The End *accompanied by very little sleep and long plane rides*

This is indeed the end. The final email. I hope any of you have enjoyed reading some of these and seeing pictures from the amazing work out here in these countries. It's truly been an honor to write you all even though I was bad at it. Pretty crazy though huh? As I'm typing this up I'm sitting on an airplane going from Tirana Albania to Vienna Austria, where I will then board a plane to Chicago and then finally arrive in Salt Lake at 10:30 pm Utah time. In order to try and adjust to the timezone of the US I have not slept at all so far even though its about 5 AM here in albania. I'm pretty tired but these other guys make it fun so I'm not complaining. I also downed 2 L of juice while we were chilling in our apartment at the beginning of the night so thats starting to hit me. It'll be a good journey. Anyways, yeah it's crazy that I'm on my way home. It's been an incredible two years and I hope you've enjoyed hearing about it a bit. I've learned a ton and made innumerable memories, so of course it's hard to leave behind, but I'm also pretty excited for the future. 

This last week was solid though. We made some good online content to post on the kosovo page and met with a couple friends even! I got to say my goodbyes to the people in Gjakova and then again to all of the missionaries and other homies in Tirana. I'm not a huge fan of goodbyes (well, at least the sad ones) so I tend to try and keep things more positive, but it can be hard when you don't know when you'll ever be able to see someone again. We did have a baller beach pday though with tons of the homies which was a great send off. There are some great, great people here that I've gotten to serve with. I also got an amazing send off from the McAffees in Prishtina. Sister McAffee made me cafe rio type spread on Friday as a departing dinner and it was absolutely amazing. She is such a good cook fr fr. 

The mission has been hard, but all the while rewarding. I wouldn't take back any of it. 

* it has now been nearly 24 hours since I started writing this email hahaha I'm now waiting in Chicago for my flight to SLC. Big things. My older brother Stephen came from Ohio to see me here since we have a massive layover and we went to chilis and the home alone house. All good things. It's good to be back in America, but Shqipëria and Kosova have become very, very special places to me. There's lots I could say here about the whole experience, but I think I'll leave it just with this: I know that Jesus Christ knows us individually, and the closer we are to Him, the more of His strength and guidance He can offer us in this life. I've seen this dozens of times first hand in the lives of others and in my own life. He lives. He loves us. This mission was an incredible opportunity for me to understand that more. God bless and I hope to see you soon!

Elder Jacob Millsap 

Photos

Skiing in the Albanian Alps

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

Photos

Bishop I want to be primary president

You heard that right kids. Get ready to have brother Millsap run all of primary it'll be sick. I'm not even kidding. Bishop, if you are reading this I would 100% accept a calling in the primary for the 3 months I am in Honeyville before dipping again for school. 

Another great week of the greatest experience of my life has passed. It was an interesting week in which nothing went as planned which is baller. What was not as baller was the fact that the main complication throughout the week was that we had to help a member get to the hospital and help her figure out a whole bunch of stuff. Essentially it extended out for a couple days, got my companion kinda stressed and we ended up in Prishtina on a super exchange so that Elder Hodges could figure out more hospital stuff hahaha. I had a good time though. Keep sister kosovo lady in your prayers though she has been having complications with her pregnancy. :(( Maybe a tumor too? It is not clear to us at this point because we've heard both. 

Anyways, I got to hang with Elder Petersen on this said exchange and that was very fresh because he's a legend. We did a lot of finding because he's a trainee also studies and we even had a conversation with a contentious presbytarian man. Honestly pretty good conversation all things considered. We also filmed another podcast episode on this exchange which was dope. Big things big things. 

Also, to legitimately address the title, there are a bunch of kids that come to church in the Gjakova branch (more kids than adults actually) which is an anomaly in this mission to say the least. It's mega fun to hang with albanian kids and I had the opportunity to teach in primary yesterday which was next level. Best callings in the church might be in primary. 

We are now currently on another exchange with the zone leaders in Macedonia and it lined up great to also give us pday with them in Ohrid. We are enjoying that a significant amount because the macedonian missionaries are quite literally the best of any of us and they're way fun to be around. 

Shihemi

Photos

Instagram Girl's Dream - Kosovo is cool

Friends and family! I am here once again entering into your pile of unread emails, potentially doomed to never be opened by many of you. I am honored for the privilege. 

Things are good here in the mission field though! I mentioned in my last email that I was gonna get transferred and that is true. I am now serving in Gjakova, Kosovo. It's such a beautiful place. Kosovo is northeast of Albania and still full of many albanians. Some of you may be aware of Kosovo's history as a recently formed country, but long story short Kosovo used to be part of Serbia (and still is according to some countries), but in the 90s long built pressure for ethnic albanians to leave the Kosovo area of Serbia erupted into conflict and genocide. It's a very very sad history but eventually the war was won against Serbia and Kosovo claimed their independence and later established themselves as a country in 2008. As you can imagine, just the vibe in Kosovo is very different from Albania with their different histories as well as the fact that they speak a different dialect of albanian here which is way harder to understand. Very fun to learn and practice though I must say. It's like british compared to american english but just way cooler and with different grammar and women that have deeper voices than I ever will. Pretty fun though. I'm coming up on finishing my 3rd week here and it's been a good time for sure vibing with my brotha Elder Hodges. 

