Hello everyone!
Se pari. I'd like to congratulate my sister Kristin and her Husband John on the birth of their new son and my new nephew, Malachi Fareday South!!! How exciting! It is good to hear that he and his Mom are healthy.
Ok, I am tired!! I have this mild cold, so I tried to sleep it off during lunch yesterday. Ended up sleeping far too long (our lunches are 3 hrs during the summer, so there is plenty of time to sleep too long) and therefore I did not sleep last night at all. Kind of backfired, but what can you do? I'll just spend this week trying to get back on track. We'll get an extra hour of sleep this weekend anyway and then the schedule changes so that we are not getting our night's sleep cut short. That will be nice! I actually don't really like our long lunches. So that's how I am, I hope all of you are healthy and well, I miss you all!
Great week this week! We will have a baptism on Saturday! A young boy we have been teaching will be baptized with his sister on Sunday. He is an extremely quick boy, a concert pianist in fact that has performed in Germany. It is somewhat of a miracle that they are getting baptized. Their parents were against his older sister getting baptized because she had already been baptized in the Orthodox church. They said it was ok for Roni to be baptized but we weren't going to do that without his sister. Then yesterday there was a baptism from 1st branch at our building and Roni and Elbas parents passed by and talked to our senior couple, the Shupes and Elder Abley. Theydecided it was a good thing for their kids to be baptized. It seemed like it was going to take so much longer but it was, just a little meeting in the road and their hearing that a whole family was being baptized that day made them realize it was a good thing. We are very excited!
On top of that, Ermal is progressing great. He is still headed strong towards his baptismal date of the 11th October. We will be meeting with him a lot in preparation. Whoever my trainee is, he will be walking into a baptism is first week in the country! That’s a good thing to start with. Yesterday was the first time Ermal stayed for all 3 hours of church. The Lord works in mysterious ways because since he stayed he was able to be introduced to tons of the older members (he knows a number of the YSA kids because of institute and the like). As we introduced him, one member asked what he studied in university and he told them he had just graduated in finance and accounting. This member told him he knew another member who owned a big super market and he was looking for someone to be the store accountant or something of the like and the member said he would introduce Ermal to this other member (it is pretty cool, but members here that own businesses always seek out to employ other members before they go into the rest of the world for employees). Ermal was very excited about the prospects of getting a good job like that. I hope that he gets it, it will be wonderful for him and it will greatly aid in his integration into the church! We had a somewhat funny experience with Ermal. While he was at the YSA conference in Vlore he heard a speech about staying away from places and situations that cause temptation, like a person going to a bar who has a problem with drinking. Now, bless his heart, he took this to somewhat of an extreme. He said to us ‘if I have to stay away from temptations and things, does that mean that I shouldn’t have a girlfriend? (this guy is 22 years old, he needs to be married)’ we kind of laughed to ourselves, and explained that we actually really wanted him to have a girlfriend, especially one that was a member and that he could apply the same idea to that relationship. The two of them could stay away from situations and places that would tempt them. We also explained that if he dates a member girl, he will probably be dating someone who desires to be married in the Temple and has high standards, though we told him it was not against the commandments to date a non-member girl. We were pretty impressed, because he was totally read to accept whatever we said. Its good to know he probably won’t be having any law of chastity issues! He is a great!
Lol it’s the end of P-day and someone was kind enough to bring me mail. Better late than never! I am across the city from the mission home, you’d figure I’d be getting my mail more consistently than I did in Shkoder, but not so! When people come here to our side of town rarely do they think “oh, I should take them their mail!” That’s ok, I have a plan for getting my mail consistently again at the beginning of next transfer. We will see how that goes. I am so extremely grateful for all the Emails and letters I get! Thank you all for giving me such support, I never fathomed that mail would be so wonderful to receive. I’m also lucky I’ve got such an amazing future wife who writes me so very much!
General conference next week! I am very excited! We only get to watch 2 off the sessions, but that is much better than none at all! I would like to request to Mum and Dad to send me an issue of the conference Ensign as soon as they can, as they did last time, because we will not get our magazines here until close to Christmas day.
Wow, speaking of Christmas, I am going to blow your minds away with rumors. So we all know that I am anticipating coming home a week early. Well, a week early is only 3 days after Christmas. President is considering allowing members of my group to go home yet another week earlier than that. Now, I am not going to come right out and say that I want to go home yet another week early (though being home for Christmas of 2010 would be out of this world awesome), but it may end up that President will send my whole group home together at that time since all but 2 of us are asking to go before Christmas. Can you believe that we are already thinking about this? I just need to be home a week early to get ready for school, which president has already given me the green light on. But I thought I would just mention to you all that President might just send us home even earlier, but don’t get your hopes up! Besides, whats one week anyway?
