7-11-2011

" Home sweet home here i come!! It hit me hard yesterday that today is my last day of work as a missionary because tomorrow i'll be traveling to Tirana because we have a little party for all the departing missionaries and all the members who want to come. It should be a lot of fun."

7-4-2011, 9 days!

"Hey i just got back from Tirana so that's why this email is getting to you late. I went and had lunch with a family and then took another family out bowling, it was a blast. Today was my last chance really to hang out with the families in Tirana so me and my comp. took our p-day to Tirana and tried to visit as many as we could. I'm gonna miss them but i will hopefully keep in touch with facebook and skype since there both free. This past week went by extremely slow but we are way busy this week so i think times going to fly by. At least i hope it does. I'm getting nervous. I don't really know what to expect."

6-27-2011, 16 days!

"Only 16 days!! I don't know how it's possible but the weeks keep flying by faster and faster. We have been crazy busy. We have found a lot of good new investigators and i'm not sure if any of them will be baptized before i leave but i truly believe they will be baptized soon after i leave. They are just to good to not join the church. I wish i would have found them sooner so i could teach them longer and to see them enter into the waters of baptism. The trip last week was amazing. We were up in the Albanian Alps and it was beautiful. We ended up staying in this log house they had up there and it was actually very warm with the most comfortable beds i've slept on in over 2 years =). I don't even know where to start beginning to tell you about the trip. It was a long drive up there since we left at 4:30 in the morning and got up there at 3. Me and another elder took off as soon as we got there to go hiking up in the hills and we had a blast. We found all those wild strawberries and we were high enough that there was snow up where we were. After awhile we decided to go back down and met up with the other Elders but that was after we crossed that awesome rickety old bridge =). I thought i was going to fall in but it turned out to be pretty sturdy. The trip home was ridiculous because we took a wrong turn somewhere and were on this one lane road on the edge of this mountain and it took us 8 hours to get back to Tirana,lol, and from there i had another 2 hours to Fier. It was so long!! But i made the most of it and since i was sitting in the front i asked him to stop every 30 miles or so to get out and check out the scenery and walk around.... I have tons more stuff that happened but my minds just racing thinking that i only have 16 days left and then i'll be able to tell you about it in person...."

6-19-2011, 23 days

" It's been way hot though which i don't like since we are always in a tie and pants. Today we are in shorts though because we are going to the beach. I can't swim but we're going to play soccer and frisbee on the beach which will be way fun. We leave Monday at 4 a.m and get to Valbona at 1 pm but we will be taking a fairy which is going to be awesome!! It should be a blast with 13 of us going."

6-13-2011, 30 days!

"i'm feeling a lot better. I have been with a small cough for most of the week but after Wednesday i had enough energy to be able to run again and be back to my normal self. I made the mistake of telling our neighbors that i was sick. Albanians have some really weird and crazy ideas about how to stay healthy and they always exaggerate things. Our neighbors are the members so she was even more worried about me so she gave me some old school ideas of how to get rid of my cough and i'm still paying the price for it. She got onions and graded them up into a bowl with roki which i guess would be classified as liquor and then crushed up an aspirin and then she made the son rub it on my back before i went to bed. It was so much they rubbed on me and then it was way hot and she made me wrap up in a blanket and fall asleep without an air conditioner on,lol. I laugh even thinking about it. My comp. hated it because our entire room smelled horribly. I woke up asap and took a shower but the juice soaked into my skin so even today after i was done running i could smell the onion and raki coming out of my skin,lol. That is the last time i tell an Albanian i'm sick =)..... The rest of my week has been really good as well. We had a soccer game planned out for a branch activity but it got cancelled because of rain and also because we are going to the beach in Vlore this Saturday as a branch which will be blast!! English is amazing still and all our students keep bringing there friends so instead of declining in students we are actually getting more which is cool. We keep working hard with the members and we don't spend a lot of time tracting but we do a lot of street contacting and just stop and create small talk with people while we walk. It's been crazy humid and it's getting really hot and i've been losing weight just because i'm not as hungry but i drink a lot more. I don't really know what else to talk about. I'm way excited to see you all and i'm happy that i'm in Fier and i'm loving the work right now."

