Hello people related to me and people that said people sent this to,

So far, the MTC has been great.  I started off a little behind the other missionaries in my group, but I am catching up pretty quick.  They learned to pray in Albanian by Friday last week, and I just got it down Tuesday.  Now I just need to finish preparing the first lesson of Preach My Gospel by Thursday.  Along with that, I need to be able to get to know 3 different people in Albanian for 5 minutes each.  That may be difficult.  I'll have to do quite a bit of studying today.  On Saturday I have to teach a 5 minute lesson in Albanian, so once I get this other stuff down, I will start on that.

I have almost read the first 2 chapters of Libri i Mormonit.  I have been reading the verses in English and Albanian and then trying to pick out words.  Doing this has gotten me a pretty big list.  I can usually recognize most of these words when I am reading, but I can't think of them when I try to speak for the most part.  Phrases like "And it came to pass" I have picked up rather quickly.

Probably the most difficult thing I've found with Albanian so far is trying to change the nouns.  The end of all nouns change depending on where it is in the sentence and how it's used.  I have recently heard also that instead of just a a couple possessive pronouns like my, their, his, etc, they have 48.  At least, that's what the teacher said until he remembered that they had gender.  So really there are 96.  That could be difficult, but I will probably need to know a lot more than 96 words anyways, so it shouldn't be too bad.

Yesterday, we went to a devotional where L. Tom Perry spoke to us.  It was really good.

Anyways, I think the beds here are designed so that you have to wake up at 6:30 am or earlier.  The first night I slept fine, I assume because of the plane ride and everything.  Last night, every time I seemed to get sound asleep, an action-packed dream would wake me up.  I blame the bed.  I was pretty much already awake by the time my alarm went off.  I felt pretty good after I got dressed and everything, so I decided I must have gotten enough sleep somehow.

Today we went to the Provo temple, and that was great.

I have 2 companions.  One is from Florida, and the other is from France.  I bet I could relate quite a bit to the French companion, that is, if I could communicate with him.  He doesn't understand much English, and I don't think he understands Dutch.  I'll have to ask him if he does.  He's trying to learn Albanian in English, kind of like what Ashley and Brandon and everybody was doing with French in Belgium.  They had headsets for him at the temple and for the devotional, and they looked much more comfortable than the ones we had.

Now, I am out of things to say, and my time left is blinking at me, so I assume that means that either I should get off soon, or the computer is about to explode.  I think it's safe to say it is the first one.

Tot ziens,
Elder Wallentine

P.S. Tot ziens is not Albanian.  Ananas however is still pineapple in Albanian as well, so I can now say "I am pineapple" in one more language.