Wow, I heard a story this week that I found unbelievable but it comes from the Area Presidency themselves. It was on the topic of being a successful missionary which sometimes missionaries worry too much whether or not they are successful when they are doing just fine (yes, I’ve been in that boat before). Here we get plenty of lessons, new investigators etc. Often I feel the spirit of the Lord working through me and I strive to be obedient which are essentially the keys to being a successful missionary regardless of numbers. We were told of a missionary who just recently finished his mission in Germany. His entire mission he only had 7 meetings. 7 times in 2 years where he sat down and taught one of the lessons to non-members. That is insane. I already have been blessed to teach hundreds of lessons to nonmembers. But he still, according to his feelings and the feelings of his mission president, was a successful missionary because he strives to be obedient and many a times he felt the spirit working though him, even if the door still shut in front of him after it moved upon the person opening by the spirit. I don’t think I will feel quite the same level of disappointment on empty days anymore. I have nothing to complain about. So far I feel very strongly that my mission has been successful and I feel like the Lord is blessing me with quite a bit of outward success, or fruits of my labor, and I hope to continue to work with all my strength that I might see the arm of the Lord continue to be revealed. What a blessing it is to be here, in the service of my God!
Yes, so yesterday we had an outstanding meeting with the Shima family (Shpetim and his kids, his kids are the ones that got baptized earlier this transfer). I feel very strongly that their mom and their cousin/niece are progressing quickly to the point of receiving the lessons. I hope that in my time here I can see the family be completely in the church with the baptism of their mom and their cousin and that there will be a road toward the conversion of Shpetims brothers! How exciting it is to see the gospel change and bless people's lives here!!
Anyway, I hope you all are well. I miss you all, I pray for you all often. Thank you for all your prayers and support. I love you all! Until next week, may God be with you!
Love,
Elder Scadden
Elder Scadden
Where's Gregory?
Gregory is now home.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Once upon a time in Albania (September 21st, 2009)
Hello all from Albania!
I miss you all! This past week has been an interesting week, with some good things and some bad things. But first I wish to shout out to my sisters Sarah and Lauren and wish them a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I think I should also be getting a new nephew soon, I hope that Kristin's delivery goes well! And WOW Mum was released! I didn’t think it would ever happen, she made such an outstanding Relief Society president.
Ok, so let me get the less good things out of the way. This week Elder Abley and I got food poisoning! It was really exciting. We went over to a members house for lunch. She is actually a professional cook at one of the nicest hotels in Tirana. However, she made us a dish of kos (yogurt), milk, and eggs with meat in it. I don’t think it was cooked properly or something. That is the only thing that Elder Abley and I feel like we can point to as the cause of the poisoning. Anyway, we went home not feeling too hot and slept for the remainder of lunch. Upon waking up at the end of lunch, we both were talking about how we were feeling absolutely horrible. I then went into the bathroom and threw up hard core. We then went and got a Coke. Coke is not good for your stomach. I do not know why we were thinking that it would work. I think it is because the MTC says that when you eat meat that you think might be a little spoiled or something to immediately go and down a bunch of Coke, because it kills a bunch of junk. Anyway, so I threw all that up not too long after but that time it was in the sink because I was on the toilet with crazy business on the other end. At this point I successfully got all that badness out. We got some other elders to come over and give us blessings. I felt assured that on the marrow I would be healed, but I knew I would have to endure the night. I warned elder Abley that usually when I have fevers I hallucinate like crazy just to give him a heads up. Well, such was the case Thursday night. I don’t think I slept at all until 5am. The whole time I was tripping out of my mind. Sometimes I would remember who and where I actually was and would try to convince myself of the reality I actually lived in. It’s a good thing that usually when I have these hallucinations my body hurts so badly and I am so exhausted that I cannot move off my bed. But at 5 I finally fell asleep and woke up an hour later without a fever and slept a good sleep for most of the next day. I am better now! It was crazy! Elder Abley is better too. And so as a testimony of the power of the priesthood. When I received the blessing I felt very strongly that it would it would be the next day that I was back to operational capacity. Sure enough, that belief was answered quite miraculously, since Elder Abley said the last time he got food poisoning he was confined to the house in Durres for 2.5 weeks.
Ok, bad news out of the way! Good things that happened this week. So, we were able to meet with Ermal and teach him about baptism. It was an outstanding lesson, especially because we had Grisi there to help us out. Ermal totally got it and his only concern with being baptized was how important of a decision it was and how he had to be sure. So we committed him to go and pray about it, whether or not it was the right thing to do. Well, we met with him 2 days later. I asked him how his prayer had gone. We were ecstatic with his response. He told us that as he prayed he felt this amazing, exciting feeling. He felt certain that this was what he had to do and that he wanted to live the rest of his life according to God's commandments. It was awesome that Lord answered his prayer so clearly and quickly. I believe that the Lord had been preparing Ermal for some time. He is planned to be baptized on Oct. 11, but we might have to push that back a week due to district conference and because he wants to make sure he is well aware of all the commandments so he knows he can live them. I am so excited for him! The gospel will bring such wonderful blessings into his life!
