Once upon a time in Albania (Oct. 6 2009)

Hello all from Albania!

Wow another transfer is over! That is crazy! I have been on my mission for 9 months now. That is enough time to have a baby! Kristin is an excellent example. I hope mother and baby are still doing well. Hey, about this! I forgot to put this in my last email! So Elder Abley had 2 nephews born in the same week as Malachi and the crazy thing is that one of them is named Malachi as well! Crazy! So, exciting news, ROANI has been baptised with his sister Elba! How exciting is that!? I suppose if one were to count baptisms this would be my personal first that I had a large impact on. I walked in on Soni and Anxhelas but I was there from the beginning with Roani's teaching. It is awesome to see the atonement of Christ work in peoples lives. I am so blessed to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord to help bring His children His words. Next Sunday Ermal will be baptised. That is super exciting! He is so ready! And the Church will bring him so many blessings in his life. Teaching him was so simple, he has such a desire to learn. I believe it is that desire that made it so easy for him to receive an answer of the truth. He doesn’t show much emotion. He is pretty stone faced in fact but sometimes when we talk about the gospel or he sees/hears something at church you just see him light up with eagerness and excitement. I am very happy for him! It is so wonderful to see people accept the gospel of Christ into their lives. OK, let me go on before I repeat myself some more.

Wow! Training! I do not have my trainee yet. For today, tomorrow, and Thursday morning I will be with Elder Vail who is another missionary who will be opening a new area in Tirana and will be training. I could get any one of 12 Elders (since 1 is sick in the MTC and has already been assigned to a companion and one other of the 14 missionaries is a sister). I don’t really know anything about any of them. I have only seen their pictures. I do know that none of them are prior service US military. Sadface. That’s OK, I still have enough time on my mission, I may yet serve with one such person! The task of training is somewhat daunting. I feel inadequate and unprepared but I know the Lord will help me. Last week was one of those weeks were I just felt like my language got worse. I’ve had about 3 such weeks in the country. I think the Lord was just humbling me up some, just so I’d be that much more prayerful and reliant on his arm before the new missionary comes. All in all, my most apparent emotion is excitement! Its going to be awesome! It will be outstanding for my language and also for my work ethic. You will hear about him next week.

So they are putting 2 more Elders in 2nd branch. I believe that the work certainly exists to keep these elders here, the only problem is that this is no clear way to divide the branch between us due to the location of the 2 missionary houses. Tirana e re is essentially shaped like a big rectangle, a narrow, but very long rectangle. Our house is at the far left hand side of the rectangle (the left and right sides being the shorter ends and the top and bottom sides being the long ends) and in the middle of that side. The other T-re house is at the far bottom left hand corner, right at the extreme edge. So, we have a huge area extending out to the right of us, but not much above us, below us, or to the left. There is no way to divide it long ways, and if we divide it short ways that means one companionship will be traveling quite a distance everyday. We will hold a council of war to decide the best way to handle the situation, but I believe we will just be calling it free for all and have tracting zones to make sure we don’t tract over each other.

Was general conference not AWESOME? We only got to see 2 sessions, the morning sessions of both days, but I loved the talks. Elder Bednar's extremely excellent (one of those that I’ll probably write down to read for when I get home), and I particularly liked Elder Uchtdorf's and Elder Scott's talks the first session. The second morning session had good talks too, I enjoyed Bishop Burton's talk about ity attributes. Developing the attributes of Christ is so very important! If we focus on our own personal improvement in those areas, I think we will find keeping the commandments and magnifying our callings and responsibilities as members will come easily. I also learned from Elder Uchtdorf and Elder Bednar's talks that I need to tell my companions that I love them. The only companion that I tell that to often is Elder Flack but that is probably because I really do love him very much. I think, like Elder Bednar said, I tend to be embarrassed to say it and also because I don’t like to just say those words if I actually don’t mean it. However, I hope to try and do better at coming to love individuals. I know that as I continue to pray for Charity and I work on my attitude and also look for opportunities to serve others, I will gain that love for them that I want to gain. I hope you all learned a lot, it is such a blessing to learn at the feet of such inspired men.

OK, I am out of time. I love you all! I miss you all fiercely! This is the Lords work. Everyday I see His hand extended to me in love and mercy. I could not do this work without His help. Thank you all for your prayers. May God be with you!

Love,
Elder Scadden