I Don't Know! I Haven't Done This Before!

Aug. 4, 2014 Email

Dearest Family and People,

So yes I am now in Kosovo. Monday was my last day in Shkoder and we had FHE (Family Home Evening) with a bunch of kids and Besara. She was super sad to hear that I was going to Kosovo but she is leaving for Sweden soon anyways. The next day I drove down to Tirana with Elder Temple and we got cinnamon rolls and got to the mission home. It was super sad saying goodbye to my Shkoder district. 4 elder districts are the best because you all just get super tight and it was sad to part.

Saying goodbye to friends in Shkoder, Albania.

While at the mission home I watched the driving video!! I got with Elder Roberts and I drove us up to Prishtina. A 4 hour drive on crazy roads in a stick. Not to mention the fact that I hadn't driven in over a year. We got to Kosovo in one piece and I actually did a great job driving. No surprise. Oh and Mother, I can drive even though I had those several speeding tickets. And I'm probably one of the safest drivers.

Jed saying goodbye to one of the members and her children in Shkoder.

I am with Elder Price from my MTC group and we went to town finding and teaching investigators. HOLY COW! The people here are so much more receptive to us. We found three awesome investigators and we have 7 on baptismal dates. We are always busy and it's super crazy to have so much work. We have 4 people getting baptized this week and Elder Watson has another. I get to be here for my sons first baptism! We are all super excited for this week.

Thursday we had a big meeting with all of the other mission leaders in Tirana so we had to drive at like 4:30 in the morning to get there on time. Elder Charles, one of the Seventy, was there and gave us a really good training that we are going to be touching up on during our zone training tomorrow. After that we had some work to do in Tirana for the other Kosovo missionaries and that was time consuming. We ended up getting home at like 8 that night. But we definitely came back enlightened. And yes Elder Linderman is the new AP! He is doing awesome and we love him to death. 

The car Jed get's to drive.  Her name is Bathsheba. (Aunt Jone does State Farm cover Jed in Kosovo?)

 I love being a zone leader! Elder Price and I have no idea what we are doing though. Kinda freaky because Elder Price has only been here for 5 weeks and every now and then something happens and I look at Elder Price and I ask "What do we do?" and Price says "I don't know! I haven't done this before!" So I'm glad this is a learning experience. I hope we don't look as lost as we feel. Everything seems to work out though. We are definitely trying to be more sensitive to the Spirit.

We gave a District Leader Training the other day for all the DLs and we taught about accountability and we shared Ezekiel 3:1-6  and talked about how we are all the watchmen on the tower. It went really well and we were definitely relying on the Spirit in that training.

Cathedral in Prishtina, Kosovo.

Another cool experience that we had was with one of our investigators named Agim. We were teaching him the Word of Wisdom and he was getting it, but there was something missing and we didn't necessarily know what it was. In the front of the Word of Wisdom pamphlet there is a big pic of Joseph Smith. We both felt prompted to ask Agim if he believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet. We asked and he said "Who?" So we explained the Restoration again to him in a more detailed way and the Spirit just flooded the room. He looked at us and just said "Whoa, that's so right. This is true. Why wouldn't God work this way?" I felt kinda bad that the first lesson kinda went over his head the first time but I can kinda understand why. It's the very first lesson and it's a lot to take in at one time so maybe he was just a little overwhelmed at first but now he understands it all. He is on a baptismal date and we are stoked for him. The Spirit works miracles. 

Today we played Frisbee and watched Ephraim's Rescue. Great movie. Sister Curtis was a gem and made me some onion dip for my potato chips. HALLA! 

Some P-day frisbee.

P-day pizza! And those cute sister's there cook for the missionaries on Sundays.  They are going straight to HEAVEN for that!

I love being in my district though. There's me and Elder Price, Elder Watson and Elder Roberts who are both super cool and fun, and Sister White and SIster Curtis. The sisters are great and they make good food for Sunday Dinner. LOVE IT!

Jed and his new companion Elder Price.

