There and Back Again: A Missionary's Tale

4 January 2016

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you for your email. It's always good to hear about what's happening back at home. I haven't been released, yet, as Branch President, so I still need to deal with stuff in Prishtina and Gjakova. We had to go to Gjakova on Sunday and I'll have to go back there this upcoming Sunday as well. This upcoming Sunday the branch should be reorganized so then I'll be just in Prishtina. It's been kinda' weird this last week because I've been in Gjakova so much, it feels like I haven't left, I'm just kinda' hanging out in Prishtina. It's been kinda' hard on me because I have one foot in each city. I love both cities very much and it's hard to be thinking about both of them at the same time. I would much rather just focus all of my attention and energy on one. However, that should all change this next week with the reorganization. Yeah, I don't really know what to write. Not much has changed since New Year's Day. Things are going well. I love it here in Prishtina. Oh! One thing that was awesome was that I was able to meet with Hazir, my first baptism here in the mission. Unfortunately, he became less-active shortly after his baptism and hadn't met with the missionaries in a while. However, we were able to meet with him this week. It was super awesome! We were able to talk about his baptism and the joy that he felt on that day. After the lesson, he bumped into the missionaries in the road and greeted them and hugged them. So now all of the Prishtina missionaries know him, and before only one knew who he was. One of my goals is to help Hazir to become active before I leave! I really love this man so much and he has a great potential!

Mom, Dad, and Rachel, that's awesome that you saw Star Wars. I'm super excited to go see it. Elder Mero is dying to see it, but he has just started his mission so he has a while to wait. I told him that when I go to see it I'll send him some pictures of me by the poster to rub it in. Haha. Oh! Speaking of Star Wars and white elephant, the Macedonian Missionaries had a white elephant gift exchange, and one of them bought a single ticket for Star Wars 3D. I died laughing when I heard about that!

Because we've been gone in Gjakova so much I don't know a whole ton about our district yet, but here's what I konw. So my companion is Elder Mero. He's been in country for three months and he's from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He graduated high school in 2015 (which really freaked me out)! Then there is Elder Eddings, I served around him in Durrës before. He's been here for about a year and a half. He's from Utah and he's training Elder Ingram, who just got here about 5 days ago. Elder Ingram is from Oklahoma and he's super awesome with the language! The sisters in our district are Sister Cheshire, she's from Utah and she's been here about a year, and her companion is Sister Lakaj from Tirana, Albania. She's been called to a mission in Salt Lake City and she's just waiting for a visa. She's actually lived in Michigan until she was 13 and then she moved back here, so she speaks English and Albanian perfectly. Yeah, that's our district.

Oh, today I also got my suit that I ordered for my birthday. So I'll be sure to send you pictures of myself in my birthday suit next week! ;)

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

Me dashuri,

Elder Watson