Busy Busy Busy!! (8/28/17)

The Cela's baptism!!

Man this week was really busy but we got so much done! So on Monday we got the Cela's married! It was so awesome! I think I talked about it last week though but it was really really special. Then on Wednesday they were baptized and confirmed! It was such an amazing baptism. They wanted to do it at night in the lake so that they could do it under the stars.. it was amazing! So right after they were both baptized and stuff we were all kind of hugging them and congratulating them and stuff and then we all just looked up and it was full of stars it was so pretty! Definitely a moment I will not forget and they were both really emotional it was a very special moment. Then after wards we confirmed them at the church which was special, we normally don't do that, but because they are left to Greece a few days later our mission president let us! It was a really really special day. 

So we have also been teaching this kid named Enea.. he is actually the twin brother of one of the members named. We have been teaching him for a while but last week he came to us and told us that he doesn't really feel ready for baptism and that he doesn't really feel like it is something he has to do so we were kind of bummed about that.. But we told him to just keep reading and praying and he will find his answer! So he came to the Cela's baptism and before we went into another room with him and had him say a prayer asking to know if this church was true or not and if baptism was something that he needed to do.. So he did and that was that.. nothing too special happened that day and we were kind of just planning on how else we could help him. So on Friday night we put together a "movie night" with our English Course and the members and some of our investigators. We watched the long film about Joseph Smith and stuff which was awesome they all loved it! And after the film Enea came over to me and was like "I got an answer to my prayer.. I want to be baptized and I want to before Elder Samuel leaves!" (Elder Samuel leaves on Tuesday) so we were like okay! And so we got him interviewed and ready and we baptized him on Saturday! It was sick! He wanted to be baptized at night in the lake as well so that is what we did. It was really really special!! 3 baptisms in one week it was amazing!! 

So as I have mentioned before this was Elder Samuel's last week! It was a really good way to end his mission I would say! I am going to miss him so much it has been so much fun to be with him his last 6 weeks of his mission! He has been such a great example for me and I have learned a lot from him. It is going to be hard seeing him go home! But president called me and told me that for my last 6 weeks I will be training a new missionary! So I am looking forward to that new challenge next week. 

It is going to be great! 

Have a great week! 

Also, if you want to see me on Albanian TV here is a link :) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72BILBgAVrg&feature=em-share_video_user

Elder Farny

Wedding! (8/21/17)

After the wedding!! 

This week was a little stressful but it turned out GREAT! We were really busy just trying to prepare our friends, the Qela's, for baptism! The plan was to have them get married on Thursday or Friday then baptized on Saturday... but that would have been too easy you know? Ha the place was randomly closed over the weekend SO we had to wait until today! And we actually just got back from their "wedding" (It was more just going to the government offices to get a document) But it was so great! They were so happy and they are looking forward to their baptism which will be on Wednesday :) So I will have to keep you updated next week on that! We are so excited for them! But we are also a little upset because on Sunday they will be moving to Greece for a little bit because they got found some work there. We are so happy for them finding work there because jobs in Greece pay way more than Albania but we are sad that we wont be able to see them as much :/ 

Signing the wedding document! 

But their wedding was definitely the highlight of our week!! It wasn't anything special, just in an old run down government building but we could all feel the Spirit there! Heavenly Father was definitely very happy with their commitment to living the Gospel and to keep all of His commandments and prepare for baptism :) 

So other than that this week was just a lot of hard work. We have been keeping ourselves busy! We teach English course twice a week and hold a "Book of Mormon"-reading classing twice a week which is great. As well we help teach seminary once a week and young mens once a week so we are always just full of activities it is so great here! We are also working with some really really cool people that have a lot of potential to get baptized in September!! The work is rolling on here I love it!! 

Me and Elder Samuel with our 

homemade pink sock ties :) 

Also this weekend we had Zone Conference in Elbasan. It is my second to last one! Next one (Which will be in September) I will give my "Dying Testimony" Which is like my last testimony of my mission to all the missionaries! It is so weird how fast it has gone by. The end is near! But I still have a lot of work I need to do here these next 7 works so don't you worry I will keep myself busy until it is over ;) 

Also another really cool thing that we did this week was yesterday, right after church we drove to Ohrid, Macedonia to go to there church! They only have 1 member over there and she was giving her first talk so we went there to give her support! It was awesome she did such a good job! Then at church me and Elder Samuel did a musical number ha it was pretty good I thought but afterwards all of the members were just like "Wo Elder Samuel you are such an amazing singer!" And didn't say anything about me singing haha. But hey I thought I did good so that is all that really matters right? Ha it was a great week! 

                                                     Loving it here so much the mission is great!! 

The Pogradec Elders sock tie squad! 

 

Have a great week! 

