Return to the Fatherland

This week was madness. As it should be. 

One thing that was pretty awesome was that we had the unique opportunity to clean the home of our relief society president. For the last few months she has not been very active in church and started working 24/7 as a nanny. Because of that she hasn't had the opportunity to clean her own house, so in spite of her turning down the offer over and over again, our district met up Wednesday morning and cleaned it all up. It was awesome and it really touched her. :))

I also, as mentioned in the subject, returned to the holy land of my fathers. Gjirokastër is probably my favorite place in the world. Starting my mission there, as well as the fact that it is incredibly beautiful and awesome, makes it have significant meaning for me. We were invited to go down for a large service project at a school near Gjirokastër. We stayed an entire day and then some down there before returning which was so so so awesome! I love that place. We painted this school and throughout the next couple weeks we will be returning and putting in some playground equipment which is dank. It's been a neat experience especially when the school kids have helped out. We will be returning on Wednesday.

Gjithashtu we had some RM's visit lushnje this weekend. One of which actually served here an entire year and was also branch president. We got to spend some time with them and learned a ton about the area and about the members. They also came to church the next day and brought a bunch of less active members with them! It was such a great Sunday. We had the whopping attendance of 23 which destroyed the previous record. We usually have about 10 less people hahaha. Very neat to learn from the legends themselves. I've got a lot to live up to but they for sure have given me a lot of inspiration!!!

Beach pday again. What can I say it's just the best. 

Cau cau pafshim 

Photos

Did you know you can get sunburned through a shirt?

Yes that is true. I learned it today. Once again, we had an incredible beach pday playing volleyball. I chose to not wear sunscreen thinking that my tan had me well protected already, and I was very wrong. Everything hurts hahaha. I may never be the same man again. My shirt was on the whole time without rolled up sleeves or anything (like a good missionary because there were sisters there) and somehow my shoulders and back are burned to crap. The sun was incredibly powerful we can just say. I don't really know how the UV spectrum works when it tells you that number on the weather app, but I'm pretty sure today must have been like UV 1000 because I am so defeated right now. I will be recovering for at least the entire week I think.

This was a good week indeed. We had zone conference to start things off with the 3 countries here in the north which is always epic. Love seeing all my buddies. I also got root beer which was sick. I miss that stuff so much. The root beer flavor packets just don't do it justice. Also at zone conference we received our new shoku elder Gallagher. We are now happily living the trio life making fun of each other and stuff. 

ACCOMPLISHMENT: we finished constructing our bean bag this week after an entire transfer of trying to gather materials and put it together and not waste work hours. It is incredible. We need some more stuffing actually but we will hold out on that for a little while. I've spent a little longer than I probably should've on that bean bag these last few days since we finished it. Pictures included of course.

We also spent a grand total of 12 hours or so working inside the completed product of our previous greenhouse service projects. It is fully operational and we did 12 hours of weeding. I thought our garden was big growing up but man I miss our garden right now. There is no end in sight. 12 of us going at it for 4 hours completes only 6 rows and I'm pretty sure there's like 45. Pray for us and also my sunburns while you're at it. 

We started our temple prep class this week too and it was awesome! It is so cool to be teaching that class. I'm very excited for these guys to be able to go to Rome. More of them showed up than I expected to be honest which is great! We get to do this for the next 6 weeks or so and it'll be an awesome journey. 

Now it is time for the deep thought of the week. Elder Skene and I had a really good conversation about what friendship really is on the way to zone conference. It was prompted by some talk we had to listen to that only briefly talked about it, but it stemmed a thought provoking powwow session. Anyways, the talk said that true friendship is based off of compassion and respect. That is such an awesome concept. There is nothing in that description that has anything remotely to do with getting gain or profiting from the relationship. It is solely a relationship built on showing these two things to someone. We then went on to discuss how these two things are what really determines if a friendship or relationship is genuine or not as well. When you can just continue to give real compassion and respect in every interaction with this person, that person is going to feel incredibly and genuinely loved and appreciated. As a consequence, they will feel inspired by their compassion and respect for you for being such a good friend, and they will do the same back to you, creating this cycle of exponentially growing love. However, we discussed also that for some reason, often times it is hardest to show these simple two things with the people we are already closest with. There are quite a few possible reasons for this, but one that we discussed was the fact that there is a difference between natural behavior and genuine behavior. Being genuine takes some sacrifice and a great deal of effort some times, which is far from our natural fallen preference. It takes consistent effort and adjustment to continue showing this genuine compassion and respect to the people we care about which can sometimes lead us to fizzle out in our genuinity after a while with those people we are around often. We fall into our natural habits and stop being completely genuine in that sense. So, the obvious solution is that we must change our human nature. We must force ourselves to put in that extra genuine effort so often, that our natural habit becomes that genuinity. It's a lofty goal, but certainly changing our nature is a big reason we came here to Earth in the first place. 

