CARVIN CUCUMBERS

Hello hello!! We are another week closer to Halloween and boy oh boy are we getting spooked and excited up here in Kosovo!! This week was SUPER awesome!! It is started to get chilly here so we love that! The weather here is quite a bit like Utah. I love it! 

CULTURE SHOCKS: 

1. Albanian's NEVER stop talking. You are lucky if you can get in a word sometimes hahah they are dang hilarious and oh so cute. My talkative personality helps me feel right at home ;) 

2. Here is a stereotype but Albanian's generally are not very creative... their drawings, dreams, and life goals are literally all the same. 

3. I keep getting asked this question so I will answer here for you all :) because they are typically very Muslim here there are tons of people who wear the coverings on their heads but typically those are the more "dedicated" persons so we typically don't teach them. They usually are more extremist if they are covered (except for their eye slits) or if the men have longer distinct beards. 

GOOFS, GIGGLES, AND OH NO

1. So this week I decided to make some scrumptious spicy tacos because why not. We made these tacos and I accidentally made them a little TOO spicy lol which wouldn't have been a problem if our water didn't turn off that day!! After we had started cooking our water turned off so we couldn't wash our hands from the spicy peppers and we didn't have much else to wash down our throats!! We were dying!! Hahaha we were running frozen berries all over our hands and lips to try and cool them down but nope. 

2. This week we had the opportunity to watch this awesome religion forum thing and it was awesome learning about the behind the scenes of major religions here in our mission! The forum was in Greece so we had it broad casted here but our wifi is really really bad so it kept cutting out! We were watching it with our cute senior couple from Austria, the Lerchners. For some reason every time the broadcast would cut out a swimsuit competition would show up on the screen as the "coming up next". He was getting so frustrated and yelling in German because half of our broadcast was learning about who was going to win Miss Kosovo's swimsuit competition. Hahaha jkjkjk. It was pretty funny to watch him though. 

3. So I mentioned above that Albanian's aren't that creative. Well this week I was teaching English Course and something happened where I had to actually teach English course by myself. So we were gonna have some fun. I was explaining about a "bucket list" and I have never seen more confused people in my life. I asked them for things they wanted to do before they died and they FREAKED OUT and were like WE DO NOT WANT TO DIE. That took some explaining hahah. I started writing a bunch of creative ideas of "bucket list" items and they thought I was absolutely crazy. What kind of crazy person jumps out of a plane???? When I asked them what their CRAZIEST dreams were before they died they said things like, "get married", "never go to the hospital", and "get a job" lol. They aren't very creative here. So time goes on class and I started explaining about the human body and all the different body parts. My cute friend in the class wanted to know the word for "butt" but I had no idea what she was saying because she was sooo quiet. So she comes up to the front of the class and says "THIS" AND SMACKS MY BUTT SO HARD. Hahaha wow. That is why we teach in 2s people ;) 

** Fun language mistake: I tried to explain carving pumpkins (kungull) to my english course friends. Little did I know that I was telling them to carve a trangull (cucumber) for about 15 min...

THE GOOD STUFF: 

There is something special about the way Christ loves. His love is never ending, all encompassing, and unbelievably perfect. I have seen this in my time here as a missionary in Kosovo. I have truly felt his love and seen his love through the actions of other people. These people have unconditional love here and are such good examples of showing their love. There are sometimes hard days but these members and friends I have made here take all the hard away. They are the definition of Christ-like love. Their love overwhelms you and surrounds you. They never fail to introduce themselves to new people, offer to help, reach out in love, invite friends, and express their gratitude for you. It is easy to say "we should have more Christ-like love!" and another thing to do it! We need to LOVE MORE. LOVE SOOOO MUCH MORE. LOVE WITH YOUR WHOLE HEARTS. When we love the way Christ loves we will BE SO HAPPY. As Moroni 7: 46 says, if you don't have charity you are nothing. SHOW SOME LOVE THIS WEEK. DO SOME SERVICE. THROW IN AN EXTRA HUG. You can never have too much love!!!! 

I love you all so much!! Pray for miracles and be happy this week!!! 

Love, Motra Sëtën

Adriatic South Mission

P.O. Box 2984

Bulevardi Gjergj Fishta 

Qendra ALPAS

Shkalla NR. 5 Apartamenti NR.14

Tirana, Albania

Photos: Me and my bestie girls, my best friend and his AMERICAN FLAG THAT HE BEGGED FOR, cute comp and punkins, cute friend and his first talk in sacrament meeting! 

I AM 2O YRS OLD

Heyyoooo it has been one heck of a week here for me!!! I appreciated all the wonderful birthday emails and messages I have received!!! I am beyond spoiled to have such amazing people in my life!!!!! Thank you for existing and making me so happy!!!!

