Dear family,

We got transfer calls last Saturday, and I am being transferred to Shkodёr.  That is about as far from where I am now as I can get.  I've heard good things about Shkodёr and I'm pretty excited.  Today I need to pack my bags and get ready to head out.  Tomorrow, I will have a 2 hour furgon ride to Tirana where I will then get another 2 hour furgon ride to Shkodёr.  So I think I will end up getting there around 3 pm or so.  Shkodёr is where they have a really different dialect than here in the south, so that will be interesting.  My new companion will be Elder Fahey (pronounced Fay).  He's been here for about 4 1/2 months, so it'll be fun to see how different it is being with a rather new missionary compared to an older missionary that is going home after this next transfer.  I may end up speaking shkodranc or something after these next couple transfers.  We just barely closed the house in Lushnje, and we have just started settling here in Fier, so that's kind of funny.  Although, even if I would have stayed here in Fier, we would have had to move somehow because we have been looking for a new house so there aren't 4 elders crammed into the one apartment.

It may rain a little more often in Belgium than here.  I hear it rains a ton here in Albania during the winter, but not as much during the summer.  It hasn't really rained too much while I've been here, but when it does rain, it comes down consistently for several days.  It's pretty nuts.  When I first got here in the country, apparently the missionaries in Shkodёr were cut off because of flooding.  Yesterday was pretty cool.  We had 6 other people at church putting us at like 8 including me and Elder Flack.  I played the piano again and gave a talk which I think I did much better this time than last time.  I heard that the papers to close Lushnje have been filled out, but I have also heard that it could take like 3 months for the branch there to close.  Elder Flack says that he has talked to the members there and that they all seem to want the branch to close.  Although, some of them seem to have a bit of a problem with traveling to Fier for church.  It would take 45 minutes to get there, 45 minutes to get back, and 1/2 hours of church.  That would be like 3-4 hours!  Oh wait, that's how long regular church is.  It's kind of funny to listen to Elder Flack talk to them.  They make it sound horrible that they'd be spending 3 hours in order to go to church, and he says how church is typically 3 hours long anyways.

I think if the branch does end up closing, there might be a furgon organized to take them to Fier, and if that's the case, I think at least 3-4 people will come.  I think the main reason Lushnje is closing is just because the situation there has been the same for like 2-3 years.  Not much has changed in that time I guess.  I think I would like some of those McCormmick packets.  They're good for lunch on Sundays I've found since we can't really go to any restaurants or anything on Sunday.

I have found how hard weekly planning is before the week of transfers especially when we've just barely been thrown into a new area.  Anyways, Elder Fredrickson, one of the Elders in our district, was jealous to hear where I was being transfered.  I guess he really wanted to go up to Shkodёr.  He had told me how he didn't really want to go back to Tirana, but that's exactly where he ended up going.  It's kinda funny.  Elder Flack has told me that often when missionaries get what they want at transfers, they typically don't end up liking it.  I guess the president has granted some missionaries' requests to be with certain companions, and sometimes it just makes them miserable.

So I finished the Book of Mormon last week.  That was way cool.  I also decided I don't really like 4 Nephi very much.  It's not a very good part of the scriptures to read if you want to get motivated for anything.  It basically goes from everyone being all righteous and happy to everyone getting plunged into wickedness and becoming savage people.  I also found that the last 2 chapters of Moroni are kind of interesting.  Chapter 9 seemed to me to say a lot of the bad things that were happening with the Nephites and stuff, and then chapter 10 just seems to turn everything around and Moroni talks about like all the spiritual gifts and whatnot.  It's kind of cool.

I have started reading the Doctrine and Covenants, and I am now at section 34 I think.  Last Wednesday the 17 was Kosovo's Independence day.  My companion randomly brought that up when we were planning.  I guess it's been a country for 2 years now.  That's kind of cool.  I guess people there are basically Albanian by blood or something, so that's cool.

Yesterday for lunch, Elder Fredrickson made these Fahitas or something which was cool to have some kind of Mexican food.  They don't really have that here.  Oh yeah, just today, we went to this mall-type thing, and compared with the stores I've been to up to now, it seemed huge.  It is tiny compared to like the mall in Boise, but it looked pretty big to me.

