November 27

Përshëndetje familja!

Well today's been a little crazy and we're just getting back from Tirana so I don't have a lot of time. But here's a quick summary from the highlights of the week.

First off, Thanksgiving was great. The food was pretty good(not quite like homemade thanksgiving) and it was awesome getting to be with some of the missionaries that I haven't seen in a long time. Elders Larsen and Lords gave their departing testimonies as well as 4 of the sisters from my mtc group. It was a weird feeling seeing that happen, but they gave great testimonies and I'm very grateful to have been able to know all of them. We also got a new group of missionaries here, so I'll start getting to know them over the next few weeks of exchanges. I'll send pictures from this sometime.

As for our area, things are going well. We had a really good lesson with Redi and now he's on a baptismal date for either the 23 or the 25 of December. I have a lot of faith that it'll happen, he's super ready.

Elder Draper is super awesome, I've already learned a ton from him and we get along super well. He's a huge Star Wars fan, he knows the gospel super well, and he has a ton of ideas for how we as members and missionaries need to improve the church. I'm loving serving with him.

Other than that, it's just the usual. The church got painted. I tripped super bad on concrete playing soccer (my knee's a little messed up, but I'm fine). We went to Tirana today to get our car fixed and then played frisbee and got lunch with a ton of the missionaries. All in all a good week.

Also Elder Draper and I watched the new videos about religious freedom made by the church and they're so good. I recommend them to all of you. Here's the link, and the videos are under the examples tab. https://www.lds.org/religious-freedom

And lastly. The new "Light the World" website and videos have been released! So make sure and see those because it's also super amazing! It starts this week on December 1st so everyone be ready! I'll talk a little more about that next week too.

Love you all! 

Elder Gardiner

Pictures.

1. Elder Larsen, Elder Draper, and I

2. Our original MTC group

3. My MTC district