HI GUYS yeah it's been a month or so. I could update you on the last month, but honestly this last week is all that is coming to mind because that's just how dope it was.
So, I guess I didn't really get deported, but it seemed like it'd be an interesting title. I did however voluntarily leave the country by plane and got quite a few more passport stamps. Those few of you that are my fsithful followers will remember that a while back we heard Elder Bednar and some other seventies would be coming to visit our mission. Well that day was Tuesday haha. To keep it simple, just know that when your mission comprises 5 different countries, travel is not easy or short. We left Cyprus on Sunday, stayed in Athens, and then left for Albania super early Monday morning. Man I have missed Albania. Of course I'm enjoying Cyprus, but Albania is just built different. We had a mission-wide pday in Tirana after we arrived and it was so so so dope. Ultimate frisbee and board games with all of my mission friends in one place. A highlight for sure, but that was just the beginning.
As I said, Elder Bednar and 3 seventies came to meet with us and the albanian members on Tuesday. Early Tuesday afternoon, we had a meeting with just us and them, and it was so incredible. I have gained so much respect and love for these men. They love the Lord, and they are so genuine. The fame they have in the church hasn't gotten to their head, and it's clear that they don't think themselves better than any of us. They were loving, ready, and willing to help each of us in any way they could. Rather than just hearing them give talks, it turned into a discussion with all of us involved. We had studied different talks in preparation for the visit, and these talks became the basis for the spirit-led discussion we had. He had us voluntarily share our own thoughts and insights we learned. He spoke individually with each of us that shared, and it was so inspired. Something that he emphasized a lot was how we need to act as agents, rather than be acted upon as objects. He shared that the spirit can't speak through someone who isn't using his/her agency and how we need to share insights and thoughts of our own free will, rather than because we've been called upon. It was really cool to see how the spirit led that conversation as we shared the things we were hearing but weren't being said. Lots of insights and inspiration came from that meeting. Elder Bednar is definitely an apostle of the Lord. Amazing.
Seeing that we were all in the same country all together, President Burdon used the opportunity to put together a mission-wide conference. Messages, pizza, a massive beach service project in the rain, and an incredible spirit-filled testimony meeting made it another great day. Definitely my highlight from that day was our bus ride after the service project. I was sitting at the front of the bus, and so I asked the driver if we could use his microphone to tell stories as we drove back to the chapel. It turned into a great hour and a half. I even did a little karaoke! I love this mission.
Anyways, it turned into a long week for us south country missionaries because we didn't fly out of albania till thursday afternoon and didn't get back to Cyprus until Friday. This meant we basically had a second pday with the AP's looking at bunkers and albanian history and then spent another night in Athens. The rest of the week kinda went to crap too haha because Elder Nilsson woke up really sick on Saturday... oh well. I guess we had already had too much fun that week.
Other cool thing: we visited a russian church and a nordic church right next to each other. Cool pictures.
Enjoy catching up on the last month of photos!
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