11-9-09

"I haven't been transferred yet but I will find out this Saturday if I am staying in my area or if im going somewhere else. Saturday night President Neil’s will call us and then if one of us is getting moved we will go to that area a week from today. I hope I don’t get moved and get to stay in this area for another transfer. If I stay then I will be safe until January when another transfer comes along. The baptism for the 3 kids is on November 22nd so I hope I can stay to be able to see it. Even if I get moved to a different area I think I would still be able to come back and see it but im just crossing my fingers that I don’t get moved at all.

I will call the first story the “Albanian Seat Belt Law”. So pretty much what this consists of is not wearing your seat belt in any vehicle you get in, lol. We took a taxi this week to a house that was a long ways away and I was told that people get offended if you put on a seat belt because they think you wear it because you think they cant drive. And well I’ve seen the way people drive around here and honestly they drive crazy!! So I was sneaky in the back and put on my seat belt and the man saw me and pretty much yelled at me. He was like “what you think I cant drive”. You don’t need to be afraid I have been driving my entire life just leave in unbuckled,lol.. So I didn’t wear it to the house and I felt safe. Then another night we took another taxi and it’s a habit to put on my seatbelt so I put it on and he gave me a look at waved his finger which here pretty much means you don’t need that. He said that people would rather die than put on a seatbelt. I thought you would like that story. So I cant wear a seatbelt for the next two years but luckily we don’t take taxi’s a lot =).

I also had a really cool experience last night at an investigators house. We went over with some other members to teach a lesson and when we got to the house the power went out and it was pitch black. It was raining outside really hard and inside I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. I have never seen it that dark before. Two of the girls found 2 candles though and we put them on the table and had cake and fruit and just talked about family hoping the power would come back on. When we realized it wasn’t going to come back on we taught them a lesson and shared some scriptures in the dark. It was a really neat experience. I wish we could have more lessons like that because it was a very peaceful atmosphere and they really enjoyed it.

I think those are my two stories for the week. I cant think of anything else. I told you about the transfers already and about the baptism. Yep that’s really all that happened this week. We taught 20 lessons this week which is really good for our area and my language is still the same, non-existent basically, lol. No I feel like I am making improvements every week. I feel like people are talking slower but that’s because I am able to understand words and almost get the gist of the sentence. Like they say here Avash- Avash, which means slowly-slowly. It will come as I continue to study. In the morning I have 1 hr of English scripture study then 1 hour of companion study and then 30 min of language study but then at lunch which is 2 hr’s I also study language and try to rest my eyes a little.

One thing that amazes me about here is the joy and love these people find in life. The unemployment rate is higher here than it was during the great depression in the U.S. Yet the people don’t show it on their faces. You can see it in their life style and you see that they struggle to make it every week but they stay positive. I admire how every one we talk to seems to just smile through the hardships and many of them give more than they take. I told a gentleman that I really like his tie and it looked good and he took it off and tried to give it to me. It was the same thing when I told a member in our ward that I liked his hat. They try giving it to me and it is amazing. There are always those individuals who are rude and steal but for the most part I’ve never seen a happier group of people. They love talking about family and friends and I don’t know how many times I have shown my photos to people and they are always like we want to see more, find a way to get more photos of your family. I wish I could communicate with them better and tell them more about all of you and to find out more about them but like I said before I know it will come."