4-26-2010

" Just like last week i don't have anything exciting to write about. I wake up at 6:30 every morning, i work out until around 7:30, eat, study for 1 hr, and then another hour study followed by language study, and then its an hour or two of tracting followed by a table if it's not raining and then lunch and lessons and more table and tracting at night,lol. The area i'm in is extremely boring and i do tons of walking. I dont know how many miles. I guess it depends on the day. I made a goal not to eat any more junk food but i failed at that today because i had a big chocolate bar and im regretting it right now because my stomach hurts, lol. I gotta lost some weight because im getting chubby in the face. My companion doesn't like running or anything outside so i jump rope and i bought a pull-up bar a while back that i use alot. I can do about 15 but for my first 6 months on my mission i ate so much so i have some good fat on me =). Who would've thunk it =). The companion i have now i will be with for at least 4 more weeks until the next transfer and then i might be with him for one more transfer after that which would be another 6 weeks but i wont know until a few more weeks. I have a feeling i will be in this area until July and then hopefully i move. It's sad that i dislike this area so much but it's just hard to get work done. We have lessons at our church which is a 20 minute walk from our house and then if the people dont show or after the lesson if we want to track we have to walk about 35-40 minutes to our tracting area. Sometimes we try to set 4 hours of just tracting but it gets pretty frustrating and tedious. Sorry i dont have any real fun stories for you. The big market we went to today was a blast and English class is going really well. I have fun helping out and teaching it. We dont play soccer in this ward which is lame and even if we did i think my companion wouldnt go. There are some rumors that i might be heading over to 4th branch in July which would be awesome because my first area i was in for my first 4 1/2 months in the country is right by 4th branch and i know lots of the members and it is an awesome area and i love the members over there. We have about 30- 50 people show up to church in the branch im in right now. Not too bad but not great either. I dont want my email time to be up because after this we are going tracting for the evening, lol. We are on the outskirts of the city sort of and the places we track are along this mountain called mount Dajti and it is ghetto up there, lol. We get harrased pretty bad and we run into a lot of gypsies who send there little kids after us to beg us for money. Luckily i think they have learned we wont ever give them money so they leave us alone for the most part. I'm not sure what else i can write. It has been a pretty mellow week and the weather has been pretty nice. It ran twice this week but i am pretty much used to it by now. I can already tell the summer will be very hot and humid. Alright that is all for this week."

04-19-2010

"This isn't going to be a long email but i just thought i would write and let you know im doing good =). This week went by fast for me. My new companion is cool. He doesn't run because he is really into computers and just the walking i do with him makes him tired so i just jump rope outside our house for 20 minutes in the morning."

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4-12-2010

"I got my new companion on Thursday and he is a cool kid. He is from Utah and is a red head like dad,lol. Im excited not to be with the Albanian kid and able to train this new kid. Listening to him talk and hearing the mistakes while speaking makes me smile because i can remember when i was at that point in my mission. I'm still at that point actually, lol. No but seriously im really excited to train and even though it is stressful at times because im the only one that can communicate and speak it is helping me grow a lot. Thanks for your email dad and i'll make sure to be a good example and have fun with him. I have seen a lot of elders and i know there is a fine balance between hard work and also having fun. I think i have enjoyed my mission a lot so far because i know sometimes you just have to step a step back and enjoy this experience of being in a new country. We will be together for at least the next 6 weeks (until the next transfer) and then possibly another 6 more weeks after that. It will be interesting to see what happens. Things are going well though. The weather is beautiful here and it seems to be a lot easier to take rejection when its not raining and freezing cold =)."

4-5-2010

"Today is my last day with my Albanian kid,lol. I feel bad for saying it but i am so stinking happy. These last four weeks i have been so stressed and i think a little of that stress will now be off of me. At the same time however i will still have stress because i am training!! I'm way excited. A new group comes in this thursday and one of them will be with me so basically i will have the responsibility to do everything but im looking forward to the challenge. Im not great with the language and probably wont ever be really great but i wont stop it from letting me a good leader and hard worker.

The weater here has been beautiful. This week isn't starting off great though. It's rainy and overcast but hopefully the rest of the week will be better. Tomorrow we can stop wearing our suit jackets and just wear short sleeve shirts until october so im happy about that. Im not really sure what the summer is going to be like. I here it is really humid and really hot. Im sure the humidity might make it feel a little hotter. English class has been going for about 2 or 3 weeks now and in the class im teaching we have about 20 people or so. Almost all of them are in university here in Albania and want to learn english and from Americans and learn about the American culture so its fun talking to them. As far as missionary work it is slow in this area. I only had 10 lessons the entire week and we only have 2 investigators right now. 10 lessons is average for Albania but i use to get 20+ in my last area so it has been rough. Time goes by a lot slower here which stinks, lol... "