Attached is a detailed report from Elder Thompson who is one of my Assistants regarding the Kosovo trip experience he had. Love Dad
hi President, sorry this was so long. I didn't want to have to write everything twice, so this is an indepth overview of our week. it is a lot to read, sorry.
Man, I probably just had the very best week of my entire mission!!! It was so awesome! The first two Melchizedek Priesthood ordinations took place on Sunday night in Prishtina, Kosovo. President Weight came down and ordained them both to the office of an Elder. It was so sweet. We were so lucky to be there.
But that was only one of the highlights, now I'm going to jump back to the beginning of the week and tell you how it went. We were supposed to fly out monday, or so we thought. The Lunts (a senior couple here in Zagreb) picked us up at our apartment and drove us the the airport. We got there two hours early and sat down to wait for our flight. Well as I started examining our tickets a little bit closer, I noticed that we don't actually fry out till tomorrow night at the same time. So we had to call the Lunts and they came back and picked us up and drove us back home. We laughed so hard that we started crying. Tuesday day, went out and worked our area. We taught two lessons contacting and then went tracting and taught another lady. I won't lie, it was a little hard to stay focused because we wanted to be gone, but we hung in there and really worked hard. The Lunts picked us up again and drove us back to the airport that night. Our flight didn't leave until 9 pm. And we arrived in Skopje, Macedonia at 10:15. From there we took a taxi to Sam and Andrea Junckers house. They are american members living there working with court modernization through the UN. That night we stayed there.
The next morning we had a little time before our bus left for Prishtina, so Sister Juncker took us out throught the city and showed us around. It was really cool. Macedonia is a lot like Serbia, kinda dirty and behind the times. But we had fun. She took us tie shopping and we also got a couple cool souveniers. The bus to Prishtina was at 11 and it took us three hours to get there. The bus was pretty full, so we sat on the back row of seats. There were four seats there but more people just kept crowding on and we ended up having 6 people in four seats. It made for a really long ride. The Sweeneys ( a middle aged couple living in Prishtina working for the UN training police officers, also members) met us at the bus station and got us on the road toward Gjakova. We arrived there at 4 PM and Burim met us there and drove us to the apartment that we stayed at. It was on the 8th floor and of course there was no elevator. We got so tired climbing those stairs, but the apartment was pretty nice. Normally no one lives in the apartment, and it's a long story why so i won't go into too many details, but we stayed there with Burim (25), Shiprim (19), and Ali (18). That night we went to the foundation because they had their training meetings for all of the volunteers. It was soo sweet!!! Most of them remembered us from the last time we went down to Kosovo and were really nice to us. ( now just a little remimder for those of you who don't remember. Liz Shropeshire has a music foundation here. She has 30 volunteers that run her program for her. They are between 14 and 25 and are the most elect kids that you will ever meet. She has established rules for being a volunteer, those are, No lying, cheating, stealing, smoking, drinking, swearing, or in appropriate relationships or you can't be a volunteer. And all of these kids do it. Most of them speak english. Burim was baptized last summer and will be going to America in September to go through the temple. Ali was baptized in December and is going to America to study. He was supposed to get his visa last week, but it didn't come through. So we got to spend a lot of time with him. )
Then after the training stuff was over, we went to Burim's house and had dinner with his family. When we got there, the power went out, so we had a candle light dinner, and then had a really great lesson about families. We gave them a proclamation to the family and they really liked it. Then at the end, we asked Burim's dad to give the closing prayer. We taught him how to pray, and he gave a beautiful prayer. Afterwards, Burim told us that this was the first time that he had ever heard his dad pray out loud. It was a really special moment for him. We got back to the apartment that night at around mid night and went right to bed. (President gave us some leway while we are down here because the culture is a little different. He said to be smart, but we are pretty much on their time schedule.) But the best thing is that we were up at 6:30 and studying by 7:30. The Lord really took care of us this week by us not being tired, eventhough we lost a lot of sleeping time. Thursday morning, we went to the schools while they had their music classes. It was fun because the kids are practicing a musical dance performance for the end of September. It was really cool. At the end of the class, we gave out the starburst that mom sent for us to give them. They all held them up, and we took a picture of it. The kids loved them too!! Thanks again Mom!
We had a lunch appointment at around 3 so we had about 3 hours with nothing to do. Since Kosovo is not actually opened to missionary work, we weren't able to do any proselyting. ( and we don't speak Albanian). So Burom took us out on the town and between the two of us, we bought 4 watches and 45 ties!!! Everything is really cheap there. Anyway, we had a really good lunch with Reza, Erza, Zana, and Reza's American husband, Eddie. Reza and Erza both studied in America and are back for the summer. They are both members. But their little sister Zana is not. So we chatted with them for a while and then had a really good lesson. They are so awesome! And I did find something out that is really sad, and kinda gross, but I am going to tell you anyway. The people down here are mainly Muslim. So they don't really believe in Christ. But the people here are actually very afraid and don't even like to hear the name Christ. Because when the Serbs came down and killed tons of people, they would take and carve the name of Christ into the corpses. Or they would take the blood of the people that they just killed and write Christ, in blood, all over the walls and everything. The people don't really know much about Christ or what he taught, but that is how they know him. So it is a very sensitive subject to talk about. Reza actually told me that. I was shocked. It is amazing how some stupid people could wreck the image of Christ in an entire nation. I really couldn't believe it.