The branch here is good too. The president is an embassy worker and he rocks. We have tons of YSA age kids that are awesome and solid. There's no youth so we'll try for that. But all the members were super nice to me and love talking to me and the language here.... Whoa. I thought Shkoder had a different language. I love speaking with Kosovars. They are so deep and throaty. Its sweet. 

Another P-Day. 

I'm glad you had a good week! Have a good time at Bear Lake and tell Matt congrats on getting married for me! I love you all! Be safe and have fun!

Love, Jedediah

Dearest Mother, 

Thanks for sending the email.  I am so grateful for you mom. You are fantastic! Sorry you can't send packages to the base. Not allowed no more. I love you so much! Have a good week!

Love, Jed

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

Nothing Better Than A Cute Little Mom And Her 4 Kids Coming To Church!

July 21, 2014 Letter

My dear family!

Well I am alive and happy! Shkoder is doing well and I'm still out looking for people to teach. 

Elder Clawson overlooking Shkoder, Albania.

Last week I talked about that couple that Elder Dahl and I had found tracting and how stoked we were to start teaching them. We called them on Monday night last week to see if we could set up a meeting with them and teach them about the Restoration. We called them and they told us that they would be in Tirana all week! So we are going to be calling them later this week. It was kind of a bummer but oh well. 

Nothing super crazy happened this week but we did find a new investigator. I was actually on an exchange with Elder Temple this last Wednesday and Elder Jorgensen went into my area with Elder Dahl and they were street contacting all day and were able to get a bench lesson with this one guy named Olsi. He was a pretty interesting guy I guess. He was really tattooed up and had actually just been released from prison or something to that effect. 

Elder Clawson and Elder Dahl.

They taught him a bit about The Book of Mormon and asked him what his thoughts were on Christ. He told a story about how he realized that he was really good at art and so on the ceiling of his jail cell he drew this incredibly detailed picture of Jesus and the news station came in and did a story on it and stuff. He really has the desire to follow the example of Christ but he just doesn't know where to start. We can definitely help him with that. 

They invited him to church and he said that he would meet us on Sunday morning at 9:30 at a certain place. Unfortunately he didn't show up. 

We still have hope for him though. Another cool thing happened though. We got a call from some random number and it was an older investigator that asked if we were going to have church still on Sundays and we said "OF COURSE!" and then they told us that they were going to be trying their very hardest to see if they could make it and attend sacrament meeting. Sunday morning rolls around and this cute mother, her mother,  (a nënë), and her 4 kids are all waiting for us outside of the church. We talked with them and we all really clicked pretty fast. They stayed for all of sacrament meeting though and then for the Sunday School class! Which I taught. They shared some good insights and had good questions. At the end of church they asked me if I could say a prayer with them for their son who was really sick. I told them that I would love to and so we got in a circle with the mom, the grandma, Elder Dahl, myself, and Besara. I said a prayer for them all and it was a really powerful spiritual experience for me. I didn't know what I was supposed to say that would comfort them and help them. But everything worked out alright and then after we ended the prayer I saw that Besara and the mother were bawling like a bunch of little girls. Then the grandma looked at me and said "Qofshi me jetë" which means "may you be with life" and I was just like "Well thanks." Older ladies always say that to us and it just makes my day. They left with the kids which were all super cute and fun. And they told us that they hoped to be back the coming week. 

The view of Shkoder from the Rosafa Castle.

Rozafa Castle overlooking Shkoder, Albania. Click here to learn some interesting legends of the castle.

Right after that, President Kraja asked me to come and talk with him for a second. I got into his office and he told me that he was super impressed with the way that I had taught the Sunday School lesson earlier and he asked me if I would be the Sunday School Teacher from now on. I said "Alright." And then he continued and paid me one of the best compliments of my mission. He told me that my Albania was exquisite and that he is astounded that I've learned so much in 10 months and that he needs a person that speak good Albania to be his 2nd counselor. So yeah he asked me to be his 2nd counselor as well. Pretty interesting Sabbath. 