Pretty strange that I'm so near the end of the mission though! I've got about 3 weeks left. I'm gonna try and email each week to try and make up for my months of silence. We are grinding the work in Gjakova as it is and trying to enjoy ourselves all the same. Gjakova is a small and peaceful city and missionary work hasn't had much going on there for a while, but we do happen to do a lot of member support. My companion is the branch president here and I'm his sidekick/clerk which has been fun! It's the exact opposite of how my time in Lushnje was which is interesting to experience. We eat really good bread and sausage and walk around trying to understand people and their awesome accents. We are also the tech guys for the country of Kosovo so we do a lot of work for the Facebook page in making content and responding to messages that come in from ads and such. We have been doing weekly episodes for a podcast talk show of sorts which is cool and has been good practice for the albanian for real for real which is nice after so much time of not using it that much. We've got some big plans for the rest of this month in just pumping content out on the Kosovo page so it should be pretty good!

Something of note was that I had my last zone conference, which led immediately into this epic 2 day elders conference of sports and beach and hobo dinners. I'm not joking you can fact check with the photos. We literally spent one of the days at the beach the whole time doing service, playing sports, and essentially camping without the overnight stay. Super epic. We also have had stacked pdays in Kosovo because there is some amaaazing shiz up here. It's very mountainous and green and just awesome. I'm just trying to enjoy every moment in these beautiful places before I dip and can't come back for a couple years. I have every pday planned out until the end so hopefully it all goes according to plan because it'll be pretty epic.

Anyways, I won't get all deep and mushy on you guys in this email but it will probably come soon. All I will say is that this mission is amazing. The people I've met and the experiences made will never be forgotten (at least most ahah I can't make promises my old senile self can't keep). Time has flown by and I've learned so much about myself, about the church, and most of all about Jesus Christ. Coming out here is by far the best decision I've ever made and I wish any and all of you could have these same experiences I've been having. 

Have an awesome week and tune in next time to see if I get trunky. 😀 

Tirana Week 19

Gjakova Week 1

Gjakova Week 2

Gjakova Week 3

Down to One

LIFE IS GOOD! So yeah I think it's been 2 months or so since I last wrote one of these. Yall are gonna have so many photo albums to look through at the bottom of this hahaha. So much stuff has gone down that it's not even worth it to try and catch you guys up so I think I'll just mention some highlights. If you care to know more there are definitely some stories to be told in the weekly photo albums below hahaha. One of the weeks was so uneventful that I literally had 0 photos and therefore that album doesn't exist. I don't even think I could tell you what happened that week if I wanted to hahaha it was probably just random busywork in the office or something like that. Anyways, I am still in Tirana with my brotha Esquivel. He's a mega dawg and so we've been having a good time. I'll try and share a few of the highlights from the last couple months but there's no way I'm gonna get all of it. Life is just so sporadic as an assistant for real. All your routines and habits go to crap when you're picking new missionaries up at midnight and then dropping the departing ones off 3 hours later that same night lol but we still do our best to keep some good habits and have good studies and workouts and all that jazz. It's overall been a really good time though even though it's been so crazy. I've had a lot of quality experiences and made a lot of memories, so let's hop into a couple if you're interested.

First off you should all know that being in mission leadership just means tons of conferences. Seeing as our mission has 5 countries in it, having conferences for each zone means a ton of travel and also exchanges with the other missionaries which can be really fresh. Of the 8 weeks since I've last written, 3 were spent in Greece and Cyprus for zone and elders conferences with exchanges sprinkled in between each. In those 3 weeks, we hit every single area in those 2 countries hahaha. Our first week down there we stayed the weekend in Greece for church, so we flew up to Thessaloniki to have an exchange and pday with the elders there. When we were in Cyprus there was a travel strike in Athens which cancelled our flights and caused us to stay yet another weekend which gave us time to do exchanges with each elder companionship on the island. That was mega fresh because Elder Koch was in Cyprus at the time and he competes for the top spot as the most entertaining person I've ever met. I did however get a bad sore throat which was super sad because then I couldn't eat at my favorite restaurant... Chick-In Tenders... That place is honestly heaven and I was very sad when I was trying to swallow those tenders and all that came was pain. It's all in the past now though and I've let it go. :'( After those two weeks we were back in the north countries for a bit until this last week when we flew down to Crete on Tuesday to have an exchange with the elders that just recently opened that as an area for missionary work - mega cool. That exchange pooled into the beginning of the south countries elders conference in Athens where we had 2 days of laser tag, football, group finding and touching testimonies. Super epic week to be honest. Other than those south conferences we had 3 zone conferences in the north and also a mission leadership council - mega busy for sure but we managed to snag a fresh exchange with the macedonian zone leaders over general conference. Maybe that gives you an idea of what our life looks like or maybe it doesn't, regardless yup that's a lot of what we've done.

