July 23rd

Përshëndetje familja!

Hey hopefully I'll have a little more time to write later. But just a quick update, I'm in Kosovo right now. I was on an exchange last week with Elder Richards and we were talking about how I never went to Kosovo, so he said I should go visit Elder Murray and long story short I'm in Prizren, Kosovo. We just had a super fun day hanging out with the Gjakova Elders. I took a bunch of pictures and bought some fun stuff while we've been here. Hopefully we'll catch a bus quick and have more time to email when we get back, but we'll see.

So other than that, highlights of the week have been: exchange with Elder Richards, awesome lesson with Elsuid(our media referral from last week), stake clerk and his wife came to church with us and it was awesome!

It's been a great week. Super busy and a little crazy. Today is the first time I've left Albania in almost two years, and probably the last until I go home.

Love you all!

Elder Gardiner

Now we're back in Shkoder

I have a bunch of pictures from my excursion to Kosovo, but I don't have my camera cord so I can't upload them. So I'll try to send those next week, and if not then I'll just show you them when I get home.  In Kosovo, there were a ton of mosques.  But like other than that, we went to a museum and then visited the castle. the drive there was super pretty though. You go through the mountains and there are a bunch of lakes, rivers, and canyons. It's amazing.  Yeah and one of the biggest reasons that we went is that if Elder Murray doesn't get transferred then today would've been my last time to see him, so I wanted to get to hang out with him at least one more time before I go.

Thanks for the info about my talk at church, yeah I'm kind of used to talking in church now, but I'm used to doing it in Albanian. So it'll probably still be as hard as ever now that I have to do it in English again!

July 16

Përshëndetje familja!

This has been an exciting week here in Shkoder/Lezhe! So here are some of the highlights.

For the first time in my mission we got a media referral! For those who don't know what that is, that's when someone goes to one of the church's websites and requests to meet with the missionaries. The next day we were planning on going to Lezhe but the guy lives in Shkoder, so we called him, but he didn't answer. Then when we got to Lezhe we got a call back from him, he told us he was actually in Lezhe right then. So we met up and had a great first lesson. He's been around to a bunch of different churches and religions trying to find the truth and every time he's gone away disappointed. So we talked about the restoration and about how two hundred years ago a young boy had the same question and he was so sincere that God himself appeared to him and told him what to do, and that if he's sincere as he reads the Book of Mormon God will tell him the truth. We shared a lot of scriptures with him and he kept saying that they were true, so hopefully he reads and prays about the Book of Mormon! Hopefully more to report with him next week!

We finally got to meet with that guy I talked about a few weeks ago, Pjeter. We had a great talk about Jesus Christ and his power to change us and shared a bunch of scriptures from the Book of Mormon about Christ's power to change people through the atonement, shared our testimonies, and then gave him a book. He said he'd like to meet up again sometime.

We had a super exchange with Elders Miller and England. They came up to Shkoder on Wednesday night through Thursday. We had some awesome discussions about the mission and it's power to change people, and just reflected on the past year and what's happened since they came into the mission(they're in Elder Murray's group that came in like a year ago). They're both super good missionaries and it was great getting to work with them. Elder England and I went to Lezhe and just did a lot of finding, and we found a ton of cool people. We went out and there weren't very many people out so we just walked around the city talking to people and met some great people, and got a ton of phone numbers. Now we're just working on actually meeting with all of them again.

Then on Sunday we got to church early, we had invited a ton of people who had all said they were coming to church that day. And then no one came. So that kind of stunk, but because one of the members didn't show up I got to give a talk, again, and I'm so glad that I got to do that. I looked out into the audience and just felt the spiritual power of the people there and thought about how God had prepared and blessed them, and I thought about their commitment to God and his church and how much each of them sacrifice to be there each week and it was a very unique feeling. I was able to give a really good talk and I just got to think about how much each of the people there had changed me. I'm so glad that I get to serve here. It truly has been a blessing. And I'm glad that I still have two more weeks to serve these amazing people!

That's about it for me today. I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Gardiner

July 9

Përshëndetje familja! 

Well it's been another good week here in Shkoder. Not a whole not of new stuff to report, this week has kind of just flown by.