We also had an excellent meal at a member's house yesterday after church. They are Americans. Brother Baird is a foreign service officer. Since I am interested in service in the state department as a possibility for post mission, I asked brother and sister Baird lots of questions about his work. It sounds pretty awesome! But I also found out from him that I can do pretty much the same job as he does as a military foreign affairs officer, which is a kind of MI specialization, which is a direction that I already want to head in. There are many choices to make with my career! Fortunately I don’t have to worry too much about those right now. But the meal was excellent. Even good Albanian home cooked meals are nothing like American home cooked meals. It was nice of them to have us over.
Insight from personal study: A question that has been on my mind a lot is if the nation of Zion would be founded before the coming of Christ, and I do not mean our stakes of Zion, but the actual massive city and the lands round about. The reason I have wondered is because inevitably everything is going to hit the fan. Nation will fight against nation and wherever people are it will be dangerous because of the wars and destruction that would be going on. But if the country of Zion existed, then that would mean that one stable nation existed that no army or military force could mess with. I have always envisioned and entire army full of righteous priesthood holders, nothing would be able to defeat it! Well, I found my answer in D&C 44, 45, or 46 (can’t remember which LOL). But I read that while the world is going to the dogs, Zion will be the banner of safety and that NO man will dare go up against that city for war because of their fear of its strength and any man that refuses to take up arms against his neighbor, in order to defend himself, will have to flee to Zion for refugee. So the nation of Zion will be raised up before Christ's coming and it will be a powerful nation that no army will dare to attack. How intriguing! I have no theories about when all these events will happen, wither it is in my life time, the life time of my kids, or further, but I do believe it would be quite awesome to be an officer in the organized Royal Army of Zion.
Its very cool that Elder Jensen came to your Stake Conference, I heard a talk from him in the MTC and it was absolutely outstanding. He is a very good teacher.
Well, I hope you all are well, I miss you all, I love you all. Thank you for your prayers and for all the support that you give me!! May God be with you.
Love
Elder Scadden
I miss you all! This past week has been an interesting week, with some good things and some bad things. But first I wish to shout out to my sisters Sarah and Lauren and wish them a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I think I should also be getting a new nephew soon, I hope that Kristin's delivery goes well! And WOW Mum was released! I didn’t think it would ever happen, she made such an outstanding Relief Society president.
Ok, so let me get the less good things out of the way. This week Elder Abley and I got food poisoning! It was really exciting. We went over to a members house for lunch. She is actually a professional cook at one of the nicest hotels in Tirana. However, she made us a dish of kos (yogurt), milk, and eggs with meat in it. I don’t think it was cooked properly or something. That is the only thing that Elder Abley and I feel like we can point to as the cause of the poisoning. Anyway, we went home not feeling too hot and slept for the remainder of lunch. Upon waking up at the end of lunch, we both were talking about how we were feeling absolutely horrible. I then went into the bathroom and threw up hard core. We then went and got a Coke. Coke is not good for your stomach. I do not know why we were thinking that it would work. I think it is because the MTC says that when you eat meat that you think might be a little spoiled or something to immediately go and down a bunch of Coke, because it kills a bunch of junk. Anyway, so I threw all that up not too long after but that time it was in the sink because I was on the toilet with crazy business on the other end. At this point I successfully got all that badness out. We got some other elders to come over and give us blessings. I felt assured that on the marrow I would be healed, but I knew I would have to endure the night. I warned elder Abley that usually when I have fevers I hallucinate like crazy just to give him a heads up. Well, such was the case Thursday night. I don’t think I slept at all until 5am. The whole time I was tripping out of my mind. Sometimes I would remember who and where I actually was and would try to convince myself of the reality I actually lived in. It’s a good thing that usually when I have these hallucinations my body hurts so badly and I am so exhausted that I cannot move off my bed. But at 5 I finally fell asleep and woke up an hour later without a fever and slept a good sleep for most of the next day. I am better now! It was crazy! Elder Abley is better too. And so as a testimony of the power of the priesthood. When I received the blessing I felt very strongly that it would it would be the next day that I was back to operational capacity. Sure enough, that belief was answered quite miraculously, since Elder Abley said the last time he got food poisoning he was confined to the house in Durres for 2.5 weeks.
Ok, bad news out of the way! Good things that happened this week. So, we were able to meet with Ermal and teach him about baptism. It was an outstanding lesson, especially because we had Grisi there to help us out. Ermal totally got it and his only concern with being baptized was how important of a decision it was and how he had to be sure. So we committed him to go and pray about it, whether or not it was the right thing to do. Well, we met with him 2 days later. I asked him how his prayer had gone. We were ecstatic with his response. He told us that as he prayed he felt this amazing, exciting feeling. He felt certain that this was what he had to do and that he wanted to live the rest of his life according to God's commandments. It was awesome that Lord answered his prayer so clearly and quickly. I believe that the Lord had been preparing Ermal for some time. He is planned to be baptized on Oct. 11, but we might have to push that back a week due to district conference and because he wants to make sure he is well aware of all the commandments so he knows he can live them. I am so excited for him! The gospel will bring such wonderful blessings into his life!