We talked to the ma little too long, and missed an appointment that we had. Well actually we were never told what time it was at, and we missed the lady by about 2 min. It was too bad, but we were actually able to meet with her twice later in the week. So we had some more time to get to know the volunteers. And they taught us some cool albanian phrases.
Friday morning we went with the group to one of the last refugee camps in Kosovo to do their music program. Liz told us to wear t shirts and shorts because it is a really dirty place. (oh and another little side note, we aren't allowed to wear our name tags there because they think it would be unsafe.) That was really fun. I felt really bad for those kids. They have absolutly nothing and go around, most of them with out shoes. But we sang with them and had fun. When we got back to town, we had to hurry and shower and change because we had a lesson with the lady we missed yesterday. We didn't have time to plan a lesson, but we just went in there and the spirit guided us and we gave an awesome lesson. Burim was there and he translated for us. They had their meeting things again, so we went out on the town alone for a little while. I was cool, but nothing too exciting happened. The town we were in was pretty nice, but it was one of the hardest hit during the war. we got some sweet pictures. We were supposed to teach Burim and Ali that night, but they didn't get home till after 12 so we just went to sleep. We were so tired because it has been soo hot lately.
Saturday, we woke up early and went and played basketball with some of the kids. It was soooo much fun. One of them, Shiprim, even played with out shoes on!!! It was weird. He just forgot and left them at home I guess. After we went home and showered, we had another lesson with the lady, Florija, Shiprim's mom. She is such an amazing lady. She knows the church is true, but due to her financial status she us not able to do anything about it. There are some family problems so it wouldn't work out. Ali translated this time, and right after the lesson, we gave him a blessing. We had planned a couple other lessons, but they fell through. So we went with Liz and 10 of the volunteers to a little outing that they were going on. It really was so awesome, because we got to spend so much time with the volunteers. We drove for 2 hours up the canyon, till we got to a place where they wanted to get out and play for while. Again we were in shorts and t shirts, because Liz didn't want us to get all nasty. Burim drove us out of the canyon to catch our bus back to Prishtina. We had to change our clothes on the side of the street, which was a little wierd, because we needed to be in our shirts and ties while we traveled. Brother Sweeny again met us at the bus station, and drove us to a restuarant where we could eat dinner. President and Sister Weight flew into Prishtina today and they met us there at the place as well. We had a great talk with them, giving them the up date on the things that we had done. President is trying so hard to get Kosovo opened for missionary work, that all the information that he can get helps. But we have to get permission from Elder Uchdorf. And it just so happens that President has a meeting with him next week!!! So something could really get moving here. After dinner, we left with another member there, Gary, that works for the state department, to go to an appointment. He went to Albania on his mission 10 years ago, and translated for us into Albanian. We had a great lesson with two Sisters, 40 and 35 years old. They love the Book of mormon, and know that the church is true. We taught them the plan of Salvation and at the end committed them to be baptized. They said that they would pray about it, and if the spirit told them this was right, they would do it. They are so awesome. Quick story about them. A month or so ago, they had an experience where the book of mormon was sitting on thier coffee table, and a muslim guy saw it and got really mad at them for having it in their home. The older sister got upset, and told him not to tell her what she can have in her house and told him that it is a true book. She stood up, and a glass next to the book of mormon, just shattered. And she said, that is proof that this book is true so leave me alone. And the guy shut up and left. It was really cool.
Sunday we had church at 6:30 pm, so we went out in the morning with President and sister Weight and Brother Sweeny to visit some of the people that we weren't able to meet earlier in the week. We had some great visits. ( For Sumko and Meise, we visited Donika's family, and we visited Liza's parents house in Suva Reka) It was awesome. Then for church, we had a really good turn out. Actually right before church President interviewed Burim for the Priesthood. Then he pulled Ali in and also interviewed him. Burim was expecting the interview, but Ali was completely shocked. 17 people were at sacrament meeting and it was awesome. Afterwards, we ordained Burim and Ali. And President gave two other blessings to other people. Those were the first ever priesthood ordinations here in Kosovo. President is going to try to get that in the churh news, so keep your eye out.
The next morning we drove to the border of Skopje and Macedonia and had to walk across. That was an interesting experience. then we caught a taxi on into Skopje. We had lunch with the Junckers before we went to the airport to catch our plane. We got home at around 6:30 and the Lunts drove us home. It was such a long week, but realy one of the best of my entire mission. I really felt like we were doing good the whole time. Even if it was just hanging out with the volunteers. They are so elect!!! And Liz said that this time was the first time they were asking questions about us. Usually they just kinda avoided us, but this time was different
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