They call me Senior Zone Leader!

  Family! This week was a slower week but it ended good. The high lights were 2 exchanges, a baptism, and transfer calls. Not going to lie the longer I get out the less desire I have to write. I love you all dearly but some weeks I wish I could just tell you what's going on in person.  

      The two exchanges were with the Aps and with the elders in Berat. The one with the APs was pretty average. Nothing to special happened. It was Elder Oppers last exchange as an AP. He's extending and only has 6 weeks left. We went and met half way came back ate lunch and chilled at our house. It was pouring rain and he wanted to meet our branch president so we went and visited him in his dyqan (store) then went and had a lesson with our recent convert family. Switched back in the morning. The other exchange was on Friday and we went to Berat and I went there. It was an interesting exchange. It was good but he's a young missionary and when we went home for the night until the next day when we left he was studying the language. We didn't talk at all. Just seemed like he didn't really want me to be there and he's a little worried about his language ability. Have to wake up and smell the roses. It's the first exchange I went on in a while that it wasn't people i'm close with and we had a really good time. It wasn't bad he just studied way too much.  I got a good idea of what's going on in the area so that was good. The next morning we met up in Lushnje so we could get the font because the one in Fier has been decommissioned. 

        So we got the font and then headed back to Fier and then proceeded to spend the next 8 hours at the church. Filling the font, having the baptism, and cleaning up after. The font takes about 5 hours to fill up. As you can see from the video we have to run a hose from one side of the building to the other and it takes some time. There is a rule that if there is water in the font someone has to be there so we have to fill it up right before and empty it right after. Which means we are there for a long time. We have to sit there kotë but it's worth it. We watched some of the churches face to faces while we waited which are super good. Make you excited to be a real person again and living life as a member in the real world. So after we got it all filled up everyone showed up and we dunked him. It was a very small baptism. Only his family and a couple other people came but it was really good. Doesn't happen often in Elder Szabo land that we get a baptism even if they are handed to me on a silver platter so always a good experience. He is super awesome and is going to do great for this church. Next step get his brother baptized so they can go to the temple together. He stopped smoking last week and goes into work a little late so he can take the sacrament. Really awesome family. We need to find more like them. The next day he got the Holy Ghost and the Aaronic Priesthood, his dad got the priesthood and his mom got sustained as the councilor in the Relief Society Presidency. Needless to say they are doing really well and a big strength to the branch. After church and lunch we had to weekly plan because of exchanges and baptism so we did that and then contacted for a couple hours. It was a slower week and members just didn't want to meet with us this week. We didn't find a single new investigator this month.... I'm really hoping my new comp can bring some fire in and do something about my finding problem. Speaking of which we got transfer calls... I am staying in Fier as South Zone leader and Elder Wilson will be coming with me. He is going into his third transfer so he's a young one but he'll do great. He got trained and then trained second transfer and now he's coming with me as zone leader so i'm not too worried about him. It's been quite some time since I've gotten a new comp so it'll be interesting adjusting to everything but I've done it a couple times so i'm not worried about it. I think i'm going to be in Fier for another 3 months but we'll see what happens. My comps are going to Tirana. Both to my old wards. 1 and 3. Elder Crandall is training and Elder Clemans is going with my new companion's just trained comp. I love Fier and there is a lot of work to be done here so i'm really grateful I can stay here. I could die here even though that won't happen. We go to Tirana tomorrow and have to drop them all off and then we can head back to Fier. We are also getting a normal district back again and two other missionaries are coming here. So.... back to district meeting and normalcy. Too bad. It was a great month but a little ridiculous. It'll be good for all of us to get with other people. 

       Other than that nothing special happened this week... We did just kill and eat a chicken... First time I've ever done that. We killed it and then one of our members cooked it for us. Delightful. *see video for explanation*  This week i've had some really strong testimony builders. Nothing special happened just have had the spirit testify to me really strongly of some things. The first one was when we were talking to our Branch President about some stuff and some members and it really just hit me how much the gospel blesses you. It brings happiness and is truly the only true road to be blessed and if you want true happiness. I didn't really ever notice that because I've been in good ol Utah County and it's just the normal to be surrounded by these standards and people living this way. Coming here has really made me realize the importance. When you are the major minority you realize the light and happiness this message brings. Something I won't ever take for granted again. The church is extremely young here and it's a good learning experience. The other one was while I was sitting in the church I just got this fire in my heart that this is the true church. Just came out of no where. Testified so strongly that no matter where you are or how big the church is. This IS  the church of Jesus Christ here on the earth and what a wonderful opportunity we have to partake of it. To be blessed by it and know God's will for his children. A quote from one of the face to faces was "there are a lot of places to find happiness but this is the best way. The best way is the gospel of Jesus Christ". It's true people. Find out if you don't already know and then live it! Live what you believe and know what you stand for and then go out and stand for it. LIVE IT! Decide this day. I can promise you you will find more happiness and blessings then you can imagine if you come and follow your Savior. Come to know him in your life. LIve his teachings and wait for the blessings. GO FORTH and do great things afterwards. Life is meant to be lived. Have a great week! 