We also had an excellent meal at a member's house yesterday after church. They are Americans. Brother Baird is a foreign service officer. Since I am interested in service in the state department as a possibility for post mission, I asked brother and sister Baird lots of questions about his work. It sounds pretty awesome! But I also found out from him that I can do pretty much the same job as he does as a military foreign affairs officer, which is a kind of MI specialization, which is a direction that I already want to head in. There are many choices to make with my career! Fortunately I don’t have to worry too much about those right now. But the meal was excellent. Even good Albanian home cooked meals are nothing like American home cooked meals. It was nice of them to have us over.
Insight from personal study: A question that has been on my mind a lot is if the nation of Zion would be founded before the coming of Christ, and I do not mean our stakes of Zion, but the actual massive city and the lands round about. The reason I have wondered is because inevitably everything is going to hit the fan. Nation will fight against nation and wherever people are it will be dangerous because of the wars and destruction that would be going on. But if the country of Zion existed, then that would mean that one stable nation existed that no army or military force could mess with. I have always envisioned and entire army full of righteous priesthood holders, nothing would be able to defeat it! Well, I found my answer in D&C 44, 45, or 46 (can’t remember which LOL). But I read that while the world is going to the dogs, Zion will be the banner of safety and that NO man will dare go up against that city for war because of their fear of its strength and any man that refuses to take up arms against his neighbor, in order to defend himself, will have to flee to Zion for refugee. So the nation of Zion will be raised up before Christ's coming and it will be a powerful nation that no army will dare to attack. How intriguing! I have no theories about when all these events will happen, wither it is in my life time, the life time of my kids, or further, but I do believe it would be quite awesome to be an officer in the organized Royal Army of Zion.
Its very cool that Elder Jensen came to your Stake Conference, I heard a talk from him in the MTC and it was absolutely outstanding. He is a very good teacher.
Well, I hope you all are well, I miss you all, I love you all. Thank you for your prayers and for all the support that you give me!! May God be with you.
Love
Elder Scadden
Monday, September 14, 2009
Once upon a time in Albania (September 14th 2009)
Hello all from Albania!
I am exhausted! I hope that this email will still be good. This week was a very fast week. We had District Leader Training on Tuesday (even though I am not a DL, I still go to the training because my companion is). We talked a lot about accountability, which is an important part of missionary work, however we discussed it an extremely long time. I think accountability definitely needs to be improved a little, but what I am realizing about the struggles the mission is having has a lot more to do with us as missionaries and not because of procedure. We, as missionaries, need to be fundamentally trying to improve and gain greater companionship from the spirit. It is a shame, but, as with the last group that went home, the mission is kind of gritting its teeth and just toughing it out until this group goes home. Most of them have decided to quit so close to the end rather than finishing strong. Dad once sent me a quote that said something like this: A weak ending ruins the entire journey. That is very strong language, but it really is unfortunate to see the side effects of their quitting. All I can learn, I suppose, is to NOT be like that. How I hope that that does not happen to me. I do apologize, my morale is somewhat down today. Do not worry though, the Lord will help me and grant unto me strength. I just need to change my attitude and not think about the negative things that are going on…. LOL meaning that I probably shouldn’t even email home about them. It will be wonderful to get new blood soon, I think it will be so revitalizing. But, despite all this, I am excited to be here! Albania is a wonderful place, a crazy place. There are many people who are ready for the gospel and I need to remember why I am here. It is for a reason that far exceeds my own wants or desires. Ok, enough complaining!
Good news: Shpetim Shima, he is the man who's 2 kids were baptized a couple weeks ago. His wife is not a member, but we really feel like she is warming up to the gospel. She had received all the lessons at one point, but was very skeptical of organized religion because of some run ins that she had with J-dubs. Now, after the baptism of her children, her interest is being rekindled. I believe it helps that Vellai Shima is a very strong and faithful member who continues to progress. Last night it came out that they have family prayer (which is outstanding, I am sure there are many families throughout the church that need to do that!) every night and that the Mom reminds them if they have forgotten to have it (she obviously joins them also). It is really wonderful. So last night we went over to their house and watched something called Deshmi 2, which is a youtube video (if you don’t think you fully know how Albanian sounds, check it out!). The video is about 7 minutes long and is simply some of Albania's greatest members bearing testimony of the simple truths of the gospel. It is a powerful film! Afterwards we discussed the importance of gaining a testimony through Moroni’s promise and then went on to talk about how important it is to share our testimonies with others because it strengths them and us. It was a powerful lesson and I feel very strongly that she is one step closer to being open to the lessons again. She also committed to start coming to church at least twice a month. How exciting!
