12-6-2010

"It has been raining a lot here. We had to evacuate the missionaries who were in Shkoder and they are now here in Tirana and there is no telling when they'll head back into Shkoder. It's not good for sure. Shkoder is already very poor and it's going to hurt a lot of people. Last year it flooded but i don't think it was this bad and we sent over 22 thousand dollars of food and clothes and other stuff to them so hopefully I will have the opportunity to help out with that again.

This week has been a good week. We have been asked to visit a lot more families and build our relationships with them and just continue to strengthen them inside the homes. Usually we only visited families who weren't active, meaning they don't come to church, and the families who are strong and come we visited about once every few months. Now though we are trying to visit 4 families a week and visit them 2 times in a month. My companion and i have been having a blast with it because we are really close with the members and not to brag but they love us. We get invited to a lot of homes for visits and it makes me happy that i'm welcome here.... Yesterday we went and at lunch at the Lika families house. It's the two boys that i baptized my second month in the country. Their parents are still not members but they are absolutely amazing. When i'm at the house i feel like i'm at home. A year ago i couldn't really talk that well so it was frustrating but yesterday we had a good hour and a half lunch at their house. It was so good to be in their home again. Every time the mom sees me she always comes and gives me a hug and it's a tradition or part of the culture i should say to kiss people on both cheeks ( like France i guess) she always kisses me cheeks as well and then she always somehow has food to give me. She told me to tell you that you don't have to worry about me because while i'm here they are watching over me and taking care of me. She also told me to tell you that i need to eat more,lol. Which is crazy because she feeds us so much that it's impossible to finish it all. So yeah it was an excellent week and even though i'm not home with all you this past week i felt the Christmas spirit strongly and it's good to have people here that i love and love me."