6-6-2011

" So this will be a short email because i'm not feeling good today. Last night after church something hit me hard and now i have a cough and a really bad headache. It's frustrating because we have some meetings tonight with some families but i think we will have to cancel them. This week has gone by super fast. English is still going strong and we keep working hard to try to find all the less active families here in Fier and try to visit them all. I'm happy and lovin the work. I just hope this cold or whatever i have passes fast."

5-23-2011

"We are in Lushnje today hanging out with the other elders because one of the Elders here got transfered up North to Shkoder so we are eating lunch and playing sports with them today. It's a beautiful day for soccer so hopefully we will find some kids around town to come and get a game going with us. This week has been strange. We've been inside a little because of the voting problems and also my comp. has been sick and struggling with horrible allergies so when we do go out its only for about 3 hours before i look at him and his eyes are puffed up and he can't breath because the allergies. I feel bad for the kid but he's a hard worker and insists on going out so it's cool. We are starting up english class tomorrow and i hope we get a good turn out. It will be interesting. My comp. and I will be staying in Fier until July when i leave so i'm excited to be with him again for another transfer. We also had an investigator accept a baptism date so we will be working hard with him to be prepared to be baptized. We also have been getting tons of referrals from members so hopefully some of those people will be ready to learn more about the gospel. I find that here we have had a lot of first lessons but it's hard to get people to continue to meet with us for weeks at a time. It's frustrating but there is a time and place for everyone to learn so i don't let it get to me, well most the time at least =)."

5-9-2011

"Things here are good though. Yesterday wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. I guess there were a hand full of people killed and beat up but it's weird because i guess that's normal around election time here. I was shocked to here people were shot but our Albanian neighbor acted like it was no big deal. I hope with time Albania will figure its self out and get better. Today everyone finds out who won and i'm nervous to see if Berisha wins again because he it seems like a lot of people want Rama to win. People say that Berisha cheats to win and i can see why with all the crap i see and here about within the government. Today it's rainy and we have no big plans for today. We have a family visit tonight and hopefully i lesson with a new investigator which i'm looking forward to...."

4-25-2011

" I really like Fier and my comp. and I get along great. I loved talking to you last week as well. It will be nice to talk on mothers day. I got your packages and we had an awesome easter party on friday. Tons of members that i've never seen before were there and i had a blast playing games with kids and dancing around with everyone. There were some people who taught us a traditional folk dance and it was pretty fun. We also had a few investigators come and they had a blast as well. It was nice because a few of the members there age started talking to them right away and they were all laughing and having a good time. A few also came to church yesterday and said they have a desire to be baptized so i'm really excited about the work here and the people i'm teaching are awesome. I've been blessed my whole mission by awesome people to teach and it makes the work so much fun. Today we are going to a members house and she is going to show me how to make stuffed peppers and some other traditional food so hopefully i can cook a little when i get home. It's really simple food with not a whole lot of spices used but simple is good for me. We are starting up English course this week and we should have a pretty good turn out. A lot of people have been asking us if we're going to start one so i'm excited to start one up."

4-18-2011

"This week has flown by for me. We were in Tirana for 2 days because of some training and i was able to visit some families there and we stayed at my old house with one of my old companions so it was a blast. We played chess and some card games all night. It was hard to stay awake the next day for training =). It was a really good training though because it gave all the new elders and chance to work on the language, since it was in Albanian, and i learned a lot as well. Every time i train i have flash back to when i was new and ya you're right i always think wow, i was once that horrible. I honestly don't know how i got where i'm at. I'm not the greatest by far but i'm still able to communicate and show my personality in a different language so i'm happy. We have been trying to do a lot of less active work since i've been here. There are tons of families that don't come to church and we have been working with one of the really strong members here in Fier and trying to visit them. These next coming up weeks we should be even busier with visits and trying to get some people back to church. We should be starting up an English course in the next month or so. The other Elders don't want to do it so i decided to open up one myself so it will be nice once that starts up. My comp. doesn't like running so i'm stuck to jump roping inside the house. We're going to play soccer this Saturday which i'm excited for and then either this week or next week we will have an easter party"