This past week we also went camping with the priesthood quorum. President gave us allowance because we were bringing one very new member and two less actives, all of which are around the same age. In total there were 11 of us. We got to the beach kind of late, so we had to set tents up in the dark, which was a challenge due to the wind and not being able to see. However, I did see a beautiful sunset. The sunsets here are amazing! I think there is just enough pollutants in the air to magnify the beauty of the sun. Anyway, we made a fire and had a very nice devotional that ended up being directed at the young men and I think several things may have been said that they needed to hear. It is wonderful to be in a branch that has older members of the church with strong testimonies and positive life experiences. The next day we attempted to fish (well, they fished while Elder Ably and I took down the mess of tents and other junk that had been tossed everywhere by the wind, but at least we were contributing!), but nothing was caught. We figured out that a huge net was actually strung across the entire bay where we were fishing, making it impossible for fish to come in. Oh well! We then tried to teach them how to play ultimate Frisbee and even though they didn’t quite get it, they had a good time! In the end the activity was a success.
Ah, and more good news! Our investigator Ermal went to Vlora with all the young single adults for a big conference and he came back with some excellent friends! It just so happens that the two closes friends he made are 2 of the best, most faithful YSA kids in all of Albania. We hope that that will be yet another step that sees him towards baptism. Unfortunately we were not able to meet with him this week because he was very busy, but our regular meeting schedule will begin again with him this week. We hope that we will be able to get a baptismal date with him.
What else to talk about? Oh I remember! This week Elder Hixson (from my MTC group) and I went out on exchanges (because Elder Tracy and Elder Abley were doing death visits). Well, we did a cool thing! But allow me to preface. The day before, Elder Abley and I had been out street contacting. As we were walking to our location of contacting, we passed by a group of hippies (ok, they weren’t hippies, but they were a bunch of young kids wearing the same tee shirts, singing with a guitar, that’s pretty hippy in my book). We did not got far before we stopped and began trying to talk to people. Well one of the group of hippies started handing out pamphlets to people sitting on the benches and then came up to us. Turns out he is from Portugal and was here on a mission trip with the 7th day Adventist church. He told us about a cultural event they were having the following night and invited us. Well, I wanted to go and represent the true church of Christ! So that is what Elder Hixson and I did and it was a really excellent service! They had a theology professor speak and he was talking about how Muslims and Christians believed in the same God. He had some good things to say and some good points, but he missed the memo that Albanians have the One God idea down to a science. It is the biggest excuse to not let you in, to not listen to you, and to harden their hearts that they employ! That’s ok though, the mission trip group sang beautifully and we were extremely warmly welcomed, which was a nice change of treatment from another religious sect. As we left, Elder Hixson and I overtook one of the girls from the group walking with an Albanian friend she had made. As we passed, she said something to us, so we stopped and talked to her and praised her for how beautiful they had sung, along with other things, After talking to her for a minute or two, we had to dismiss ourselves because we had to hightail it across Tirana. As we turned to walk away, she turned to her friend and said in relative surprise “wow, they were really nice!” she will now have a more positive attitude and outlook on Mormons. All in all, I feel like the night was successful, I think we really left a positive impression on a number of people by attending .
Anyway, that is all for this week! Thank you all for your prayers and your support. I miss you all, I love you all very much. You are in my prayers! This is the Lords work, I know it without a doubt. Until next week, may God be with you!
Love
Elder Scadden
I am exhausted! I hope that this email will still be good. This week was a very fast week. We had District Leader Training on Tuesday (even though I am not a DL, I still go to the training because my companion is). We talked a lot about accountability, which is an important part of missionary work, however we discussed it an extremely long time. I think accountability definitely needs to be improved a little, but what I am realizing about the struggles the mission is having has a lot more to do with us as missionaries and not because of procedure. We, as missionaries, need to be fundamentally trying to improve and gain greater companionship from the spirit. It is a shame, but, as with the last group that went home, the mission is kind of gritting its teeth and just toughing it out until this group goes home. Most of them have decided to quit so close to the end rather than finishing strong. Dad once sent me a quote that said something like this: A weak ending ruins the entire journey. That is very strong language, but it really is unfortunate to see the side effects of their quitting. All I can learn, I suppose, is to NOT be like that. How I hope that that does not happen to me. I do apologize, my morale is somewhat down today. Do not worry though, the Lord will help me and grant unto me strength. I just need to change my attitude and not think about the negative things that are going on…. LOL meaning that I probably shouldn’t even email home about them. It will be wonderful to get new blood soon, I think it will be so revitalizing. But, despite all this, I am excited to be here! Albania is a wonderful place, a crazy place. There are many people who are ready for the gospel and I need to remember why I am here. It is for a reason that far exceeds my own wants or desires. Ok, enough complaining!