Another couple things happened that were really cool this weekend: First, on Saturday for the first time ever I got to meet Martin's family. They are so amazing. His mom is also one of the best cooks ever and she made us a 5-course meal. We were in heaven and it was so so cool. If nothing else came from my mission, I'm at least grateful I got to meet Martin because he is such a legend. Of course other cool and good stuff has happened on the mission and I can see that, but Martin kinda overshadows all of that sometimes hahahaha. Another mega random thing that really took me off guard happened yesterday at church. I was just chilling in the chapel welcoming members and friends into church in Tirana with Martin and Everaldo and in walks Ashlyn Erickson. I don't think anything less expected could've happened in that moment honestly I was so unbelievably confused hahaha. Ashlyn is a good friend back from the early day of high school at Williamsburg. We had been at some dope rock climbing camps together and I had to take a second to actually make sure she was who I thought she was because I have not seen Ashlyn in like 5 years. Super super strange seeing a williamsburger in my ward on my mission. The thing is that oftentimes I'm not even in my assigned ward on Sunday because we travel and she didn't even know where exactly in Albania I was serving so it just happened to work out that way and freaked me out hahah. God is kinda sus.

Anyways, I know that's not a whole lot of stories but I don't want to bore you guys with more long paragraphs. I will address the title of the email though and say that this next week starts my last transfer as a missionary which is totally insane. I've already had to say goodbye to the south missionaries as I won't be seeing them again before I go. Pretty freaking sad actually because I love those guys. I will be transferred to a new area next Tuesday or Wednesday I believe but I can't tell yall where at this current point in time because none of the other missionaries know transfers yet. I'll try to get an email in within the next couple weeks so that you find out - or you can just check my Facebook next week because I'll probably update where I live. Just a thought. One more area. One more companion. One more transfer. Time is so weird hahaha but it'll be good to get back with all of you wherever you may be and reconnect a little - I hope I didn't forget you lol I almost didn't know who Ashlyn was. Missions destroy your memory. 

Anyways, enjoy the mass photo albums.

Elder Millsap

Tirana Week 11

Tirana Week 12

Tirana Week 14 (Greece Cyprus Week 3)

Tirana Week 15 (Greece Cyprus Week 4)

Tirana Week 16

Tirana Week 17

Tirana Week 18 (Greece Cyprus Week 5)

Vibing With Martin & Now I've Visited All 5 Countries?!?!

Don't pay this email being subjected as if it's clickbait. Everything happens for a reason, we just don't always know why. I also just want to state before I start writing this too thoroughly that I've been feeling very illiterate in every language as of late, so hopefully this email can become a spectacle of entertainment on that front. Long live bad grammar and brain dead missionary Jacob. Amen.

It's been a vibe though. I think it's been two weeks since I last wrote? I have more of a habit of not writing emails now than writing them so I really couldn't tell you. 4 emails in 10 weeks ain't too shabby I'd say. Anyways, I'm glad to be back. I gotta keep you all informed on how things are so you don't lose interest in my existence and I won't be forced to come home from the mission lonely. 

Since getting back from Athens the pattern has been as such: Have a cool pday with the homies in Tirana, go to the office and try and grind through whatever tasks we've been given, have meetings with the Burdons over the missionaries and transfers, have our weekly work day and invite Martin the dopest human on the Earth to come and join us in our finding and teaching efforts, leave Saturday to drive President and Sister to a distant part of the northern countries for branch conference somewhere and have a dope exchange with the elders there. Repeat.

The only thing that was really an interruption to this pattern in the last 2 weeks is that a small transfer of sorts has been decided. My dear and beloved companion Elder Washburn is leaving me :(( That's an L for sure. The man is going to Athens to start working on opening that area officially for Albanian speakers! Very fresh indeed so I'm excited for him. You are probably wondering as well who my new companion is, and the answer is that I'm not getting a new companion at all. Elder Esquivel will be joining me once again hahahaha. Third times the charm baby! Should be mega fun

This weekend for branch conference we traveled up to Skopje in Macedonia, which means I've officially made it to all 5 mission countries. Mega cool that. We've been hanging out with the Macedonian elders since and they are so fresh. We've been having a blast. We spent all of pday today in Skopje and we'll finish our official exchange tomorrow before returning to Tirana to send Elder Washburn on his way. We got to go on a cold boat ride up a windy mountain reservoir and explore a cave and then we got to climb the massive cross above the city. It was so dang cold. Anyways, enjoy those pictures!

Ciao!

Photos

There and Back Again

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been a loooong while. Since coming to Tirana my emailing habits have gone downhill hard. Problem is, I usually don't have much to write about every week because I'd basically just say "oh yeah we had some meetings and we did some office work but we did have time to go finding on a couple days" haha. But, it's your lucky day because lots of shiz has actually been going down the last couple of weeks.