All of the Elders gave talks in sacrament meeting and it was really spiritual. They all did a really good job. I talked on Prophets, Elder Dahl spoke on Cleanliness, Elder Jorgensen talked about Faith, and Elder Temple spoke on Prayer. They all went really well.

 

My exchange was really good too. I met with Arsen and some investigators that the other Elders had. Everything went really well and hearts were touched. 

Besara told us that she is leaving for Sweden on the 1st of August. So that kinda sucks.She is one of the three active members that we have and we need some more. 

Nothing else has really happened. Even though all I do is finding, I am still loving being on a mission. These people are awesome even if they think I don't know anything. I love Shkoder especially because of the undeveloped state of the Church here. It would be great if it was a full branch or stake, but it's so fun to be working with it when it's in it's little stages.

Elder Clawson and Elder Jorgensen

I know that this Church is the true church of God restored on the earth. I know that the work I am doing is the Work and the Glory of Christ. The Gospel can change lives and if you give it a chance, it will.

I hope you all have a wonderful week full of candy and Jackson Lake water skiing pics. I love you guys!!

Love, Jedediah

Mudda Dearest, 

Tell Jake and Seth way to go on their man pins! That's awesome! I hope you had a great time with Grandma Great and the girls in Salt Lake. That sounds like it was super fun. Thank you so much for taking the time to email me every week. I love you so much and I totally appreciate the support that you give me! I LOVE YOU AND YOU ARE THE BEST MOM EVER!

 Love, Jed

Yes Mama Lisa, My Piano Skills Have Come In Handy!

July 14, 2014 Letter

Elder Clawson in Theth Albania!  A beautiful little village in the Albania Alps, right on the border or Albania and Montenegro.  Amazin!

My dearest family and friends!!

What a great week we had! We taught a few lessons and met some good people and had a good time!

So on Tuesday we had a huge meeting with just the missionaries and we were talking about what the branch here in Shkoder needed. There are 3 active members and 2 of them have callings. One is the branch president, Besnikë, and Arsen who is a Sunday school teacher. We are currently fulfilling the other positions and we are overloaded with a bunch of branch work. We are the Relief Society, Elder's Quorum, Primary Teachers, (Every now and then some kid investigators come) and anything else. I have blessed the sacrament every week that I've been here and I've been the ward pianist a bit. Yes Mama Lisa, my piano skills have come in handy. Even though I can only read from the simplified book. (I knew there was a reason we plugged through piano lessons!!  Thanks Charlotte!!)

More pictures from Jed's p-day in Theth.  Looks amazing!

Elder Jorgensen made a statement the other day about talking in church. Since he is Relief Society President he wants to give a talk on how we can all be strengthened as Sisters in Zion. 

We talked about what work needed to get done here and then we all made a goal to pray specifically for opportunities to find people that would fit these positions. We have been doing that all week. 

Wednesday Elder Dahl and I met with one of the sisters investigators this last week named Klodi. She had been kinda skeptical of us before because she didn't know who we were and we were two new young men in the sisters area. But on Tuesday night we were talking with people in the road and these two girls walk by and we say hello and they ignore us and then walk away but then after a bit they turn around and stare at us forever! It was super awkward. After that happened I got a text from Klodi that said "Hey are you those two guys that we passed in the road?" I called her and said yes we were those guys that they were looking at. She agreed to meet us the next day at the church so we were kinda skeptical as to why they wanted to meet with us. 

Anyways, the next day came and we met them and had a lesson with them and the other elders. Klodi was super nice and very in tune with the Spirit. She hadn't been reading as much as she would like she said but she tries to read every day. Her friend on the other hand.... She was not into learning about our church. She wanted to learn about us.  Klodi gave a great prayer at the end of the lesson and then told us that she was actually going home for the summer. That was really sad. She told us that she'll be coming back in September though and I'll probably still be here so that's good. 

Wild strawberries.

Handsome Jed.

