First Transfer - Off to Durres!

Hey!

This week we had that challenge to teach all of our lessons outside of the YSA center. I think it was a really great challenge because i prefer that anyway. We taught our lessons in the homes of investigators, members, and inactives. Each lesson had a story. We were able to get a lot more members involved this way as well. It was especially good to get lessons with investigators in the homes of inactive members. In these cases the inactive members always felt the spirit as well. Also we had them testify of their conversion story, and many of them came to realize the testimony that they had forgotten they had, My favourite lesson this week was at Sister Ferrecakus house. She is an inactive lady in branch. Herself, her husband and her two sons were all baptized a number of years back. Since then I am not sure in what order but they went inactive and her son died. We brought two boys to her house. 17 and 18. The 17 year old was interested right from the get go, but the older one was not. As the lesson developed he began to open up. Sister Ferrecaku really related to them. They grew to respect her. She told them both that they would get baptized and live happier lives as members of the church. Both boys seemed very intentful. I hope that they both grasp onto the truth. Hopefully these lessons in homes will lower the risk of us losing our investigators after one or two lessons. That has been a reaccuring problem throughout the transfer. We are still trying to work out the bugs. I can kind of talk now, so that helps haha.

We received our transfer calls this week. I will be spending the next three months serving in Durres! I am very excited to move, but at the same time I am really going to miss Elbasan. The area I am currently in will be training again. Elder Austins area in Tirana before he was here got erased to make the Area I am going to now in Durres. I will be whitewashing with Elder Gray from my group (tall skinny, black hair, glasses) You will find him in my MTC pics. (Editor's note...So to summarize, this area will be started a new by two elders who have only been out for 3 months each...WOW! Glad it's him and not me. :)   ) There used to be 1 set of Elders and 2 sets of sisters in Durres. There will now be 2 sets of Elders and no sisters.  My District leader will be Elder Acheson. He was in Elbasan with me for the first half of the transfer. He is training there. I think it will be awesome serving with another very young missionary. We will have to get better at teaching because we don't have any experience to fall back on. 

Elder Austin will be serving as Zone leader in the north. They north just got packed with missionaries like I told you last week. Elder Price is going to train and be district leader in Vlore. Elder Richards will train and be district leader here in Elbasan. District leader meetings are going to be wild because the group above me makes up all of the district leaders in the mission so they will all be MTC reunions! Elder Holm, and Elder Eliason from my group will be together in Vlore. Elder Baldwin will be serving with an Albanian companion in Fier. I have heard he is struggling with the Language so I guess President decided baptism by fire! I hope he does well! The other three guys from my group are up north with older missionaries. I don't know where the sisters went yet, but I will find out tomorrow on moving day.

As you can see by the descriptions on the photos it is going to be hard to leave because we are getting a lot of people close to baptism, and they just need to fall over the brink. (Editor's note again...I did not include most of the photos for privacy sake, but he sent about 20 today. It must be hard to leave the people when you have such a connection with them...) We came into an area with not much going on and really stirred the pot. I just hope it yields some eternal families in the end. There are others too, but i only got pictures with some.. the ones I remembered.

Have a great week! I will be in Durres next week, and I am not sure how they do email over there. Wish me luck!

Take Buddy on walks! I hope you are all doing well! I miss you! (In a non-trunky way don't worry)

Love, Elder Stewart

Elder Austin and Elder Stewart - We sent Elder Austin the Canada t shirt for his birthday and the parachute men to both of them for Easter - in case they needed an adventure... :)

Elder Stewart found a Canada t-shirt for sale in Elbasan. How cool is that?

The Elbasan Branch

Elder Stewart, Elder Austin and the Tooley's.  Their names are all spoken with gratitude in our home.

Elder Stewart and Branch President Kashari. He was taught the gospel by a friend of ours from Canada a number of years ago and now serves as Branch President where Parker is a missionary. So neat. The Lord's work is amazing!