Once upon a time in Albania (July 7th, 2009)

Hello from Albania!

I hope you all are well, I do miss you all. TRANSFERS! That’s the big thing this round right? Oh, but before we get to that I just wish to SHOUT OUT to my friend Tony (hey, how is my friend Tony anyway?) and Emily, and wish them a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! (if I miss some one's birthday ever, please do not hate me, I don’t remember every one's B-days )

OK, transfers. Well, I am staying in Shkoder for another 6 months, but my pal Elder Flack has been sent to 1st branch in Tirana as Assistant to the President! What an excellent calling for him, he is such a stud! I love him dearly, we worked hard together and got along great. He will be a good assistant to the president. Elder Suell, in the other area, is getting transferred to Idaho, his next companion will likely be Lisa Rumell (roflcopter, I give him 3 months if all is indeed well when he gets home before he is married). My next companion will be Elder Hamilton, who I have had the opportunity to work with on several occasions because he has been my Zone Leader. He is awesome, and is hands down one of the two best missionaries in the mission, according to the testimonies of several, and I believe it having worked with him. We will take Shkoder by fire! He is in my year group, which means he is exactly one year older than me on my mission, so he is older than Elder Flack is. Elder Smedley (from my group) is also staying in Skhoder and his companion will be Elder Kushlon, who is also a great missionary. He will be the branch president, what a job, there is a good chance every member will reactivate for one Sunday to come and ask him for money. It is sad. Anyway, Elder Hamilton and I are super excited to be together. He has wanted to work in Shkoder for his whole mission and I was hoping that I would be sent with him for some weeks now. It is going to be an outstanding transfer! Hopefully we will really be able to get the work moving in Shkoder, and maybe prepare some people for baptism in the coming weeks.

So I heard that Lauren and Jenni got to go to the beach, it sounds like it was fun! It seems like forever since I've been to the beach. I also realized that I've missed the 4th of July 2 years in a row and will miss another one before I am home! (I was in Egypt for the last one) I hope you all had a really great time, and outstanding food. Oh how I miss good American food!

Speaking of food, those Zataran things you all sent me are amazing, we love em! The taste is so American we can hardly stand it! Very refreshing. Also, the Sees candies were well welcomed. Thank you much for the aid packages!

Dang… That’s it for my notes, lets see if I can fathom some other stuff together. OK, Mum asked me some questions that I will attempt to answer: My heath appears to be well, I am always tired, but that is what it means to be a missionary, constant tiredness. There is a difference between exhaustion and tiredness. I tend to only be exhausted when I come in at night and when I wake up in the morning, but usually after that the Lord gives me a charge that gets me through the day without any problems, don’t worry about me! Just pray for me please.

The food in Shkoder is nothing to be excited about, my favorite location is the Gelato ice cream stand, which I do not frequent too often. I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning, with some changes every now and again: 3 eggs, with a piece of buttered toast and a bowl of cereal (we found a vitamin fortified cereal that actually has taste, we were stoked!). Lunch is diverse. We do not eat dinner.

I would send a picture or two, but we are still in Tirana, and this computer place does not have card adapters.

So I recently discovered something “comforting” about the Albanian language, though I imagine it is true for a lot of languages. In our text book “Lets learn Albania” it has a line that says “Some things in the Albanian language cannot possibly be logically explained in English, and the rational behind their grammar simply does not exist, and much must be learned from a memorization approach.” LOL hilarious! That’s OK though, I definitely feel that I am progressing in the language without any issues whatsoever.

There is a talk in this past conference that I have read a number of times, I believe it is simply called “Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ”. The speaker discusses in the talk the “6 destructive D’s” which are: Doubt, Discouragement, Distraction, lack of Diligence, Disobediece, and Disbelief (they work like the path to the dark side, for those of you who know what that is). I realized recently that in the past couple of weeks I have been allowing myself to feel the first two of those D’s. I have been doubting myself, my capabilities, and my success as a missionary, and I have been very discouraged about the work in Shkoder. When I read this talk again it hit me, WOW I am not on the right road for successful missionary work! Since then I have had a revitalization for my excitement for the work, and have been praying specifically for the Lord to help me to be more positive, and more confident. It reminded me of the incident of negativity I had in the MTC. It is interesting how, if we do not watch ourselves, its easy to slowly slip into bad habits or negative thoughts or actions. I believe that is one of the reasons we have a semi-annual GC. Even though a lot of the same themes and topics are talked about, they are said differently and again, just to remind us to be firm, convicted, and ever moving forward. I am grateful that we have such excellent church leaders that we are able to hear from so often and I am eternally grateful that when I’m in a bad mood the solution is simply to get down on my knees. It ALWAYS makes the situation better. A lot of times we talk about how prayers are answered in God's time, which is true, but it amazes me how much on my mission God's time seems to be immediately after I've asked for the blessing. He is truly loving and merciful and I know that He is with me every step of the way. This is indeed his Work!

Anyway, I love you all, I miss you all. Thank you so much for the letters and messages, and support. I apologize if I do not respond enough or quickly enough, but missionary work is busy. You all are in my prayers. May God be with you all!

Love
Elder Scadden