I am always tired! (1/30/17)

This is a really cool member in the ward

This week was really good but it went by pretty fast! We were doing a lot of preparation for the Mission conference that we had this week. It went really good! We watched the world wide missionary broadcast. I really loved it! I love hearing especially from David A. Bednar. I love how straightforward he is and whenever I hear him talk the Gospel seems so simple to me and it makes me so excited for the work! He is a baller. Also there were changes to the missionary schedule and the key indicators! It is a pretty big change.. it will make things pretty different. If you are actually interested about it you can email me and I will tell you more about it :) 

So fun fact about missionaries is that we are always tired. Actually I don't know about all the other missionaries but like I am always tired so.. But anyway sleep is pretty precious on the mission. Nevertheless, we still woke up an hour early this week to go play ultimate frisbee with the other missionaries! I was so proud of myself. I only complained like 3 times which is not that bad for me. It was good because we have kind of had a crappy diet here... It is just so hard when the crepe place delivers and you are constantly craving crepes and you know it is only one phone call away.. Anyway we are trying to eat healthier and to work out in the mornings so we will see how that goes. 

The early morning frisbee squad

On a more Spiritual side I have been having a really awesome study from the Book of Mormon. This weeks studies have just been so powerful and I really just receive reassurance over and over that it is true!! I know that it is true! Really like any problem that you have or doubt that you have about anything the best solution is to just read the Book of Mormon! It is such a rad book.

Anyway also this week there was a baptism and we had a few of our investigators come to it. They felt the Spirit so strongly they said they couldn't even describe the warmth that was felt. It is amazing to have experiences like that! As members of the church we kind of get used to the Spirit so sometimes it is just amazing to see people really react to it and feel Gods love and to know what they are feeling. The church is true!!!! 

We also had a ward party this week. I have come a long way with my Albanian tradition dancing. I am pretty proud of myself... But yeah that is pretty much my week! 

Loves! 

Elder Farni

Week 65 (1/23/17)

The weeks are starting to go by fast here in the ASM. It is pretty crazy I can't believe I am writing another blog post! It feels like yesterday I was writing one for last week. Crazy. But it is still going great I love it here a ton! So this week was pretty fun. On Tuesday Elder Lesi (my trainer) finished his mission! So us, him and President went to an exit dinner. It was weird, it only feels like a couple transfers ago he was training me but I realized it has been a YEAR since he trained me. Where is the time going? But it was fun we went to this cool restaurant that had like bears and monkeys and stuff. It was BEARY fun.... *Crickets* 

Elder Lesi's last night! 

It is really starting to warm up here! It makes it really nice for street contacting because I decided I am kind of a baby in the cold so I whine a lot while street contacting in the cold. So it was a blessing that it has been warmer!! We met some pretty cool people while street contacting. A lot of people will like invite us to get a drink with them because we are american, so when we first sit down they ask us about america and stuff and we ask them about their families and stuff... then we start talking about the Book of Mormon. 27% of the time they will try to argue with us because they are part of a different religion. 80% of the time they will kind of just smile and say "wow that's great" and slowly call the waiter over, pay for their drink and leave. But then there are the beautiful 3%ers that will listen to us and ask questions and get a good conversation going and say they will read the Book of Mormon and that we will meet them again. But then about only a half of them will actually meet with you again. Cheers to the 1.5%!!!

Also this week we were in Prishtina to do an exchange there. It went really good! It was freezing there. Man I am glad that I was there during the summer because wow it was cold! It was a good time. We were teaching a lesson in this cafe to some people while the inauguration was on the TV, so while the missionary I was with was talking I looked at the TV really fast and saw Gary E. Stevenson and was like DUDE LOOK! And then we were both like wooooo and the guy we were with was kind of confused but it was pretty funny. 

But yeah that is pretty much my week!!Bye!!

Elder Farni 

SNOW!!!! (In Tirana) 1/16/17

So much snow!!

