Elder Parker Stewart in the Adriatic South: Third Ward and His District Goes Home...

Third Ward is a great place. I am really enjoying it. Tirana is a
fantastic city to serve in. I have loved all my areas, but I am happy
to get so much time here in Tirana.

Monday night was my last meeting with President Weidmann and Elder
Greener. I am so happy for the chance that I had to get to know
President and Sister Weidmann. They have taught me a lot. They are
both very remarkable people. It has been so great to see the interest
that President Weidmann takes in each of the individual missionaries,
and in his calling as a mission President. He knows why he is here,
and relys on the Lord to help him lead the mission.

We had our Family Home Evening right after that. Like usual it was the
Whites, the Otons, the Weidmanns, and ourselves. For the lesson we
watched Elder Scotts Funeral service. It was very reamrkable. My
favourite parts were Elder Hollands prayer and the testimonies on the
end of each of the talks. I really loved Elder Scotts sons talk as
well Mom! When Elder Holland prayed though it seemed like he was
giving a report directly to his dad. I hope you all had a chance to
see it. I didn't see the other two funerals, but I would imagine they
were great as well.

Tuesday was moving day. It was really weird because Elders Baldwin,
Holm, and Eliason were all leaving. They took off and all got home.
There was a President Ford mission reunion in Utah on Friday so I
think Elder Holm went to that.

I got into Tirana 3rd. Elder Szabo is super solid. We are having a
good time together. On Wednesday we started our English course. It is
fun to be back teaching English. We are teaching beginner. It seems
like we have some pretty cool students. We will see who stays around.
Usually it fluctuates a little bit for the first few classes, and then
we are left with our class. We had ward council that night. It was the
best functioning meeting that I have seen on my mission. It was great!

Thursday was a good day because we met our first investigator. We were
out street contacting, and he was sitting on his bike watching me talk
to people. I talked with him, and he seems very promising. We had a
great first lesson with him. He is looking for a little bit more in
his life. He has a ton of faith. He was baptised in a church 8 months
ago, and has been going there every once and a while. We explained the
Restoration and he really liked it. That evening we went and Elder
Szabo interviewed 2 girls that the sisters are teaching for baptism.
They both have been going to church for quite some time. They both
passed and were so excited for their baptisms. On Thursday night we
were also able to visit the Juba family. They are super awesome. We
hit it off great. The dad and 3 of the kids were home. The dad seems
like a funny guy. He lived in America for a couple of years, but not
the kids. The boys are like 16 and 10, and the girl is around 13. We
did that smash the can on your finger lesson. They loved it. We also
used a pretty solid analogy with Messi. They thought it was pretty
funny. We committed them to read Alma 7. At church I asked them all
about it. The two older ones did, but the other one hadn't I got on
his case and told him to read it. He thought it was funny and said he
would.

Friday was amazing because we were able to meet with a lot of people.
We met again with Ilir. He wants to be baptised in our church and we
set October 24th as his baptismal date. Wouldn't that be cool to have
a baptism on your birthday Mom? We also met a really cool less-active
named Julian. He has been to the temple, and is a very nice guy!
Tracting in the evening we got into two doors. The first one was a
grizzley bear. 3 foot shoulder width 6'6 pushing 300 pounds biggest
man I have seen in my entire life. He was super nice though. He wasn't
super intersted in what we had to say, but he was nice to talk to and
very respectful/ He works in the army here in Albania. He was married
with 2 small kids. The second man we met with was married with a small
kid, and he was very nice a well. He was very respectful. He took the
book of Mormon and said he would read. We tried to get a return
appointment but he said that he will read some of it and we can talk
again in two weeks. He was very smart. He studied at Oxford.

Friday was a tougher day of finding. We didn't have a lot of immediate
sucess. One really cool thing that happened though is that we got a
lesson with the Vogli family. Their son Roi just barely got back from
his mission. His mom was baptised in 2001 by Elder Ryan Peterson. They
were showing us pictures, and I was like.. I know him. They want
contact with him again very badly. Apparently they kept in touch with
his companion but lost touch with him. Can you send me his email? They
want to email him. Small world.

Saturday and Sunday were both great days. Third Ward seems strong.

A funny thing that happened this week is we lost water. We are 4
Elders in one house, and we lost water. We cooked lunch one day and
made a ton of dishes. As we went to wash them we realized we had no
water. We spent about 2 days with it coming and going. It was funny.

Take care of Buddy and have a great week.
Love you! Elder Stewart