THIS WEEK'S CULTURE SHOCKS: 

1. Albanians/ Kosovars are such gift givers!!!! They are so kind. For my bday this week I got so many gifts from people I hardly even know! They are so sweet wow :') 

2. They also LOVE BDAYS. They get super excited and want to party lots. They also make sure that EVERY SINGLE PERSON knows it is their bday it is so cute. I love getting messages that say, "Good Morning, it is my birthday." There is no such thing as a secret bday here.

3. There are no jobs here. Everyone struggles to find work.. especially work that pays well. There are a lot of homeless people and beggars in the street and it makes my heart hurt so bad :(( BUT WE MADE A PLAN. We bought tons of little foods like nuts and bars and granolar stuff and we made cute little bags to give them!!! Have to work with what we've got yanno. 

FOR THE LAUGHS: 

1. Sooo this week we were feeling quite festive. It is October and we wanted some good punkin' and halloween themed things in our lives. So one day we were walking and decided to stop at this restaurant that was serving PUMPKIN FLAVORED FOODS YUM. So we stopped in and got some lunch. Hahahah we learned a few things that day. 1) American flavored pumpkin things are NOT the same as in Kosovo. We had a chicken breast with pumpkin puree around it lol, pumpkin soup (SO BAD), and pumpkin pilaf (rice thing). Mhmm it was interesting. 2) I AM ALLERGIC TO PUMPKIN HAHA. Well, at least we think. My tongue swoll up and I got hives all over my arms and face so that was good. 

2. We invited a dear friend to come to church this week and he came! He is awesome. He sat right in front of me. As we were singing the hymns I looked up and noticed a big spider crawling on the collar of his shirt. I was going to say something until it crawled back into his shirt. I couldn't grasp myself to tell him plus I was kinda freaking out inside. Anyways, so we keep singing and I look at his hair and suddenly see 3 other big spiders dangling from webs attached to his hair. At this point my jaw had just dropped and I didn't even know if I should tell him or not. I watched the 3 spiders crawl up their webs into his hair where there were another group of spiders. And that is where I tapped out. Ahhhhh IT SO SCARY I AM NOT KIDDING. 

3. We were walkin along the road and stopped at this little outdoor market when we came across this cute old man who was interested in the Book of Mormon! He invited us inside his house (above his market) to meet his wife and family! Suddenly, we were bombarded with gifts and slippers and food of every kind! They took off our shoes for us and they made the couches all nice and they started treating us like absolute PRINCESSES!!! HAHAHA. So at this point we had only met the sister and the mom. Then the dad came in with his 3 sons and looks at us and says, " Okay you beautiful American ladies. Pick one" and then he went on and started telling us how amazing each one of them were and how they could take care of us and our future families. It was pretty dang hilarious. Little did we know we had just walked into our very own proposals. 

THE GOOD SPIRITUAL STUFF:

This week Sister Bringhurst and I learned so much. It is sometimes hard to find people here to teach because of the Islamic culture difference. There were many times this week where we defended Jesus Christ in a way that I have never quite done before. Often times when we talk to people they will make fun or say horrible things about us, Christians, and Jesus Christ. One of the biggest things for Muslims is that they do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. They believe that he was born and was a prophet, but that he was not the Son of God. This is hard sometimes because when we are out finding people to teach we love to talk about Christ. We rejoice in Christ!! This often times leads to immediate rejection. However, we made good plans this week to get people to READ the Book of Mormon and find out for themselves the truth!! Christ is in EVERYTHING. He is our ALL. The Book of Mormon is coated with verses of scriptures that all reference to the Savior. Not to mention, that when YOU read the Book of Mormon YOU can receive that spiritual witness that it is the most correct of any book among the face of this earth. As we have testified of Jesus Christ MORE THAN EVER in our work this week we have seen miracles. We have seen both the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ CHANGE these people into their best selves. Christ lives. He loves us very much. As we testify of Him and follow him we will have UNLIMITED happiness. I LOVE MY SAVIOR. 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH THANK YOU FOR YOUR LOVE AND PRAYERS. 

Love, Motra Sëtën

Adriatic South Mission

P.O. Box 2984

Bulevardi Gjergj Fishta 

Qendra ALPAS

Shkalla NR. 5 Apartamenti NR.14

Tirana, Albania

Pics: cute lil road, you are not here, cutie best friends, my cute comp!!!!!!!! 

We went to Serbia & received some revelation

MIREDITA EVERYONE! WHAT A WEEK!!!! This was probably one of the most eventful weeks of my mission full of adventures, a baptism, the military base, and of course General Conference! I hope you all had the opportunity to watch or listen to General Conference this weekend! We are so lucky to have living prophets and apostles in our day!! 

CULTURE SHOCKS: 

1. It is a cultural thing to always take your shoes off outside the door and carry them inside when you arrive at someone's house. 

