Hail!

Another week has passed?? Impossible! The time just flies by here. Anyway, I am very excited about talking to everyone on Sunday! BTW Happy Birthday to Ken!

Ok, what happened this week?

...Oh Mum asked me if we eat at members houses much. I have eaten at a members house twice since I have been here, it was good food, but it makes us all groan, because they are all dirt poor and are all asking for money, therefore they should not feed the missionaries! So we try to avoid it as much as possible. The Albanian culture has a funny sort of pride. A number of papune members (work less members) are just too prideful to go out and get any sort of job to pay for the necessities, like street cleaning, but they don't have too much pride to hassle missionaries for money. Sadness, its OK though, there are a number of members that are growing and progressing, and some that are quite solid. Zion is being built here!

This week I had the "opportunity" to try Dhal. It is more like hell in a glass. Picture this: Fouled cottage cheese that has been mashed up as fine as it can be, then added to milk (warm milk usually) and topped off by an insane amount of salt. What the heck. Horrible right? Yes, you guessed it, it is one of the worst things I've tried in this world. We tracked into a couple, and since we didn't drink whiskey or coffee, they gave us Dhal. Elder Flack got a hoot out of watching me drink it, but I was a trooper, I drank the whole glass. In fact, elder Flack said I didn't even flinch until I got to the dregs of the cup. At that point it took all the discipline I possessed to not vomit. After we left we considered purging to get it out of our system. We got ice cream instead. That helped.

Actually that couple we tracked into was an older couple, and they had lost a few years ago a 21 year old daughter. They obviously were still hurting, it was a time to share the Plan of Salvation with them, but they wouldn't listen. Whenever we would start to teach it, they would say, quite politely, shume falemnaris (thank you much) and change the subject. If only they understood what we were trying to teach them, the blessings and comfort it would bring to their lives! It was very sad.

Oh I have bad news, our two baptisms have fallen through. The 2 girls have not come out and said that they didn't want to be baptised, but they have been avoiding receiving lessons from us since we gave them a baptismal calender. We now have reached the point where we cannot effectively teach the commandments of the gospel in time, so we are at the least pushing the date back. They told us that they had not read, and the older one seems like what we expected, too lazy to accept the real commitment to be baptized. However, I believe the younger one still will be, and Gent, their brother who is a member, is an excellent support. I hope he stays strong. We think the 2 girls didn't realize what baptism was, Gent got baptized way too fast and is doing quite well considering how quickly he wad taught prior to entering the waters. Elder Flack and I have made it a priority to see that they understand the covenant they are making. They both thought baptism was an end, not a beginning. That's what turned Arjeta off. It is sad to see that people are unwilling to do what is necessary to achieve salvation, but if her siblings become strong members, she will definitely join, it will just take more time.

I apologize that this letter is somewhat negative about the area, I really do love Shkodre and most of the members. They are some really excellent members, they just have a lot they need to be taught, as expected, one day there will be a foundation of members that will support new converts! Mum, you remember telling me about what happened in Fredericksburg with the 2 missionaries that got many converts just because they taught about the welfare system? That is kind of what has happened here, though not the fault of any particular elder.

OK, got to leave on a good note. One family, Terazina and her two daughters Marenla and Adolina, are struggling. Terazina is our most faithful church goer, and you can tell how she is growing slowly but surely, she also has a strong testimony of the basic, most important principles. However, her daughters and her (and her sisters family, who are also members) are all getting quite persecuted by their church and it's members and you can see the effects of that persecution mainly on Marinela, who is the oldest of all the children (14). However, yesterday we shared Helamen 12:5, D&C 121: 7-8? (my son, peace be..) and D&C 122:7-8 about enduring hardship and relying on Christ. It was an excellent lesson, and I believe it really helped Marinela, who's definitely been struggling with her testimony. The spirit was there. I hope they never lose the faith!

OK, I hope you all are well. I miss you all, but they Lord gives me great strength. I cannot wait to talk to you all on Sunday!

With love
Elder Scadden