Elder Washburn and I got back to Albania this morning after being gone for 2 weeks. We missed it a lot to be honest haha. Albania is definitely the best of the 5 mission countries without a doubt. Anyways, we were in Cyprus and then Greece for zone conferences, but then Washburn and I stayed an extra week and some in Greece to do some investigation and work. Essentially, if I didn't share about this in my last email, we were sent to test out the Athens area for work for Albanian speaking missionaries. There are a ton of Albanian immigrants there so we just went out into the street and spoke Albanian to all of them haha it was super fun! The best part was that we just got to be regular missionaries finding in an area for the whole week and we actually had some decent success. We found a few potential friends that we handed off to the elders down there (they speak Greek too) and made one new friend named Gezim! He believes in 12 gods though hahaha but it was still a good lesson. He is curious to learn thought so that was fresh. We also experienced a super big miracle. We made a facebook page for the athens area in albanian just for this experiment we did and so we had our handy dandy tech guys boost some facebook ads for us on there for bible study and for the Book of Mormon. We had people texting us all week because of them, but the most promising of all was this awesome lady named Medona. She asked for a book of mormon so we arranged to meet her and give her one. Turns out, she's actually a member from albania! She was baptized in Vlore a long time ago but 4 years ago she moved to Athens and lost contact with the church. She had tried to find it there, but gave up after a while, until she saw our ad in Albanian for the Book of Mormon! We ended up setting up a meeting and going there with the Athens sisters. She speaks greek pretty well too so we had an awesome lesson and gave her a Book of Mormon in both languages. The sisters are gonna keep teaching her and her husband (who isn't a member!). Super cool to see God's hand in all this and how once we enter into the covenant relationship with Him, he will never abandon us. He will always give us an opportunity to come back into the fold and into his true church. 

Anyways, it's been a good experience. The travel is dope and because we've been all over in the south countries for 2 pdays we got to see some cool things! I'll just let you guys kinda surf through all of the photos. Love you guys! God loves you more though!

Tirana Week 5

Tirana Week 6

Tirana Week 7

Tirana Week 8

GEZUAR VITIN E RI

Howdy folks. I figured I owed you all an email from me seeing as the year just turned over. I'll also be seeing many of you again this year so I gotta start off on good terms. It's all conditional love.

Anyways, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Things have been pretty nuts over the course of December. Working in the office in Tirana is kinda mundane a lot of the time, but it is still pretty cool and there's a lot of benefits that outweigh the negatives. First off, we get to spend a lot of time around President and Sister Burdon which is actually so clutch. They're amazing. We are also in touch with a lot of missionaries around the mission on a regular basis which is way dope because we're always in the loop and tight with the homies even in different countries. It is fresh. We've also done a little travel and will be doing some more soon. We went up to Kosovo for a Christmas Conference a couple weeks back which was way cool because I've never made it up there. I got to see all my northern homies and enjoy the freezing cold weather and gheg dialect of albanian. The major and biggest con of being in this position though is that we never ever get to work in our area. It's so tough. We don't know members or friends or anything, but we are doing our best to try and do things. I can say though that this coming week we will have 0 time in our area hahaha because we're doing some exchanges and stuff but hey it's alright. 

Something that is super clutch about Tirana 2nd ward though is that I get to be around Martin again. Since he got baptized last February I basically haven't seen him, but now I get to see him basically on a weekly basis. He is such a dawg. Here's to hoping we can make time to actually meet with him and stuff in the future because hey, he is a recent convert after all hahaha (even though he's like the most converted person I've basically ever met). Anyways, moving on.

The holidays have been so fun though. The Burdons are way too nice to us and we've basically had days off to celebrate and party together in our districts and zones even since we're all so close together in the north zone. You can enjoy the pictures featured in the several posted weeks below. As per usual, Albanian New Years was freaking hype and the city was exploding around us as we stood on the roof of our apartment building. These guys know how to celebrate. Fr Fr The US needs to take some notes and remove all fireworks restrictions so that they can be as cool as Albania. 

That's all for now folks! Have a great year and see you all later!

Tirana Week 1

Tirana Week 2

Tirana Week 3

Tirana Week 4

The Fall of the Fortress - The Rise of the Tree

HALLO welcome back everyone. 

Pogradec has treated me well in so many ways. First of all, starting off December there was the perfect Christmas winter vibe because it's actually cold. Rocking jackets and my newly acquired flannel has been the norm. Everyone in Pogi also uses woodburning stoves to heat their houses/apartments so after about 4 PM every day there is just a super heavy scent of smoke throughout the whole city. I love it because it gives me the vibes of living up in the mountains in a log cabin. Too many cars for that though. 

Work has been solid. The other elders in Pogradec work a lot more with the members and such, so we've been able to just focus on finding and teaching our current friends. The Albanian people are so clutch. Also the food. Missed that. We don't do a lot of door knocking in our mission, but we also decided to go out and do that one day a couple times and that was fun haha. Took me back to my days in sales, but this time in another language so that was hype and definitely kept things exciting. At least this way I can't accidentally sell them a new residential garbage contract. We also had a dope branch party for the joint Albanian independence day and the Pogradec branch's 7th anniversary, and then we had a ping pong tournament on Saturday. Fun stuff. Albanian youth are pretty weird sometimes, but it's usually a good time anyways. 

