Dear Mom,

We got some modified flight plans the other day, and apparently we are now leaving on January 6 instead of the 5th.  We were a little bummed.  That same day, we got to go on a field trip thing to get some birth certificate things.  I'm not sure why we needed them, but we did for some reason.  Anyways, our new flight plan, we leave Salt Lake City at 6 am and arrive at Los Angeles at 6:55.  We leave there at 8:00 and arrive at Washington DC at 3:46 pm.  We then leave at 6:10 and arrive in Austria at 8:55 am where we will then leave at 10:50 am and arrive in Albania at 12:25 pm.  So we'll be doing quite a good deal of traveling.

I think we'll probably try to call when we are at Washington DC between around 4 pm and 6 pm.  I'm not sure what time that is in Idaho, but that is what time it will be in Washington DC.  We probably won't be able to talk very long since there are 8 of us in the district, so we'll probably have to keep it short.  There might still be time for everyone to get a chance to talk.

Today we took this punch ball thing Elder Smith got in one of his Christmas packages, and we filled it with water and kicked it back and forth.  It was surprisingly strong and still hasn't popped.  It made a fun noise as it bounced across the floor.

We had a fun LGM a couple weeks ago talking about rumors we may have heard about the areas we're going.  Sometimes people tell missionaries that their mission doesn't have many baptisms, and it can dash our hopes.  So to show this, they had a missionary hold balloons, and when the guy mentioned what people said about not baptizing many people, he pulled out a pin and popped all the balloons.  It was pretty fun.

Last Monday, I was going to try to break the mile record, and I felt really good about it, but when I talked to the guy, he said it had to be done outside, and we can't go outside for gym since it is snowing.  So I can't break the record while I'm here.  It was a bummer, but now I can go back to playing 4 square every day at gym.

I put the $30 of Christmas money I got from Grandpa to good use.  I must say, that the stuff I'm excited about here in the MTC is much different than what I have been excited about before.  For example, I saw this pocket book of Mormon, and I was like, that would be awesome!  Mostly because it's about the size of my planner which I am able to pull out of my pocket rather easily, and I decided that could be really fun to have with me both during the mission and afterwards.

There's this missionary progression program thing our mission president has for us to complete before the end of the MTC, and several other levels to complete throughout the first year of our mission.  If we complete each one in time, we will be able to go on a trip at the end of the mission.  It's way cool.  I think the stuff it has us doing will also be way helpful in the mission field.  I'm practically done doing everything I need to for it in the MTC, and I found out that I have already done part of the things for the first transfer in the mission.

Anyways, If you need to tell me anything before I leave, you may want to send a dearelder or something because I don't think I'll be able to check email again here at the MTC.  Which is kind of exciting.  This is like the last full Wednesday at the MTC.  I'm way excited to get to Albania.

Me Dashuri,
Love,
Të lumtë fytyrën,
Elder Wallentine

E lumtë fytyrën (May your face make you happy),
Elder Wallentine

Dear Family,

The word of wisdom lesson went ok.  We didn't prepare quite as much as we should have.  Today we are teaching the third lesson, and we've practiced it a lot more, so I think it will go much better this time.

I am planning on trying to break the mile record sometime next week.  Last week I was doing a lot of training, and this week I will be doing some training, but not too much.  Hopefully I can do it.  Last Saturday I did a time trial, and I got 5:39 for my mile with people getting in my way and slowing me down.  So as long as I can improve by next Monday or Tuesday, I should be able to do it.

I got the Christmas letter, and it was great to hear about what everyone is doing.  I just barely got the package today as well.  I haven't had too much time to look through it yet, but I'm excited.

Yesterday Elder Neil L. Anderson came and spoke to us.  It was pretty cool.  Yesterday, I started feeling a little sick, and this morning I was feeling pretty bad, but I took a couple of the flu/cold pills or something and I feel fine.

Recently I was looking through my notebook with all my vocab and whatnot, and I came across some sentences I had written early on in the MTC, and I was amazed at how simple they were.  It gave me some confidence that I'm making a lot of progress here.

In 2 weeks I should be in Albania.  That's exciting.  This will be my second to last preparation day here at the MTC.  I can't wait.  We've been told of this one place in Albania, I think it's called Shkoder or something, that many missionaries have trouble communicating with people there because their dialect is so much different.  I'd kind of like to start there, because I probably won't be able to understand too much of what people say at first anyways, so I'm not sure it would make too much of a difference.

I recently got a referral in the RC last Friday.  I was sitting there, and I got my first inbound call, and I got the guy to agree to having the missionaries bring a Book of Mormon and a DVD to him.  I'm going to call him back sometime soon to see how things are going.

I haven't been able to get ahold of any of the old investigators I had.  It's kind of a bummer.  I'm going to call them before I leave and give them a way to reach the missionaries to learn more in case they're still interested.

Some days I have found that it is hard to stay focused, especially this morning when I wasn't feeling too good.  I've noticed I feel much better when I am able to focus and get a lot done in a day.

