1 January 2016

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you so much for your letters! It's always great to hear how things are going back at home. That's wonderful that you got so much snow in MN! Those pictures from home made me really happy! Yeah, it was really great that I got to Skype with my family on Christmas! Mom and Dad, I'm glad that you had a great Christmas! Wow, sounds like you had quite the adventure with all of the grand kids at the house this past week. Tell Jameson {Jacob's nephew} that he's on. I'll totally destroy him in a Nerf War. I'm glad that your talk went well on Sunday Rachel. Dad, I'm sorry that I forgot to wish you a Happy Birthday when we Skyped on Christmas, but I hope that you had a great Birthday! I've heard that the new Star Wars movie is really good. Hopefully you'll be able to go see it soon, if you haven't by now.

So there was a surprising turn of events this past week. On Saturday we had transfers... Elder Harline got transferred to Fier in Albania. He's excited to go down there. However, I also got transferred. So right now I'm writing to you from Prishtina! My new companion is Elder Mero. He's been out here for three months, just like Elder Harline. Elder Mero is from Canada. He's Albanian but born and raised there in Canada. Yeah, I got to come back here for my last six weeks! I'm super excited. I've been wishing to come back to Prishtina since I left in October 2014. Now I have the wonderful opportunity to give it my all here for the last six weeks. When I got the call, I thought that President Weidmann was joking with me. However, I have really mixed feelings. I'm super happy to be back here in Prishtina, but I'm also sad to leave Gjakova. Because I've spent the past seven and a half months in Gjakova, I've really come to love the people and the members. It's a little interesting because I haven't been released as Branch President yet, so I still have to take care of things there until the Branch gets reorganized in a couple weeks. The new Branch President will be Elder Hydrick, a senior missionary here in Prishtina. He and his wife will be transferred to Gjakova. So we've been pretty busy trying to get all of that stuff taken care of. It's been a ton of work, but at least I'll be here nearby in Prishtina so it'll be easy for me to help out if there are any problems. I'm grateful for this opportunity that I have to serve in Prishtina again. It's been a little crazy because of New Year's. New Year's is a huge celebration here in Kosovo, so it's been hard to meet with people, and we had to be inside by sundown on New Year's Eve. We were able to see the fireworks from our apartment, so that was pretty crazy and fun. People go all out with that stuff here. So yeah, that's the biggest piece of news from over here. Things are going well and I'm loving it here!

Thank you so much for all of the love and support that you give to me! Ju dua shumë. Kalofshi bukur! Javë të mbarë. Gëzuar Vitin e Ri!

Me dashuri,

Elder Watson