We said goodbye to them and I shook Klodi's hand and her friend shook Elder Dahl's and then I went to shake the other ladies hand and she wrapped her arms around me and gave me two huge kisses right on my cheeks. It happened in the blink of an eye and I was just like "What the heck just happened?!" She told me I was beautiful and 'mire' which just translates to "good" so I don't know how to read that and then they were off in the blink of an eye. Crazy experience.  

Then the next day we got a call from another investigator named Liza. We met with her a while back and she was pretty cool. Unfortunately like I said before, all of my investigators are girls. We are trying very hard to change that. Anyways, we met her on the road and SHE TRIED TO KISS ME TOO!! Fortunately I knew the signs of an approaching kiss so I just did this temple knock thing that men do. You just bump sides of your head together like two big boy rams fighting over a lady sheep. She didn't have enough time to meet with us but she just wanted to say hi which was really nice of her and I hope we can meet with her a bit more this coming week because she is a really good lady. 

Blood Feud tower.  These towers were and still are occasionally used as safe havens for men who are involved in a blood feud.  Click the link to read what Wikipedia has to say about it.  Very interesting.

We also had a lesson with Besara's husband, Edi! We've been trying to meet with him for a while and we finally got into his house when he was there. We watched the Restoration video and talked about the Book of Mormon and how we can know it is true. And NOT written by Joseph Smith. 

He had tons of good questions that we wouldn't have been able to answer fully if we didn't have the Spirit with us. He asked how could we know the church is true if we hadn't had an experience like Joseph Smith did where God actually talked with us. We told him that we can know that this is God's true church because he lets the Holy Ghost answer us by praying. We told him that we had prayed with sincere hearts at certain times in our life and that we asked if the church, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine of the Church was true. We explained how the Holy Ghost works through our thoughts in our minds, feelings in our hearts, and through our general atmosphere such as feelings of quietness and peace. 

More of Theth,Albania.  It must have been a spectacular p-day!

Elders having a great time.

Beautiful!

He seemed to understand it pretty well but we'll double check this coming week. But it was a really good lesson and I just wish I could have ones like that more often. More reason for me to work my bum off. 

Sunday was pretty cool as well. President Weidmann, his wife, and the AP's all came up to Shkoder! They got to know the branch president and they also gave some talks, and so did Besara. We all helped her the night before to write her talk because she was super nervous because it was the first talk that she had ever given. She did great! But it was a pleasure to have the Weidmanns come. They are great! None of our investigators came but that just leaves room to improve. Next week baby. 

After church we had a branch council and talked about the needs of the branch. It was really cool because the first thing that President asked was "What positions are filled and which ones need to be filled?" We told him which ones were open and not taken by members and then he said "We need to pray to find specific people to fill these positions." HOLY COW! The Spirit was definitely prompting all of us into the same direction. We explained how we had talked about that in District Meeting. The meeting went well and the Spirit was felt. 

After that meeting, President came to see my house. I cleaned very well so don't worry. They sat us down on the couches and got to know us and then President asked us what our vision was for our area. We told him that we simply wanted to strengthen the branch and if we ended up leaving at the end, we wanted to have a good amount of work ready to hand down to the new missionaries. 

He looked me right in the eyes (kinda scary) and asked me if I could think of anyone in the scriptures who didn't have a lot of work at the beginning. The first thing that came to mind was Alma before he met Amulek. We read that part together and it said that Alma was rejected by the people of Amonihah and he left. He had no work. As he was leaving, an angel visited him and told him to not be sad. He was beating himself up for nothing. The angel told him that he had done his part and that God was pleased with him. But he needed to go back. And this time, God gave him a companion. Alma, along with his new companion Amulek, went back to Amonihah and they preached together and were able to touch the hearts of many people. 

As we analyzed this story, there were certain verses and sayings that struck Elder Dahl and myself to our core. We know what we need to do and who cares if we seem like we aren't having success. I know that as long as we are trying, working, and being obedient, we will be blessed and God will be pleased with us. Therefore, we are going to work. Harder. 