4-11-2011

"It has been beautiful here in Fier. It's a little further south so it's a little hotter than Tirana. We are going to a small town called Lushnje today and hanging out with a group of Elders. A few times every transfer we're allowed to go outside our area and go on a district trip. I think we might go to Barat this transfer and one other historical site about an hour away or so. My comp. is pretty cool. His name is McCullam and it's funny because Albanians can't say it at all =). He is from Utah of course =), but he is really cool and i'm excited to work with him. I will be with him for at least 7 weeks and then i might get a new comp, but who knows. He likes sports but he's not a big runner but i'm hopping i can convince him to come because there i a member here that loves to run and wants to go with us every morning. We aren't the first missionaries here because there is another companionship but we are in a different house and different area that just go reopened so we don't have any work so we will be busy tracting and talking with people on the streets. That's what i've been doing my whole mission but we will be doing it even more since we don't have meeting with people. There are some awesome members here!! We are neighbors with a family called Mellaraj and they are amazing! We went over there last night and had a great time getting to know one another. I felt so bad for my new comp. because he was lost but every new missionary is like that. It's nice to be able to sit back and laugh a little because i know it's all part of the experience of learning a new language. I remember when i was like him and i don't know how i ever got to the point that i am at now. We also went to lunch at a different families house and she fed us so much! I couldn't eat anymore i was so full. We had chili, beans, stuffed peppers with rice and ground beef in them, a Greek salad and another traditional dish. Yeah i know i was very thankful. I guess she cooks like that every Sunday for us. It's the Gjika family and they are the strongest family here in Fier. To say the least i am very excited to serve here in Fier. There are also unfortunately many many inactive families but i am excited to work with them and build relationships with them and help them come back to church. It will be a fun and exciting last 3 months"

4-4-2011

"So i got a huge surprise this week for transfers. I got moved out of Tirana again!! lol. It was crazy. I will be going to Fier and i will be training again. This is my 3rd kid that i'll train. I guess Pres. thought i did good the first 2 times so i will be doing it again. I'm excited for it. I will open i new area in Fier so we have no investigators and i dont know anybody there,lol. I have met a family that lives there and they are amazing so at least i know one family. The branch has about 10-15 people at church every week and it's a pretty small place i believe. You could probably look and see exactly how many people live there and some photos. I don't know why but i am really excited to go and finish my last 3 months there."

3-28-2011

"On Saturday we played basketball, don't worry im ok and didnt get hurt =). This week we will be playing soccer on Thursday. We also have transfer calls on Saturday so i'll find out if i'm training again.

The work here in 3rd branch has been picking up a lot since i first got here. We were able to get 7 lessons this week and this week we have a few lesson with some contacts that we talked to on the road. I hope it goes well. I also got asked to start teaching second hour at church for the youth so that's kinda cool. All the kids are combined and most of them are the ones we take out to play sports once a week and they all like me so it should be fun to teach them. Other than that not to much is going on here. English class is going well and time just seems to be flying by. I have mixed emotions about leaving this place. I'm gonna miss a lot of people here and i just worry about them and hope that they will all be ok."

3-21-2011

"It has been really nice weather here for the most part. I haven't played soccer in a long time but i go running 3 or 4 times a week. There is a nice lake that we walk to and then it has a running trail around it and i run around it. I go with with Xhino who isn't a member but is one of my favorite people here in Albania. My comp. goes but usually walks around the lake and then me and Xhino catch up with him on the way around. It works out pretty good for all of us. Right now i'm living in an apartment and i really like it. It's not really big but it's just big enough.

We had a specialized training this week and Pres. took all of us bowling and to dinner! It was awesome!! We also had district conference so tons of members from all over Albania came to Tirana. There were about 400 members and it was such a blast. There were some good talks and it was good to see everyone gathered together. There were a few people that thought i was still in Shkoder so they were glad to here i'm back in Tirana. I'm going to go get a drink with one family today during lunch so i'm excited."

3-14-2011

"So today has already been a crazy day!! It's a huge holiday here in Albania called "Ditën e Verës" or the day of summer and we are in Elbasan for it. There are 12 of us Elders who decided to come here for our district trip because thousands of people come here from all over Albania to hang out and celebrate. It's about an hour from Tirana and we left early

My first week back in Tirana has been awesome. I saw a lot of old families and they are excited to have me back. The transfer of me moving out of Shkoder wasn't a huge surprise for a lot of people because i guess there was a small chance i could have moved in April but i just left a month early. I will end my mission here in 3rd branch and i'm happy for that."