Elder Farnworth 

Exciting things happening!! (8/14/17)

Not much to report on this week... Just working hard!! Really loving it here in Pogradec. The beach is so nice but it is always so hard to see a lot of people swimming but not be able to dive in myself... We are still working with the Qela's though! They are doing so great. I love them so much!! They have such amazing people.. They are looking forward to their baptism which will be this Saturday! Also they are going to be getting married this Wednesday in order to be baptized on Saturday! So we are going to go over with them on Wednesday to be the 2 witness's for their wedding then on Saturday we will baptize them in the lake! Exciting things happening!! Stay tuned for pictures next week!! 

Also during the week we went and played beach volleyball with all the members and a lot of investigators. It was so much fun! Beach volleyball is the best. Then at the end we like put our feet in the lake to cool them off.. Then all of the members like charged us and were trying to push us over so we would swim with them!! Hahaha I was tempted to be like oopps.... and fall.. but don't worry I didn't. I really miss being able to swim though!! It is so much fun here though the members are so great.

So a pretty cool story that happened this week at church!! So we had a TON of people come to church it was so awesome! We were able to fill up the sacrament hall... which like, really sisn't that big... and I guess we only did have like 18 people come but that is a ton compared to normal! Anyway so me and Elder Samuel taught 2nd hour and we were teaching about tithing! And I don't know if you remember Mira, the girl that I baptized when I first got in Pogradec, anyway she told a really cool experience that she had with tithing.. So she rents out some of her house during the summer to like tourist and stuff so she is normally really busy.. But she said that like one of the families randomly had to return home early and left her house so her house was like empty and she was pretty upset that she didn't have work.. so she prayed and asked for work and said that she promised God that if He gave her more work that she would pay a full tithe.. Then she said the next day that this Italian family showed up and it was like too many people to fit in her house but they still stayed!! So they stayed all week then like didn't even ask her how much it costed but they just gave her like a ton of money.. It was awesome!! She then quoted the scripture in 3 Nephi 24 about tithing "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it". So true!! She gave such an awesome testimony about that. It is so true how much the Lord just wants to bless us!! 

Anyway that is pretty much this week. Short and sweet!! Loving the mission. Elder Samuel only has 16 days left! It is going to be so weird to see him go home. Going to miss him so much! 

Anyway love you all have a great week! 

Elder Farny

"I have never ever been this happy in my life" (8/7/17)

Me, Samuel, Selami, and Leta! 

Man, this week was so special! We were able to see so many blessings in our work and the hand of the Lord in so many different ways! Okay so first I will talk about our friends, Selami and Leta. So we have been teaching them for a while and they are progressing really well! We recently found out though that they have been living together for about 10 years and they are not married.. So we were pretty nervous about teaching them about the Law of Chastity. But we prepared for it well and really worked hard to have the Spirit with us when we taught it, and it definitely was! It was amazing!! So we started off by showing them pictures of our families and telling them about our families and stuff then we read the Family Proc. with them and they loved it! They said that they wanted to frame it and hang it up and stuff. 

View from Selami and Leta's house 

Then we taught them about Temples and being married in the Temple and what it meant and stuff and I showed them a picture of Zach and Makail on their wedding day in front of the Temple and they got really emotional because of it and have set a goal for them to get married in the Temple one day.. And they realized it takes steps and the first step was to live the commandments and so they decided to get married on the 17th so they will be able to be baptized on the 26th! It was SO awesome. The Spirit was so strong and they were so happy with their choice to follow the commandments and get baptized. We are so excited for them and they have asked us to be their witness's as they go get married then we are going to throw them a party at the church after their wedding so we are really looking forward to that day! I will keep you updated :) And the quote that is my title for this blog post was a quote from Leta! The Gospel brings happiness!

S/O Zach and Makail for being adorable 

We have also started to teach this lady named Violeta, who we met because she came to our English course. She came to church last Sunday and loved it so much!! She told us about how she has never felt such a fullness of the Spirit than she did at our church. Which was just so cool to me because when she came we only had like 12 people at church and we meet in this little room on a hotel building... The church is true kids :) It is really special to be able to serve here though! It really just shows me that it doesn't matter where you are, you can always feel the Spirit if you are doing whats right! Anyway this week we taught her some great lessons. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and I love teaching that lesson every time. She just kept on saying stuff like "Wow I did not know that at all!" And you can just see them light up with hope as we teach them about the after-life it is really special every time. 

Also on a lot less Spiritual note me and Elder Samuel took a trip to the other side of the lake to Ohrid, Macedonia to get hair cuts.. We can now tell people that we went to another country just to get haircuts... We are pretty cool I know.

Ohrid, Macedonia!

Anyway I am loving it here so much! I am so blessed that I am able to serve in such an amazing area as my last area! I love being a missionary here so much! 

Hope you have a great week! 

Elder Farnworth

Music and Missionary Work! (7/31/17)

Things are going great here in Pogradec I love it so much!! I really am loving the work so much here. So at the beginning of the week we taught English course and we had some new people show up! So at the end we shared a message about the Book of Mormon and invited them to stay and read it with us if they wanted and 3 people ended up staying and reading a few chapters with us, then all 3 of them took a Book of Mormon and 1 of them wanted to stay and hear more about our message so we taught her a lesson.. It was so awesome! The work here is just amazing there are a lot of prepared people ready to hear the Gospel. 

