More Pictures!!!

"These are just tons of random photos. some are from zone conference others from messing around in the church. There is also one with me and elder Castro-Guzman playing chess on p-day. The one with the mosque is actually i really funny story but i dont have enough time to write anymore because i have spent all of it sending photos. I will tell you the story next week."

-I believe that the mosque story is in one of the previous posts- Melissa

Pictures!!!

So these first few photos are from our trip to Kruje. The first few are on top of the castle looking over the city and the other two without me in them are just a few photos of stuff around the castle. The last two photos are just of me messing around in the shops. There was one shop with tons of old WWII equipement and medalions and then another shop with these funny hats that the old old men where and there cigar pipes that they carry around. I just decided to get a few photos with the stuff.

6-28-2010

"My week has been a week full of sports. Probably too much sports. One day i went on a split with an elder from Australia and we didn't eat lunch that day so at night we went and ate pizza at this place with a huge perjection screen and watched the Germany vs Ghana game and part of the Australia vs Serbia game. Walking up and down the streets that is all you see are tv's with the World Cup on so it's pretty cool. I have only watched that one game and the others we here about from the people on the streets. Unfortunately America lost but now im for Germany and lots of people here like Germany and they think they'll win it. At nights instead of playing chess i have now been playing alley way soccer games with all the neighborhood kids. I did it for 3 nights this week but i think im going to stop because i should probably be inside writing in my journal or reading. But i have had a blast and i will continue to play with them every once in awhile. Saturday was a really fun day. From 5:30-6:30 we played frisbee like we always do and then from 7-9 the Elders from my district went to this huge sandlot soccer field and played with a few of our investigators and a few members. I was so tired afterwards but it was a blast. Luckily after that was weekly planning so we didnt have to work to hard that morning. Then at night we had an awesome lesson with Reni who will hopefully be baptized soon and then we continue to work with Agron. Reni actually got mad at us because we dont have a tv to watch the world cup,lol. We tried to explain that we knew what we signed up for when we came and it's a small sacrafice we make while on our missions to not watch tv. And he was like, "No, i understand that you cant watch tv but this is the world cup, you guys are idiots, this is one time every four years!!" lol. He was seriously getting upset so i had to change subject and told him that maybe we will eat at a place so we can watch part of a game but it didnt seem to satisfy him enough because he tried putting a game on the tv we have at the church. The problem though is that it is only for church DVD's and it doesnt have cable but he kept trying to put a wire in the cable thing and make a game come up. I was laughing pretty hard inside. My companion didn't find the humor in it, he was more frustrated at Reni than anything else... In about an hour i am playing soccer again in an indoor stadium. It isn't full size but it is still pretty big. It's attached to a place we eat pizza sometimes and we talk to the manager and are close with him and we talked about renting it out for an hour or 2 to play and he said we could come today and play for free so i was way excited. After we will buy pizza and relax there for a little. Not really sure what else is going on. English course starts tomorrow so i'm really excited about that. As a companionship we might offer private english courses in families houses which would be lots of fun. Also transfer calls are this week so i will know by next monday if i'm staying or leaving."

6-21-2010

"I know your right about the older group of people here and their mind set about religion. I have heard hundreds of stories about what would go on during the times of communism and it's sad to hear the stuff that happens when people would try to practice a faith they believed in. I don't blame them for having a hard time changing and trying to believe what we teach them. It has been drilled in their minds for so long that their isn't a God and that they can't pray or believe that now that missionaries are allowed to teach here it is a complete 360. Even if they don't have a desire to learn more i love being able to sit down with them and hear their stories because i feel like i have a lot to learn from these people and they deserve a lot of respect. If i can't teach them the least i can do is give them someone to talk to. I can listen and just be there to serve in any way i can and then perhaps one day they will have a desire to learn more.

This week has been weird with the weather. It has rained a few days and then other days it has been really hot. It just can't make up its mind right now. We still play Frisbee in the morning and next Monday we have a soccer game so im looking forward to that. My companion and i are getting along great. Like i have said before he doesn't speak the language but he isn't afraid to stick his hand out and stop someone and then i do the talking. We work good together as a team. I had interviews with President Neil this week and he laughed when i told him how my companion reels them in and i catch them. He compared it to a story he heard about 2 men who were skinning bears and one of them would run in the woods and get the bears attention and the bear would chase after this man through the woods. Well this first man would run and lead the bear to a house where he would run through the front door and then he would leave through the back door closing it behind him trapping the bear inside. And that is where the second man waited. He would then close the front door and be in this room alone with this angry bear and he had to skin it. It made me laugh because he said even though getting the bear in the house is hard the one skinning it has the harder part so he told me good luck with that, lol... Most night we have a few lessons and then afterwards there is a pyramid here with a little park and we walk around and try talking to people and just Share a message. Some nights all people do is yell and curse at us where as other nights they tell us to sit down and we talk for a good 30 minutes with them... I can't remember if i mentioned it in a previous email but there is a huge group or boys around the age of 6-12 that hang around our house and every night we see them and they always yell Ohhhh Americano,lol. Then we talk sports or they try to get me to repeat a word that is a bad or dirty word and they just laugh,lol. A few nights a week now we come in at 8:30 and our house is in a little gated area but there is a table with chairs so i open the gate and they come in and we play chess and cards for about 45 minutes and talk about a variety of stuff. I don't know if it is the most obedient thing to be doing but it has turned into a great proselyting tool because the kids cant beat me in chess so this week their Dad's came and played me and of course beat me because that's all they do here is play chess and dominoes. We were invited to one of their houses though to share a message play chess and watch America play a game in the world cup, lol. We go over to their house tomorrow or Wednesday, i have a chess game planned out with his kid tonight =) so i will know for sure tonight what day we are going over... So ya, everything here is going well. The political stuff has really calmed down and i haven't heard anything about it and that's probably because every station is about football for the next month. I continue to drink tons of water and luckily i haven't had an allergy problems yet, knock on wood =). Frisbee is still a blast in the mornings and i find out in 2 weeks if i stay or get moved. Anything could happen so we'll see...."

