To Vlore He Goes For His Last Transfer!

March 30, 2015 email

Dear Family and Friends of all ages,

This week was my last week working in Tirana. I have been called to finish the remainder of my mission in the southern end of Albania in the city of Vlorë! I am very excited. I have made "The Hop" as we missionaries call it. I have served in the northernmost part of the mission (Prishtina) and I will be serving in the most southern part of the mission now. I will be serving with Elder Beefus, more dirty details on him will be coming next week. But yes, I am actually kinda sad to leave T3. It has been an awesome time being here. I have also been released as a zone leader, after almost 9 months! 

This week was a good one. We've been meeting with those two boys, Klajdi and Ledion that we found last week and they are super fun to teach. Klajdi has already been baptized when he was 3 years old so it has been a little rough for him to understand the importance of being baptized by the proper authority which is found in our church but he is praying to know if he should be baptized. So he will get his answer if he's sincere about it. Ledion on the other hand, he accepted a date in April and he is super excited. He said he's happy to get rid of all of his sins because he has a lot of them. We gave them the assignment of reading Alma 32 as a commitment since we had seen such awesome results with Behar and that chapter. They read it and then the next time we met they basically just taught us how important faith is in the scheme of the Plan of Salvation and how it all just makes sense. They are really good guys and unfortunately we won't be able to teach them anymore because we are both leaving our area. Elder Braden is going to 1st ward now because the mission office has been moved and they moved a lot of missionaries out of that ward. But Elder Penrod and Elder Sadiku will be good teachers. 

We met with Behar and he was still as usual. He was definitely touched by the Spirit in our lesson last week so we were hoping for a change or something but he still said that he didn't really believe anything. We asked him if he was believing anything that we were saying and he straight up said, "No." So needless to say we are here to work in the field that is WHITE already to harvest not BROWN ready to be planted, so we dropped and told him that a seed had been planted in his heart and when it was grown a little bit more he will want to come and meet with us again. We parted ways and I will probably never see Behar again. But I will NEVER EVER forget that lesson that we had with him last week. It will always be a testimony builder to me that the scriptures are here to guide us in every aspect of our lives and that the Spirit can work so beautifully and simply. I love the scriptures!

I went on an exchange with Elder Sadiku this week as well. We met with one of their investigators named Maldi and his friend who is actually a less active member named Juxhin. They invited us to their house for dinner and we went there and taught them the Word of Wisdom because they were telling us a story of how Maldi received an answer to his prayers. They had bought a bag of hashhash (marijuana) and they started reading the Book of Mormon and talking about the Plan of Salvation and they were just learning a ton from the scriptures and such and then Juxhin told Maldi that if he wanted to know for sure if these things are true then he needed to pray. Maldi ran into his room and prayed to know if the church was true, (just remember that all of this is going on while under the influence of marijuana). He finished his prayer and he said that all of the effects of the drugs just left and he was on his knees in the most profound peace that he had ever felt in his entire life. We explained to him that God was letting him know that the Church is true through the Spirit even though he was on the effects of drugs. We told them that drugs were prohibited in the church and they both promised to stop. It was an awesome experience that got me laughing pretty hard at times. They made us rice and qofte and omelettes because they are poor college students. But it was a good day.

Yesterday I gave a talk in church for how we can magnify our callings and I used Mom and Dad as my examples. You two are both so good at fulfilling your callings! I know there may be some complaining every now and then but that's just how the cookie crumbles. The Bishop took me aside afterwards and told me that I had told the ward exactly what they needed to hear. That made my heart shine! After church we had lunch and waited for a lesson that didn't show up. SHOCKER! Then we actually had a baptism. Trazhgim's brother got baptized and Trazhgim got to come to Tirana to baptize him which was way cool. Him and Elder Richards stayed the night at our house because it was too late for them to go back into Durres but we had a good time. Trazhgim will be serving in Durres until next week which is when he will head out to England and start in his real mission. He'll do awesome.

That's about it for this week. I'll miss my district but I've got some good friends in Vlore with me. Me, Price, Dahl, Baldwin, Beefus, and Sisters Bezas, Olsen, and Cani from Durrës which will be fun. And Price is training so we will have some fresh meat with us again. Coleman is going to Elbasan but she is the Sister Training Leader over Vlore so I'll see her every now and then and Sister Fuller is staying in Tirana as a trainer. Penrod and Sadiku are staying together in T3 because they just got together. 

Have a good week family! I love you all!

Love, Jed

Dearest Mother, 

Today I am going climbing for the last time. I am sad for that. Also the card does not work. I have been to many banks in hopes that it will work but it won't. Ah well. I also need to tell you that my shoes are destroyed! My slip ons are ripped to shreds and are like flip flops. I am so proud!!! Well Mom, have fun at City of the Rocks. There's some awesome climbing there so make sure you take the climbing stuff and take some good pics! I love you!

Love, Jedediah