Monday, October 6, 2014

A Great First Week in Prishtina


Congrats to all marathoners!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am
very impressed!

Well i made it up here to Kosovo. The internet local in Durrës was
huge. It was set up for internet gaming so it was always filled with
teenage boys. It was quite the environment. This local is much more of
an office.  I am computer 10, and I think there are about 25 internet desks so it is pretty crowded. It is really nice though. It is much more like the ones I
used in Elbasan. In Albania the internet places were everywhere, but
we had to walk for quite a ways to get one here. Apparently a lot more
people have private internet here in Kosovo so the need for cafes isn't as great.

Prishtina is the biggest city I have served in yet. There are traffic
lights and stuff! It is noticeably colder here. We are wearing
sweaters now, and probably going to throw on raincoat tonight because
it looks like it could be coming down. The language here in Kosovo is
different than Albania. There are two main divisions of Albanian. Geg
and Tosk. Some words are different, structure is different. For the
most part we can still understand people, but there have been a couple
of times where people will say stuff, and I literally had no idea what
they said. I love it though. We got a copy of an old never published
Geg book. I have been reading through it. I am going to try and speak
more like it. It is nice because they still understand Tosk. Some
missionaries never really bother to learn Geg, but talking to a couple
of the older missionaries who just took off last week the said juat go
for it because you won't regret  it. I just have to switch back
because Geg doesn't always get understood in Tosk land. It is super
interesting to see how the lanuage actually changes from area to area.
English has it a little bit I guess, but it isn't really the same
thing.

Our apartment here is quite nice. It has a combined kitchen and living
room, one bathroom, a spare room with our cabinet, and drying racks, a
bedroom, a decent sized storage closet about the size of our boot
room. It has a nice homy feel. I really like it. 

The branch here is great. It isn't very big. We had under 30 in sacrament, but I love it! We have had the opportunity to meet many of them, and they are all great. Prishtina has been known to be a
missionary favourite as far as areas to serve. The Branch President is
named President Bodell. He is 30. he and his wife have two small
children. He works at the American Embassy here is Prishtina. He has
learned Albanian here. He is a really cool guy, and so are his wife
and family. They actually had us over for dinner yesterday. It was
awesome! They fed us tacos. It was great!

Our ward mission leader here is a 20 something year old guy who was
baptized in May. We had our first meeting with him last night, and it
was awesome. He is on the ball! One thing I forgot to mention about
Kosovo is that the amount of people who speak English is noticeably
higher here as compared to Albania. Our Ward Mission Leader is beyond
fluent. Also on Sunday we bore our testimonies, but there were some
only English speakers there so they had us do it in English with a lady
in the ward putting it into Albanian. It was super weird! Thank
goodness we still teach and do most other things in Albanian!

Elder McGrath is a great guy from Utah. He used to be my Zone Leader.
We are both new to the area. I thin it will be cool serving with him.
In our District we have Elder Jorgenson and Elder Clawson, and Sister
Favero and Zollinger. Elder Jorgenson and Clawson are both a transfer
ahead of me. Sister Favero and I were in the same district in the MTC.
Sister Zollinger is in Elder Rasband's group. As far as District leader
goes it is pretty relaxed. I do the weekly calls for numbers, and plan
district meetings. I don't think it will be to crazy. I am excited to
do it though!

We have one really cool investigator who the Elders before us met. He
is an Elderly man with a lot of energy. We have now taught him 2. He
is scheduled to be baptized in a couple of weeks. He is full of life.
He read the Book of Mormon in 3 days. He was quite excited about the
Word of Wisdom.

We have been doing a lot of contacting on the Boulivard. It is always
full of people. I really like it there. Elbasan had a good Boulivard
too, but this one is more crowded with people. We have seen quite a
bit of interest so we have high hopes! The church is close by to the
Boulivard. It is rented out. It is one big room, and then a couple of
smaller rooms. I really like it!

I look forward to lots of good work in Prishtina. I know we are going
to have a great time! 
We will watch General Conference next week. It makes things easier as far as translation and internet connection. This way it will already be downloaded so we shouldn't have any problems. I hear it was super good so I am looking forward to it!  Also, I hope to send photos next week. These computers are a bit different so I have to figure them out.

Take Buddy on walks!

Love, Elder Stewart

1 comment:

  1. A few of my favorite parts: "just go for it, because you won't regret it" and "he is full of life"! Elder Stewart, those are 2 mantras I'm going to take on this week! Thanks for being committed to writing home- we love reading the updates. Prishtina sounds beautiful!!

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