Called to Where??!!

The most common reaction we get when telling someone we received a mission call to Albania is as follows: the person's mouth drops open, eyes widen and they exclaim, "ALBANIA?! Wow!!" That is followed by the question, "So…where is Albania anyway??"

That was kind of our response as well when we first read the letter containing our call, except we had a vague idea of where Albania was because a few years ago we met a wonderful person from Albania named Fabi. She is a friend of our son and daughter-in-law, who introduced her to us. We've loved getting to know her, and were particularly intrigued about Albania because, well, frankly, we knew nothing about it! She shared a bit about how beautiful it was and how we should visit there sometime. Subsequently, did a little research on the country and she was right, it is a beautiful and a newly discovered, untouched gem for tourists. I added it to our bucket list of places we should visit sometime.

Fast forward to last January. Cliff had been released as Stake President and also retired from work the year before so it was the perfect time to get serious about serving the mission we had always planned on doing together. We started the process of filling out papers. The good news about being Senior Missionaries is that there are so many different types of service and places where seniors are needed.  AND you can put down some preferences as well. We looked at the list of critical needs for senior missionaries and found several options that piqued our interest and where we thought we could be useful.  But we also emphasized that we would serve wherever and however was needed.

After submitting our papers, we took off on a 5-week trip to Southeast Asia. It was while we were in Thailand that we received our call. As we met with our family on Facetime, along with our 2 friends we were traveling with, we opened the letter calling us as missionaries, inviting us to help others come unto Christ by serving them as the Savior would.  What an honor!  But when we got to the part where we were told we were assigned to Albania, we couldn’t believe it! (yes, mouths dropped open for sure!)  To be honest, we weren’t expecting at all to be called there!!  Those interactions with Fabi have a lot more meaning now…we don’t believe meeting her was a coincidence, but that we were given that opportunity to put Albania in our consciousness.  That plus a few other “no coincidence” experiences we’ve had since assures us that Albania is where the Lord wants us and we are thrilled to go. 

Our assignment is as Church Education Specialists (working with teenagers and young adults), and we’ve recently been asked to be service missionary advisors as well. (Service missionaries are young adults who provide full-time service to various community organizations in their hometowns rather than being assigned away from home for proselytizing). And we’ll probably have a few other things assigned when we get there.  We are happy to do whatever!  Our mission area covers the countries of Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia.  If you don’t know where those countries are, you are not alone.  But look them up!  You’ll want to put them on your bucket list as well!