7 September 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you for writing to me every week. Mom, Dad, and Rachel, I'm glad that you had a fun time at the State Fair. That's really cool that you ran into lots of missionaries there! It's always really cool for us when we run into members from other cities or other countries. It's always fun to talk with different members. I bet they were all really happy to go to the State Fair on their P-day. I know I would be! Is it possible to go to the State Fair and not eat anything on a stick? I wonder how many of those sticks they use during the course of the fair. I've heard the name Abrahamson but I haven't met them at all.  {Sister missionaries that we met at the fair mentioned that a couple from their ward had just left for the Adriatic South Mission.}  I don't know if they've arrived in the country or not. Hopefully I'll be able to meet them soon. That's really cool that they're Minnesotan! Haha, that's funny that Rachel has Mark {one of Jacob's former baseball coaches} as a teacher. Yeah, hopefully you didn't ruin her chances of a good grade in that class right then {by mentioning that Mark had coached Jacob several years ago}. That's cool that Wes and Becky are celebrating their anniversary. Be sure to tell them congratulations from me. Say hi to Kayla from me. Also tell Grandpa Watson happy birthday for me!

Sorry, I don't have a lot of time left to email. Today for P-day we went to Prizren again, and we didn't catch the bus back to Gjakova that we wanted, so we didn't get as much time to email as we would have hoped. But this last week was really good. We had zone training this last week, which is always awesome! The training that we received was really good, and it was really awesome to see missionaries from Prishtina and Skopje. A missionary that I served around in Durrës for a while, Elder Muncy, got transferred to Prishtina and so it was really awesome to see him again. It's really awesome to see missionaries progressing and growing so much during their missions. I've seen it a ton in Elder Keck, but that's because I got the chance to serve with him when he was fresh from the MTC. I've also known Elder Muncy for most of his mission, so it's awesome to see all of the progress that he's made in his mission. I think that seeing progression in other people is one of the most wonderful aspects of missionary work. This week what really stood out to me as I was working with the branch members here in Gjakova. This week I was able to see some of them bear their testimony in Sacrament meeting on Sunday when they've never done that before. I've also been able to see members change their lives and repent to live the Gospel more fully in their lives. I've seen members accept callings and start doing everything that they know how to do to fulfill their callings. It has been one of the most fulfilling things that I've witnessed on my mission. It is wonderful to see people progress in the Gospel and become more like the Savior. It's wonderful to see them applying the Gospel in their lives even when it is difficult. It gives me so much joy and happiness to see the Gospel making positive changes in the lives of others!

Thank you so much for all of the love and support you send to me. Ju dua shumë. Kalofshi bukur. Javë të mbarë.

Me dashuri,

Elder Watson

31 August 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you for writing to me each week. I really enjoy hearing about what's going on back at home. Mom, Dad, and Rachel, that's cool that you will have gone to the State Fair by the time you read this. I hope you had a good time! Okay, I'll have to go to the State Fair the next year so that I can actually remember it and enjoy it. Can you imagine if Sweet Jacob's teamed up with Sweet Martha's? ...Minnesota isn't ready for that yet!  {Jacob makes some really good chocolate chip cookies.  Sweet Martha's are the excellent chocolate chip cookies at the MN State Fair.}

Woah, Rachel, you get to choose your classes for 7th grade? Things have changed. That's cool. Hopefully you can get into some fun classes. Mom, do you have to wear glasses when you drive, or are you still okay to do that without glasses? Haha, Brian Regan once talked about how one of his friends only had to wear glasses when he drove, so Brian made the comment that he should have just got a prescription windshield. I don't know where that came from, but there you go. This week I was thinking a lot about Brother McCabe. How is he doing? Be sure to say hi to him for me! Give him my best wishes!

I don't know at all how long I'll be in Kosovo as the whole visa requirement doesn't really have any issues for the missionaries anymore. The mission office has taken care of all that. So I could see President Weidmann leaving me to finish my mission here in Gjakova. On the other hand, I could be transferred tomorrow. With President Weidmann, you never know. It keeps you on your toes. For example, one of the sisters here, Sister Pierce, got a transfer call on Saturday night to go to Vlorë, and it isn't normal transfer time, so you can never really know what to expect.

This week was pretty good for Elder Cani and I. A couple highlights that we had from this week happened this last weekend. So occasionally a senior couple from Prishtina, the Hyrdicks, will come down to Gjakova just to see how things are going. They'll come to Church with us and give us help and counsel and stuff like that. So Saturday, because Sister Hydrick is the mission nurse, we had a health night activity at the Church. It was awesome! All of the members loved it! Sister Hydrick talked about hygiene, dieting, and the Word of Wisdom. All of the members talked about how much they loved it. It was a fun interactive lesson that helped benefit the members a ton. It was a pretty fun activity. Also, we had a really awesome Church service on Sunday. I don't know why it was so good, but you could just feel the Spirit there very strong. So that was the first highlight, the second happened after Church on Sunday. So earlier on in the week I had talked to a man on the road about his family and ways that he could strengthen family relationships. He accepted a lesson and he brought his family to the Church. All together 11 people showed up. Several of them were very young children but it was still a good lesson. We watched the Restoration film and they really enjoyed it. They said that we should go over to their house later on in the week, so on Sunday we went over. We showed up at their house which is in a village about 10 minutes away from Gjakova. We were sitting at a table in their yard just talking with the father, his brother and some other men in the family. After a little bit the kids asked if they could invite the neighbor kids to come over. We said yeah, so they ran off. After 5 minutes, they came back with half of the village! Over 25 kids came. They were just pouring out of everywhere! We got them sitting down and started talking to them about Jesus. They sang some songs about Jesus that they had learned before and they were really well behaved! It was like teaching a Primary lesson! All of them were begging us to come back to teach them more, so we set up a time to go back. They told us that not all of their friends could come, so they wanted to invite them next week too. I'm really excited to see how it goes. It was a really cool experience. During that lesson it made me think of when Christ said suffer the little children to come unto me. It was really cool. I could understand a little bit more about the love that Christ has for little children. Throughout the scriptures Christ makes that love apparent several times. It is so wonderful to have a Savior that loves us so much! Understanding more about the love that Christ has for us helps us show that love to others as well. It helps us become better people. It helps us to know how to help others. I know that God loves us and He has given us so many things to show us His divine love for us. I know that as we read from the scriptures and we pray, we can understand more about this love of Christ, which is called charity. In Moroni 7 and 1 Corinthians 13 it teaches us a ton about charity and its importance. Paul teaches us that it doesn't matter if we have all the knowledge in the world or if we are the best at something, but if we don't have charity it doesn't really matter. If we don't have charity we are nothing. Let us learn more of the Savior and His Life to understand more how we can show charity to all those around us!

Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts and support. I really appreciate it. Ju dua shumë. Kalofshi bukur. Javë të mbarë!

Me dashrui,

Elder Watson

A couple of pictures of the branch activity.

We talked with a guy in Gjakova who owns his own printing shop.
We gave him a Book of Mormon, and he said he would give us each
50 pass along cards.  Here's mine.