Brethren. Sistren. I love you all. Another wonderful week has come and gone that has just reminded me how beautiful life is. We did great work, met with great people, saw some great things, ate great food, did some great yoga, and pretty much just everything great. I'm loving it.
Speaking of beautiful things, on our way back from exchanges in Ohrid early this week we got to drive through a city called Dibër as well as a national park in Macedonia. So beautiful. We heard that the albanians from Dibër have weird accents so we decided to stop and talk to some people at the city center, and we ended up meeting some cool old guy who gave us an hour and a half tour of the city. Albanians are so cool. Also their accent is indeed strange it is confirmed.
I also got to hang out with the Dujaka kids this week a bunch which is always fun. Their albanian is crazy and it's awesome to talk to them. They're such spazzes as well and they are so funny haha we had a good time. Unfortunately, it was Elder Hodges turn to teach primary this week so I didn't get to, but hopefully I can do that again next week. Kids are awesome.
We had what potentially could compete for best pday today. We planned to go to this place called Valbona today with the Prishtina elders and do some epic hiking. They call these mountains the albanian alps, and I can whole-heartedly say that they deserve that name. It was insane. To make it even better, out of the blue last night we were called by the Tirana ZLs asking if we were going to be going to Valbona which was weird because they are hours away from it. Turns out, they were doing an exchange with the Shkodër elders over pday and from Shkodër you can drive east to this place called Theth. Essentially, Theth is on the west side of the albanian alps and Valbona is on the east side. Fun fact: there is a hiking trail that connects Valbona to Theth that conveniently meets with another trail that goes to the high point of the mountain range. Yeah interesting stuff for sure. Anyways, we randomly met 4 other elders that serve in an area that's 4 hours away from us in the middle of the mountains. It was the most epic pday crossover of church history I bet. We spent a bunch of time continuing up the trail to the peak which is mega steep and turns out at this time of year there is still a BUTT ton of snow on south-facing slopes so we didn't make it very far even though we spent an hour and a half hauling up. We forgot to bring our crampons and ice axes. NO PROBLEM THOUGH because we did remember to bring shoes and so after we got sick of trudging through snow and slipping on this steep slope we just skied all the way down. I think we literally made it all the way back down off the snow in less than 5 minutes and was probably some of the most fun I've had in a looong time hahahahaha. There are some pictures and videos that kinda show the process so you guys can almost experience it yourselves.
The Albanian Alps are the most beautiful place I have ever seen and I await the day that anything else will trump them. That day may never come. Pictures do not even show a fraction of how breathtaking it was at every moment.
Anyways, have a good week! Tunnnggg
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