Good news: Shpetim Shima, he is the man who's 2 kids were baptized a couple weeks ago. His wife is not a member, but we really feel like she is warming up to the gospel. She had received all the lessons at one point, but was very skeptical of organized religion because of some run ins that she had with J-dubs. Now, after the baptism of her children, her interest is being rekindled. I believe it helps that Vellai Shima is a very strong and faithful member who continues to progress. Last night it came out that they have family prayer (which is outstanding, I am sure there are many families throughout the church that need to do that!) every night and that the Mom reminds them if they have forgotten to have it (she obviously joins them also). It is really wonderful. So last night we went over to their house and watched something called Deshmi 2, which is a youtube video (if you don’t think you fully know how Albanian sounds, check it out!). The video is about 7 minutes long and is simply some of Albania's greatest members bearing testimony of the simple truths of the gospel. It is a powerful film! Afterwards we discussed the importance of gaining a testimony through Moroni’s promise and then went on to talk about how important it is to share our testimonies with others because it strengths them and us. It was a powerful lesson and I feel very strongly that she is one step closer to being open to the lessons again. She also committed to start coming to church at least twice a month. How exciting!
This past week we also went camping with the priesthood quorum. President gave us allowance because we were bringing one very new member and two less actives, all of which are around the same age. In total there were 11 of us. We got to the beach kind of late, so we had to set tents up in the dark, which was a challenge due to the wind and not being able to see. However, I did see a beautiful sunset. The sunsets here are amazing! I think there is just enough pollutants in the air to magnify the beauty of the sun. Anyway, we made a fire and had a very nice devotional that ended up being directed at the young men and I think several things may have been said that they needed to hear. It is wonderful to be in a branch that has older members of the church with strong testimonies and positive life experiences. The next day we attempted to fish (well, they fished while Elder Ably and I took down the mess of tents and other junk that had been tossed everywhere by the wind, but at least we were contributing!), but nothing was caught. We figured out that a huge net was actually strung across the entire bay where we were fishing, making it impossible for fish to come in. Oh well! We then tried to teach them how to play ultimate Frisbee and even though they didn’t quite get it, they had a good time! In the end the activity was a success.
Ah, and more good news! Our investigator Ermal went to Vlora with all the young single adults for a big conference and he came back with some excellent friends! It just so happens that the two closes friends he made are 2 of the best, most faithful YSA kids in all of Albania. We hope that that will be yet another step that sees him towards baptism. Unfortunately we were not able to meet with him this week because he was very busy, but our regular meeting schedule will begin again with him this week. We hope that we will be able to get a baptismal date with him.
What else to talk about? Oh I remember! This week Elder Hixson (from my MTC group) and I went out on exchanges (because Elder Tracy and Elder Abley were doing death visits). Well, we did a cool thing! But allow me to preface. The day before, Elder Abley and I had been out street contacting. As we were walking to our location of contacting, we passed by a group of hippies (ok, they weren’t hippies, but they were a bunch of young kids wearing the same tee shirts, singing with a guitar, that’s pretty hippy in my book). We did not got far before we stopped and began trying to talk to people. Well one of the group of hippies started handing out pamphlets to people sitting on the benches and then came up to us. Turns out he is from Portugal and was here on a mission trip with the 7th day Adventist church. He told us about a cultural event they were having the following night and invited us. Well, I wanted to go and represent the true church of Christ! So that is what Elder Hixson and I did and it was a really excellent service! They had a theology professor speak and he was talking about how Muslims and Christians believed in the same God. He had some good things to say and some good points, but he missed the memo that Albanians have the One God idea down to a science. It is the biggest excuse to not let you in, to not listen to you, and to harden their hearts that they employ! That’s ok though, the mission trip group sang beautifully and we were extremely warmly welcomed, which was a nice change of treatment from another religious sect. As we left, Elder Hixson and I overtook one of the girls from the group walking with an Albanian friend she had made. As we passed, she said something to us, so we stopped and talked to her and praised her for how beautiful they had sung, along with other things, After talking to her for a minute or two, we had to dismiss ourselves because we had to hightail it across Tirana. As we turned to walk away, she turned to her friend and said in relative surprise “wow, they were really nice!” she will now have a more positive attitude and outlook on Mormons. All in all, I feel like the night was successful, I think we really left a positive impression on a number of people by attending .
Anyway, that is all for this week! Thank you all for your prayers and your support. I miss you all, I love you all very much. You are in my prayers! This is the Lords work, I know it without a doubt. Until next week, may God be with you!
Love
Elder Scadden
Monday, September 7, 2009
Once upon a time in Albania (September 7th, 2009)
Hello all from Albania!
Hi all! First I want to Shout out to my sister Heather and my niece Audrey and wish them a Happy Birthday that will be happening this week! I also wish to say Happy Anniversary to my folks! I do not know which one this is… Also, I would like everyone to consider and remember that this week 8 years ago many American lives were lost at the hands of terrorists. Remember that this is why our soldiers are abroad. Remember for who and what they are fighting and do not let the lies of politicians cause you to withdraw your support.
