Hey mom,

I got the watch and goodies yesterday.  Thanks a lot.  Tell Caleb he picked good treats for me.  A while ago, I also got a package from Uncle Eric and Aunt Lisa with letters from their whole family and a bunch of treats.  So now I have accumulated a ton of goodies in my drawer.  Tell them thanks for me.  I'll try to send a letter back to them if I have enough time.

So, I have the whole song of "Let Us All Press On" memorized in Albanian except for the third line of the third verse.  Along with that, I can sing the first two verses at a reasonably good pace.  That's pretty exciting.

We just learned how to use these things called clitics in class.  These things are way cool because they let you eliminate at least half of the sentence.  For example:  I gave the book to him.  In it's full form, it will be Unë ia jap librin atij.  However, we can shorten it to "ia jap" which technically means I gave it to him, but most of the information is still included in that.  If I really want to specify that I am giving a book, it would be "ia jap librin" but otherwise I don't need it.

Yesterday at the devotional, we got to hear Elder Dallin H. Oaks talk.  It was pretty awesome.  That's the 2nd apostle from the Quorum of the Twelve I've heard talk here at the MTC.  I hear that Elder Holland is supposed to come speak to us on Thanksgiving, so that would be really cool.

For this week, me and Elder Moyes, another elder in my district, set a goal to learn 200 words this week.  So far, I have 80 down.  We figured that if we learned 20 words every day except Sunday and Friday, then that would give us 100.  Then, on Friday, we have tons of MDT, so we will try 100 words then.  I think we can do it.  On Monday, I learned like 58 words, and yesterday I learned 22 so I could have an even 80 words down.  So if I learn 20 words today, I will already be half way done.

I have also been able to incorporate better sentences in Albanian because of the new grammar principles we've been learning.  I think Albanian is probably the funnest language I have learned so far.  There's so many cool things about it.  Some of those cool things make it difficult, but I think it's coming along.  One thing that makes it a little easier than dutch is it doesn't have like 8 vowel sounds that sound the same.  Instead there's just y and u that both make different "oo" sounds, and then dh and th that make different "th" sounds.  Y sounds more like ew, and u sounds like a long u sound.  Th is like in path, and dh is like in the.  The hardest one is the l and ll.  They both sound the same to me.  When you say the l sound, you have to have your tongue back further and it sounds lighter somehow.

I'm getting to be able to communicate with Elder Castro-Guzman better.  His English has improved a ton, and he's slowly making progress in Albanian.  Today we taught him how to use clitics, but we had to teach him all the different pronouns first so it would make sense.  There are a ton of different pronouns.  That's one of the things that makes it a little difficult.

I learned a couple more sentences that could be fun to say.  My favorite one lately has been "Ti po pi" (Tee po pee) which means you are drinking.  I like to say that whenever a companion takes a drink and I happen to see it.  My favorite words are probably shkatërroj, jashtëzakonisht, and çamçakëz which mean to destroy, exceedingly, and gum respectively.

Last Sunday, I called a lady back for the first time, and I was going to teach her just a little bit about the Book of Mormon, and it seemed like everything she said was a perfect set up to teach the restoration.  She was saying how all these different "prophets" send her mail saying to donate money, and she was saying how it was hard to tell if there was any truth in any of these churches because it seemed like all they wanted was money.  I committed her to read 3 Nephi 11 and pray about it, then she asked for the address of the nearest church building, so hopefully she can make it on Sunday.  She said she attends church almost every Sunday, she just doesn't know what religion the church is that she goes to.  She also said that she didn't feel anything when she went to the church she's been going to.  Hopefully she decides to go to church on Sunday.

Something cool about her is that she happens to live in North Carolina where Rick is.  I'm not sure if she's in his area, but that would be way cool if she was.

Anyways, you'd probably be happy to know that I've been able to make my bed every day unlike at home.  I also am able to practice the piano every now and then.  I almost have hymn 243 down on the piano, but not quite.

Love,
Elder Wallentine