Once upon a time in Albania (November 30th 2009)

Hello all from Albania!

I hope you all are well, I miss you all. HILARIOUS PICTURE WITH MY FACES!!! Lolololol. I view this as a gift, thank you all for including me in Thanksgiving, I am going to keep these. I also wish to congratulate Tony on his team's victory over mine, State is doing bad this year. It is not so bad of a blow since VT is my second team, thanks to tony, so at least someone I like won the game. So I hope thanksgiving was an excellent meal and a good time. Our thanksgiving was excellent, good food and a fun time but it still was nothing like our mighty Scadden family thanksgivings. The sisters did a bunch of decorations and they asked me what I was thankful for, for the purpose of writing it down on some random paper cutouts and they said it could not involve my family or Jenni, or religion so what do you think I said? The U.S. Army! Elder Esplin and I had a good time together discussing such things during dinner. Our meal was pretty standard, turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. There was a large variety of desserts. It might surprise all of you but I actually made a cheesecake, a very large cheesecake, and it was completely devoured and got good reviews from all. The only issue was that it didn’t chill quite long enough so it was a little runny. Pretty amazing for a first time. We then watched this new Pixar movie called Up. Apparently it did very well? I enjoyed it, it was a good movie, except for how sad it was. In the first 7 minutes they just break your heart and they whole rest of the time you are waiting for it to be repaired and it doesn’t really happen. So we didn’t get our football, but I approve of the alternative.

In Dad's last email he asked me how my Mission President felt about my army recruiting efforts. Well, I really don’t know. Usually though he likes missionaries to have something of a plan when they are going home and I feel that by encouraging them to look into the military it gives them some semblance of potential paths they might take when they get home. I am surprised by how many people have no idea what they are going to do when they get off their missions! I suppose that is a lucky thing about ROTC and having a beautiful future wife, 2 of the biggest post mission problems are well on their way to being solved. It doesn’t work too well on Elder Seevers, he just wants to live in the middle of nowhere Nevada and be a baseball coach at a high school.

The work is slowing down a bit as I suppose is to be expected when your investigators get baptised. Donald's parents continue to be stalwartly opposed to his baptism but Grej and Kejn are now members! That is very exciting. Their mom is learning from us but we had a somewhat disheartening lesson on the Word of Wisdom. She is convinced that red wine is good for you and that there is no alternative. I don’t care what doctors say it does for your heart! The best doctor, the creator of all and most professional and educated of all scientists insists that we do not drink it and He also gives us a promise far greater than any doctor could promise about any diet. We will continue to pray for her and to hope that her heart will soften.

So I have been studying the Old Testament with the LDS college student manual. I have been thoroughly enjoying it. The strict punishments exacted in the Law are pretty intense. I would have been executed years ago for blasphemy or for trespassing the Sabbath. However, I have learned that the Law of Moses is so much more than a list of laws that exact harsh punishments. The law constantly points towards Christ and His coming. Within the law there is also much instruction on what we need to do to be better, not just things that we should not do (though personally, I find DO NOT DO laws pretty great because it tends to be more difficult to find gray areas in keeping them and also it is more difficult to justify not keeping them). I also do not think so badly of the Children of Israel anymore, now that I have been reading their account. Previously I always thought they were the most hardened, illogical, completely stupid people in the history of the world, seeing right before their eyes the manifestations of God and still hardening their hearts. I now realize that while they fell short of the blessings God wanted to give them (I.E. appearing to them that they might see Him with their own eyes) , they still were quite faithful and even were so excited to build the tabernacle that they had to be commanded to stop contributing gold and silver because they just had much more than was needed. From the example of the patriarchs and Moses I am learning a great deal about the mercies of God and the diligence of His servants in fulfilling His commandments. The Old Testament has much more value than I ever thought it did.

Ok, so this is a pretty lame email, I hope that next weeks will be better. Thank you all for your emails, your prayers and your support. This is the Lords work and I feel blessed to be a part of it. I miss you all, and I love you. Until next week, may God bless you!

Love
Elder Skadi