I thought it was past time to give an update on our Elder Foulk in Albania. He continues to amaze and delight us with his letters. There really is nothing like having a missionary daughter or son serving from your family in the mission field.
During Geoffrey's time in Albania, he has had the opportunity to meet several church officials. Elder Christofferson of the Twelve Apostles visited in late May. Each missionary got to shake his hand and meet him.
When we last checked in with him, he was serving in the office in Tirana. He started out serving as the district secretary for three months and then another Elder came in to serve as secretary and he moved to the financial secretary desk with different responsibilities and served there for three months. While in the office, he had some amazing experiences. Here is an excerpt from one of his letters outlining his responsibilities as district secretary....
My official title is District Secretary. Personally, I think a better title would be “The guy that does everything the Financial Secretary doesn't do.” Among my duties are to manage district finances (reimbursing travel & phone expenses and distributing Localized Unit Budget Allowance), oversee missionary house rental contracts and closing agreements, managing our fleet, (maintenance, licensing, insurance, registration), placing supply orders for BOM’s/everything, organizing the temple trip to Frankfurt in September, being on the Albanian Steering Committee (explained later), starting up Public Affairs projects (i.e.. organizing the Elbasan Chapel Open House), and getting trained to do Audits (they say it’s a 6 hour training…. Awesome ;). So needless to say, I should find time to be pretty busy. In all my “down time,” I’m supposed to come up with “projects.” We’re trying to make a big media push here in Albania, because the Church’s image is pretty tarnished here. We hope to change that though.
These are some of the members who went on the temple trip to Frankfurt.
Someone came up with a Settlers of Catan game which made for a fun prep day activity.
Geoffrey loved working with President Neil while serving in the office. He worked, first, with Elder Turley and then with Elder Smedley. In addition to doing office work and doing regular missionary work, they also saw some beautiful places. I think the highlight trip while he was in the office was the trip that they took to Theth. It is a big national park there that is just amazingly beautiful. Here are some photos from that momentous trip.
As the pictures show...the journey was very eventful, to say the least.
While in the office, Geoffrey also went with a group from his district to see some amazing caves.
On the trip, he found this funny sign.
This is Geoffrey with Arten who he was able to baptize while serving in Tirana.
This is just one of the amazing photos that Geoffrey was able to take on New Year's Eve.
Just shortly after Christmas, Elder Foulk was transferred to Elbasan. This is one of the two cities in the country that has a chapel. Durres was the first and Elbason was dedicated at the time that Elder Christofferson was there. In addition to proselyting work, Geoffrey serves as the second counselor in the branch presidency in Elbasan. He started out with a companion named Elder Klein who he really got along great with.
But when Elder Turley, who he had served with first in the office, had to return home with a medical problem, Elder Klein was transferred out and Geoffrey began serving with a mini missionary named Zef.
He is 17 years old and Geoffrey actually helped teach him when he served in Durres. He has only been a member since October. What an adventure!! It has meant that Geoffrey has really only been able to speak Albanian for about two months since his companion is a native. But Geoffrey has loved serving with Zef and has really gotten even better with the language.
The following pictures were taken in the village of Berat. There are no missionaries there yet but the missionaries were able to travel there on a preparation day.
Keep up the good work, Elder Foulk. We love and miss you!!