But now let's get to the stuff you're really here for shall we? Yes, sadly, the massive living room fort did fall. We had to take it down on Saturday, but it was for a good cause believe me. Last week I mentioned that we had been pounding fanta exotic. Well, this week we finally pounded enough to start on our project. After getting home on Thursday night, we began our construction process.

This construction continued over the next 3 days during lunch hour and after getting home in the evening, 

and we finally finished our masterpiece Saturday night. Man, I've never been prouder of my handiwork. Drinking 325 cans for this was so worth it. I'm honestly still surprised we found enough cardboard.

We decked it out with lights and missionary tags after too for funsies, so you can enjoy those extra pictures in the usual album I'll include at the bottom. Plus you can see random stuff from the week too and maybe start to believe that I actually do work as a missionary. 

Anyways, yes the fort did come down, but only because we wanted to be able to proudly put this monstrosity up in the living room. It stands at a whopping 7 1/2 feet tall and is 3 1/2 feet wide at the base. We made 13 individual layers of cans and it took flipping forever, especially on the last few, but God is good and we came through in the end just before I had to leave. 

I'm actually writing you guys this from Tirana and I'm now companions with my bro Elder Washburn. He's a legend. We just spent the evening making a light the world video for the churchs facebook page in Albania and it was hilarious. I cry and he gives me takis from his secret stash. It should be a good companionship. I'll probably be with him another 2 transfers and chances are, I'll be here another 2 after that, which leaves me dying here in Tirana. Little sad and weird to think that I'm likely in my last area, but the next 6 months will be fire I'm sure. 

Oh yeah we also had a mission tour this week and Elder Alliaud from the general seventies came and visited us. Very cool and good to see everyone there from the northern countries. I missed my homies. 

Anyways, have a great week you guys! Love you all!

Photos

Paskam ftohte! Keshtjella e Pogradecit - we are vibing so hard

HALLO MY FRENS!

Things are so so so so so so so good. 

I flew into Albania on Tuesday and lowkey it was the roughest weather and turbulence and landing I've ever had on a flight in my life but we are alive so it's all good. Albania is wet and cold, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world right now. I might cry when I go home.

I'm serving in the mountain lake city of Pogradec and its frickin cold. Its been 40 degrees with piercing wind and that is a big change from temperate Cyprus. It's been fun to wear sweaters and flannels though so that's fresh. All we need now is the snow and things are perfect. I'm also here in an apartment with 3 other elders and it's so dope. We've been vibing so hard. Theres also a really cool senior couple here - The Hansens - and it's honestly the dream area. To help you guys get the idea, I'll describe the experience I had in arriving at our apartment wednesday morning. Keep in mind, I've been in this house before on exchanges when I was in Elbasan, so I wasn't really expecting to see much because I was already familiar with the place. Holy crap was I wrong. I walked into the house and turned the corner, and discovered that the homies were the homies maximum. In front of my eyes, stood a large, glorious, unfathomably magnificent structure made of blankets and flags. It fills the entire living room guys. It's a big living room! And I can stand in it! I know that's not saying a lot BUT ITS STILL COOL! All 4 of our matresses are inside as our cozy surface and we may or may not have slept in it all week. We also have a little tv with a chromecast Elder Wheeler bought so that we can watch book of mormon videos at night while we pound fanta exotic and vibe flippin hard. We're all so motivated to work our butts off because we know we have amazing things waiting for us back at the house at the end of the day. It's so awesome. 

I'm also serving in the same house as the one and only Elder Rich. He is amazing. He came in the group before me so his albanian is baller. We've been talking probably 80% shqip and it's been waaay good for my language because I haven't spoken it for so long. That and the massive fort were definitely the weekly highlights. I'm in heaven you guys.

Yknow how I said weve been pounding fanta exotic? Well let's just say we bought an additional 120 cans of it tonight and we've already got a pile of 180. They will be used for a certain unmentioned project that I will reveal next week. Stay tuned but enjoy the pictures of the grumbullim fanta ekzotikesh.

You also know how I said I've been having a really good time? Well it was short lived. I literally got another transfer call yesterday. I'll be transferred up to the capital of Tirana next week :(( big sad. Thankfully I still have this full week and a little bit of next. Big bummer because I've always wanted to serve in Pogradec, but hey, the Lord knows where I'm needed and I'm at least happy for this little buffer I've gotten with these legends here. It's been really, and I mean REALLY good for my emotional health hahaha I'm having the time of my life. 

But yeah that's pretty much all I've got to say. Enjoy the pictures and videos. There's lots of fort and fanta related ones hahaha. 

I LOVE YOU GUYS! SEND ME EMAILS (or messages on Facebook that works too) I MISS YALL

Photos

OUR BELOVED POTATO PLANT TATE

PO!

MIRESEVINI NE TE ARDHMEN!!! PO NE TE VERTETE JAM UNE ELDER MILLI DHE SAPO U KTHEVA NGA E ARDHMJA! TANI MUND TJU TREGOJ JUVE TE GJITHA SEKRETET! 