The transfer calls were probably the highlight of the week.  It's kind of funny; it seemed almost like Christmas.  It's good to know that there is stuff like that that can bring excitement to us missionaries.  Although, this last transfer, I guess not many people got moved around.  Most places just stayed the same.  I just swapped areas with one missionary, then 3 elders rotated around and the 3 sisters from my MTC group rotated around as well.  Elder Flack was an assistant pretty recently, so it was kind of interesting to hear how transfers work out and everything.  Last night, we talked to a couple Muslims about religion, and although I was able to somewhat follow the conversation, it was hard to understand a lot of it.  Although like 70% of the people in Albania are Muslim, most of them don't really practice the religion.  These two guys were pretty strong Muslims though.  It's kind of fun here in Albania.  We get to hear the prayer calls 5 times each days from the Mosques.  The Mosque here in Fier is pretty huge.

A fun Albanian word I learned was qullac (choo-lah-ch).  When you say this to someone, it basically is like calling them a softy or a mama's boy, but it means vegetable pie.  That was pretty funny.  There are also shirts here that have English words on them, but they make no sense at all.  I can't think of any examples at the moment, but it's pretty funny.

Well, I think that's all that has been going on this past week.  Next week you'll probably hear about how Shkodёr is.

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Hey family,

So this past week has been pretty crazy.  Last Tuesday, after our interviews with the President Neil, he decided that he was going to start trying to close Lushnje.  So this past week we have been in the process of moving our stuff to Fier.  Fier has some awesome food.  There's this place called pizza roma that is so good.  They have these pizzas that they fold in half and give to you, and they're only a buck.  I usually get two when we eat there.  There's a lot more variety of food in Fier than Lushnje, although the suflaqe place in Lushnje did have bigger suflaqes.

Last Wednesday, I was on exchanges with one of the Fier elders and we were in Lushnje.  We pretty much SYL'd all day.  It was crazy.  When we returned to Fier, he said how depressing Lushnje was.  Lushnje has pretty much been how my view on missionary work has been based off of, so it just seems normal to not have any appointments most of the time.

Pretty much right when we started moving to Fier, it started raining for like 3 days straight.  We're pretty much done moving our stuff now.  Next week I'm going to have to pack my stuff back up for transfers.  We're also looking for another apartment here in Fier.  The apartment we're in now is great, but it's a mess.  Last night we stayed in our Lushnje home, and it was so much cleaner.  We stayed in Lushnje this last night because we still have to come to the Lushnje branch for church.

Yesterday I played piano in church which got me out of singing.  Heh heh.  However, half the people left after the sacrament, and the 2 other people who stayed talked all through Elder Flack's talk.  That was another interesting meeting.  That night, we went to the baptism of this guy that Elder Flack had taught at some point.  Tyler and Caleb may like this part.  The guy's name was Mario.  So I got to go see Mario get baptized.  I also got to catch up with a couple friends from the MTC.

I was a little worried at some point this transfer that I would meet up with the other MTC missionaries and that they'd all be fluent while I was struggling along.  Yesterday I heard one of the missionaries get up and speak, and it made me feel better that we're all having similar struggles with the language.  Elder Moyes told me how when he'd be struggling with the language that he'd picture me being fluent already.  I think he thinks I'm better at the language than I am.  He also told me that him and some other missionary started saying "Falemenderit pёr kokёn tёnde" which means "Thank you for your head" instead of "Falemenderit pёr kohёn tёnde" which means "Thank you for your time" to another missionary in the MTC group.  It took him a while to figure it out.  It was funny.

This last Saturday we had a Valentine's party in the Fier branch.  That morning, while our companions were in a branch presidency meeting in Tirana, Elder Fredrickson and I prepared for the party all morning, then that night, we all had the party.  I got to see some Albanian dancing which is basically doing different stepping moves while holding hands in a circle.  Elder Flack and I gave a short spiritual thought beforehand, and it went pretty good.

Yesterday at Mario's baptism, I met these kids who enjoyed my last name.  People pronounce it as Valentine pretty much, so they enjoyed meeting Elder Wallentine on Valentine's day.  Last week when we went to Berat, we found this giant sculpture of a head.  Elder Flack and Fredrickson both tried climbing it.  I got a couple fun pictures.

I think I have been eating more food as of late, mostly because I realized that we have more money than I thought we had.  So I'm able to eat well out here.

Oh yeah, there are these things that my companion has had that are pretty handy.  His mom sent him some packages of these McCormick food package things.  Some of them are really good.  The packages make the sauce, and then we cook noodles, meat, and just put it all together.  They have been rather handy.

