I'm Headed to Kosovo!!

July 28, 2014 Email

My dearest and most cherished family,

I had a great week with Elder Dahl! This week actually went by super fast. I had an exchange with the zone leaders in Tirana and I got to spend all day Thursday with Elder Ostergaard in 2nd Branch! My old stomping grounds.

Cinnabon heaven!

So this week we found two new investigators. One of them is a young boy named Ledio. He is actually related to Besara and he is super down with learning about the Gospel. he doesn't know a whole lot about church stuff if it's not related to Catholicism but he is super in tune with the Spirit and we really enjoy meeting with him and he even came to church this last week. Good kid.

The other investigator was found by Elder Dahl and Elder Temple while I was in Tirana. They went tracting and got into this lady's apartment with her and her husband. Her name is Anxhelina and unfortunately we set up a second lesson but she had to cancel because she had some stuff going. And then she told us that we are going to have to call her next week because she is going to be in Italy. So we have some high hopes for both of them. Ledio could definitely be the Elder's Quorum President in the future.

I guess I need to tell you the big news. Last night I got myself a phone call from President Weidmann. The Man, The Myth, The Legend. And he told me that the Lord wants me to serve as North Zone Leader in Prishtina, Kosovë. I had to say yes.

I'm heading up tomorrow morning and I'll be serving with Elder Price from my original MTC group up there and I am super excited. A lot of people were actually transferred last night so I think President wants to switch over to 6 week transfers.

Primary in Shkoder!

Anyways, so I had an exchange with Elder Ostergaard on Thursday day and it was awesome. I didn't get to meet with Evi or Sam because they were out of town with work or with family stuff but they are still doing good is what I hear. We did some finding and had a good time with Elder Rawlings and Elder Wright during lunch as well. 

We had a cool experience there as well. We were out in a little side city called Kombinat and we decided to do some tracting. We knocked on a few doors and finally one let us in. The lady was super kind and willing to listen to us. We got into her house and her husband sees us and he flips out! He starts saying how he hates the JW's and how we weren't allowed to enter into his house and all this other stuff that kinda freaked me out personally. But his wife just motioned him away and he left and she was just like, "Don't worry about him. He is just old and weird." After all that we got to know her and introduced ourselves and then the husband came back in. He sat on the couch and we explained that we were Mormon missionaries with the LDS church. He kinda settled down as we got to know him a bit more and talked about ourselves as well. Then we explained that we had a message to share with people. We asked if we could begin this message with a prayer and they said okay. We prayed and then we taught the Restoration. I don't know if it's the fact that I haven't been with another missionary who speaks fluently since the end of December or what but that lesson was super spiritually guided and we were a great team. We were asking inspired questions and they were just eating it up. We ended the lesson and set up a return appointment and left the home feeling like a million dollars. I'm not saying it's rough teaching with new missionaries, because my son's have been amazinge, but it's kind of nice when you can have a seamless lesson about the Restoration when everyone involved that knows the language super well, they know the doctrine, and they want to share it with everyone.

Elder Clawson and Elder Jorgensen with the landlords poopy as Jed put it.

When I left, I ate a Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll. An English guy just opened one up in Tirana and it tastes like heaven. All in all it was a good exchange.

Well I'm really sad to be leaving Shkoder, especially when things are looking bright but it's alright. I'm excited to serve in Kosovo and see more of the mission and work with different people. Today I went to Theth again with Vëllai Vance from the MTC! He was one of my teachers and he has been in Albania for a bit and he came and spent the day with us. It was really fun to relax with him and his wife. They are good folks.

Theth, Albania for Jed's last P-Day in Shkoder.  I think it's one of his favorite places.

Elder Clawson with the Vance's.  Brother Vance was one of Jed's instructors in the MTC last summer.  Jed loved spending the day with them.

This week I learned how important the Spirit is in order to teach effectively. Without the Spirit, being a missionary is worthless. If you don't have the Spirit with you, you wont' touch lives and you won't be effective as a missionary. I'm not saying that if you aren't successful that you don't have the Spirit but you don't have any chance of being successful if you don't have the Spirit. Always be worthy of the Spirit in your life. It leads and guides us in every decision and we need it daily.

I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic week! Jackson looked fantastic!

Love, Jed

Dearest Mom, 

I hope you had an unstressful time in Yellowstone. It looked super fun and those kayaks look great too. Good luck in Montana this week. I hope everything goes well and tell me what happens because that is pretty interesting stuff. I love you so much!

Love, JEDEDEDEDIAH