Po mire tani le te vazhdojme.

HELLO MY FAMILY 

Its a pleasure to be back. I know I haven't written consistently at all, but at least I'm writing something. In my 3 months in Cyprus I think I've written like 4 times so honestly I say thats a pretty good ratio. We've got some deep shiz to talk about though so lets all hold hands and jump in.

POTATOES 

A few weeks back Elder Nilsson and I made some bomb mashed potatoes for our district halloween party. Well, being the genius that I am and knowing that we had a dead potted plant on the balcony, I performed an emergency heart transplant and shoved the last potato in there. Close to a month later, we have a beautiful plant child growing strong in our cooler. Pictures included of course. After a little while, we had to get some more dirt and a bigger container, so we stole some from the flower bed at the bottom of our apartment complex. Please take the time to enjoy the progress and growth of Tate. 

Pday was moved to Tuesday this week because we had the APs and Sister Leads come out to Cyprus. They landed Monday so we all moved pday to Tuesday to enjoy some time together in north Cyprus. Good stuff there. 

Anyways, they came out to Cyprus with President and Sister Burdon because we had zone conference on Thursday. Great zone conference. Cyprus just has the 10 of us and the seniors, so it was a nice small group setting. Definitely way different from the combined zone conferences I'm used to having in the north countries. Very very good stuff. Because the Burdons came out to Cyprus, we had interviews with President in person. I haven't had that since the beginning of the mission which was really dope. 

I guess another cool thing that happened this week was that on Wednesday everyone got their flight plans to go to Athens for the mission tour we're having in a couple weeks! Cool stuff, except I didn't get one. Instead, I have a flight to Albania tomorrow! Ahah. President clarified where I'm being transferred to in my interview the next day. 

P.O.G.R.A.D.E.C! I'll be moving to the lake city of Pogradec with my guy Elder Wheeler. Pogradec is somewhere I've always wanted to serve so I'm super stoked. I've been to pogi on exchanges before and it's always a blast because it's pretty much the only area in the mission with 4 elders in the same house. Good things on the horizon! 

It is a little sad to be leaving Cyprus though. I've had a really good time here and met some really amazing people. Chances are, I'll never see most of them again which is pretty dang depressing. People just don't stay in Cyprus more than a few years typically. Most of our friends are asylum seekers or refugees from Africa, and none of them really know when they're going. Still though, it's been great to meet and teach them. They are amazing people. The members here as well are incredible. I've had more member meals than I can even count in the past 3 months (which is a big deal!!!!) and that's not even the best part. They have become dear friends in a short time and their testimonies have been so strengthening for me. I've learned so much from all of them. The past 3 months have been dope as frick. 

Anyways, like I said I'm stoked. I'm hoping for a nice cold winter in Pogradec with ice and snow. It's one of the colder areas in the mission. Ima boutta be getting everywhere by sliding. I leave tomorrow morning to fly on over and that will pretty much start me off on my last 6 months. Crazy I know. The sisters from my MTC group are already headed home. May they rest in peace. 

HOT TOPIC 

In the last several months I've come across a cool hebrew word: "hesed". Look it up! It's got some really cool meanings attached to it. President Nelson did an article in the October Liahona and he talks about it. It's dope! If you want some good study, definitely give it a look.

BON VOYAGE TO MYSELF! Next time you hear from me I'll be back in the Fatherland. Albania has a really special place in my heart so I really can't wait. 

Paqe.

Limassol/Paphos Week 10

Limassol/Paphos Week 11

Ja das ist dank

Merry Halloween! Hope the festivities are going well back over there in the land of spooky season. I've missed the super decked out houses and the trick or treating, but hey, there's always next year. Even though Cyprus isn't super big on Halloween, the Limassol branch put on a trunk or treat last night, and that was fresh. Got about 4 pieces of candy and I'm satisfied. The branch president and his wife are american, and they ordered tootsie rolls over. I ate 2 of them and I am definitely going to be able to make it through the rest of the mission now. I'm filled with determination and grit thanks to those candies. Eat some tootsie rolls for me everyone. 

In the spirit of Halloween we also had a party at district council. Though our costumes weren't much, we had some great food. I spent 2 1/2 hours the night before making up a ton of mashed potatoes and sloppy joe stuff. Gave us some good leftovers for the rest of the week. 

Other than that, I honestly don't have too much to report. Teaching and finding is going well as always in Cyprus. The Lord has a lot for us to do and it's a great privilege to be here doing it. We met a couple more cool dudes from Cameroon this week, and we had a good lesson with them. They even came to the trunk or treat with us last night which was way cool. So did our homie Steve. 

Our work these days requires a lot of driving back and forth between Limassol and Paphos, but it's honestly kinda nice because it keeps things interesting. We just trek back and forth teaching our friends over there and here. The Lord has a lot for us to be doing it seems. 

On a more weird and random note, Elder Nilsson and I found out we can use the projector we have as a blacklight when we reflect it off our wall, so we've been having some fun with that. Created some good album covers. 