About 4 hours after that, we prayed that we could find some people to fill the positions of Elder's Quorum President and Relief Society President. We left and went tracting. We tracted one building and got nothing. We went to another and the first door that we knocked on opened up. An older lady, maybe 50, answered and listened to what I said and then invited us in with her husband.... And they want to learn more. We are hopefully going over tomorrow but we left them with a Book of Mormon and they let us say a prayer before we left. We floated away on Cloud Nine. 

GOD LISTENS TO OUR PRAYERS!! I also had another little experience with it. One morning I was taking a shower and unfortunately our shower only has one temp. Boiling. So I was so sick and tired of dying in the shower, I said "Heavenly Father, please make this water colder. This is the only time where I get to just be by myself and relax for a bit." And sure enough, the water turned to a wonderfully perfect temp. 

Today I went to Theth. It was awesome and we will all go one day. I'm not living in Berat any more. I'm living in Theth. 

I love you all! I'll try to send pics soon! Have a good week!

Love, Jedediah

Dearest Mother, 

Sorry I got on so late. We had some difficulties getting back from Theth. How's the garden doing? Is anything growing lately? I love you so much! Have a good week. 

Love, The Eldest

We Are Now A Hugging Mission

Letter from July 7, 2014

Happy 4th of July from Albania!!  This is how they celebrate.  With red, white, and blue ice cream!

My dearest family,

I'm suspecting the reason that no one has emailed me is because you are either asleep, on the road, eating, walking our dog... oh wait, watching a rated-R movie, crying because you all miss me so much, or you just forgot your oldest child who is in one of the far corners of the world. (Jed emailed a little early, but we all got emails to him before he had to leave.  Such slackers we are!)

Whatever the reason, it's okay. Rejection has become a very regular part of my life.

Well this week was full of all kinds of stuff. On Tuesday I went down to Tirana with my other boys and we got to have a combined zone conference with the Tirana Zone and the South Zone where we all got to meet the new mission president. He's a pretty cool guy and yes his wife does look like Baroness Schraider from the Sound of Music! The first thing that I heard him say was that this mission was now a hugging mission. So all of the Elders got to go up and give President Weidmann a hug and all of the sisters got to go and give Sister Weidmann a hug. A good first impression I believe.

Shkoder, Albania

So I guess they will be coming to every single missionaries house and looking at them and seeing how they are. Which is kind of a problem for Elder Dahl and I because we made some sloppy joes for the 4th of July and dirtied a ton of our dishes and then our water has been out since the 1st of July and hasn't come on since. My landlord refuses to answer his cellular device so we are going out to look for a new house this week. Should be good. And the dishes smell like death and it's dog.

This week, workwise, was a little sad. We didn't get to meet with a lot of people and thank heavens we had english course. We met with two investigators out of the many that the sisters left for us to teach and they were really cool. One kinda unfortunate thing is that all of the sisters investigators are girls. So if we do get a lesson with them we have to use the other elders in on the lesson because we need some more males and the male members here (there's two) are always busy, at work, with family, or they straight up live too far away. So we feel really bad inconveniencing the other guys. But they're good sports about it. Another downside to having only girl investigators is that when I call them, they're expecting one of the sisters voices coming from the phone. They hear some dorky little kid and they get all freaked out and say "Uh where are the sisters?" And then I say that they had to leave but I'm taking their place and that I'm a missionary just like them. Then they say "Uh maybe some other time." 

Doing service for a member's sister.  Picking something.

I called one investigator and she answered the phone and I said "Hey my name is Elder Clawson and I'm a missonary with the Church of Jesus Christ. I'm friends with those two American girls that you know." She said "Wait one second." So I waited for a bit and then this dude gets on the phone and starts drilling me with all of these questions asking me why I was calling his girlfriend. I was just like "WHOA! Calm down man I'm not trying to get with your lady, I just called a number that was in my phone." He calmed down a bit and then told me to never call the number back. So I'll give it a couple days and then I'll give it another shot.