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Hey Family,

The first lesson went pretty good.  I was able to say a lot of what I wanted to say, probably not as fast as I'd like to say it, but I was able to say it.  This week we teach the second lesson in Albanian along with the word of wisdom.  So not only do we have to learn how to teach it in Albanian, but we have to know how to incorporate the word of wisdom into it also.

I just recently found out that today was our last day to go to the temple and not last week.  So that was a nice surprise.  I'm going to miss going on a weekly basis.

Make sure Caleb knows I wish him a happy birthday.  That's great that you all got to go caroling.  I heard that in Albania, since most of the population is Muslim, they just skip Christmas, but incorporate all the traditions of Christmas into new years.  Our teacher said that they even have wreathes that say "Merry Christmas" on them, and they say they are New Years decorations.  They have New Years trees, too.

I just found out recently that I don't get to call home from the MTC on Christmas.  I heard that we get time to write letters home though.  I heard that our branch president said that we can call home in the airport or something, but I don't really know too much about that.

I just got a letter back from Elder Langston today, so that means that the letter I sent was able to reach him.  That's good, because that probably means my other letters got to my other friends in South America.  I also wrote a letter to former roommate Elder Logan Walker last week, and I got a response yesterday that was dated for Monday.  So I assume that writing somebody in the MTC only takes a day to get to the person if I am also in the MTC.  But since we both only have 1 preparation day per week, it doesn't do us too much good.

I'm not sure if there's much else that happened this past week that hasn't happened every other week.  I'm getting along with my companions pretty good, and Albanian is going pretty well.  Anyways, if anybody back at home wants to learn some specific sentence or something, go ahead and have them throw that into the email and I'll try translating it.

I thought I had finished translating "If You Could Hie to Kolob" into Albanian, but when I had my teacher look at it, he said that it was a start and that I had quite a few errors.  So I redid the first verse and had him look it over again, and he told me how I could fix it, and so I fixed it again.  I will show him tomorrow, and hopefully it is good.

Oh yeah, I recently found out that in the gym, there are a list of records for like the mile, pushups, and other things, and I decided to shoot for one of them.  This week, I started doing workouts that should help me break the mile record.  I am going to go for it in probably 2 weeks from yesterday.  I was thinking maybe I'd like to go for the pushups record too.  I don't know what the pushups record is, but yesterday I was able to do 45.  I'm going to check tomorrow and see how reasonable that is.

Well, I think that's all I have for now.  I'll write next week.  Keep things going good at home.

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Hey mom,

I just got back from the temple, and it was great.  The spirit was way strong.  I think it may be the last time I can go for the next 2 years because the Provo temple is closing until the day before we leave for Albania.  So that's a little bit of a bummer.

Anyways, I got a dear elder from Jason saying that his friend Natalie was going to be here, and I ran into her yesterday at the devotional.  That was fun.

Yesterday I got a mysterious box with my name on it in front of my room that was filled with candy, gospel stuff, a picture of the Boise, Idaho temple, and a toy robot spaceman thing.  It didn't say who it was from, so I have no idea who to thank for it.

The letters don't sound too much different than English.  And all the letters always make the same sound, so that's nice.  The language is fun, and I'm finally memorizing the past tense of verbs.  I found a really easy way to do that too.  The way I found, you only have to memorized the verb, the participle, and the You plural present form, and you have all the past forms.  That has helped my progress.

When I call people at the RC, I am always pretty nervous.  Sometimes it's really hard just to click the dial button to call people because you never know who is going to answer.  Plus, I just don't like telephones very much.

Hey Caleb, how are you today?  I miss you a lot.  I don't have anybody to play the pokemon board game with anymore.  I hope someone at home is able to play that with you or else you wouldn't be able to play it either.  I am doing good here in the MTC.  It is really cool, and I am learning Albanian really fast.  Soon I will actually be in Albania.  I don't think it snows in Albania very much, so I won't be able to make very many snowmen.  It has been snowing a lot at the MTC though.  I hope you are having fun at home.  I love you.

Hey Tyler, that's great that you're learning how to play those instruments.  One thing I should have done during piano lessons and in Belgium was practice.  Going too long without practice doesn't help very much.  Anyways, I learned how to say "My Boy" in Albanian recently.  Here you go: "Çuni im" pronounced (choo-nee eem).  Anyways, have fun at home.  I'm getting pretty antsy to get to Albania, but I still have 4 weeks.

Recently, we've been having substitutes teaching our class because Brother Krumwiede had to be in this Christmas around the World thing.  One of the teachers told us how they had a phrase in the MTC that was "Kill Babylon" which pretty much just meant not to focus on anything worldly or anything that was back at home.  We have been told several times that we need to not worry about anything at home because if we do what we are supposed to here, then our families and everything will be blessed because of it.  It seemed a lot easier to kill babylon in the first couple weeks, but it started getting more difficult.  I think I'm doing better though.