Elder Szabo

crawl... walk...jog.....run.... SPRINT!!!!

Family! This week honestly was just another one of those weeks. Your'e going to get sick of me saying it feels like it just flies by and we didn't do anything but when you've been out this long teaching the gospel just becomes normal so it's all really the same unless something breaks it up. Fun fact for you... My return date has been changed again and is back on the 17th of August.  We got a text from President saying that our mission is being changed from a 13 week transfer mission to a normal 12 week transfer week. So my group is the last one that gets a 13 week transfer for this next transfer so we get an extra week and after that everyone gets a week cut off. JACKPOT! I get to serve for 2 years and 3 weeks now. Not very many people get that so it makes me pretty excited. Next week officially starts my groups last big transfer. SAAAAAAAY WHAT!? I know I've been talking about it a lot lately and I know you are all thinking w o w Elder Szabo is getting trunky. I'm really not. It's just getting to that point where i'm excited about coming home but working super hard and doing everything I can to be effective. It's just creeping in on me and it just hits me some time. Alright. That's the last i'll say about that until I have to send my group off to America in 3 months. 

     This week the two highlights were a baptismal interview and church. Our recent convert family we have has a son that I've been talking about Mandi(armando) and he had his interview on Friday and passed with flying colors. He is so prepared and we have really done nothing to help him just showed up and taught him and he did the rest. It was actually an interesting day because we had his interview and the Vlore district leader needed us to do an interview for them. Because we are the zone leaders and the district leader we can't do the interview and they needed us to come to Vlore to do their interview so we went down there Friday morning and picked up Elder Fowles and dropped off my comps and we did a little exchange for the night. We had the interview that night and then drove back to switch back. Wasn't the most effective thing but needed to happen so we did it. Oh the joys of being a zone leader and in a ridiculous trio. It was good to be with Elder Fowles for a little. There is a special bond with the people in your mtc group. We spent a lot of time together so it's always good to be around them. So that was Friday. Oh and the fact that Mandi passed his interview means we are having a baptism this week!!! Saturday at 6 and he chose me to baptize him so I get to dunk him! He is also about 6'3 so it'll be a fun one. I'm really excited for it. Even though we didn't do anything it's great we are one step closer to completing this family and getting them on the road to the temple. We haven't really had any success with finding anyone since I've got here (no surprise there) so he's our success story and his brother will get baptized in the next little bit he just needs some time. He's ready he just needs to make a little more effort and get the testimony. 

    The other thing about the week was church. Our branch president and his family weren't there and they are the strongest members we have so we were worried that we it wasn't going to go well. Luckily both the less active councilors showed up so it didn't go terribly... Even though one left after sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting lasted 40 minutes... Sunday school lasted 30 minutes... and we had to teach priesthood without any prep so it lasted an hour... Really interesting experience. The church is weak here and without the branch president and missionaries this place would fall apart. It amazes me how weak the church here. I know it's young and we just got made a stake but we should be a lot stronger than we are. People just aren't progressing here. We have 170 baptized members here and a ton have left and a lot of just less active. The church just isn't growing here and it's hard to hold onto people. So many want to leave and so many just haven't progressed so it's a bunch of people that are very weak in their faith and aren't strong enough or being a strength to the branch. It's a very interesting difficult experience and we need to start holding onto people so the church can grow here. One thing it's done for me is I could stand and give a talk or a lesson in Albanian or English for an hour! Been put on the spot a lot and I've gotten pretty good at it. 

     Other than that it was a pretty standard week. Teaching and contacting. The same ol grind. Don't forget about the initiative and spread the gospel. Have a great week! 

Elder Szabo 

HALLELUJAH!!!