This means that we are doing lots of finding for male investigators. We need some more priesthood in the branch here. Members in general but you get what I mean. I freaking love Shkoder though. My district is awesome, the food is good, the people are actually really nice and I don't have problems with the young men saying potty words at me. My companion is a lot like Elder Watson so I know how to work with him. He doesn't like it when people touch him so we'll see if I break him of that this transfer.

Shkoder really is my new favorite place. It's super pretty. It has tons of potential here and I'm so excited to see what we can do with it once we get a groove going. The language here too... It's beautiful. 

Celebrating the 1 Year mark!!

I'll tell ya a bit about the people that I met with this week. They were both ladies, one's named Rozi and she speaks really good english, and the other is named Liza and she is older and has 4 kids I believe. They both really enjoyed meeting with us and I think they'll keep meeting with us. Rozi has a brother who seemed kinda interested in the gospel as well and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he seemed stoked to read it.

On Saturday we went and did service for one of our member's aunt. She had a big field of stuff that we had to pick. It was really fun and we had a good time. I think we may be doing that again next week. The World Cup is also ending next Sunday. Më në fund. People have been going crazy here. There was this riot thing going on after Germany won against France and guys were on top of cars screaming with huge flags and peeling out on their scooters or motorcycles. 

Some cute little girls in the missionaries English course.

Well that's about it. This last week I did a lot of study out of the Old Testament which was super awesome. I study the Messianic Prophecies foretold by Elijah, Elisha, Moses, and all those other ancient prophets. I thought it was super interesting to see how misinterpreted the prophecies were. But it also really made me look on my own knowledge of our Savior. Jesus Christ was the only person in the world to have all the details of His life laid out in words years before His actual birth. He was born of a mortal mother and of an immortal father and He did atone for all of our sins. Through His Atonement we can all forsake our sins and become cleansed. If we humble ourselves before Him and repent, we can live with Him, our Heavenly Father, and our families after this life. He is the only way by which we can be perfected. He died for us so that we can also rise from the dead and become resurrected. I know that He will come again in all of His power and glory for the salvation of all of God's children. 

I love you guys and I hope you all have a great week!!

Love, Jedediah

Dearest Mother,

How was the Fourth for ya!? I hope everyone was safe up in Idaho. Did anyone do anything crazy behind the boat. Yes I did celebrate my year mark and the Fourth but it wasn't anything big. I love you so much and I hope everything is going alright.

Love, THE JEDI

Shkoder Is Awesome!

Hello my dearest Family!!

Happy to be on a bike:)

Well Shkoder is probably going to be my absolute favorite place to serve! This place is awesome! There's so much that needs to be done here and Elder Dahl and I are super excited to see what we can do. 

Last Monday I did the usual missionary thing and we went and said goodbye to all of the people that we know and love. We said goodbye to Cimi, and Marion his brother, was actually there with him so we were able to see him once again before we left! They gave me a couple of really cool hand made lace doilies that his wife made. (Doilies... Holmes, does your depravity know no bounds?)<-- Dr.Watson from Sherlock Holmes. And Marion gave me this super sweet leather bracelet. The first time I met I asked him where he had gotten it and he said it was a gift and I was like "Oh dang I wanted to buy one like it." But he remembered that I liked it so he decided to give it to me as a parting gift. In return Elder Watson and I gave him two ties and I gave Cimi one of the watches I had because he really liked them. That was kinda sad to say goodbye to them but it was alright. 

Goodbye to Ersi,Cimi and Marion

Goodbye to the Pjetri family!

Ersi is an amazing member missionary!  He helped the missionaries so much in Durres.  Sad to leave good friends!

Jed and Elder Palmer goodbyes!  Elder Palmer is done and headed home:)

Jed loves Elder Tanner!!  Hard to see him go home as well.  Pocatello isn't that far from Cache Valley though:)

After that I went and said bye to the Pjetri Family in hopes that their dad would be there but unfortunately he wasn't. That wasn't as bad as saying goodbye the first time I left Durres. The person that probably cried the most over me leaving was Ersi.  I like him too. He's a good kid and I'm excited to see him again. 

