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