July 14, 2014

Hey Mom,

This week was a week of firsts. First of all, we were told on Wednesday night that we were all being emergency evacuated out of Macedonia because our new president was worried about the rioting that was to take place there starting Friday. We thought it was a tad extreme, but thus marks the first time I have ever fled a country. 

We rode with the Nelsons, who were going to Kosovo that day for a meeting anyway, to a city called Gjakova on Thursday morning. We worked a little bit with the elders there. We couldn't really do much more than just stand with them as they talked to one man on the street in Albanian, although Sister Schofield did try out saying "thank you." ("Falemnderit.") We asked them what they had talked to him about and they said, "We told him that Jesus' favorite color was purple, so if his favorite color was purple too he should definitely come talk to us." So they were a lot of fun. At the end of the day they gave us a self-help book for newly returned sister missionaries who have trouble adjusting back to regular life. No comment. We wanted to stay in that city because there was going to be a baptism, but then one of the APs called and said we should be working with other sisters in Pristina. 

I worked with Sister Curtis all day Friday. We had a lesson with a woman who told me I was fat, but beautiful. (She spoke English. Pretty sure Sister Curtis wouldn't have translated that for me had it been in Albanian.) That lesson was the first time I have ever promised someone that if they came to church, the voices would stop. 

We also went tracting which was exciting for me since I'd only done it once before in Albania, never in Kosovo. We got phone calls from people wanting to meet for a lesson twice while in one apartment building, so we kept having to leave and come back. Once, after ringing a doorbell and waiting so long in the hallway that the motion-detector light went off, I decided it was a good idea to sing the theme song to Three's Company, and Sister Curtis performed some impromptu beat-boxing. 

We did group exercise both mornings I was there, volleyball with all the missionaries. Combined we were 12 missionaries in that city, and everywhere we went while working we kept running into the others. It was great that Pristina could have a doubled work force. We also did group street contacting our second morning which was SO MUCH BETTER than street contacting in Skopje. People are so much friendlier and willing to talk, plus street-boarding and tabling aren't illegal there. In Macedonia they're illegal in pretty much any place where there's lots of people. We Macedonians were invited over to lunch at the branch president's house, which was normal American delicious food, and then we were approved to go back to our country. I had so, so much fun with Sister Curtis and Sister White. Side note: I saw a sign advertising "pop con" and told Sister White how much I loved seeing English fails printed in mass, and she told me her favorite had been a t-shirt that said, "You count touch this."

We had really missed our investigators though and we met up with Blago in Center on Sunday. We were teaching him about obedience and prayer and he started telling us his life story, about his son's death, how he was so glad that we had found him and how much we meant to him, everything he hadn't liked about other churches, and how his life was now so much easier because of the church. He said he felt so supported by us and the people in the church, and that no one had ever done for him what we had done for him. That's the only time I've ever seen someone as old as him cry so hard.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints really is "the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth." (D&C 1:30)

Love,

Sister Riddle