3-7-2011

" This week has been really really hectic. A lot of unexpected stuff happened this week which made it a very entertaining week. The first big things that happened was that the other Elders left there house because it's in really bad condition but the big problem was that the owner flipped out completely,lol. It was dumb because we even payed for the month of March even though they wont be staying there and she is still very unhappy with us. The other Elders are staying at our house until they find a new house but while we were trying to move their stuff to our house the owner (who is a women) locked us for Elders in the house and wouldn't let us leave until we payed her a bunch more money that she said we owned,lol. I was shocked. Albanians love to just yell and speak over one another so our local missionary Morava and the owner were just yelling and screaming at each other saying not very nice things. Then finally Elder Vance came in with a paper that showed our contract owned over a year ago and she still wouldn't let us out. So then i got angry because she locked us in the house so we call our mission president and he told us to tell her she better find a good lawyer and we'll get our lawyer and do it the hard way. She finally let us go but only let us take one bag and leave the rest as collateral that we would come back to talk with her. Finally on Friday we went back over and talked to her and a huge argument started again about how we owe her hundreds of dollars. We told her to call the cops if she was serious but she just finally went back in her house and we moved everything out. I hope i never see her again. So ya there are now 4 Elders in the Shkoder house and it's been a blast.... Second big thing that happened is that i got transferred back to Tirana!! I was way excited when i got the call i would be going back. I am back in 3rd branch which has been pretty slow for missionary work but i am excited to be back working with the members and i'm with Elder Weaver who i trained 10 or 11 months ago. I will be with him until the beginning of April and then the new Elders come in and i'll be training again i believe."

2-28-2011

" I am excited for April to get a new comp. but it will be interesting to see who i train. Since Pres. stuck me up here i better get first pick on who i want,lol =). No i actually don't choose but Pres. knows and he'll give me someone who likes sports and likes to have fun while doing the work.... I was able to baptize Refik Saturday and it was really awesome. It might be one of my favorite baptisms since being in the country. He is just a stud! I think i already told you but the rest of his family and is relatives are pretty strong Muslims but he just has such great faith in Christ and the Book of Mormon that it's really motivational for me to be better and work hard. His son who is 15 was able to come to the baptism and he had a really good experience because all the youth from all over Albania met in Tirana that day for an activity and he was able to hang out with kids his age and play games and see that the people within the church are just normal people and laugh and like to have fun and enjoy life. His name is Remzi and he wasn't able to come to church on Sunday but he wants to hang out with us and play football with us and then from there maybe he will be interested in learning about the church. I'm glad i have the attitude of it's not about throwing people into the baptismal font always, it's just about getting to know them and building relationships and then taking it from there. I think that's the hardest thing about being up here is not being able to really build those strong relationships with the random people on the streets... Other than that not to much has been going on. Today we are meeting with the other Elders because Elder Morava has a b-day today and we're going to play games and chill at our house. It should be fun. There are no activities planned for this coming up week so I'm scared that it's going to go by slow,lol."

2-21-2011

"Prenda did get baptized and it went really well and Refik ( our investigator) will be getting baptized this Saturday and i will baptize him. I'm hoping that his family will also be able to come. He lives way out of town and it's hard for his family to come because they aren't wealthy by any means but the church is going to pay for the buses to get them to Shkoder and then we go to Tirana (2 hours away) for the baptism because there is no baptismal font in Shkoder. That will be the highlight of my week this week...

So we had transfer calls on Saturday and i found out that i will be with the same companion and i will be staying here until i go home in July. President told me he plans on having me training again in April when the new group comes in."