Okay, so I know that last week my title said that it snowed, but that wasn't legit. This week it actually snowed! Like a ton! It was so awesome! We were in a meeting and when we got out there was a full on blizzard it was so amazing. I think I might of already said this but last time it snowed in Tirana was when my dad was on his mission! All of the Albanian people were going nuts. This old man randomly through a snowball at me and ran away it was super funny. Then me and my comp threw snow balls at Elder and Sister Abrahamson's window (Senior couple that lives by us) And that turned into a little snowball fight between us it was fun. Then we went over to their house to have hot chocolate it was great. 

SNOW!!

Okay so anyway about my week, it was actually really good! Not too exciting. The 1 day it snowed was definitely the most exciting part. Let me think what else happened.. Oh yeah! It was my companions birthday on Monday. Happy birthday Elder Rogers! We all got together and had breakfast at the senior couples house. They made these cinnamon rolls that were TO DIE FOR. Ah. But then, this guy in our district ate mine and Elder Rogers second cinnamon roll! Like who does that?! Took us about 15 minutes to cool off when we got home. (Sorry, I know you have a lot better things to do than read some mission vent about someone eating his cinnamon role, I'll move on) 

But other than that we didn't really done anything.. We had a lot of time to work in our area this week and we were really blessed with a lot of work! We met with a ton of people and met a lot of new cool people to teach it was awesome! Oh and there was this one time where Elder Rogers was on the phone talking to someone and I started like tackling him and fighting him just to be annoying, then I picked him up and his pants totally ripped hahaha. It was so funny, he was kind of mad but then we laughed about it. But then it was awkward becasue this guy was on his way for a lesson!! Luckily, there are like a ton of tailors everywhere here so we just ran it to one of them and had it fixed in like 2 seconds! 

I picked him up and his pants ripped...

Also there have been a lot of car accidents around the mission lately and we have to deal with like the insurance and getting it fixed and stuff it is a mess. So we were at the insurance office, and it made me think how hilarious an Albanian version of "The Office" would be. Aw man could you imagine that? But yeah so we dealt with a bunch of those and it was so much fun! Not really but what do you do. 

Then on Sunday we had a bunch of investigators come to church! A few weeks ago we started an investigator class so we could teach the more simple doctrine and we normally only have like 3 or 4 people but last week the room was packed! It was such a blessing. Anyway things are going great! 

Hope you have a great week! 

Elder Farnworth 

SNOW! (1/9/17)

Korca!

This week was great! We had snow for the first time of the year!! Some people told me it was for the first time in like 20 years in fact! So that was really exciting. In Tirana we pretty much didn't have any snow though, I say we had 1 mm though.... My comp says we didn't have any. But there was snow on the cars in the morning! They all melted off pretty fast though. It has been super freezing this week though so I wouldn't be surprised if it snowed again! 

So this week was good! At the beginning of the week we had some time to do work in our area. We met this really cool guy and his wife who are pretty excited to learn and read the Book of Mormon so that was cool! Then it kind of got crazy around Thursday. So we had MLC training and we had to prepare that, and that went really good. We talked about being bold in extending commitments and ours and presidents training went about 2 hours over time so everyone was hungry. Oops. Then we stayed in the office that night making these cards with the 2017 Mission Goal on them. They looked really great!! I am excited about them. But we had to cut and laminate like a hundred cards. We were feeling all artsy and crafty but then I guess I got a little cocky and cut my finger on a paper cutter... oops. But we whipped them all out and they look great! 

Us being "arts and crafty"!!

The consequences of us being "arts and crafty"!!

Then we went to Zone Training in Tirana, it was really great! It is always fun to see my friends at meetings like those. Then we had to fill up or big van with chairs to take them down south to the new mission branches in Pogradec and Korca! It was a nice drive but there was a TON of snow down there all over the roads so we had to take it nice and slow. So we slept in Korca then the next morning we drive to Elbasan to go to the south zone training. 

The fun part is is on the way to Elbasan the other missionaries car slid on the ice and went off the road! They went down this pretty big hill and almost fell in the lake. They were definitely protected!  But we just waited with them while the tow truck came. They said it would be like 20 minutes for a tow truck to come but then it ended up being like an hour ha. So we just waited in our van which was a blast ha. We played a fun game of Settlers of Catan in the van it was awesome. Then we got that all figured out and just drove back to Tirana. Ended up being in the car for 12 1/2 hours it was crazy!! But yeah just trying to stay warm here!! 