Most exciting thing that happened this week: I experienced my first sizable earthquake. It was about 11:30 PM. I still hadn’t fallen asleep (don’t worry, I am sleeping well, this was just a random night were I wasn’t falling asleep easily) and my bed started to freak out and everything in the room could be heard shaking as well as the whole building. Not really knowing how to respond to earthquakes, I just laid there and prayed that my 11 story apartment building would not come toppling down on us. It subsided relatively quickly. Nothing was destroyed, which was nice. It was such a strange feeling! Guess there is a first time for anything.
So it sounds like the house that I remember is changing like crazy! Dads got his man cave upstairs. The down stairs has been turned into mums room and grandma is now living were I use to live! It will look so different when I get home! That’s OK, when I left I wasn’t really sure if Jenni and I would get that apartment, but now it does indeed sound like mum and dad are planning on letting me then us stay there after my return. That is a nice thing to know! I suppose a lot could still change in a year and some months, but I’ll remain confident.
This Sunday I conferred the Holy Ghost for the first time in my life and gave my first blessing in Albanian. Soni and Angela were baptized last week and it was time for them to complete their baptism with the gift of the Holy Ghost. I had just assumed that both of them would choose elder Abley because they knew him for 9ish months and me for only 3 weeks. The thought had not even crossed my mind until 11 year old Angela looked up to me with her big bright eyes and choose me to do the conferring. I had about 5 seconds to think so I did my best to turn it all over to the lord. I think I sweat several pints of water in that two minutes but at the end I felt that, despite some grammatical errors that I had made, I had indeed given the blessing through the Holy Spirits guidance. However stressful it was in the moment, afterwards it was really quite awesome and a definite honor to confer that gift upon her. On that note, Dad I might soon have to participate in the conferring the priesthood upon some individuals and I realized that I do not have my line of Authority to give to them. I was hoping that you could send that to me, so that I would have that to give to them. Thanks!
This week has been a good week. It started off pretty bad, I just was down and I didn’t know why. I realized in the middle of last week that I had just been thinking too much about my wants and desires and not so much about the Lords will. I recommitted to following what He wants me to do. I guess every now and again we need to be reminded to keep our attitudes in the right place or that we need to be trying harder to focus on the Lords will. This is why we have GC twice a year or why we are commanded to pray often and study the scriptures over and over again. How easy it is for us to forget! Anyway, I am maintaining a much more positive and happy attitude now regardless of the fact that today I have been missing family and future wife like crazy today. I miss you all pretty much all the time but it is not a home sickness feeling. Only every now and again does it get intense to where it actually interferes with how I feel over all. Does that make sense? I suppose that happens from time to time! But I already feel much better than earlier in the day. The Lord is ever blessing me!
A really horrible Metalica remake just came on the radio. Why do people have to ruin good songs? A women who doesn’t even have a good voice cannot take a wonderful Metalica song and liberally change it how she desires. You get a lot of this sort of music in Albania. Good songs taken, murdered horribly from their original goodness, and then represented as some sort of undead creature and they expect people to like it.
So in missionary work we work with a lot of numbers and names. I suddenly had the thought this week “was I ever a number or a name in a missionaries planner?” I can think of a period of time in my life when I very well might have been. Its kind of a weird thought. I know that I was more than just a number or a name, if I was one of those things in a planner, but the thought is still strange, now seeing how everything is done.
Oh I got my package from Mum and Dad! Thanks for the CDs and the Starbursts. It came just in time, all of the goodies I got from Jenni are starting to run out, with exception to the peanut butter, which I am trying to make last. I am looking forward to listening to the CDs. Its so hard to believe that it is already time for next conference! Crazy!
Dad asked me recently for a language update and I really didn’t give a good one. I don’t give myself a good rating on my language, so let me give one from someone else's perspective. Several people have told me recently I am doing great and they think my greatest asset is how confidently I speak and how I am never afraid to try to say what I have to say. They say that because I speak with a loud, clear, confident voice that even if I am saying something really grammatically incorrect, Albanians understand it because they aren’t second guessing what they think you are trying to say because you are second guessing it. So I guess that is a very good thing to be. I am still really bad at this language but the Lord is constantly helping me to improve and teaching me daily.
Well, I hope you all are doing well. Thank you all for your emails, letters, prayers, and all the support that you give me. I miss you all, I love you all very much. I remember you all in my prayers. I know this is the Lords work. He is watching over it and He is sending his angels to help us. I hope I can do what He wishes for me to do. Until next week, which is already almost here. Weeks here begin and end like the passing of only a day. Strange how time does not really exist here.
May God be with you all!