What's up what's up. This week just blew by. When we don't have meetings or anything it all just blows by and it feels like we do the same thing everyday. 

        High lights of the week... We had interviews with president this week and it was DE LIGHTFUL! It's been almost 5 months since I've had one because of how thing worked out with my last interview. This past week I've been really unmotivated and just don't want to work and it's been a little rough but after the interview President really lit my fire and got me excited again. We had interviews and then he wanted to come to some lessons with us. We had two set up so we went on a split and I went with president to our recent convert family and my companions waited at the church for a lesson to come. Then after that we all met up and went to the Less active first councilor in the branch presidency. It was really good to spend a night with president. When your companion doesn't speak Albanian you do a lot of translating so my mind was a little burned after. I like to say I'm pretty good at the language and it's not too difficult for me but your brain is just turned on for a long time and it gets tiring. In the first lesson we went in and just talked and then he asked if they had any questions and we talked about patriarchal blessings and the fathers opinions on the after life.... (a story for another time). Also the middle son who is really cool but has been in work so hasn't been able to come to church and isn't at our lessons when we go over was there and it was good for him to feel the spirit so powerfully. He'll come around eventually. The oldest son is going to be baptized at the end of the month so we are all really excited for that. One step closer to completing an entire family. President also asked the middle son if he was coming to church on Sunday and he went into work an hour late so he could take the sacrament. We are really excited for them and the fact that an entire family is so close to being baptized. Doesn't happen very happen especially for Elder Szabo. The lesson after that went really well as well. WE talked about about prayer. Saw a lot of blessings from president being here because the middle son and our first councilor both came to sacrament meeting. Power man bearing a powerful testimony. So that was Our day on Friday. 

      Saturday we got a call from the APs in the morning asking if we could make our Tour te Vlore and hand out the new pass along cards and roll ups for the new initiative. It was a little shorter this time because we didn't have to hit Elbasan or Durres. So After some studies we drove to Lushnje and met up there then drove to Berat, Vlore and then back to Fier. It wasn't the same without Stacey(our old makinë) but it was still a good trip. It brought back a lot of memories from our old ones and it was are last one together. It's been a crazy couple of months and it's ending on a ridiculous note. I've almost been with Elder Crandall for 4 1/2 months which never happens in our mission. It's been a lot of learning and mostly ridiculous. It's going to be different going to another companion. Transfers are at the end of the month... Which will officially start my groups last dying transfer. If that doesn't blow your mind I dont' know what will! Feels like I just got here! I'm sad I won't be able to go home with all of them but we are all close and will hang out after. 

     On Sunday we usually go over to our branch presidents house because they feed us every week but we got invited by one of recent converts to come to their house. He lives with his elderly parents. So we went over and they fed us. A salad and chicken and potatoes. They cook whole chickens and then cut them in half and served them. Basically a rotisarry chicken but they do it themselves. It was really good and as you know being fed doesn't happen very often so it's always a pleasure. 

     Other than that our week was pretty average. We met with a lot of members and are going to continue to do so. When we were in Lushnje we got 20 pictures printed of the Rome temple and we are going to try to get a temple picture in all of the members houses as well there is a push right now to have members doing missionary work so we are asking for a referrals. If we don't get anything else done here we will have taught them all about the temple and gotten them a picture. Speaking of referrals I've been thinking a lot lately about our responsibilities as members so spread the gospel. Growing up in Utah county I never really understood member missionary work... Almost my whole high school is members and we have two stakes just in our city. When people would say I'm praying for a missionary experience the first thing that came to my head was Why? I know missionaries go to other places to spread the good word but we don't really need to do it here and where am I going to find a non member??? but being out here and thinking about it a lot it really makes me understand the importance of missionary work. Truly EVERY member is a missionary. We aren't members of the church but missionaries and every one has a responsibility to share this message. All I am is a member that has a calling to do it 24/7. This message is the most important thing the world has to hear and it doesn't matter where you are or who you are if you are a member of the church you have a responsibility to share it. With all that said my challenge for you is to share the message. If you are a baptized member of the church of Jesus Christ you are a missionary and you need to share the message. So my commitment for you is today (don't procrastinate!) pray about someone you can share the message with. Ask God to help you find someone you know or to place someone in your path that can hear the message. I can promise you that if you pray about it God will answer your prayer and you will have an opportunity to share the gospel. Doesn't mean they will always accept but it means you'll be able to do your part. Fortunately the church has helped you out and dropped another initiative so that you have a video that you can easily share with friends and family. It's called HALLELUJAH! So we can all sing hallelujah and praise the Lord for the gift of his son Jesus Christ and what he's done for us. *cue black gospel choir singing chorus of Hallelujah* I testify that Jesus Christ lived and that he died for us but more importantly that he was raised on the third day. HALLELUJAH! Get sharing and have a great week. Elder Szabo 

https://www.mormon.org/easter

Perspective

Loved ones, close friends, and the sibling that never writes me... Hello one and all. 