This week we teach the first lesson again in Albanian, and so that's something I probably need to work on.  We actually teach it tomorrow.  It's a little exciting but I'm a little nervous as well.

Lately, our district has set goals to speak only Albanian, and we all seemed serious and devoted to it at first, but then it just all dies down and we all speak English again.  This week, we even assigned a consequence to whoever spoke the most English.  That worked for half of Monday.  It makes it more difficult to speak Albanian when nobody seems to have the drive to do it.  I'm going to try to do a lot better at SYL, so maybe they will be able to do it as well.  None of our goals seem to mean too much come preparation day each week, and they all just kind of die off.  It's kind of disappointing.  I have gotten a little annoyed at times because it seems like some of my input is just tossed aside by some people.  I'm getting better at not being quite as annoyed with those things though.

Anyways, I think our companionships are the way they are for a reason.  I can relate with Elder Castro-Guzman quite a bit, which really helps now that we can somewhat communicate.  It seems like Elder Smith has a hard time relating with us though, and sometimes it seems like he is annoyed with us (and not for the same reason Logan was typically annoyed with me and john).  I think this will help teach us both patience and how to feel the spirit more often.

Recently Elder Moyes' companion was sent to quarantine, so Elder Smith jumped at becoming his new companion.  He was so excited, he didn't really tell anyone else.  Luckily, we caught on pretty quick when he just randomly disappeared.

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Thanksgiving was great, and Elder Holland came and answered a couple questions that people had written down and given to their branch presidents here at the MTC.  He answered each one in depth, so he only answered 3, but it was great.  I hear that a member of the 12 is supposed to speak to us on holidays, so maybe I'll be able to hear one more before I leave the MTC.  That would put me at hearing from 4 while I am here.

I was able to memorize 200 words last week, but I decided that doing that every week isn't a good idea.  There's still a lot of other stuff I need to be learning other than vocab, like verb conjugations and whatnot that I decided not to focus all my language study to vocab.  I'm getting better at being able to conjugate verbs.  It's tough though.  In Spanish there are -ar, -er, -ir, and irregular verbs, in dutch there are regular and irregular verbs, then in Albanian, there's oj, ej, aj, as, es, consonant, vowel, passive reflexive, and a whole lot of irregulars.  In past tense there are so many irregulars it's not even funny.  There are 2 different past tenses as well.  Simple where it only happens once in the past, and imperfect where it was like a process in the past.  Imperfect is pretty easy because almost all verbs conjugate the same once you know the present tense.

I have followed up with the lady from NC a couple times.  I need to call her again probably on Friday.  I got another investigator last Friday.  I found him on a chat, and he is able to send emails to a certain address where I can read it and reply to him.  I sent him a Book of Mormon as well as a number to reach the missionaries at.  He sounded really interested.

I have recently decided that after my mission I am going to want to relearn a couple languages. I think I should be able to get back in to dutch and Spanish rather easily since I have learned a lot about both languages before, so I think that's one thing I'd like to do after my mission.  Although, I would also like to learn Japanese at some point as well.  I found out that I could get a Japanese Book of Mormon, hymn book, and 501 verbs book for like $25 before a discount.  I didn't get it, but if I ever did, I'd probably just have it packed away or something until I get home.  Right now my focus is on Albanian, so unfortunately these other things will have to wait.

I was also wondering if somebody could get on Facebook or something and find a couple addresses for me.  I'd like to be able to write Max Olsen, one of my roommates that is now on a mission; Ty Henrie; and Arne.  If somebody could check that for me, that would be great.

Brother Krumwiede, one of our teachers, read this letter from a missionary in Albania that had some advice for us.  The missionary said that we should study the first principles and ordinances of the gospel more in depth before coming out into the field.  So, this week, I somewhat dedicated my personal study to studying faith.

The other day, I was working on memorizing the mission scripture, 3 Nephi 5:13, in English and Shqip (Albanian) and when I was seeing if they had the Albanian Book of Mormon online, I got curious and looked at it in Dutch.  I was amazed how much of it I understood.  But again, I'll brush up on dutch after my mission or something.

Make sure you tell Jason happy birthday for me.  I just got a letter from him.

In like 3 days, I will only have 1 month before I will leave for Shqipëria (Albania) so that's exciting.  Although, I will only be able to go to the temple like 2 more times because it will be closed from December 19 to January 4.

I think this week I have been kinda slacking with learning vocab.  Mostly because on Monday I was focusing on verb conjugations, and Tuesday we hardly have any MDT at all.  I think I'll work on that sometime today.  Although I should probably work on my lesson for tomorrow.  Tomorrow Elder Smith and I teach our first lesson in Albanian at the TRC.  It's exciting.  I think we can do it.

I bought a pocket hymnbook from the bookstore the other day, and I tried translating "If You Could Hie to Kolob" into Albanian, and I got the last 2 and a half verses translated.  That was the easy part since it's basically the same thing over and over again.

Everyone have fun and everything.

Love,
Elder Wallentine