Anyways, those of you who were able to follow that likely scattered thought process get Jacob points. Remind me to give you an extra hug when I get home. That is your reward.

Have a great week everyone! I love you all!

Photos

I defeated satan

WOOOOOO can we get a round of applause please? Thanks. That's all.

A very busy and productive but also non-productive week gotta say. We had Elders conference in tirana which was all of 2 days and then some and also did service twice in our district so we basically only had time to meet with one person and to have family home evening at the church. No biggie it's alright. Also we almost went broke this week because we needed a ton of reimbursements from the office for things but Sister Miller (our office missionary) ran out of refund petty cash. We got creative though and now we're rolling in cash again because lushnje is cheap as frick. 

Speaking of lushnje being cheap as frick, we needed something to use excess MSF so that we didn't just waste it splurging on food, so we made the smart decision and decided to buy materials to make a giant bean bag chair. We are so smart. We cut everything out and took it to a tailor and now she is putting it together for us. It should be ready by Wednesday and then we just gotta find a bunch of foam to stuff inside it and then our studies will hit new levels of spiritual highs. Pretty stoked about that not gonna lie. 

Elders conference was dope too. We did a massive scavenger hunt around Tirana and that wore us all out but it was sick anyways. My homeboy Martin decided to join us and sacrificed his time and energy to do so so shoutout to him. He's the real MVP and a great friend. We got some sweet pictures around Tirana at different points and then almost won the scavenger hunt sort of. Not too bad because I was walking around in sandals and my feet hurt bad after hahaha. Anyways, in order to help my feet heal a little we decided to go on a steep hike to this dope spot called Cyclops Eye near Tirana to wrap up that first day of the conference. It was very refreshing especially when we threw giant boulders into the spring. Gotta love it. The rest of Elders conference was a bunch more sports, whiteboarding all together, and a great devotional with President and Sister to wrap things up. We also got to watch the best two years so I gotta say it was a pretty good time. 

Satan. Yes he is real and he comes in all shapes and sizes, including in the form of giant wasps. Elder Skene and I were just sitting there vibing Sunday at the front of the sacrament room after the meeting ended, and we hear some very loud buzzing from behind the curtain next to us. After some further investigation, a massive wasp falls to the earth. Definitely bigger than anything I've ever encountered before so it kinda freaked me out. Then, it started crawling up my chair. Some nerve am I right? He smugly took a perch on the hymn book next to the chair, and so after mustering up my faith I grabbed another hymn book from nearby, and then SLAMMED HIM OUT OF EXISTENCE. It was pretty messy. Big bug means a lot of guts. Anyways I'm pretty sure it was satan trying to spy in on our sacrament meeting. After we killed it brother Hazizi told us that getting stung by one of them can put you in the hospital. Nice stuff. There are a couple pictures featured in the album below. 

I love you guys! Thanks for the love and support and have a great week! If you have any additional questions about the satan wasp, please feel free to ask me.

Photos 

Jedi Battle and Try-Hard Gjirokastër

Hey everyone! Sorry I missed a week again haha. I can say that not a ton that is truly noteworthy happened last week but I've got pictures that you can check out so if you've got questions after you can ask me individually hahah. 

FIRSTLY can we just acknowledge what a great week it was for the world. We had not one, but TWO large and significant holidays. The day of our moms, and the day of wars among the stars. I celebrated both of course. Also we got a perfect score on our apartment inspection so lets flipping go.