So we are working with this older couple who are so awesome!! Their names are the Miqela's.. They are like my Albanian parents! I always call her mum and him dad and they call me and Elder Samuel their twins haha it is super fun. I love teaching them! Anyway so this week we went over to their house and had a really special lesson with them. We taught them about the Word or Wisdom which is normally one of the hardest for Albanians to accept.. But we really came prepared!! So our new mission president, President Anderson, has really suggested and invited us to use music more in our lessons.. So at the start of the lesson we listened to a MoTab song and then had a prayer and from there on the Spirit was just so strong in that lesson! It was so awesome! He accepted the Word of Wisdom lesson so well and really seemed to love it!! It was such a nice Spirit that we had during the lesson. I am so very grateful for the special Spirit that music brings into my life! I have seen a lot of different times finding a lot of peace in hard times because of music!

Our creations!!

Also this week we did a really cool activity with the Young Men of the group.. It was awesome! The senior couple here showed us this idea of spray painting a bunch of random colors and stuff on a paper then putting like a circle around it then spray painting black all around the circle and stuff to make it look like a planet and space and stuff. It was dope! I made some really cool ones I will attach some pictures of my creations.. It was awesome!

Sunday was really special.. So one of the people from English course came to church! It was amazing, at one point she was like tearing up and stuff and at the end she said "I have never felt the presence of the Spirit more in my life ever! Every second of the meeting pointed me towards Christ, I loved it" It was soooooo awesome. It made me so happy!! Also.. The Miqela's came!! It was awesome. Also this week I went to Relief Society for the first time to help translate which was my first time ever going there. But anyway our friend Mrs. Miqela was there and she started talking about how hard her life has been ever since she lost her 1st husband and stuff and she was crying pretty hard.. But she gave a wonderful testimony about how she has felt God helping her in her life every step of the way.. Even though at times she would yell up to the heavens and say "Why have you left me God?" She explained how she would later look back at those experiences and see how God never left her. He was always there for her. But then at the end of it she started crying really hard when she said "Now it is easy to see God in my life because he personally sent me 2 of his best missionaries.".. Right when she said that a wave of the Spirit just came over me. I was just so glad at that moment that I was a missionary and I was able to meet these two wonderful people!! I love this work so much! I definitely have the best job in the world here! Love you so much! 

Elder Farnworth 

The first shall be the last (7/24/17)

Me and Natasha, the first baptism in Ohrid! 

Okay so first off, I didn't really mention last week but we got transfer calls and I am serving with my MTC comp, Elder Samuel!! So crazy! So he is going home on August 30th to be able to start school and I am going home on the 11th of October so he only has 6 weeks less than me.. But I am going to be his last companion! Crazy!! We got together last Tuesday then just came back and have just been having so much fun together! It is going to be a great next 6 weeks but it is going to be so sad to have to say goodbye to him when he goes home! Pretty crazy how it is all coming to an end.. 

Another pictures from the baptism!

Me and Elder Samuel! Back together!! 

Anyway so this week was just pretty normal.. Missionary work and boring stuff you know. One really cool thing is that we are meeting with this really really smart guy named Edlir, he is like a genius! He knows the bible like the back of his hand and he just gets it so much.. So our lessons with him have all been so deep and stuff and he seems like he really likes it! And this week we had a really powerful lesson with him about the Plan of Salvation. Me and Elder Samuel were like about to walk into the lesson and we were just like "We ain't the smartest kids ever but we are going to teach like how it says in Mark 1:22 "And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes." So that is what we did and we really tried to show how the most powerful teacher is the Holy Ghost.. So we gave an amazing Plan of Salvation lesson and he seemed like he really loved it! He told us he is going to go out of town this week and he promised us he will read the whole Book of Mormon and pray to know if it is true or not so we will be praying for him so much! It was so awesome because up until that lesson it was always just kind of "who knows more about Jesus" lessons but in the lesson we really had the Spirit and he felt what he needed to do then committed to doing it! It was awesome. We will see what will happen with him! 

Okay so later on in the week we took a trip to Ohrid, Macedonia for a baptism! It was really special because she was the FIRST person in the whole city to be baptized! It was so cool!! Now she is the only member there. It was so cool to be able to witness it!! It was inside the really pretty lake so that was just really cool to see!! I was happy to be apart of history there :)

Some great pictures of Pogradec :) 

So on Sunday it was kind of ups and downs... the down was that we only had 3 members come to church in Pogradec which was a bummer. It is kind of hard in the summer because all of the members are working so the don't really have a lot of time to come to church.. But the good part about Sunday was that we filled the church building up with investigators!! It was so cool! So many of our investigators came to church and it was just so great!! One of our friends, named Selami, he showed up early to church dressed up in his white shirt and tie, it was so sick!! Normally people here don't really like wearing white shirts and ties so it was huge that he was wearing his!! He is so great we are excited to work with him. His wife is currently making me and Elder Samuel pink sock ties so we are really looking forward to that ;) Love you all have a great week!!