A Great Week and Big Changes Coming!

This week has been as awesome as ever! I am loving it out here! The Work is moving along and I am having a fantastic time doing it!

But for real business this week I took on the Elbasan Challenge! 2 Bugace in one sitting. To our knowledge only one other Elder has done it before. We all wanted to try it though so we went out to th Bugace place for lunch. I have to start off by saying that I really don't like bugace. It is an Elbasan thing. Elbasan is the only place in the mission that has it. Bugace is this massive bun filled with byrek and all of it is soaked in butter. Half a Bugace is a good meal. They weigh a ton. We were joking about lifting weights with them. They are that big. Anyway the four of us Elders went there. Elder Richards pulled out right off the bat said he wasn't feeling it and only got one. The other three if us went for it. Elder Austin and Price both quit after one, and kept the other one for later. I wasn't about to quit though. I stuffed them both down! Champion! They called up Elder Palmer (the other missionary who did it) when I was at one and a half. He has a lot of overall size on me so he was amazed. He gave me some inspirational words and I took it down. Surprisingly I felt alright after too, and we went tracting up and down stairs. It was sweet!

We have a baptism set for this Saturday. His name is F. He has been investigating for about a transfer and a half now. His cousin has her mission papers in so she has had a really big effect on him. He is 25. We dropped him a while back, and then picked him up again on a fresh note. He comes to church every week though, and now he is just ready to progress. I think the drop helped.

This transfer is quickly coming to a close. There is a lot of open ended business here is Elbasan still. Some of our investigators are very close, but very far. Same type of thing.. if they come to know for themselves that the church is true.. get parental permission.. or decide to commit... or all or some of the above a lot more can and will be ready for baptism and life as a member of the church very quickly. I guess missionary work goes in waves a bit. The other area here in Elbasan hit the wave two transfers ago when some people committed, and converts have been bringing others to the missionaries. The area that I am in now has been kinda dry for a bit. Only two converts in the last year before we got here. We had three and hopefully four, and then hopefully spark will catch and there will be a boom. That will be awesome when that happens! Elder Austin and I along with a lot of other missionaries have put a lot of work in. The great thing is that there are some great families. I cannot wait for them to finally understand the gospel is for them. Missionaries and ward members can only do so much. They have freedom to choose, and some things just take time. The members here are really great though!

But with the transfer ending I get my new assignment this weekend. Elder Austin and I have no idea what will happen. One of us will for sure be moving. There is a very real possibility that both of us will be moving just because the mission is going to go crazy. There are 14 Elders coming into the mission and one sister. That means 14 Elder spots need to open for training. Also there are leadership spots opening right away, and Elder Austin is up for grabs for a Zone Leader or AP. Also Kosovo is expanding from 4 Elders there now to 16 Elders and 2 sisters. The President is shaking things up right before he finishes off at the end of this next transfer. Elder Austin and my future is totally unknown.

I don't know what else to tell you.. We have continued to get into a ton of homes for lessons rather than meeting at the church centers. It really changes the feel of our lessons. Pres Ford challenged Elder Austin and I to try and go a week without using the church buildings today. I am very excited to start. I love a good challenge. I am not sure if it was a mission wide, zone wide, district wide, or just companionship challenge, but it doesn't matter we are gonna try and do it! It will be sweet! 

I hope you are all having a great time! Congrats again to Dillon on his baptism.

Take Buddy on some walks!

Love, Elder Stewart