Week 27 - Kosovo

 nje maj, do me thene koha e bukur, do me thene piknikk

gotta see Motra Hoover, I mean, Kristi.. wearing pants and speaking English?! ;) ha thanks for teachin' me Shqipp! 

Shyrete <3 rare second w/o the kids  

Familja Rajlli (edhe ndonje shoqet qe po lexojne) (and any friends who are reading this)..

Urime Festa Meksikan? Happy Mexican Holiday? (Cinco de Mayo)

Wow this past week, so crazy. Every day seems to get busier and packed with more things to do (which is awesome!..still exhausting) so you can imagine how relieved I am when P-day rolls around. :) #letepushojme

Okay but first lemme tell you about yesterday. So we have a new investigator, S. (On baptismal date!! Still have to teach about no smoking..) She is formerly catholic with super strong faith in Christ and Heavenly Father, backed up with lots of interesting personal experiences. She talks a ton and is super sweet/generous, and she can't walk, she's in a wheelchair. And she lives on the 3rd floor of her apt. bldg. all the way across the city. Yesterday we went to pick her up for church, and we didn't allow enough time to help her down the stairs and push her uphill on the usually 30-40min walk. Of course the one week we were late (every single other week we've been at least 30min early bc of lessons and setting up etc.), President Weidmann and his wife were visiting, and me and Sister Ariza had a musical number! So we were running while pushing S in her wheelchair across the city, hoping to get there in time to sing ha. Oh, AND it was fast Sunday! And it's been super hot here lately btw. No signs of snow at allll. Haha who knows, maybe some passersby caught glimpses of our nametags as we rushed back, and maybe we made an impression of the importance of getting to church? ;) But, made it in plenty of time to slip in sacrament meeting and catch our breath and hear a few testimonies before our song. We have a new branch president..E Teli (your facebook friend mom haha, sends ya all those fhe pics remember him?), yay, an Albanian at the head of our branch! Let's get rid of some of those rumors that we're an American church. The Telis are such a strong, loving family and such an example to the branch. I'm excited for them. Sister Ariza and I sang "amad a otros"...("love one another" en Espanol... don't be fooled, that song is the only Spanish I know haha), with her on melody (and harmony at the end), and me accompanying on piano while singing alto and then unison the 2nd time through. (Learned how to multitask this week;))

Two of our ADORABLE, sweet English students came to football on Saturday (one of them stayed right with me the entire game because she's tiny and we didn't want her to get hurt but she was set on playing), anyways they came to church because they love me and Sis. A and we told them to come watch us sing, and they called us the night before and the morning of again making sure they had the time and place right, and when I got to sacrament mtg. (I was kinda late remember? plus it was twice as long as usual because switching out the presidency etc.) I could tell they were getting bored with the speakers so I grabbed them Liahonas to read the kids' sections and they LOVED them and kept swapping so they could share stories they liked. Yeah they're precious, and they were dressed up for church too, which isn't too common around here! 

The majority of our branch is YSA-age, so we are really trying to push missions with our members. Motra Ariza is such an inspiration for that, because she is much older than most, finished college and had a great job working for the government, and long-term boyfriend and left it all behind to come serve etc. and her story/ example has def. made some of our members re-think. 

One girl my age, L, studying law (often studying law at 10am on Sunday mornings), would love to come out and find and teach with us, but is hesitant for safety reasons. And I can understand why. I forget how risky it is to be Christian, let alone Mormon around here. Her parents are awesome members, but before their conversion less than a year ago, they and their other 7 kids were catholic, and two of L's brothers are in prison right now (sentenced for 20 years!!) because they got framed for something terrible that they did not do.

 

The other night Kosovo won a basketball game against Italy, and the streets were craazy.. didn't know Kosovars liked basketball but they do now! 

Oh and we have a senior couple here in Prishtina now! They're awesome, they are the Hydricks, from South Tahoe, and they lived in PENRYN for 10 yrs! So dad I'm sure you have some mutual friends. :) 

Oh and I've been writing my weekly letters to President auf Deutsch, which is fun for me to try and keep up my German, and when I had my interview with him yesterday he said "Schwester Riley, sollen wir des auf Deutsch machen?" and I think maybe he was joking but I said "ja, natuerlich", so it was in German (mostly) haha so fun!

Oh and also had such a perfect branch picnic to celebrate May day. Love this place and these peeps. <3 

JU DUA gotta go, love you all, FALEMINDERIT SHUME for all the great mail and everything, and eat some beans for me tomorrow ;) 

<3 me Dashuri te madhe nga Kosova (with great love from Kosovo),

Motra Rajlli :)) 

Alma 7:15-15 & Alma 30:34. 

(Write me a letter if you love this book ;))