6-14-2010

" This week, like the past few weeks, has flown by. It doesn't feel like its been a week and it's crazy to think that June is half way over. Where does the time go? The weather has been ridiculously hot here. I dont know if im just not use to it after the long cold rainy winter i had here or if it's because of the humidity that kicks my butt. They say in July and August it becomes even hotter. I will try to remember and use sun screen. I don't have any big stories for you this week. We had zone conference which went really well. There were a lot of good trainings and the mission as a whole has been struggling with new investigators so we talked a lot about new ways to contact people and get numbers. We will see in a few week what the results are. We found 1 kid this week called Destan and he is quiet the character. He is about 22 and comes from a Muslim family but he doesn't like it so he wants to learn about our church. I'm afraid he wants to talk with Americans more than learn about the church. He loves to talk and it's hard to keep him on topic. Actually that's the problem with all Albanians. You can't start a lesson until about 45 minutes of small talk. Destan is from down south and he i a boxer. I know he is a boxer because he mentions it about 10 times during each lesson, lol. And then he gets up and tries to show us moves and tries to arm wrestle in the middle of the lesson,lol. I wish i didnt have a bad shoulder so i could arm wrestle him but with my bad shoulder there is no way i could do it. So my French companion does it but unfortunately loses =(... Agron and Reni are still moving along towards baptism. Reni has a date from a month from today so we will keep praying for him and helping him through any concerns he has.... So i promised to tell you about that mosque picture last week. So the area im in is really hard to tract because it's so far from the church we cant just go tract for 1 hour before lessons or go tract in between lessons so we have to set entire mornings or nights apart for it. So one morning we had 4 hours to just go tract and we were knocking doors for about 2 hours and in that time there were about 15 doors that gave us the same story and excuse. Do you want to know what that excuse was?... So we begin a door approach with our little spill at the door with how are you? How have you been? It's a beautiful day today?.. you know just to break the ice.. then we introduce ourselves and usually tell them about the Book of Mormon or about prophets or one of a dozen other approaches we might take. And just about every door that opened looked at us with a blank look on their face and then would say...... "but there is a mosque right here." So after about 2 hours of hearing this i walked around a few buildings and low and behold there it was, the mosque!! And here i thought they were being ridiculous when in reality i guess we were the ones being ridiculous trying to share a message when this mosque was here in front of our eyes the whole time. So do you want to know why over 100 doors wouldn't listen to our message?? It was because a mosque was outside,lol. It was funny because we asked people if they went to the mosque and they would say "oh no we aren't Muslims" and then shut the door in our face, lol. I was beyond frustrated while tracting but that night i couldn't help but laugh at the situation and all the trouble this one mosque was causing us. So that picture of the Mosque is the famous one that is keeping people from talking to us. Im fearing it but we still have about 10 more big buildings to tract over there but i'm going with faith knowing that there is at least one person there that is in need and ready to hear our message. The mission president of Europe once asked the missionaries here how many people they thought were ready to here the gospel and many of the gunhow missionaries said every person will be baptized one day. But this more experienced President quickly brought down their hopes and said im sorry Elders and sisters but probably less than 1% is ready for this message....The Lord has prepared and continues to prepare people for the gospel there is no doubt about that, but it's up us to put in the work and find them. There has been and will continue to be great times of discouragement but if that's what it takes i'm happy to do it."

6-7-2010

"Today we went to a place called Kruje which is way up in the mountains and every shop is a souvenir shop so it was really cool. There was also a castle that we were able to go up and see and walk around in it. Me and my companion are getting along great and just continue to try to find new people to teach. We only get about 11 lessons a week so the weeks are full of sometimes boring tracting all day every day. This week we have been teaching an awesome new investigator called Kozeta. She speaks 6 different languages and she is going to school to be a lawyer. For now she is working for a group that goes around and gives free relief to people all around Albania and she has some awesome stories to tell us everytime we meet."

5-31-2010

"Things have been pretty slow this week. We pulled in only 11 lessons and didn't have much success while tracting this week. We got in once but the guy and his mom were crazy. When the man first invited us in i thought cool we finally got in but then i quickly realized he was very strange. I think i spoke better Albanian than him, lol. the mom kept throwing pillows at us and offering us a glass of water. After about 20 times of saying no i said yes and she picked up a cup that was face down on an ash tray and filled it up with filtered water and then the son took it went to the kitchen and washed the ash off but then filled it with dirty water. It was horrible! lol. I felt obligated to take a sip but then i set it down on the table and changed the awkward situation into a lesson. They invited us back for dinner but i dont think we will be taking them up on that. It is starting to become hot here. It was in the 80's a few days but then it was overcast also which made it really humid. We run to Frisbee around 5:30 and it's pretty warm but i dont think i want to get up any earlier than that to run. I think i have 5 weeks left in this area and then i'll get transferred. Im not sure where but probably out of Tirana which would be cool since i have been here for 9 months now. But if i do go to another branch here i would be fine with it. I'll go where the Lord needs me to go. I have been getting a lot closer with the families in this branch. In the past they have hated missionaries because there have been some bad ones in this branch but last Monday 6 of us went over to the President Zela's (branch president) house and had family home evening with him. It was a lot of fun and we talked about a lot of things we could do to help build up this branch. We also visited with 2 more families and then tonight we have will go to a different families house for FHE and 1 more family on Wednesday. Even though lessons have been down we have been working hard to strengthen the members here and they are amazing... I dont think i have anything else."