2-14-2011

"Things here have been quiet. No protests this week, or at least none that i heard about. My foot has been feeling better. On friday we ran into that big group of kids again playing football in an alley way and i stopped and played with them for about 15 minutes which was a blast but since i had my church shoes my foot was a little sore afterwards. I keep heating it and hopefully it will be %100 soon. As far as missionary work goes it was an awesome week. We have this awesome member here called Zef. I have a photo i will make sure to send it next week. Anyways, we went to his work, where he is a guard at a factory, and we played dominoes with him and had an awesome lesson with him because he will be going to the Temple in Germany for the first time here in a few months!! He's pretty excited and i'm excited for him as well. We also visit another member called Alma who is living in Italy but her and her daughters are here visiting for a little. We hung out with them last night and she has a daughter who is an awesome violin player. I also had to do a baptismal interview for the older women that we did service for the last couple of weeks. Her name is Prenda and she's awesome. I think i might have mentioned her in an earlier email but i can't remember. She will be baptised on Saturday and we are all excited about it because then the following Saturday Refik will be baptised and i believe his family is going to come to the baptism as well!! He would have been baptized this week with Prenda but it will be better if we wait one more week. I'm excited for him he is legit =). We only had 6 people at church this Sunday but it still went really well. The church is slowly growing here and we will be moving into a way nicer church building within the next few months and i think it will help people see that the church is here to stay. We have transfer calls next week and i'm actually hoping i stay. Elder Merepeza and Morava, the other Elders here, should stay and i love being in the same district as two local Albanians. If i do stay i'll get a new companion and i think my comp. i have now is going to the office. English class starts tomorrow and i'm hoping we have a good amount of people. I talked to my old comp. in Tirana and they just started an English class up and there were about 170 people i guess. A lot of the return students were wondering where i was. They asked where the giant missionary was,lol. Here i will be happy if we have 10 =). The church can't hold more than 30 so hopefully we have less than that,lol."

2-7-2011

"Protests did continue this past week but they were all down in the Southern part of Albania so this Friday they will be up in the Northern part, so up here in Shkoder. They have been pretty peaceful for know, knock on wood, but we are told to go inside when they start up so like i said before no worries.

This week has been a successful week, at least in my eyes it was. The kids here are really annoying and like to curse at us and it's even worse because my companion is a big walking target for kids to make fun of. I feel bad for him sometimes but i tell him he brings it on himself. This week i had enough of this group of kids, about 10 or so, so i took the time to go out of the way and talk to them. My comp. wouldn't follow me but i didn't care because i was sick of these kids. At first they started talking really fast and making fun of me because they didn't think i could understand but then i picked out one of them that was being really bad,with the language, and asked if his boyfriend was going to be around soon to pick him up,lol. He didn't like it but all his friends loved it and laughed. Then i started making jokes about the other ones and how short and skinny they were. After i was done we talked for about 30 minutes about myself and where i'm from and why im learning this language. Now whenever we walk by we always talk a little and one day we sat down with a few and gave out a Book of Mormon. We are also starting up an English course next week and a few said they wanted to come so it was a big success...

I still have a lot of work to do here in Albania and i know there are still peoples lives that i can touch so i am going to soak it all in and keep pushing forward to the end."

1-31-2011

"Things here are going well. That's crazy with what's going on withe Egypt. There was another protest in Tirana Friday but here in Shkoder everything has been pretty calm. This week there are suppose to be more protests but i'm not sure how big the one in Shkoder will be or even if there will be one here. We have been advised to go inside as soon as we see crowds gathering so don't worry about me i won't be dumb. I will be inside if anything goes down here....

I did something to my foot while doing service this week and so I have been told to stay off it for a few days so friday and Saturday i was inside most of the day. We did go back to the older ladies house again and i had a blast helping her out again. We painted her house, well helped a little big with it. There was another man there who just told us to leave and he'd do it himself. I don't know why but i guess we weren't doing something right. So we ended up going to the ladies old house, her name is Prena, and we were getting things ready to move to the new house when the paint drys. Well we got done fast and then spent about 45 minutes chasing around roosters and ducks catching them for her so she could move them as well. I had a blast with Elder Morava who is a mini missionary here from Albania. It was good practice because 3 nights ago when we actually moved things Prena stuffed about 5 or 6 ducks into this small bag and the last duck had its head popping out,lol. Well of course the bag opened up and 4 birds got out and we caught 3 of them right away but one of them ran into this drain and got stuck and it took us about 1 1/2 hours to get the thing,lol. It was a fun night. My comp. hated it but i was enjoying every minute of it because then other ducks got out again and these young kids who were playing football across the street came over and started running them down with us and trying to gather all of them up. I wish i had my camera to video it because it was a blast.... This morning we met with Refiku and he's still doing amazing!! I haven't found my other family yet but i have time. Hopefully this week i will be able to get out and walk around more on my foot."

