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 

We are moving into a new house!! 10/17/16)

Exchange in Berat with Elder Miller! 

This week was really good! I was feeling a lot better, but then at the beginning of the week I ate something wrong and got a little food poisoning so that kind of sucked. Fier is just kicking my butt! But I really like it so I am fine! It was funny though, so we a senior couple come to do apartment inspections, and saw how much problems and stuff that my house had so now we are going to move into a new house!! So that is pretty exciting I guess :) 

Such a pretty view!

So this week we had to go to a city called Vlore to do a baptism interview, and it was a lot of fun! We were able to spend some time street contacting with the missionaries there. It was really cool to be with them! It was kind of crazy to see some of the new missionaries. It made me realize how long I have been out! it feels like I was just one of those new missionaries last week which but I am almost a year done! Crazy. 

Also this week I was able to do an exchange in this really pretty city called Berat. It was so great! The exchange was so fun. I was there to do a baptism interview with these two guys that will be getting baptized this Saturday! We are all pretty excited about that! But the exchange was a lot of fun. The members in Berat are so awesome!! There is this kid preparing to serve a mission in England and he was so funny! Such a cool guy. 

The rest of the week was pretty quiet. We went out to visit this member in the smallest village I have ever been to! It was tiny!! And his house was pretty crazy. I almost hit my head on the ceiling of it and I almost fell like 10 times while making the hike to the top of the mountain where his house is! It was definitely an adventure but it was so much fun! He was a really nice guy. But yeah that was pretty much it! 

I am loving Fier so much even though it is hard! Still such great work! 

Love, Elder Farni 

Uh..are you sure you have the right number? (10/10/16)

Me and my new comp Elder Ingram
with Fier in the background!

This week was pretty good! It went by really fast which was nice I guess. I was getting over my sickness all week so I was really tired every day! I feel like I was kind of just out of it all week. But I am feeling much better now! So that is good! 

At the beginning of the week we got a referral from a member in another city! It was kind of weird. Being in Kosovo for 6 months I didn't really get referrals from members or from anyone really. So when the member called me and said he had someone he wanted us to teach I was like "Uh.. are you sure you have the right number?" (Just kidding didn't really say that) but the guy was this really cool old man named Bilbil! He is a really nice guy. We had a really awesome lesson where we talked about the life of Jesus Christ. The lesson went really well and was definitely led by the Spirit! And at the end of the lesson he said what every missionaries wants to hear; "Well how can I follow Jesus Christ?" It was so amazing. He accepted the baptism date and was able to come to watch conference with the branch too so that was really great! I am excited to see how it goes with him. 

Football!

Another really great thing about this week was zone training. We had it in Elbasan (my first area) it was really weird and awesome to be back there! I felt like I was a trainee transfer all over again! But the zone training went really good! The Spirit was really song. There are a lot of awesome missionaries in my zone! So it was really fun to be with all of them. 

Also, we watched conference this week!! We weren't able to last week because we had to wait for it to be translated. But it was really good! I really liked it. I especially love when Bednar said "we do not know our master if we don't serve him" I love that! It is so true. I just love conference so much! I know that Thomas S Monson is a living day prophet and it is so awesome! I have definitely grown to appreciate the fact that we have a living day prophet a lot more than I did before the mission! The Gospel is just so awesome and it all makes so much sense! I love it! 

Don't worry everyone! I found H&M!!!!!!! 

Anyway, we were also able to go to a city called "Lushnje" to play football with some other missionaries. It was a lot of fun! It is always great to get together with missionaries and have fun ha. But yeah I am feeling a lot better! Not sick at all anymore so looking forward to the upcoming week! Also! Big shoutout to my man Islam! It was his birthday last week! He is still in Switzerland killing it with his PhD. 

Elder Farni

Week 1 in FIER (10/3/16)

This week was pretty hard actually. My first day in Fier I started feeling a sickness coming on then the next morning I was totally sick! It sucked! so I have been sick all week. And it didn't help that our water wasn't coming on for the first 3 days that I was in Fier. It was hard. But Fier is so awesome! I really do feel like I am in a new mission though. It is pretty crazy how different it is from Kosovo! Kosovo was pretty clean for the most part but Fier is pretty dirty. My shoes and clothes get really dirty by the end of the day. But it is great I love it. 

The members here are really nice people. They all were so friendly it was so very awesome! The Branch President here is such a great man. His name is President Gjika and he has such a sweet family. He only has one arm but he is such a baller! I rides his bike and goes on long runs all the time. His family had us over for lunch after church on Sunday. It was really good! They fed us traditional food which was SO good. I haven't had good traditional Albanian food for a while so it was really good to be able to have that! I was so stuffed afterwards. 

The coolest part of the week was this thing that happened with our investigator name Klodi. He lives far out in a village and he told us to come meet him. When we got out to his village we didn't know where his house was so we tried to call him and his phone was off! It was really creepy in the village but I was totally down for the adventure so we decided to look for his house! And after much searching and walking down sketchy paths we found it! It was so awesome we were able to meet him and his kids it was so great!  And we had such an awesome lesson here. Definitely was a HUGE hand of the Lord in our work this week. 

I am excited to work in Fier! It is definitely a lot different from Prishtina but I still think it will be great. 

Elder Farni

*Jacob left his camera in a taxi so no pictures til his new camera gets there!!

Transfers! (9/26/16)

This week was pretty great! Okay so first of all there were these sisters in Gjakova, Kosovo that got arrested! I guess this lady called the cops on them after they tracted into her house so the cops came and accused them of not having "registered to live in the city" or something so they got in trouble with the cops ha it was crazy! So anyway, we were told that we needed to get registered to live in our city or whatever, so we go to the police station and ask them and they give us a bunch of blank stares. They really had no idea what we were asking for so they tell us to go to another office who tells us to go to another office who tells us to go back to the police station. So then the police station made a bunch of calls then they were like okay you need to go to this place! So we go there and they had no idea what we were talking about so this guy told us to take a number and there was a huge line and it was literally just to get our question answered! So we figured it was just a lost cause. I figured if they arrested we will probably be in jail for a shorter time than we would trying to figure out how the crap to get registered with the city!! 

We also went to Macedonia this week! The drive there was so awful. There was a lot of traffic so we were on the road for so long. Then my companion realized that he didn't have his passport so we had to turn around and drive all the way back!! Man it was hard haha. Then when we finally got to the Macedonian border they stopped us and told us that we didn't have the proper paper work. I was like dude what the heck! I have been in Macedonia like 5 times with this paperwork what do you mean it isn't right? So we ended up having to spend 50 Euro to get what we needed. It was so stupid! But once we were in Macedonia it was really good. We did some street contacting and stuff, I always feel so hopeless when I talk to people but I got a few phrases down! We also played soccer in Macedonia it was really fun. 

So at the end of the week we got transfer calls! I am getting transferred back to Albania! A city called Fier. I am pretty excited to be down there. It is going to be a very big difference from Prishtina! It will be an adventure that is for sure. 

Elder Farnworth