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."