1-18-2011

"It look like i'll be in Shkoder for the rest of my mission so i better make the most of it. There are a lot more places than Shkoder and Tirana. There's Durres, Elbasan, Vlore, Fierr, Lushnja, and a couple other places we have missionaries. Shkoder is way up north and kind of separated from all the other missionaries. We are forgotten about up here,lol. So like i said it's tough to go from a big town where i was close with all the members and families to a town that has 2 active members in the entire town and no families. Like i said though it's my goal to find a family here in my six months and i know i can do it =).

.So this week has gone by fast for me which i am very thankful for. On Tuesday was the first time it rained on us but it rained TONS!! We walked about for 1 1/2 hours non-stop in the rain because it was to late to tract on doors but we couldn't street contact because nobody wanted to stop and talk in the rain so we walked for many miles. It was kind of cool because there was also a big thunders storm around us. On Wednesday i was able to go to Tirana for a training which was really cool because one of my favorite kids in Tirana, Xhino, met us at the bus stop in Tirana and walked us up to the mission home where we had the meeting so i was able to talk and laugh with him. It was great. On thursday i was able to meet my first member here in Shkoder who's name is Zef. He works security for this factory so we went to his work and it was funny because there was just a group of old men sitting around a table playing dominoes. The old men loving playing dominoes here. We ended up playing a little and we played teams and me and this other man ended up winning. The sad thing was that i didn't even realize we were playing team until the end when they said me and this other man won,lol. I had a good time. The work here mainly consists of tracting. I think i have done about 450 doors in the past 2 weeks. I made a goal to tract 3,500 doors in the next three months and right now i'm on tract to get it. It is going to be a very very long 6 months =( , lol. Oh well what can ya do, just stay upbeat and positive and reach my other goal of finding some families. On Saturday i wasn't feeling to good so we stayed in the second half of the day but come Sunday morning i felt really good. I ended up giving a talk and translating for some people at church. There were 7 members that came this Sunday so i big improvement from last week. There was an investigator who is from Austria who speaks English but not albanian so i translated for him. Today has been good so far. We had a lesson this morning and got a new investigator and i'm really excited for him because he has a lot of faith and from a strong Christian background. We are also going back to a house tonight where a family told us to come back! So be praying for me that this is the family that accepts the gospel. If not i wont get discouraged because there are a lot of people here that think we are missionaries for the catholic church like the nuns that walk around here and then when people find out that we are actually a different church they drop us. It's pretty funny. We always tell them we aren't catholic but i guess they don't believe us =)"