Some new food I've had, is there's this pudding stuff we had at a member's house one night that was delicious.  I don't know what it's called, but it was way good.  I also found these cakes that are really really good, and are only like a dollar fifty.

I've heard that in Michigan there's a statue of a guy named Shkёnder Beju or something I think.  He was this Albanian general guy that is way awesome.  I guess there are a lot of Albanians around there, so it makes sense.  It's just pretty funny.

This week we will be spending all week in Fier, but Elder Flack and I have to return to Lushnje twice a week for church and to visit members.  So I guess just most of the week will be in Fier. There might be a chance that I'd stay in Fier this next transfer, but I guess we'll see about that.

I think I may be taking out money soon to buy some new luggage.  It all got pretty banged up on the plane ride over, and now it's pretty destroyed.  One of the handles that pull out to make it easier to drag around has completely broken out as we were moving to Fier.  Luckily, I hear luggage here is probably cheaper than in the US. 

I will try to send some pictures home as soon as I can.  First, I'm going to have to figure out how to get my pictures from my camera onto an email or something.  I just got about halfway through 3 Nephi this morning, so I think I should have the Book of Mormon finished by the end of my first transfer here.  That'll be cool.  I'll probably start on the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price next.  At the pace I'm going, I think I might be able to finish the standard works by my first year out here.  That is, if I can manage to get past Leviticus and Numbers in the Old Testament.  I remember the last time I tried reading the Old Testament, those two books started making it so I wasn't able to pay attention to what was going on anymore.

I learned how to make crepes the other day.  They're pretty simple and fast.  It's great.  One day in a furgon, there was this strange music that was like a mix of traditional Albanian music and folk metal.  It was weird.  Anyways, I think that's the last thing I wanted to write home about.

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Dear Family,

When we don't have water, we pretty much just go about our day normal leaving out everything that has anything to do with water.  So we can't really shower or anything.  We found a big jug of water under the sink the other day, so for those days when we don't have water, we just use that to like wash our hands and whatnot.  I don't think we've had a problem with it this past week which has been pretty nice.  When we do have water we always seem to have enough warm water.  It's nice.  Elder Flack says that our bathroom is probably one of the nicer ones he's had in his mission.

For meals, most of the time we just pick something up from a restaurant.  For breakfast, we usually just fix cereal, french toast, boiled eggs and stuff like that.  Sometimes our landlord's wife makes us lunch and it's always really good.  There's this stuff called like Sultiaq or something.  It is basically rice pudding, and I think it might be made almost just like how we make rice cereal at home, but I think the milk is added at a different time or something and it's served cold.  It tastes pretty much just like rice cereal at home though.

Lately, I've been reading Libri i Mormonit for part of my language study, and I think I'm starting to get my reading speed and everything up pretty good.  I realized how helpful that is when we are teaching somebody.

The branch in Lushnje is really small.  I think it used to have like 30ish people coming or something, but I hear that when a senior couple stopped being in the branch presidency that many people left.  I think the most people we've ever had at church since I've been here has been 10.  We only have 1 hour of church each Sunday, and nobody really has any callings.  There are a couple pretty strong members here so that's nice.  There aren't any children coming to church since I've been here either.

In my personal scripture study, I think I'm more than halfway through Alma now.  I haven't tried using my debit card yet, but I might try that pretty soon.  I saw this pretty cool looking scarf here that said Lushnje on it.  I've wanted to get something from my first area on my mission, so I figure that scarf probably shows it well enough.

I'm not sure exactly what I'd like for my birthday.  I don't really know how much money I have with my debit card right now, but I'm sure if I got a little money in it that it would be good for my birthday.  For food and necessities that we use MSF for, we seem to have more than enough money.  Last month, we had like $100 at least left between the two of us in MSF.  I don't think I'm going to be starving out here in Albania.

The other day, I studied a little more about hope, and I learned a lot about it.  I remember in the MTC one time we were learning about how important faith hope and charity were, but I remember wondering why hope was so important.  I always just thought of hope as "I hope this happens" which always seemed to me to be a lesser form of faith.  I'm not exactly sure how to explain it, but I learned that hope has some other meaning that makes it important.  From how I understood it, it still sounds like it is closely tied to faith.

That's awesome how dad is starting to get paid more.  It's good to know that you guys are being blessed and everything.  I could try getting some pictures to you all sometime.  We're headed to Berat today for a district trip, so maybe I'll be able to get some cool pictures for you all.