Love,
Elder Scadden
Hi all! First I want to Shout out to my sister Heather and my niece Audrey and wish them a Happy Birthday that will be happening this week! I also wish to say Happy Anniversary to my folks! I do not know which one this is… Also, I would like everyone to consider and remember that this week 8 years ago many American lives were lost at the hands of terrorists. Remember that this is why our soldiers are abroad. Remember for who and what they are fighting and do not let the lies of politicians cause you to withdraw your support.
Most exciting thing that happened this week: I experienced my first sizable earthquake. It was about 11:30 PM. I still hadn’t fallen asleep (don’t worry, I am sleeping well, this was just a random night were I wasn’t falling asleep easily) and my bed started to freak out and everything in the room could be heard shaking as well as the whole building. Not really knowing how to respond to earthquakes, I just laid there and prayed that my 11 story apartment building would not come toppling down on us. It subsided relatively quickly. Nothing was destroyed, which was nice. It was such a strange feeling! Guess there is a first time for anything.
So it sounds like the house that I remember is changing like crazy! Dads got his man cave upstairs. The down stairs has been turned into mums room and grandma is now living were I use to live! It will look so different when I get home! That’s OK, when I left I wasn’t really sure if Jenni and I would get that apartment, but now it does indeed sound like mum and dad are planning on letting me then us stay there after my return. That is a nice thing to know! I suppose a lot could still change in a year and some months, but I’ll remain confident.
This Sunday I conferred the Holy Ghost for the first time in my life and gave my first blessing in Albanian. Soni and Angela were baptized last week and it was time for them to complete their baptism with the gift of the Holy Ghost. I had just assumed that both of them would choose elder Abley because they knew him for 9ish months and me for only 3 weeks. The thought had not even crossed my mind until 11 year old Angela looked up to me with her big bright eyes and choose me to do the conferring. I had about 5 seconds to think so I did my best to turn it all over to the lord. I think I sweat several pints of water in that two minutes but at the end I felt that, despite some grammatical errors that I had made, I had indeed given the blessing through the Holy Spirits guidance. However stressful it was in the moment, afterwards it was really quite awesome and a definite honor to confer that gift upon her. On that note, Dad I might soon have to participate in the conferring the priesthood upon some individuals and I realized that I do not have my line of Authority to give to them. I was hoping that you could send that to me, so that I would have that to give to them. Thanks!
This week has been a good week. It started off pretty bad, I just was down and I didn’t know why. I realized in the middle of last week that I had just been thinking too much about my wants and desires and not so much about the Lords will. I recommitted to following what He wants me to do. I guess every now and again we need to be reminded to keep our attitudes in the right place or that we need to be trying harder to focus on the Lords will. This is why we have GC twice a year or why we are commanded to pray often and study the scriptures over and over again. How easy it is for us to forget! Anyway, I am maintaining a much more positive and happy attitude now regardless of the fact that today I have been missing family and future wife like crazy today. I miss you all pretty much all the time but it is not a home sickness feeling. Only every now and again does it get intense to where it actually interferes with how I feel over all. Does that make sense? I suppose that happens from time to time! But I already feel much better than earlier in the day. The Lord is ever blessing me!
A really horrible Metalica remake just came on the radio. Why do people have to ruin good songs? A women who doesn’t even have a good voice cannot take a wonderful Metalica song and liberally change it how she desires. You get a lot of this sort of music in Albania. Good songs taken, murdered horribly from their original goodness, and then represented as some sort of undead creature and they expect people to like it.
So in missionary work we work with a lot of numbers and names. I suddenly had the thought this week “was I ever a number or a name in a missionaries planner?” I can think of a period of time in my life when I very well might have been. Its kind of a weird thought. I know that I was more than just a number or a name, if I was one of those things in a planner, but the thought is still strange, now seeing how everything is done.
Oh I got my package from Mum and Dad! Thanks for the CDs and the Starbursts. It came just in time, all of the goodies I got from Jenni are starting to run out, with exception to the peanut butter, which I am trying to make last. I am looking forward to listening to the CDs. Its so hard to believe that it is already time for next conference! Crazy!
Dad asked me recently for a language update and I really didn’t give a good one. I don’t give myself a good rating on my language, so let me give one from someone else's perspective. Several people have told me recently I am doing great and they think my greatest asset is how confidently I speak and how I am never afraid to try to say what I have to say. They say that because I speak with a loud, clear, confident voice that even if I am saying something really grammatically incorrect, Albanians understand it because they aren’t second guessing what they think you are trying to say because you are second guessing it. So I guess that is a very good thing to be. I am still really bad at this language but the Lord is constantly helping me to improve and teaching me daily.
Well, I hope you all are doing well. Thank you all for your emails, letters, prayers, and all the support that you give me. I miss you all, I love you all very much. I remember you all in my prayers. I know this is the Lords work. He is watching over it and He is sending his angels to help us. I hope I can do what He wishes for me to do. Until next week, which is already almost here. Weeks here begin and end like the passing of only a day. Strange how time does not really exist here.
May God be with you all!
Love,
Elder Scadden
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