Officially Living In The Village!

Headed to the church with a TV to watch conference.

Well my beloved family, 

I am officially living in the village! Lushnje is absolutely fantastic and I love it here!

Documenting his first meal in Lushnje!

So after last P day I hooked up with Elder Ostergaard and we took off on a fergon (taxi or bus) down to Lushnje. We moved all of my stuff into my house, which is really nice by the way, and then we took all of Elder O's stuff to Fier where he is staying now with his new trainee. After that we went and stayed the day in Lushnje. President told us to ambient (I love his use of very proper English words.  He's learning to talk like Pres. Ford, and Jane Austen!)for the first couple of days with our new areas and then to begin the heavy work when we received our new trainees. So we had a good time in Lushnje. We walked around and found out where the church was and all that cool stuff. The youth here are awesome and I'm excited to be working with all of them. 

The next day, Wednesday, we took a fergon down to Fier and we basically ambiented Elder Ostergaard into his new area. Fier was really cool but a lot bigger than Lushnje. I think we both are really enjoying our areas. 

Elder Clawson with his new companion Elder Watson

So we got our new boys on Thursday!  I got an awesome kid called Elder Watson. He's from Minnesota and he is a killer with the language. He said a prayer for us as we were leaving the house and his language shocked us. He is so good. Probably the best MTC speaker besides Elder Gunther that I've ever heard. So I also don't have my own house. I live with the zone leaders in their ridiculously nice house. It's really hard to find a house here because everyone just wants to sell and we rent. So we are on a hunt for our own house. 

Nothing better than American (Actually Hispanic) hot sauce.  It made this kid happy!

So, Elder Watson and I have been contacting the streets of Lushnje seeing as we are opening a new area of Lushnje. It's really rough but the people here are so much nicer and more willing to talk to us. We only had three lessons this week but this coming week will be better. Elder Watson is very outgoing and takes the TALK TO EVERYONE theme very seriously which is awesome because it's something that I really needed to work on. 

I did get to see the whole Saturday afternoon session of conference which was really good but in order for missionaries to see any of the other sessions, we had to bring an investigator and I didn't have anyone to bring so I'll watch them when I can. Probably for Personal Study sometime. 

Today we went to Apollonia!! (click on this link and it will give you a little history of Apollonia.  Pretty amazing!)It's funny that dad mentioned that Paul was around my area because if anyone is familiar with Acts 17, Paul teaches in Apolonia. (you can click on the link and it will take you to Act 17 and YES it is in Apolonia!)So yes I have been where Paul stood and preached. CRAZY HUH? Yes, I know it's amazing and I'm awesome:) Every day I see something in Albania that just blows my mind! This place is so ridiculously overlooked by people. This place is awesome.

We got to see lots of cool stuff and had a good time. We live with the zone leaders who are Elder Palmer and Elder Bilodeau. They are both really cool guys and they set a good example for all of the zone. Oh and they have a car which I get to ride in quite frequently. Wham!!!

Well that's about it everyone. I love you all and I'm glad you had fun biking and stuff. Curse you all for rubbing that in my face. Just kidding. 

Loves you long time, 
Jed

Dear Mother, 
I am loving Lushnje. It is tons smaller than Tirana and I don't have to worry about teaching people that live in a different branch. Not a whole lot of good food here so we'll see how much weight I lose. Hopefully not a lot. Well I love you so much!
Love, Jeddy