Basketball! (11/21/16)

This week was great! It was a pretty long week, but great! So at the beginning of the week we had some long nights in the office because we had to translate the calendar for the church's new Christmas Initiative "Light the World" but it is going to be so cool! We are hoping to give every missionary and members little flip-booklets where they can like check off that they are doing everything. AND it says 3 times on the calendar to call your mom or someone from your family so mom... 😉(just kidding) 

*I found this post on FB, YAY Jacob!!
This was posted after Jacob wrote this email.

This week we were able to play basketball a lot this week! It is so nice! We wake up early in the mornings and go to the park and play with some other missionaries. It is a lot of fun! I am really really rusty though. It has been a year since I have played so it has been hard but it is still a lot of fun! Then during the week we played a game with the ward and I told everyone it was my first time ever playing. So at the beginning I was doing awful on purpose and stuff then when we were about to lose I started playing and me and my comp tore it up! He played basketball in High School so he is way good and it was just so much fun to play with him. 

The ward here is pretty nice as well.. none of them can really say my name yet which is normal here I guess. There is this one older lady in the ward who is so funny. She like loves the Gospel and loves the church and stuff. Whenever you talk to her you just have to say "amen" a lot because she always is like "Lamb of God amen!" haha it is great she is awesome. She is a little coo coo though.... ha. 

*Here's another pic from the Adriatic FB post.  Looks like a service day!

The work has been good for the most part. We have been really busy organizing a few things and preparing for the Thanksgiving get together. I am so excited for that by the way, we are going to be at a nice place with an authentic American Thanksgiving dinner!! It is going to be awesome. But it has been pretty crazy figuring it all out without our Mission President being here! But it has been alright. We have a new friend that we are teaching named Pellumb. He is a pretty cool kid! He really likes reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church so that is really awesome. 

But yeah that is pretty much it! The work is hard but it is great! Loving every minute of it! I love serving the Lord, it is such a huge blessing! Also, a cheesy invitation from a cheesy missionary. It is... to read the Book of Mormon! It is such a great book. Really, if you have time to read my silly blog then you have time to read the Book of Mormon. So get reading! Have a great week! 

Elder Farni 

Week one in Tirana! (11/14/16)

Flooding!!

Man this week has been crazy!! So busy! My first day in Tirana was probably the craziest day of my entire mission!! Okay so I will give you the brief rundown. So normally it takes about 1 1/2 hours to drive from Fier to Tirana. So we are driving then all of a sudden we are just in 100% stopped traffic! So we get out of our car and found out that the road is completely flooded! So I decide to try and drive through and it starts getting pretty deep and pretty sketchy. So I pulled off on top of a round-about just to be above the water. We ended up waiting there for about 45 minutes! We saw this other car try to go through the water and they  stalled out and their car got stuck and they had to climb out of their windows and abandoned there car! It was crazy. So after a long journey and driving through a lot of water we made it into Tirana. It took us 5 HOURS but we made it. But then right when I get in Tirana my new companion tells me we need to take the big mission van and drive back into the floods and rescue some other missionaries that were stuck! It was crazy! But we got them. They are all safe! Everything is good! The floods were insane though! I will try to get you pictures.

 So anyway once we settled down and got in Tirana and everything was good, we were in the parking at the mission office and someone backed into our car! So we had to wait for the police to come and figure all of that stuff out. It was pretty crazy. Then we went to dinner at the Mission Presidents house. It was really sweet! It was for all of the missionaries that are about to go home and they all bore their testimonies it was really powerful. So yeah that was just my first day!! Pretty crazy!

Then the second day we drove all of the missionaries to the airport and sent them off. It was kind of sad to see them all go. But then we waiting there for a new missionary to come in! Elder Davis! A fellow Beetdigger! Him and I just talked about high school and Draper Mom's a lot it was so great.

So after all that madness everything kind of chilled out and we had a kind of normal week. 

Choir Practice! Sorry I look like a punk!

On Sunday we went to church, and this is the first ward I have ever served in my whole mission! It was so nice there were a ton of people!! (well only like 60, which is a lot for me) But it was great to just have a ward run itself and I didn't have to be worried about much. All the members here are so great though! It is awesome to serve in a place that the church has been established for a really long time. 

Overall this week was crazy and stressful but I am still loving it!! My new comp is great. We play basketball in the mornings it is so nice! I haven't been able to play basketball a lot my mission so that has really be nice. Anyways, Elder Farni is happy! Have a great week! 

Elder Farni 

I will be leaving Fier and moving to Tirana! (11/7/16)

This week was really good! Sorry because this is going to be kind of a short email. 

But at the beginning of the week my homie Islam came and visited me again! But this time he was able to stay longer so it was great! It was so much fun to be with him. He was just following us around all day. It was like he was a missionary with us! Ha he is such a baller. I love that guy! 