Things have been a grind here in Lushnjë. There is so much to do and just not a good way to schedule it all in. It's the kind of thing too where you gotta be a baller at planning because if something falls through it's often pretty hard to fill it in and then you feel like you're wasting time. Backup plans are legit. Anyways, through all of this grinding, Elder Skene and I of course need some fun stuff to do every so often to keep our sanity. So, with the two of us being quite possibly the biggest star wars fans in the mission, we decided to throw ourself a party on the night of Wednesday, May the 4th. 

This party encompassed us buying a bunch of glowsticks yet again. Like 12 dollars worth of glowsticks to be used up in one session. Honestly that's not that many glowsticks here because they are more pricy than I'd like, nejse it's not a problem because lushnje is cheap and we're rolling in the dough. After this was done, we hauled off to the church and made sure to block out all sources of light from windows, then we hooked up my phone to the loud speakers, and played some good old Samuel Kim star wars while we had probably one of the greatest glowstick battles known to mankind this day. Quite memorable. U kenaqem shume.

I also had an exchange this week in Berat with 3 of their elders which was a blast. Berat is a beautiful city with some very fun kids that hang out around the church there. Our whole day was basically hanging with them and trying to keep them from breaking into the church while elder Perrine was teaching some of them the piano. Pretty chaotic but a good experience. I should also say that from the pictures you will notice Berat has got a pretty good Gjirokastër vibe. Its definitely not as cool but it's close and it's got a sick river which gives bonus points. To end off the exchange we did some street contacting up by the castle while enjoying the beautiful views and even an orthodox church for fun. It was good. 

Actually we totally did something worth mention last week. Elder Skene and I did an English fast for most of the week and it was flipping hard. Learned a lot though. 

Pday was also great as usual. Now that it's hot again we are doing a lot of beach pdays. We did volleyball the last two weeks in a row and it's just as fun every time. Had to get some cars unstuck from sandy mud which was way fun. One of them was in the slipperiest clay mud I've ever been in and I felt like a 5 year old playing in the mud again. Got to wash off in the ocean after too. Gotta love it. 

Hajd hajd hajd shendet shendet cau ju dua pafshim 

Lushnjë Week 10

Lushnjë Week 11

Glowsticks are dank

Howdy yall. I procrastinated writing this again and now I'm very tired after a long day. We are doing this highlight thing like I did last week and I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. If any of you have a problem with that please contact your bishop or stake president. 

- helped build a fence

- helped make honey comb sheets for bees

- Dank exchange with Elder Koch and also Esquivel with his son in Elbasan before they got transferred out to Vlorë :'(( already miss those guy. Our stacked district will not be the same without them.

- all of us Elders in the district have started an emotional resilience course which is cool

- met another referral this week and this guy is sick. He makes pizza, is 20, and has lots of deep life questions. I think we are getting him a bible. We walked around lushnje twice with the guy. Pretty dope dude.

- Had a scary meeting/lesson with a very flirty 26 year old girl who has genuine interest but it's hard to not feel uncomfortable sometimes. Having sister missionaries is a blessing that we do not have here so we'll have to figure out how to move forward in this situation.

- Worked in a finished greenhouse and ate some bomb peppers

- Allergies

- We scrambled to get a talk and second hour lesson ready for church Saturday night while cleaning and forgot we had a meeting and ended up having to do it the next day which in turn led us to starting church 10 minutes late. Imperfect leadership what can I say

- We've got a good handful of members who have committed to going to the temple in September who have never been before which is so awesome! I'm stoked for all of them.

Story time because pday was sick today. A couple weeks ago, an idea was presented by the legendary Elder Koch. This idea was accepted by all of us of course and so we found a place to buy glowsticks and then did so. Flash forward to today, we traveled to Berat and hiked to some old communist military tunnel/caves. Very cool. We pull out my speaker that looks like a BMW grill that I inherited from Elder Rowley, start playing some dank Albanian music, and then we get to cracking and shaking some glowsticks so they were all ready for us. 5 minutes later we were all covered in glowy glowstick goop looking really fresh while we continued to light the cave up so it looked like a bunch of green, yellow, and blue stars. Very very very fun. Got a cool group of missionaries here. It was a relief to shower later on though gotta say.