Also I am staying in Cyprus for at least another 2 weeks I think. Κιο εστ σχουμ ε μιρ

Photos

Driving Stick On the Wrong Side

Hey bros and not bros! In case you are bored and don't have much else to do, here is an email of some random happenings from this last week. Please enjoy. 

For those of you interested in the happenings of the work, we did a cool little experiment as a mission this week. On tuesday we had a mission-wide finding day where we did all of our studies in the morning and then between the hours of 10:30 and 9 all we did was find. No lessons, no naps, just finding new friends. It was pretty cool, though it was a long and tiring day. We had a lot of success doing a book of mormon stand by the marina and made a cool friend from afghanistan. We might not be able to teach him much since Afghanistan is not a friendly place for the church, but he loves the Book of Mormon so far. We've also been having mega success doing online finding. It's kinda been a little overwhelming really. The work rolls on. 

I also had an exchange with my homie Elder Garrick in Nicosia. In Nicosia they drive a nice manual ford van. Very fun to get the hang of, especially in nicosia which is kind of a hilly city. Having to shift gears with my left hand was kinda whack but it got my adrenaline going and it was fun. Also got to play soccer with a bunch of africans that just smoked us. I was hoping to get better at soccer on my mission, but I don't think it's working. The people we play with are just way too skilled. Nicosia is also a divided city. The north side is occupied by turkey, so we wandered up there for a few minutes for fun. Kinda cool. 

We actually went back up to north cyprus today as well. We drove over with the elders and sisters from nicosia in the van because it had the insurance, and we saw a cool castle. We also ate some relatively affordable food so that was nice. Most places in south cyprus are frickin rigged they're so expensive. Anyways, it was a party. Gotta love these pdays with the homies. 

My time in Cyprus is running out though. I think I'll probably be moved here in a couple weeks or so. We'll see!

I also got access to some calvin and hobbes I've been reading in my spare time. I included some favorites. 

Also also don't think we're apostate for not wearing tags in the pictures at the castle. Tags aren't allowed in Turkey. How inconvenient. 

Photos

I got deported

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!

Paphos/Limassol Week 3

Paphos/Limassol Week 4

Paphos/Limassol Week 5

Paphos/Limassol Week 6/Mission Conference

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! 

Photos

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.

Photos

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!

Photos

Holy crap my feet hurt but it was so worth it

WOOHOO I did the coolest thing ever today. A little over a month ago me and some bros decided to hike mount tomorri, which is a very prominent and tall mountain which can be seen from all of central albania. We ended up taking quite a few wrong turns and didnt quite make it to the top unfortunately. Anyways, me and some other bros returned today, and this time, we MADE it. Or 3 of us did. The other 2 stayed down lower. It was amazing. So incredibly beautiful and exhilarating. Summits are the coolest. It was also probably the hardest hike I have ever been on. Not only is there not much of a trail most of the time, but the trail that does exist is steep as frick. My calves have never hurt so bad, but again, it was so worth it. We also had to add an extra 3 miles onto the beginning and end of our trip because the road is terrible and all we got is a little hyundai accent. In total we hiked 16 miles and gained/descended about 6000 feet in 8 hours. It's unbelievable that we actually pulled that off. We were hauling butt even though it hurt bad. You gotta do what you gotta do when you need to be back down to work in your areas at 6. To make things even more exciting, not 20 minutes after leaving the peak, it started dumping tons of cold rain and hail on us. Lots of loud thunder. Classic mountaineering experience. Just didn't think I'd get it on the mission.

Anyways, me and Eski have been cranking here in Lushnjë. Getting some good village manual labor done as well. It's been awesome and a whole lot of an adventure. Elder Esquivel is probably one of the greatest guys I know and it's been a privilege to serve with him again. 

Well, saturday night president decided he wanted to surprise us with yet another transfer call. After some suspense while we pulled the car over, he let us know that I would be transferred to serve in Limassol and Paphos, Cyprus. Definitely unexpected we could say. I will be flying to Cyprus on Saturday so thankfully I will have most of this week to enjoy my last bit of Lushnjë. These people have really made an impact on me, and these last 7 months have gotten me really used to the small city life. But, now it's on to the next big thing. My new companion in Cyprus will be Elder Nilsson which is dope because I actually know him. We both did Williamsburg throughout high school, and though we never spent a lot of time together ourselves, we have quite a few mutual friends. Should be dope. I'll give a thorough report of Cyprus and how it's treating me next week. After all I will have been there 2 days so I'll be an expert.

Well, I need to sleep so my body can recover from the 8 hour backpacking trip we did today. Take care everyone!

Lushnje Week 26

Lushnje Week 27

Banana-Cola

I'll put the pictures first this week as temptation to be lazy and not read the email:

Photos

Nice.

