10-12-09

"I guess i will start with the flight. The flight went really well. I ended up sitting by a bunch of cool people on the flight over to Austria. One girl was from Romania and another kid was from Kosovo and he spoke Albanian. I guess Kosovo speaks Albanian and he was really cool. I told him who i was and what i was doing and he was confused. He kept telling me i had to travel to Greece and come see him in Kosovo,lol. I kept explaining to him that i was there for my church and even showed him a Book of Mormon but he still didnt get it,lol. Owell it was fun talking to him and he had nothing but good things to say about the Albanian people. The only bad thing about the flight is that i got sick. I have been sick since i got here and its been tough. Not extremely sick but i dont have to much energy which stinks for as much walking as we've been doing. They have been letting me sleep in a little which is nice and a few nights we go in 15 minutes early so i can get in bed. But today i feel pretty good. A little more energy and my cough is going away. Dont worry though i am talking care of myself. I will make sure to get healthy.

Ok so time for the first day in the country. We got off the plan and a bus drove us to the main airport where we went through customs and grabbed our luggage. That's when we first met a few of the other Elders and President Neils. We all threw our stuff into a big van and jumped in 3 different cars to go to the mission home. The drive to the mission home was CRAZY!!! There are pretty much no driving laws here,lol. A two lane road turns into a 4 lane road and no longer will i complain about the america round abouts. The round abouts they have here are crazy. And then you have motorcycles and bikes going down the sidewalk sometimes and they dont have wild animals but they have pack of wild dogs and cats. Mom you would hat driving here. You would have to have your eyes closed the whole time. Honking the horn is actually a courtesy here. People drive so aggressive here that there aren't to many accidents but it's still scary.

So after i survived the ride to the mission home we all got interviewed by President Smith and went to the police station and a few other places to make sure to become residence here or to be able to stay for 2 years. That wasn't to weird. I was surprised at how many people actually speak English here. For the most part they love us. We did get spit on our first day though. Some people in an upper window spit on the kid next to me. I figured i better get used to it. Not everyone had the opportunity go out street contacting the first day but i did. That was my first real test of the Albanian language.... Wow they talk fast,lol. I understood maybe 1 word the first person i talked to. To say the least i didn have any success on my first day of contacting people =).

After walking around for awhile we went back inside and had dinner and got to bed pretty early. That's when my cold hit me pretty hard. The next day we got up and went to the top of town to look around which was cool. I didnt get a bunch of pictures and thats why im not sending any today but i promise next week i will send some photo. Our second day here is when we got assigned to our new companions. I am serving in the Tirane second branch. There are a total of 4 elders 2 of us are new. I have a really big area to cover. I was hoping to be located somewhere outside the main city but i heard that this is a good place to be trained because it has a bunch of different accents from all over Albania. My companion is good. He is kind of strange and loud but you know me i get along with pretty much anybody so i think i'll be fine. I was hoping we would be more contacting and teaching people but so far we have only been handing out english fliers. There is an english class we help out with that starts up soon so we have been trying to hand out things so people will come to it. I will be excited when we are teaching english and the gospel rather than just handing out fliers. My companion loves to walk super fast down the roads and we pass hundreds of people and i cant help but think why dont we just talk to all of these people and invite them to the english class. He is the senior companion though and i will just work hard and put in my time. Most likely i will be with him for 3 months and be here in Tirane for 3 months as well. Im not possitive though.

There has been 2 baptisms since i got here which is cool. One on Saturday and then one on Sunday. The kid that got baptized on sunday was Ermal. I had the opportunity to teach him the last lesson on friday. He speaks english that's the only reason i was able to teach him the whole lesson. I helped out with a few more lessons already during the week. We taught one man names Altin who is in the Albanian special forces. It was funny because i was teaching him and then he stopped me and started to say a bunch of stuff and then he smiled and looked at me to continue and i was just like uhhh, and looked at my companion,lol. I didnt understand i thing he said,lol. Then my companion started talking and i understood where we were in the lesson again and began to speak again,lol. It's so scary talking to people here. They all talk super fast and i just smile and nod my head. Which sometimes i found out isn't always the best thing i can do. The best thing i can do is just try to understand and speak and if i make a mistake i cant worry about it. That's the only way i will get better. Another weird thing is for yes they shake there head no. So when im talking to people and they agree with me they shake it no and it confuses me because i think they are disagreeing. I will get use to it but it will be funny in 2 years when i get back to the states and someone says something to me and i shake my head no like i agree and they think im saying no. Sorry i probably made no sense there.

Im trying to think what else i can write about. I love the people here. There are a lot of gypsies which scare me and are always asking for stuff. The people are very humble and are for the most part very poor. The average income is probably 2,000 a year here in Tirane which is the nice part of the country. As missionaries we live in a nice apartment. We are on the 8th floor with water all day. I love it here and i think its pretty in its own way. I look forward to spending the next 2 years serving these people. Many of them have been deeply affected by communism and its very corrupt government. The mafia is very strong here but so far we haven't had any problems with them. I think they usually leave the missionaries alone. Many peoplere scared of them though.

The food is is actually pretty good. I had a crepe the other day which was really good. I had one with turkey, ham and cheese and another desert one with pineapple, coconut, and some type of white chocolate. I also had a Suflaqe today. I dont know if thats how you spell it but it was good.

My p-day is every monday unless we decide to change it for some reason. Today we just stayed and hung out with the other missionaries but once a transfer which is ever 6 weeks we get to go travel somewhere as a district which is cool. On our p-days we can go view things around the city and go to museums but one p-day a month we can go out of our area to visit a place. I'm not sure where we are going to go this transfer but im sure it will be somewhere cool. Another exciting thing that happened this week was our church got broken into last night. We went there this morning and windows were broken and blood was all over the floor but nothing big got stolen. I guess they stole a stereo but thats all. The cops and crime scene investigator people are over there right now. Its kind of crazy. Not sure what else to say. At 7 tonight we are going over to a families house for Family Home Evening which is cool. I think i have to share a message in Shqip and im pretty nervous."