        This week was pretty busy and filled with meetings. We had our monthly MLC, Zone Training and ended the week with Stake Conference. Blows my mind that I was in Tirana last conference and that next month is my last general conference in country... Don't know where the time goes or comes. Our MLC was interesting because we have a companion that isn't a ZL that got to tag along with us. On so many levels this trio is one of the most ridiculous things ever. It's always good to learn from President and come together to discuss the mission. In my setting apart blessing it says that I would be close to my mission president and we would  have a long relationship.  Being Zone leader is great and everything and i'm learning a ton but dealing with everyone's problems gets old. I love the call and all that i'm learning but there is a reason you don't do it forever. I can't even imagine what being a bishop or stake president must feel like. 

         So we had MLC and then the next day we had our Zone Training. It's funny to see how the planning for them goes now compared to our first one together we've learned a lot together and come a long way. At the beginning we would spend a couple hours thinking planning preparing and this last one we bust it out in an hour. It may be because we are more experience or because the longer you go the less you care... We'll say both but every came here in Fier for the training and it was great. I think it was our second best training we've done. We did a little bit from the training president gave us but our main big training was on the restoration lesson and how we can improve it. Our two things were basing it in the gospel of Jesus Christ because even though it gets shortened as "the restoration" it is the restoartion of the gospel of Jesus Christ and it focuses on that in every time and the second thing was focusing on the Godhead and helping others to see who they are and that they need to come to gain a relationship with them for true conversion. ( the latter was also personal revelation I received but also applied to the training) and then we ended with talking about our eternal purpose and who we are as children of God and that is the purpose of everything we do points to that and remembering that. It went really well. It's one of my more favorite parts of being a Zone Leader. I really enjoy teaching and giving trainings. We'll have to see how people apply it and if we actually see any success from it. At the end of the month we get transfer calls and it's really up in the air as to what can happen but it's going to be very different especially if I have to train another zone leader. We will see. 

      On Sunday we had Stake Conference. This time around it was cut into 2 sessions in Durrës. The south went to the morning session and the Northern half went to the afternoon. It was a really good session and we didn't have anyone raise their hand against sustaining the stake president so that's always a plus! Things are looking up in Albania. The stake president spoke and President Weidmann and then the seventy spoke. One of the highlights was that it got announced that starting in September they will have a youth temple trip every two years. That was really really cool to see. Especially if the rome temple ever gets finished it'll will be so easy for people here. I joke about having 5 temples within 30 minutes of my house but more and more I realize what an amazing blessing that is. I can walk to my closest temple in 5 minutes. Not being able to go for 2 years makes you really grateful for some stuff. Other than that the major focus was on fulfilling the zone goals and reading the book of mormon. Another challenge got dropped on the stake to read it before the next stake conference. It was really good and I got a lot out of it. We sat around some loud youth but other than that it was a really good conference and it's good to see so many members together in one place. We've only been a stake for two years... Crazy to think we are so young in our growth here... So much to be learned and taught. Truly unique experience serving here. I love it but it hasn't been easy..

       I've had a year and a half here and almost all of that except for a couple of months I have had absolutely not work. I love it but it gets hard sometimes. It just builds up and ending your week standing on the street for 3 hours isn't great. I have just felt super drained lately and it just builds up and hits me but i'll reset today and go at it again and again and again until they make me go home.  I can't say it's been the easiest I can probably say it's been the hardest of my life which isn't saying much for the previous 18 but all these things will be for your good and I will endure. I've learned so much over the last couple years and I wouldnt' trade it for anything. I've found out who i am and where I want to go. Found out what my values are and what matters to me. It truly has been a life changing experience. All because of a blue book and a 14 year old who said a prayer... I love you all. Have a great week.

WE are still in our house our pronari likes us now and we will be staying for the unforseeable future.