First and most important is the subject of banana-cola. Me and Eski invented a new great flavor of coke. You already have vanilla and cherry coke, but now get ready for BANANA COKE. Banana juice is available in abundance in stores here and it is super tasty. One evening while hanging back at the house we were drinking both coke, and banana juice, and decided to combine the two. It was kinda like the pilk (pepsi milk) mentality but it turned out way better. I'm probably gonna have to start selling this stuff across the border.

This week was good though. Went by super quick and we got a lot done. We are just trying to meet all of the members for elder esquivel so he can be really familiar with the area before I head out. We've got some time still, but the sooner he gets the hang of things the better. The members love the guy as we would expect. He is a tall, blond, muscular, and happy american. President really is making it up to the city of Lushnjë after condemning them to be cared for by me of all people the last 6 months. I'm sure they grew a lot from it. 

Besnik loves the guy too. For the first time ever, he fed us cantaloupe instead of watermelon. It was insane. Breaking tradition one cantaloupe at a time. Cantaloupe is so good here I could literally just eat a whole cantaloupe every meal.

We had zone conference again which was dope. I wasn't finding any pictures besides a couple I did myself, but we didn't do many anyways. Our camera tech man wasn't there so you can't expect much from the rest of us haha. Zone conference was super good though as always. I love spending time with the other missionaries and just learning from them. A big reason I was called to serve here was definitely because I need to learn all these lessons from these guys. 

We also made some good meals this week because we wanna be healthy. Its bulking season up in here again but this time we are eating more than just chicken, eggs, and pasta. We've been hitting the workouts hard and making gourmet meals in the evenings. One of these said meals was chicken pot pie. The only casualties were eski's finger and the floor. We chillin tho. Chicken pot pie was fire. I'm actually about to eat some of the leftovers right now and I'm stoked. 

Well, have a good week everyone! Love you all!

This is goated gezohemi shume

Hey fam and others that are basically like family, sorry I failed you all last week by not emailing. I try not to drop off the face of the earth like many missionaries do, but I honestly feel like there is not a lot to report on all of the time so my apologies. That's not to say that nothing is going on, but it's kinda just the same stuff over and over again every week. It really is kinda getting monotonous. I have been here in Lushnjë a really dang long time. BUT we find ways to make it interesting. For example, we found a way to play two player catan for comp study and I did a really good job creating the roman empire and completely stifiling the growth of my beloved companion. I've also been trying to do some more work on Facebook and the likes, because even though I'm not super fond of it, if I've been given it as a tool to help spread the gospel I should probably use it for things other than just making sure you're all still alive hahaha. 

Some unique stuff this week did happen though I gotta give it some credit. For instance a member got super mad at me and called me a liar and a deceiver because he came early to our FHE activity out in the town and the old lady told him it wasn't happening because we weren't there yet. He called me to yell at me while we were actually holding this meeting and when I said I needed to hang up to keep the meeting going he said "No I called YOU this call is only done when I say it is!". I humored that thought only for about 10 more seconds before I was forced to hang up on the guy. Gotta love cranky albanians.

Fun fact time: we are eating a ton of watermelon. Every time we have a presidency meeting, brother hazizi brings out half of a watermelon chopped up. Every time we are at Besnik's house, he chops up half a watermelon and makes us eat it all before we can start the lesson or take him to FHE. With those, we usually have this happen to us at least 3 or 4 times a week. Not to mention Besnik has also given us like 5 full watermelons to take home. It's totally chill though because they taste so good. Gotta enjoy it while they're here! This is my last watermelon season in Albania :(( To switch it up today I ate an entire cantaloupe on my own for dinner. Fruit is delicious. 

Speaking of Besnik, he is now tentatively on date to be baptized! I am super excited. We are aiming for the end of October. With this being the case we got permission to take him and his kids with us to a baptism in Berat on Saturday. That was super fun but I had to babysit during a church meeting for the first time in a while. I had to use my legs as a barricade to keep the little kid from leaving the row. It was just like the good old days in church with my young siblings.

But the real reason that this email is goated and that we gezohemi shume is that we got transfer calls. Elder Esquivel is going to return!!! We were mercilessly ripped apart 6 months ago when I got transferred here to Lushnjë, and now we will have the chance to serve together again for the next transfer while he gets trained to become the next branch president. :D Very very stoked. Eski is the best. We will pick him up tomorrow morning. My current companion, Elder Gallagher is actually getting transferred to Thessaloniki in Greece so that's dope too! It was quite the exciting transfer call for the both of us. 

Anyways, things should pick back up a little here in Lushnjë. I'll be needing to get Elder Eski all learned up with the area so he can take the mantle and level up. I'm not suggesting that I'm on a higher level than him because he's literally the coolest guy and best missionary, but he will definitely level up even more than he already has because serving in the branch presidency helps you to grow a lot.

Random fact and thing you can maybe try at home: we ripped off the skin of an old soccer ball today to make a mega bouncy kickball and then used it to play 4 square. It was amazing. One of the best games ever. We used the churchs chalkboard chalk to draw our squares in the parking lot. Very very very dope even though it was like 100 degrees and we were dripping constant sweat. 

Have a super good week and be super dope like always!

Lushnjë Week 23

Lushnjë Week 24