So work here in Lushnje seems like it's really slow all the time.  Last time we met with the former investigator that we found, we learned that he was only interested in the church for money.  We've gotten many contacts while we've been here, but they usually just fall through.  We meet with this inactive guy named Lorenc, and I have some hope that he could start coming back to church.  There is also this less active lady that doesn't come to church because she has to work on Sunday.  She seems to have a testimony though.  We try to meet with her, but she works a lot throughout the week, so it is really hard to get ahold of her.

Last Saturday, for an activity with the young men, we went to this Italian circus that was in town.  One guy couldn't come because his brother has been sick, but we had a good showing of 2 people out of 3.  One of them just kind of ditched us when we got there, but the other one seemed to have fun.  The one person we sat with that went with us has some mental challenges, so he's almost like a little kid.  It was really fun to see him laugh at some of the clowns and stuff.

On Friday, we got another contact while street contacting, and I'm hoping we'll be able to get ahold of him this next week.  We'll see how that goes.  Sometimes it's hard because it doesn't seem like we're having any success at all.  One good thing that could come from this, is that if I get transferred somewhere else, it could just seem that much more successful.

I have found that on preparation days that it is kind of fun to shine my shoes.  They have started looking really shiny each time I shine them.  However, we go outside, and by the end of the day, we've flicked up tons of mud and dirt all over them.  Luckily, we have like this brush thing that we can dust off all the dry mud from our shoes each time we get home.  So our shoes are able to look pretty good most of the time.

It's kind of hard to believe that I've been in Albania for a month.  It does feel like it's been forever since I was in the MTC though.  I can't decide how long it seems like I've been here in Lushnje.  Time just goes all crazy it seems.  It really just stops making any sense when you go back and try to think about it.

Anyways, I love reading letters from all of you.  Keep me updated on happenings and everything!  I appreciate all your prayers!

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the stores here.  I think it may just be because of how small Lushnje is, but there aren't really any big supermarkets.  The stores we go to are just built into these apartment things and most of them are really small.  They have those kinder egg things here, and there's a lot of similar cereals and some similar products here as in Belgium.  Anyways, one thing that is kind of confusing about the money here is they speak in old leke and new leke.  The actual numbers on the money is in new leke so the 1000 leke bill is like ten bucks.  So in new leke talk, they say "Nje mije leke" which is one thousand leke, but in old leke talk, they say "Dhjete mije leke" which is ten thousand leke.  I think they usually talk in old leke from what I've seen so far, but sometimes it is confusing.  Anyways, that's about it for that.

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

So yesterday, we lost our water again.  The sink just slowly lost pressure until no water was coming.  It started working by the end of the day though, so that was nice.  The insides of our toilet practically got vaporized due to the water in it being scalding hot, so we had to have a plumber come today to fix it, so we had to stay home until it was fixed.

It's pretty common for missionaries to be branch presidents here.  I think there are missionaries as branch presidents in 5 places including Lushnje, Fier, and Shkoder.  We visit members almost weekly, and they usually give us trosjes or just little snacks or something, but we don't really eat meals at members' houses.  Yesterday we went to see the Mati family, and usually we only end up teaching the oldest son, Joni.  Yesterday, we found out that he still hadn't applied to BYU for school, and the deadline for new students is today, so we spent our time trying to help him apply.  Unfortunately, there was so much that he hadn't done that is required that it was impossible to finish the process.  It was kind of a bummer.

I still am yet to find any food I just can't stand.  There was one cake stuff that was strange, but it seemed like it would be something I liked.  It was weird.  Anyways, Suflaqes still continue to seem to get better and better, and basically everything just tastes good.

This past week was an interesting week.  Last Tuesday, after district meeting, we went on splits with the elders in Fier.  I went to Fier, and they had the whole day planned out so we didn't have any time to just tract or street contacting as we do all the time in Lushnje.  I helped give a spiritual thought after this English course they do in Fier, but for some reason this lady just started arguing with everybody about everything.  It was pretty strange.  Elder Shields, the elder I was with, told me later that another guy in the class said that in the church, we are like Samurais.  We do the same things over and over again until we perfect them.  Then the lady blew up at him saying stuff like, "Why are you saying stuff about samurais?  I don't know anything about samurais!"  It was the strangest spiritual thought ever.