Anyways, love you all! Hope you're all thriving. Sorry I have been pretty bad at responding to any emails recently but I promise I have seen them! Crossing my fingers I remember to respond next week to all of you because I appreciate you very much. 

Hajd hajd shendet

Photos

Logic Bashing and a Beach Funeral

I'll make this quick and let the pictures/videos speak for themselves this week because there sure are a lot of those. It was a fun and eventful week for sure. Here is a summary of some cool stuff that went down:

- We found avatar the last airbender in Albanian so we are allowed to watch that on pday now 

- We had zone conference again and I got a lot of pictures with a lot of good friends which I love and appreciate. 

- Had a day long exchange with the Berat elders while my companion left me to go to Korça for residency stuff. 

- Some of our branch work took us to the beach actually and so we took a nice walk barefoot and found a dead ray and so we named it Gëzim and had a funeral for it. Also dank sunset.

- Elder Skene and I sung in sacrament for our Easter program because there wasn't a lot else we could do to make it seem like a special occasion besides having an Easter lesson in second hour

- We got to have a "discussion about our religions" with a really devout Muslim in a mosque on Sunday afternoon. Very cool but it definitely put my Albanian to the test. He was very practiced and had a whole structure to the interaction and everything. It couldn't be called Bible bashing tho because he made the Bible as well as the Kuran off limits since we don't believe in each other's books so we talked religion based off of logic which was very strange but I will never forget it

- for pday we went to a trampoline park, played football ⚽️, and had a movie night all in the one day. Also we had a branch presidency meeting so it was productive as frick.

- our house might be haunted

Love you all! Paçit javë të mbarë!

Photos 

Greenhouses and a Sick Donkey

Ayooo sorry it's been a couple weeks again. All I can say is I decided to sacrifice writing this email last week for a very special someone (you know who you are) so I'll have to catch each of you up in this one. Honestly everything significant has happened in this last week anyways so it totally works out. 

First and foremost BAM we had transfers again and BAM I'm still here in Lushnjë. I'm gonna be here a while so I hope that's not a surprise. And what a lucky man I am now because I'm serving here with my boy Elder Skene! He is one of two elders in the mission that is shorter than me so I actually, unbelievably, am taller than my companion probably for the first and the last time hahaha. Its definitely a special experience! It's been fun too because the guy is an absolute dawg. We've been spending a lot of time goofing off and talking about important things like lego star wars and avatar the last airbender. We've got a good mutual support system thing going on while we work here alone in this wonderful city. I expect he'll stay here for a couple transfers at least so I'm sure you'll hear a lot about the weird stuff we do together. 

Anyways, events. One of great significance was that basically 90% of our time this last week was given in service to a member here. We have been working on her farm, specifically on her cement/rebar greenhouse structures as she's working to get them re-covered with plastic so they can be all functioning again for planting this year. This meant that we took a bunch of cloth scraps and wrapped/tied this stuff around the rebar up in the air while standing on boards suspended between the rebar. It was super fun. We spent every full day that didn't rain out in that fshat wrapping those bars and we got cooked because nobody had sunscreen. So, as a result, Elder Skene and I have now absorbed about a bottle and a half of aloe vera into our skin. My skin has honestly never felt healthier and now I've got a nice tan. Gotta love it. 

I also made a friend. Her name is Majola and she is a donkey who is very sick. I mean that in a literal sense. She has snot constantly hanging from her face and a lot of bombs came from her rear end while we were working there. Anyways, we are buds even though she kinda nasty. 

Pday today also took us up to durres for a beach party with basically all of Albania. Kinda do miss the smaller get togethers but I will appreciate what we got while we got it. Lushnje is in the perfect place for pday because we can drive just about everywhere with how central it is. Blessings. 

I think we will buy an aloe vera plant. Updates to come on that. Love you guys!!! Send me email updates on your lives because I feel out of the loop because in reality I totally am. 

Me dashuri, Elder Jakob Milli

Lushnje Week 6

Lushnje Week 7