Love you all!! 

lder Farnworth

2017! (1/2/17)

Walking down creepy allies doesn't scare me anymore.

Wow! I cannot believe that it is already 2017. Time flies! It is weird to think that I spent all of 2016 in Albania/Kosovo. And it is even weirder to think that I will be going home in 2017! Like what?! So crazy. Anyway. This week was really good! We weren't that busy and we were able to get a lot of work down in our area so that was nice. We ended up doing a lot of street contacting. There were some days where I was freezing! 

I feel like I constantly need to be wearing a jacket or else I am shivering. And it isn't even that cold! Humidity is just a killer. But it has been alright. 

Bundled Up

So New Years here gets pretty interesting. Everybody gets fireworks and they go crazy! Just throughout the month of December you hear a lot of loud bangs and stuff because people are lighting fire works randomly throughout the day. But New Years day we had to be inside at 4 pm because it is dangerous to be outside.. But it was fun! We just watched movies all day. My missionary mind kicked in and I thought "I don't know if I will be able to watch movies for 8 hours straight..." But then I remembered that I would literally watch Netflix for about 8 hours straight every day my senior year of high school... oops. 

Ha but it was great! My President let us watch Star Wars 7, which was exciting because I was in the MTC for it when it came out last year. It was so great. And yeah we just watched a couple other movies and yeah it was great! Then at midnight I watched the fireworks. 

They were

Star Wars!!

really cool. There were some Elders in my district that told me that some people saw them on their balcony and pointed the fireworks towards them and shot them! They didn't hit them and there was no damage done, but still pretty crazy. I am lucky that didn't happen to me/I kind of wanted that to happen to me because that would be funny. Anyway it has been great here! 

Happy New Years! 

Sub for Santa? (12/26/16)

Eagle Scout ;) 

Such a great week but it was super busy! So at the beginning of the week we didn't have too much work. We just had a few things here and there and we even had time to  meet with some people. Then on Thursday is when it all got crazy. So we were in charge of getting every single missionaries their Christmas packages to them before Christmas! So we drove up to Prishtina, Kosovo, then went straight to Skopje, Macedonia which was a super interesting ride! So on the way there the road started getting really bumpy haha then we realized that our tire had popped about 5 minutes outside the Macedonian boarder! So we pulled over to change it, and it was FREEZING. It was like 3 degrees outside. Luckily, Elder Rogers and I are Eagle Scouts so we had no problem changing a tire ;) But it was fun. 

But it threw us off schedule so we got to Skopje a little late, then we drove to a newly opened city in the mission called Ohrid Macedonia! We ended up sleeping in Ohrid for the night. Then the next morning we got up and going to a city in Albania called Pogradec, then wrapped around to Elbasan then back to Tirana! Ended up being in the car for about 15 hours! It was crazy long but a lot of fun! 

I forgot to mention there is Burger King in Macedonia :) 

So after we got home we had to go straight to a city called Durres to set up for this stake Christmas activity. It was a lot of fun, I forgot to mention that I am in the stake choir... Don't be too impressed because every missionary in Tirana is in it too. If the missionaries weren't in it they would not have a men's section at all haha.  But yeah we just sang with the choir a bunch... In the freezing cold... it was great. 

Our very small Christmas tree with presents 

It is just weird having Christmas here. They don't really celebrate it that much! Obviously it is a big deal between the missionaries but the Albanians don't really care too much. So when Christmas came around it did not feel like it at all! But it was still great. We went to church and then had lunch at a senior couples house it was awesome. I loved my presents from my parents! Really awesome ties and really awesome socks! And the word on the street is that there is a package on the way from the ward so I am super excited for that! Also I spoke with my family over Skype which was awesome! It made me remember again how awesome my family really is! I love them so much they are awesome! Sorry everyone else you don't have families as cool as mine. ;) 

Merry Christmas! 

Elder Farni