Elder Parker Stewart in the Adriatic South: A Very Busy Week with some REAL American/Canadian Food!

This week has been a great week.

Monday was a great night. We had two lessons. One of them was with our
best investigator who you have all heard about. the second was with
that family. The Dad has been the only one coming to lessons. We had a
great member in on that one too. I will keep you posted on all of
them. We still haven't been able to set a baptismal date with them,
but hopefully soon!

Tuesday was a fantastic day. We had District meeting in the morning.
District meetings are always fun. We have a spiritual thought, a
language tip, a spotlight of one person in the district, a review of
everyones areas (we all talk about good things a nd troubles so we can
be on the same page), we have announcements, and then the District
Leader gives a training on something (sometimes the topic is assigned
and sometimes not). After that we had two great lessons. The first one
was a second lesson with a muslim man who has catholic relatives. He
is curious about our concept of Jesus and his role in our lives. The
second was with a guy who I met on the road last week. We were out
contacting, and i waved him down. He asked what I was doing, and I
began to explain. Partway through he pulled two books out of his
pocket, and said look what I just bought. He had two books on
understanding the Bible. I have high hopes for him because he is a
really cool guy!

on Tuesday night we got to go to the Military base here in Kosovo.
Every week 4 missionaries go up there with the Tooleys. They hold a
fireside thing, and the missionaries get to see the base. We took a
bus to Ferizaj, and met the Tooleys and Elders Schramm and Elliason
there. We all rode onto base together. On base we met up with Major
Jensen and Sergeant Eyerly. They showed us around a bit. They have a
small store on base with American foods so we picked out a couple. The
big purchase was 40 Ego Waffles. After that we ate dinner on the base.
It was 4 dollars for the whole caffeteria. Lets just say I got my 4
dollars worth. I haven't eaten like that in quite some time. The food
was amazing, and I didn't know what I was doing. I followed a big guy
through the line and just did what he did. Everyone knows wasting food
is bad so I ate it all... I didn't have to eat for the rest of the
week. While in the cafeteria a cool thing happened and a man came
running up to us because he recognized us by our clothing. It turns
out he is a member from Elder McGraths town. He didn't know about the
member gatherings on base. He was very happy to see us all. From there
we went and gave a lesson. Elder McGrath and I had the lesson. He had
the lead on it because we had decided to share his favourite story
from the New Testament. It is of Peter on the water. It turned into a
great discussion. We took pictures with the soldiers, and invited the
four of them to church. We headed home after that.

On Wednesday we had our interviews with President. He is a great guy.
It was scary though because I got a text on Tuesday saying to set up
President Weidmanns schedule in Prishtina so we could all get
interviewed. So I had done that, but then on Wednesday morning
President texted me and said he wanted to go in on a lesson with one
of us so I had to quickly switch things. It wasn't a huge deal, but I
wanted everything to run well, and I didn't want to mess up anyones
days. In the end everything went fantastic. President Weidmann got to
be in on two lessons. The interviews went good. He is a very wise man
with a lot of good advice. He is always very supportive.

During the day on Wednesday Sergeant Eyerly was in Prishtina wandering
around because he was unable to go to a meeting due to lack of seats,
and he was a lower rank. He was really bored so he found us and talked
to us, and took us out for lunch. That was really nice of him. He is a
great guy. The soldiers are pretty impressive. On Wednesday night
Elder McGrath and I had the institutle lesson. We are doing D and C
right now.

Thursday we weekly planned due to a crazy Friday. We also had two
great first lessons, and English course. We teach a ton of first
lessons out here. it is really cool. It is just hard to get be people
beyond curious to actually interested, and willing to act. I love how
many people we come into contact with. This week I have been trying to
focus more on families. Our strategy is changing all of the time to
spark interest, and get people moving. It has been great to see that
everyone seems to agree that families are important. People are often
very happy to tell us about their families. English course is great.
We had debates this week, and really worked on expressing opinions. We
have some funny students!

On Friday the Zone Leaders held a training for the District Leaders.
There are 4 districts in the north zone. We are Prishtina, Peja,
Gjakova, and Macedonia. The training was really good. It had a lot to
do with finding through our own efforts because we do a lot of that.
They had some good ideas. They also presented goals for the Zone.
After which we had lunch together. It was good to see Elder Holm, and
Elder Braden from my MTC group. Elder Holm doesn't eat vegetables so
that was kind of funny to bug him about. Friday afternoon was the
longest I have contacted consecutively in quite a while. We received a
lot of numbers. the night ended with another first lesson so that was
great.

Saturday was quite the day. We had a lesson in the morning, and then
right after we had soccer. Every couple weeks up here we have a soccer
activity. We had it weekly back in Durrës. A ton of the members come,
and they bring their friends. It was a great time.Some of these guys
are really good. I managed to get a couple of goals so that felt good.
I can kick the ball pretty good again now. For the last 5 months I
have had a pretty bad ingroan toenail. (My foot used to be covered in
blood after every game) I think i have it under control now. it took
some experimenting, but my foot is in goal scoring condition once
again. Following the lesson we had another lesson with a really cool
guy who lived in Texas for a couple of years. From there we helped the
other Elders prepare for their baptism. It all ended up going great.
One new member! There were some investigators there too. It was great.

Sunday was church. After a crazy week it is always awesome to go to
church. We had some lessons after church, and our missionary
correlation meeting. On Sunday morning I finished the New Testament.

I think I hit all of the major points. Life is good!

Take Buddy on walks!

Love Elder Stewart