December 11

Përshëndetje familja!

I've had a good week here. Fier is still going well. I'm 20 now, so that's fun. 

As for our week, we've been really trying to use #NdriçojeBotën as much as possilbe. So we've planned a bunch of activities and now we're trying to invite everyone we can. So yesterday we went through the member list and called every person that we had a number for inviting them to the activity that we'll have today. Some of the numbers didn't work and not all the people answered, but we did get to talk to a lot of members that we've never met before and some of them seemed like they would really try and come to the activity today. We've also gone out with a poster throughout the week and talked to everyone about Christ and service. 

For my birthday we went over to the Liçaj's for lunch which was fun. Yesterday was also the Licaj grandma's birthday so we celebrated together. The food was good and we even had a birthday cake. So as for a birthday on the mission goes, it was great!

Redi is still doing well. We had a really good lesson with him where we read 3 Nephi 11. We were trying to just focus on Christ and his power to bring us peace in our lives, but we got to the end and Redi said the thing that stuck out most to him was where it talks about baptism and how important it is. So this week we'll work out all the details for his baptism. So it should be awesome!

He's our only steady investigator for now, but we've been trying to find some new people. We've invited a lot of people to the activity tonight and members are too so we should have some new people to meet with this week. The senior couple has a woman in their English class who is super cool and super smart and she's been coming to church for the past couple of weeks. They said they'll talk to her about taking the missionary lessons, and she would be an amazing member. So hopefully she accepts!

We had an exchange with Lushnje this week and I got to serve with one of my friends who's going home in a couple weeks. It was a lot of fun and it was cool getting to work with him. Also, Elder Lords and Elder Larsen go home this week so we went and played frisbee with them and a lot of the other missionaries today.

This next week should be really crazy. We have baptismal interviews in Lushnje and Vlore, district meeting in Vlore, exchanges in Korça and Pogradec, and a special Light the World concert in Pogradec, and then we'll have to stay the night in Elbasan. So basically we won't be in our area most of the week. It'll be fun.

The weather's back to normal. We've had rain off and on, but it was actually good weather today(which is lucky because my jeans aren't dry so I had to wear shorts). 

It's crazy that it's almost Christmas. I totally hadn't even thought about the skype, but I'm super excited. We'll figure that out this week and let you know next week. Let me know if there's a certain time that would work best and we'll try to work around that.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Gardiner