As for investigators, we had a really good lesson with a family that lives in a village just outside of Shkoder. I had met them a long time ago, but after calling them a few times they seemed to not be interested. But as we were planning Saturday I felt like I needed to give them one last try, so I called them up and they said we could come over at 3:30. Right as we were walking back from another lesson at 2:30 it started pouring rain so hard that the city instantly started flooding, so we weren't sure we would be able to make it to the lesson. But then right at 3:15 the sun came out and the weather was beautiful for the rest of the day and we were able to go. We had the lesson with the dad, Artan, and his mom, his son, his wife, and a few neighbors came out and listened too. The spirit was strong in the lesson and they seemed to be listening really intently, and they said they'd definitely read the Book of Mormon. We'll go back some time this week.

I contacted this one lady in Lezhe and as we were talking I felt like we needed to just sit down and have a lesson right then, so we did. As we were talking about the restoration and testifying of the importance of families she said that her husband had actually just passed away unexpectedly not too long ago. So we testified of the power that the atonement has to bind families for forever. She wants us to come to her house and teach her whole family once her kids come back from working in Velipoje for the summer. Unfortunately they don't come back until the end of August, but they seem like they'll have a lot of potential when they come back.

Also this week was an amazing 4th of July celebration. That day we had district meeting, so we all showed up decked out in red, white, and blue, said the pledge of allegiance and sang the patriotic hymns. One of the best parts of the day was a spiritual thought given during the meeting by Elder Miller about freedom. He taught about the miracle of freedom provided through our Savior, Jesus Christ, and that only through him can we have freedom in this life and in the next. Then we all went out to the Stephen's Center, a restaurant made by American missionaries and had the most American meal we could with all the Tirana missionaries. It was a great day and a good last holiday here in Albania.

Other than that, we got to meet with Denis and with Amadeo this week. It had been a little while since we had gotten to meet with them so that was really good. Amadeo, who for the past little while had been working 20 hours a day, said that he feels so much better now that he got to talk to us again, and that he'll be able to come to church this Sunday! Then yesterday after church we stopped by Prenda, who's a less active here. We had a great lesson about charity and got to talk about all the stuff she's been reading and learning from the scriptures recently. And as a fun little thing, we found this authentic Japanese sushi restaurant here in Shkoder. The workers are both from Japan and they have a special offer where the sushi is 20% off on Saturdays so we've made it a fun tradition, also cause Elder Perry is half Japanese.

Things are going well, still loving it here. Sounds like you all had a great 4th of July, and I hope you all have a great week! 

Love you all!

Elder Gardiner

July 2

Përshëndetje familja!

Another good week in Shkoder, not a whole ton of new stuff going on, but we have had a few awesome moments this week.

I'll start out with one of the best contacts I've had here in Albania. So we started walking to go contact and we had picked out a place that we were going to go, but when we got there we just kind of decided that we needed to be somewhere else. So we started walking and just no place really felt right, so we just kept walking. Eventually we had be walking for a little while and felt like the place we were was good enough so we started contacting. This was the day after zone conference so I was feeling extra excited to talk to people, and I said hi to this one guy and he stopped but didn't seem super interested, but we kept talking and I felt like I needed to find out more about this guy so we started talking about his life. Turns out he had lived in America for 27 years, he just got back a year ago, he had made some mistakes and spent some time in jail before getting sent back to Albania. But then we got on the topic of religion and said he was protestant and that while he was in jail that he had pleaded for forgiveness and he said he really felt Christ take away his pain and his sorrow. He loves studying the Bible and loves Christ with all his heart. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met and he said he'd love to meet again this week to talk more. As we were talking I felt the spirit so amazingly strong, just another amazing testimony that Christ lives.

We also had a great zone conference. We have some great leaders here who all did a great job giving us some new ideas and inspiration. It was sad with that being my last zone conference, but it was cool getting to have 4 of us from our MTC group there.

On Sunday we had a great fast and testimony meeting. The branch president's wife, daughter, and granddaughter (who is like 2 years old and is the cutest) all came (they're all non-members) and they had a great time. The members just love them so much and I think they could really feel that. His daughter even stayed for both hours. Then over in Lezhe Danjela and Denis both came to church again! It's super unique having a fast and testimony meeting where literally everyone in the congregation stands up to bear their testimonies. And they were all great testimonies!

In other fun news, the mighty Adriatic South Mission now covers 5 countries. President and the APs went to Greece today to start a mission tour and then they'll be off to Cyprus later on in the week.

Then for P-day today we learned how to make a traditional chicken and potatoes meal with one of the members, and it was great. I guess now is as good a time as any to learn to cook before going off to college!

That's about it for me today. I love you all and I'm sure going to make this last month count! Have a great week!

