was a really good send off and I look forward to returning to spend time with them yet again. They inspire me and I wish them the best. The next day was a scramble of airport fun ahah. My flight from Tirana to Athens took literally forever to get to the gate once we landed, which put me free from the plane 30 minutes after I should've been. That meant I only had 15 minutes or so to get onto my flight to Cyprus. It was nuts, but by God's grace, I made it through the crowds, figured out what gate it was, went back through security, major sped walk, and made it just in time onto the last bus from the gate as the doors were closing. I enjoyed the relief I felt after that and decided to nap on the plane. Little did I know that while I had barely made it onto the flight in time, my baggage did not quite have my same speedy athletic capabilities, and so was lost in Athens. :) Yup. Long story short all is good and my luggage will be getting here tomorrow, but I have been washing the same clothes over and over again the last couple days which is fun. 

My companionship here in Cyprus covers both Limassol and Paphos and this weekend we have just been in Paphos. Normally halfway through the week we switch and we also switch which church we go to each week. Pretty nuts but it means we move between apartments. I have yet to really try it but it seems like a pain gotta be honest haha. We are gonna make it work though! Something really cool that happened was that on Saturday when we got into Paphos we were calling people for church, and we decided to give just one more person a call from my sim card. I decided "lets try one of the alex's", and the guy totally picked up. Turns out he was in Paphos, had been taught by the missionaries a couple years back, and lived very close to where our branch president does. We invited him to church, and he agreed. We then got him in touch with the BP and he came the next day! Though we had the whopping attendance of like 7 or something, he loved it and even stayed after to do a potluck of sorts with us. We are going to be meeting with him again tomorrow and we are stoked. He is also an african which just shows how dope he is. We met with some other africans on Sunday too and had a really good restoration lesson! Like I said, the work is way different here. I am so happy to just focus on missionary work and teach these people we've found!

Pday has been dope so far. We went to some tombs and I got major indiana jones and the last crusade vibes.

That's all folks. Next week maybe I'll be fluent in Greek. Love you all!

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