Tuesday I hopped onto a fergon and headed to Tirana. I got to the mission home and got my package! Thanks a ton for that! Even if you didn't send me any regular oreos, those Berry Burst Oreos were gone in like 30 minutes. I love those things. I'm making the cake for my year mark. And actually I will be done with my mission a year from tomorrow. President Ford told me when I was leaving for some reason and I leave on the 1st of July. Anyways I'm making a cake for me and Jorgy. We were in the MTC together. After that I hooked up with Elder Dahl and I said goodbye to some of the best friends I've ever had. It was rough saying goodbye to Tanner and Palmer. Elder Tanner left me this big flag that Elder Gunther left behind. It's actually the Title of Liberty and I have it hanging up in my house right now. After that we took a van up to Shkoder.

Mustache missionaries.

 We spent that whole day just getting to know Shkoder. It's a super beautiful city and there's a lot of tourists that come here from Germany and stuff. 

We've been spending a lot of time with the other Elders in our district. We are serving here with Elder Temple and Elder Jorgensen. Just the four of us all isolated in the middle of nowhere right next to Montenegro. We all really like each other and we get along really well. Elder Jorgensen and I are loving being in the same area. He's hilarious and we enjoy each other's presence. We also have a car in our district. Only Temple and Jorgy can drive it but that's okay because I just don't have to worry about crashing it.

Elder Jorgensen and Elder Clawson and the district car.

 

The work here in Shkoder is slow. We took over a sisters area and I'm really impressed with the work that they got set up for us though. We have about 3 investigators that show decent potential. That's all 4 of the missionaries combined. We have set up some pretty high goals and we are going to try our absolute hardest to get them achieved. We have a branch president, a clerk, and that is it. We fulfill all of the other positions but it's kinda easy because we don't have to worry about any people. At church yesterday we had 9 people in church. 4 missionaries, President Kraja, 1 member, and 3 little kids from our english course. I'm so excited to see what we can do here! 

Jed's new companion Elder Dahl.  I hope Elder Dahl is up for this!

One crazy thing about Shkoder is that they speak Ghegnisht. It's a ridiculous dialect of Albanian and I'm struggling to get it right now. I can speak it but I can't understand it for some stupid reason. They speak with super deep voices and it's crazy how different it is from normal Albanian. But I like it a lot.

p-day activity

"Should've bought the hat!"  he said.

 We've tried to get some work this week but 75% of the missionaries here are white washing so we don't know where anything is and Elder Temple has only been here for 3 months. But we absolutely love being here.

This is the where the branch meets in Shkoder.  I'm sure they'd be thrilled if they could fill up even half of that room.

 

Elder Dahl is a quiet kid, kinda like Elder Watson, but that's fine. He came out with the last group of missionaries and he is doing really good. Having a bit of a rough time with the language change but I am too so it's whatever. He's from New Mexico and likes to play tennis. Good kid. 

The families that used to be members here have either fallen away or were converted to the welfare program. Kinda rough.

Jed's apartment.  The banner is the Title of Liberty passed down from Elder Gunther, to Elder Tanner, to Jed.

 

Today for P-Day we went to this place called Zogaj which is right next to the Montenegro-Albania border and we goofed around there and bought some hand woven bags from this family business that's super cool. They have these massive looms that they make rugs, table settings, bags, and all sorts of other things and they sell them for ridiculously cheap. It was super cool. Other than that I just ate food and read the Old Testament study guide.

Shkoder, Albania

 

Well I hope you all have a great week and I love you all!!

Love, Jedediah

Dearest Mother, 

Thanks a ton for emailing me. Have a blast up at Sam and Hollies! Tell them all that I said hey and that I love them. You should probably cut down that grass in the field or else them deer are gonna start creating some huge colony and then they'll make a surprise attack one night and take out the whole garden! Well I love ya tons and I hope you are all safe and happy. 

Love, Jeddy