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