We had a Halloween party and it was a lot of fun! We made this big sheet with like a place to put your face cut out and we drew pictures of skeleton bodies underneath it. It was really great!! I was able to show off the crafty side of me :) But it was a lot of fun at the party! And it was awesome to have Islam there. But it was really sad to say goodbye to him again as he had to go back to Switzerland! 

So during the weekend we were able to go to a new area in the mission called Korca. It is soooo gorgeous! And the drive down there was amazing too! I was so amazed! So pretty. And the people there are so prepared to hear the Gospel! Everyone just wanted to meet us and we had like some amazing lessons. We met these two guys named Simoni and Kleanti, and they were so funny! We had like a really great lesson with them then just hung out with them and played Settlers of Catan with them and it was so much fun. It was awesome to play Settlers while only speaking Albanian haha. 

They are so funny though! They will both be getting baptized in a couple weeks. It was really awesome to meet them! 

So at the end of the week we got transfer calls! I will be leaving Fier! I am going to be moving to Tirana, where I will be Assistant to the President! I am pretty excited to move to Tirana because I kind of like the feel of the big city! Pretty excited but also kind of nervous! 

 

Love Elder Farni! 

PS: The picture with me and the girl with the kids is to show how much taller I am compared to ALbanians haha! 

1 year mark! (10-31-16)

Albanian Kneaders! 

Helloooo everyone!! This week was really great. It was kind of a long week but it was alright!! So on Tuesday I went on an exchange with this Elder that is from Russia. He is a pretty cool guy and has a pretty cool conversion story. But then this senior couple called us and asked us if we wanted to go to lunch so we go to like this pretty nice place but it totally reminded me of Kneaders in Draper!! I walked in and I was like no way. Then I was thinking man, the only thing this place is missing is a table full of Draper-moms. Then, almost right when I thought that I turned the corner and there it was! A table full of Albanian version-Draper moms! It was the best thing of my life oh my gosh! It was the best thing of my life! I felt right at home :') 

The Egg/Sugar desert! 

Then later on in we week we went to a city called Vlore for an exchange. It was a really fun time! The missionaries I was with are such cool guys. We obviously played Settlers of Catan at night haha it is always such a great time. But Vlore is a really pretty city! We went to this village really far away and it was so so pretty! There was this really pretty bridge that we went over on the way there. I got a picture but it was at night so you can't really see it. 

Later on in the meet we didn't really do much.. we were playing football on Saturday night with some of the members and I randomly noticed a huge scratch on my arm! I was like wo what the heck! I still have no idea where it is from ha. I am probably just going to tell everyone that I got attacked by a bear or something.

Wouldn't you want to hear about the Gospel from us? 

On Sunday we went to the Branch Presidents house for dinner and it was really great! Except for at the end, they were like "Okay we are going to get eggs and sugar for desert" and me and my comp just kind of look at each other and are like uh... So the Branch President gets an egg, pokes a hole in the top and just drinks it like it was nothing!! I was like what the heck! Then they cracked a few eggs into a bowl and whisked it up for a while then poured sugar in it and that was the desert! It was nasty! My comp like loved it and I thought that it was really gross haha. They were all laughing at my reaction to eating it haha. But yeah this week was great! And now Islam is back is Fier to hang out with me! I am so excited for him to be with me! Anyway, Happy Halloween!! 

Some people tell me this guy looks like me in 40 years 

Elder Farni 

Surprise Visit! (10-24-16)

This is the first guy I ever taught in my mission!
He is now baptized in Elbasan! Super cool guy

This week was really great!! So we did a lot of exchanges! The first one was in Elbasan (my first area) and it was so awesome! I was there for a day. It was crazy to be there again I felt like I was in my first transfer again except I could actually talk to people and stuff. It was pretty awesome actually, I was able to meet the first person that I ever taught on my mission! A guy named Besnik. It was crazy to meet him! He is now baptized. We had a really good conversation with him! He is such a cool guy. I thought that it was cool that he remembered me even though when I met with him last it was my first month in the country and I

A surprise visit!

was just a scared little greeny that couldn't speak Albanian! Haha it was awesome.

Then the next day I was able to go on an exchange in Tirana!! It was so awesome! I loved being in Tirana, it is so alive and there are so many people to talk to! And I was able to be with Elder Guymon who is so sweet! Me and him went on an exchange my first transfer, and now we went on an exchange during his last transfer! It was so much fun. He is such a cool guy. And it was just really really great to be in Tirana. It is such a cool place! 

So later in the week I got a call from this girl from England to go and meet her in a mall. So I was like uh okay and we drive to the mall. So then I get to the mall and I notice someone is filming me with their phone and I was like uh what is going on. So then I sit down and talk to the girl and she was kind of just asking random questions and stuff. Me and my companion both thought that she was like trying to secretly interview us or something. Then out of no where pops out Islam! It was crazy! I was like what the heck?! I thought he was in Switzerland! It was such a great surprise!! It really was so awesome to see him! We hung out with him and went to play football with him, and he came to church with us on Sunday! It was great. Sadly it was only for like 2 days but it was still great to see him and to be with him again even though it wasn't for long! 

Elder Farni