Elder Gardiner

Photos from Zone Conference

June 25

Përshëndetje familja!

Well this has been a great week up here. Lots of time for finding, but also some first lessons!

To start out with the people. We found a new investigator this week named Ardian. He's a really cool kid who lives in a village near Lezhe. I met him a little while ago and then we were able to meet up and talk about the restoration. He seemed like he was understanding what we were teaching, and he had actually already started reading the Book of Mormon before we met. He'll be in Tirana for a couple weeks but when he gets back we'll meet up with him. 

Then we also met with a family that lives near Shkoder this week. We called them and they gave us a rough address so we decided to just go give it a try and find it. So we went out and after calling them a few times and driving all around a village we found them. Then we went in and had a good lesson with the family! They took a book and said they'd read it. So we'll go follow up with them sometime soon too.

Other things from the week: We have a new district, and two of my favorite missionaries just got moved into our district, Elders Richards and Miller. So District meeting was super amazing and powerful, and then it was fun hanging out with all of them at district lunch afterwards. President Zefi's daughter is in town visiting him for a month, and she came to church on Sunday. She's super cool and fits right in with the branch. Denis, Danjela, and Danida all came to church on Sunday! That means we had 100% Lezhe church attendance! We did service at a less active members house, that's a bunch of fun and brought a huge smile to her face.

Today we went and played some ping pong and then ate some traditional food. We decided to be adventurous, so we tried head meat stew, dirt casserole, and then just got the regular rice and french fries. I'll send pictures of that next week. All of it was surprisingly good too.

This week we have Zone Conference. I'm really excited for it, but it's also my last Zone Conference. So that'll be really weird.

That's about it for me, love you all! Have a great week! 

Elder Gardiner

June 18

Përshëndetje familja!

Well once again it's been a fun week up here in Shkoder. But before I get into that, as the biggest matter of business, transfer calls were this weekend. Luckily, everything turned out as I had hoped. I'll be staying here in Shkoder/Lezhe with Elder Perry for my last transfer. I'm super pumped for the time we have and we're going to make it count. Unfortunately I'm a little low on time today so I'll make this short.

A lot of great things happened this week, including an exchange with the Zone Leaders which always makes things even better. We've done a ton of finding this week and managed to get a lot of numbers. We've set up appointments and had a couple lessons, hopefully more to come. While on exchange with Elder Mortensen, who I've now gone on exchanges with in 5 different cities through Albania, we were able to have a great lesson with some people from our English Course in Lezhe. They go to a school with American teachers so they decided to ask their teachers what they think about Mormons. And it turned out to be mostly positive, so that was great, and the negative things we were able to clear up easy enough, and then we were able to bear a powerful testimony that they can know personally if what we teach is true or not if they read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.

It rained super hard and even hailed a few times this week, which was pretty unexpected. Luckily it didn't really even interfere with our work. 

We've been working with a guy named Gjergj for a little bit now. He said he wants to be baptized and become a member, and he always seems really committed to do what we say, but he still hasn't shown up for church. Hopefully this week we can change that. 

This Sunday was fantastic and full of miracles. I was assigned to give a talk in Shkoder but forgot until that morning, but I was able to find a bunch of scriptures and talks that were exactly what I felt like I needed to talk about. Also, about 15 minutes before church started we heard the door open and someone start talking in English, and then in walks a member from Taiwan! She's been baptized for 10 years and was here on vacation for one day, which happened to be Sunday, so she looked up where she could go to church from LDS.org and was able to find our church. One of the members translated for her and it was a super powerful spiritual experience for all the members. It was awesome to see how quickly all of them cheerfully brought her in and made her feel at home, a great example of Christlike love for our brothers and sisters of the gospel. Then Denis and Danjela both came to church in Lezhe, rounding out the perfect Sunday. 

Then today we got up early and went down to Tirana to hang out with the other missionaries and do a few other things. I bought a suit and then we went and got some lunch with the Tirana missionaries. It was a lot of fun getting to hang out with them, some of them possibly for the last time. And then as another example of God's care for us, we were walking back to get a bus to Shkoder but turns out I don't know the bus stop for buses that go that way, so we were lost. Some people pointed us the way and as we were walking we saw a bus just ahead of us with a sign for Shkoder, so we were able to get quickly back to Shkoder!

I'm super excited for these last 6 weeks, and I feel like some miracles will happen over this next little while. I love these cities and the people here, it's been such a blessing to serve here.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Gardiner