1-10-2011

"So i'm up in Shkoder.... Yeah it's the place where it flooded really bad because of the rain. Like i said though it hasn't been raining so i'm not really sure if it's something i'll have to worry about here while i'm here. I made a list of things about Shkoder to tell you about so i'll just go in order and hopefully it will answer your questions that you had about it =). So first off the language isn't completely different but it still has some pretty big changes that i have to adjust to it. Unfortunately i think it is a very ugly accent,lol. All the other cities of Albania make fun of Shkoder because it's very poor and the language is only spoken by rednecks and hicks so i've been in Tirana my entire mission and i am learned with a different accent and now that i'm here i don't like speaking they way they do here. However, i am finding myself mixing up my accent already because i am surrounded by people who speak hick all day and i am picking it up and using their accent. The hardest part with the accent is not so much the speaking but the understanding. If i wanted to speak like them i could probably pick to up perfectly in about 3 or 4 weeks but understanding is coming slowly but i will be fine. I have become really good at pretending like i understand,lol. I do have an awesome house up here though. It has a huge kitchen, sleeping area and another entire room where i put my suitcases and have plenty of room to workout. The nicest house i've lived in since being here. My new companion is Elder Owens. He is from Texas. We don't really have anything in common. He loves math.... I try to come up with math riddles for him and i just ask him tons of question and make him convince me why math is cool. It's pretty entertaining so far. I'll get back to you at the end of 7 weeks to let you know how it's going still =). The people here, in general, are way nicer than those in the city of Tirana. There are tons of HUGE mosques here and a HUGE catholic church here as well. Lots of people get us mixed up with the catholic church. One bad thing about the smaller towns just outside Shkoder is that they are very uncivilized and we have a few members involved in blood feuds which really sucks. We live by a huge mosque so we get a prayer wakeup call every morning at 5:45 =). Then on Fridays we get the special 1 hour prayer call during lunch. Like i said though even though the town is divided into half muslim half catholic the people are very respectful (hopefully i don't eat those words in the next few weeks =) )....We have got in tracting everyday tracting this week which was cool but i guess its pretty normal for the work up here to get in just because the people are so respectful and invite us in to feed us or give us a drink and then they listen to our message but then of course say they already have their church. Very nice people! So to talk about how i met a gentleman in the police. It was actually really random. We had a lesson cancle on us so we decided to go to these apartments to tract and on the way this guy stopped us and showed us these business cards and badge and he is like one of the very top people here on the police force. He asked if we wanted to sit down and have a drink and so we ended up walking like 30 minutes to this really really nice place outside of town and hada hot chocolate with him. He really likes our church because during the floods this year and last year the church has given hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of supplies to help the people here out and he is very thankful for our service. It was cool to talk to him. While we were there he also had a meeting with this guy who could have easily worked for the mafia, he looked like a mafia guy,lol. He was actually one of the presidents or something with red cross here. So i will for sure give one of Dads badges to him....Church was interesting this Sunday. It was actually one of my most spiritual days of church ever which was weird because for the first 30 minutes of church there were 4 people, which if you didn't know there are 4 missionaries here so yeah it was only us at church, and then at the very end one lady came in to here the last few mintues of a talk. So it was 4 missionaries and 1 lady at church. The room we meet in is about 10 ft by 20 ft or something close to that. I don't know the exact dimensions but it's small. I thought it was really cool that i was thousands of miles away from America where in sacrament there are 500 hundred people gathered together sometimes but yet in this little room of only 5 people i was able to partake of the same sacrament and feel the spirit possibly stronger than i ever have before. It was a testimony to me that a church isn't about some building but about the people and the ordinances that are performed."

1-4-11

"My week has been pretty good. We were able to visit tons more families this week since we didn't have time before Christmas so i had a lot of awesome visits with families this week which was amazing! I had a blast with it. New Years was also way awesome. I wish my camera could take a better video that way i could have sent you a video. We had two other Elders at our house so we played card games all night until midnight and then we had one of the best views ever. I think i have told you that we are on the 8th floor and we have a huge window that looks over basically the entire city. In the distance it seriously looked like Tirana was being bombed and then we were right next to the center of the city where the big ones are so we had an awesome view of those. It was a fun night. On Saturday all the missionaries stay inside and clean the house so Saturday dragged on because we were inside all day. We did go outside for a little and luckily found a place that was open to eat. Literally every place is closed down the first couple of days after new years. I know from talking to some people that it is the only days off that they get all year which is just nonsense. They also have a few days break for Bajram which is the Muslim holiday but other than that most people work 7 days a week.... For my birthday i spent the morning filling up the baptismal font but we also had a district meeting so we had a cake and then we exchanged present from a Christmas exchange that we weren't able to do on Christmas so that was cool. I was also able to sneak off from filling the font for a few hours and we had an awesome lunch.

So earlier i said that my week was pretty good. It was one of the best weeks of my mission but then on Saturday night i found out that i got transfered to Shkodër and i have a lot of mixed emotions about it. I have been in Tirana my entire mission surrounded by awesome families and have gotten so close to every family here and now i have to go to Shkodër where sometimes in church it's only the 4 missionaries. I'm also not happy because they speak a completely different dialect up there. If i went up continuing to speak like i do know most people will probably understand me but it's going to take me probably 2 months to be able to understand comfortably up there. So yeah i'm not happy that i have to spend my last 6 months of my mission up there. I know that there are people everywhere that need the gospel and so i will work my butt off to do my best and hopefully i will make a difference up there...."