2. This week was election week! There were tons of protests and rallies all throughout the streets and for 2 days the roads were closed!! There were cops everywhere and the boulevard here looked like a winter wonderland covered in paper. 

3. Coffee is MAJOR here. They had a HUGE coffee and tea festival out on the boulevard and let me tell ya it was awesome. We were like Lehi out there preachin and teachin and makin friends it was awesome. Hahahaha 

WEIRD WHACK FUNNY STORY

1. HAHAH this week we had one of the most interesting and hilarious days. It all started with a member asking us to help chop some wood in his fshat (village) about 1hr 1/2 away. We drove through the mountains with the elders and came to a beautiful place where we met our friend. We were under the impression that we would walk to his village from the main road until we found out that he lived over 9 km away on this sketchy dirt road. Our friend began telling us about how much he LOVED Michael Jackson so I asked him, "Have you ever met Michael Jackson before?" He looked at me all serious and said, "Yes. Chicago Bulls." And then he changed the subject. Hahahaha we might be talking about different people HAHA. So as we were driving the road suddenly came to an end with a big sign that said KOSOVO BOUNDARY. We got to walk into Serbia and explore a bit but we were still so confused because we thought we were going to be chopping wood hahaha. So we turned around and headed down a different dirt road when we came upon a tiny school in the middle of nowhere. Our friend begged us to stop and then yelled something outside and then tons of little kids came running at us hugging us and touching my hair. We ended up having an awesome lesson with them and some of the teachers who all were anxiously engaged because they had never heard the message of the restored gospel. So then our friend told us that the only way to get to his house was to take this massive truck up through another road that was DESTROYED so we jumped in the truck and were on our way to chop some wood.. or so we thought. The man who was driving us was the neighbor of our friend and invited us over to his house for us to share our message. We went inside and had a lesson and left with the spirit tasting strong. The wife even poured us water straight from her well how kind. After we left their house we started walking down the dirt road when Beni, our friend, went off the path and down into the forest. He then told us that we wouldn't be chopping wood but that we would be sawing wood and the saw wouldn't arrive for another 1hr or so. He then asked if we were hungry and then frantically started collecting blackberries and walnuts and all kinds of other edible things (or so we think) and we made a lunch. He pulled out a cake from his backpack and boom we were feasting. We got so cut up and wrecked from those thorn bushes though I will tell ya that. BUT THE STORY GOES ON. After lunch we headed towards Beni's house where we were stopped by the Serbian border police and checked which was awesome. We finally made it to Beni's house where we were then introduced to both his uncle and cousin. We were having a lesson under their pear tree and pears kept falling and smacking from the tree almost hitting our heads but it didn't even matter because we just were having a beautiful lesson!! After the lesson we jumped into a different truck and headed to a massive pile of wood and were asked to load the truck up with the wood piles! We loaded, loaded, loaded and had such a good time. There was this cute precious little boy who came to help and started asking me questions about the gospel. We talked more about Christ and I gave him a Book of Mormon. I have never seen a kid smile so big!! He promised me he would read it and pray about it and we exchanged phone numbers. It was a miracle! By the the time we had loaded all the wood we knew it was time for us to head home. However, Beni told us he still had to work and wouldn't be able to drive us back to our car. Sooo we took the long trek back walking up and down and through the mountains of Serbia and Kosovo and through a miracle we made it to our car. On our way out of town we stopped to grab a quite bit to eat when we had the impression to talk to the waiter about the Book of Mormon. As we started talking he explained that he had seen our website before but never could figure out how to get a book! We helped him out :)) after that little miracle we started to drive home sweaty, dirty, and exhausted when Elder Stephan got pulled over. HAHAHAHA they wanted to give him a 1200 $ ticket and take away his license. However, luckily they let us go free because we are American! #miracle #perks Among the craziness of the day we saw so many miracles. The people we met and talked to are now sharing with their friends and family and they want to be taught. Everything was unexpected. We didn't saw wood and nothing we had planned actually happened. But God had a plan. He directed us where to go in the moment we needed to go there. 

SPIRITUAL GOODNESS: 

There was a special feeling this weekend as we participated in the baptism of our friend Korab and listened to General Conference. We were lucky to have been able to watch conference in English Saturday and Sunday night! I loved the talk by Peter M. Johnson that focused on PRAYING, READING, AND STUDYING EVERYDAY EVERYDAY EVERYDAY. And partaking of the sacrament EVERY WEEK EVERY WEEK EVERY WEEK. Remember that by small and simple things great things do come to pass (Alma 37:6). As we do the small thing EVERYDAY we will see miracles and blessings and will be stronger against the adversary.

 I love you all!!!! Thank you for your prayers!!!! 

Love, Motra Sëtën

Adriatic South Mission

P.O. Box 2984

Bulevardi Gjergj Fishta 

Qendra ALPAS

Shkalla NR. 5 Apartamenti NR.14

Tirana, Albania