Wednesday morning, we went with the senior couple to help teach origami in some school, so that was fun.  After that, we had lunch, then I returned to Lushnje with my companion.  Our landlord then made us lunch, so I had 2 lunches that day, and was pretty stuffed.  I can't exactly remember what we did the rest of that day.  I think we met with the Berhamajs.

Thursday, we went to Zone conference which took pretty much all day.  It was way cool, and I got to meet a lot more missionaries here.  I was also able to catch up with a couple people from the MTC group, so that was great.  When we got back to Lushnje, we didn't really have any time to do all that much.  I think Friday was the most normal day we had this week.  In the morning, we went street contacting, and I actually enjoyed it.  Then, we did weekly planning, and had lunch, then tracted the rest of the time out.  For some reason I just didn't feel quite as good when we went tracting, but we were able to kind of teach a lesson at one guy's door.  And when I say we, it was mostly just Elder Flack teaching the lesson because I was completely lost.

On Saturday, we were planning on going down to Fier with Skerdi and Joni (the young men in our branch) to join the Fier elders at the circus for an activity.  That was going to take up the second half of the day, but then it fell through.  So things were looking like just another full day of tracting and street contacting.  In the morning, we street contacted, which I actually enjoyed, and then at noon, we cleaned the church.  After lunch, we went tracting, and we got in this one door where we were able to teach a lesson, but they didn't end up seeming too interested in the message.  We did get one guy to tell us to return next week, so we'll see how that goes.

We got a call from this inactive member named Lorenc, and he wanted to meet with us again tonight.  I feel really good about him.  I'm thinking we might be able to reactivate him.  I think he likes meeting with us, but he works on Sundays so he doesn't come to church.  I think next time we meet with him, we're going to try to commit him to come to church one day.

Yesterday, church was kinda strange.  We had 6 people there including me and my companion, and 2 of them left after the sacrament.  So Elder Flack and the 1st counselor ended up just giving talks to me and this guy that is mentally handicapped.  So that was an interesting meeting.  Then, there was the meeting with Joni that night that I explained earlier.

So I just realized today that when I wrote about the experience in Belgium, I pretty much left out all the details about my online schooling.  I'm thinking I might have to throw those in sometime.  I just finished getting caught up through last Christmas break between my 1st and 2nd semester at USU.  Then I remembered that I had forgotten some details from 1st semester, so I went back.

My language study has gotten much more effective recently because I've started writing down vocab words that fit a theme such as family, cleaning supplies, etc.  It has helped give me motivation to learn vocab again.  I've also been reading Libri i Mormonit about 2 pages a day so I will be able to finish it within my first year here in Albania.  I'm in the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi, and it's really hard to do anything with vocab and understand what it's saying, so I have started just working on reading speed and pronunciation.  That has made reading it a little easier.  I also figured that I need to get better at reading things in Albanian, so this is helpful.

In The Book of Mormon, I just finished 2 Nephi today in personal study, and my goal for the end of this week is to make it to Mosiah.  At the pace I'm going, I think I might be able to finish Mosiah by the end of the week.

A lot of people here are interested with pictures and where we are originally from. Would it be possible to send some pictures that might be fun to show people here.  Just like of stuff I may have done before my mission.

One thing that might be fun for Caleb to know is that in the MTC, there were these 2 Hungarian elders whose first names were Caleb and Ryan.  They were both companions too.

Anyways, I think that's about the happenings of my week.  Next week is going to be normal again I think.  Meaning we're going to spend plenty of time trying to find people to teach.  Everything here has been tracted out within the past 10 months, and the Jehovah's Witnesses have tracted everywhere too.  Lots of people think we are Jehovah's Witnesses, which is kind of annoying.  Apparently thy have a pretty big following here in Albania which is surprising because lots of people really hate them here.  Anyways, I think street contacting has become my favorite finding activity recently.  Tracting has been really good every now and then, but we haven't been able to find really any new investigators yet.  I'm hoping we can get people to teach soon.

Brandon, the mission has started getting really cool.  This past week was way different than usual though.  I got to teach origami to elementary school kids in Fier with a senior couple when I was on splits with another missionary.  It was awesome.  I'm starting to understand some of what people say, but I can only get a general idea of what they are saying.  I've heard that it takes some people like 6 months to get a good hold on the language, but hopefully I can get it a little faster than that.  Anyways, I learned a couple cool words recently.  cicmic (pronounced: tseets-meets) is tic-tac-toe, and xhiro (jeer-oh) is a walk. Emily, guess what I learned the other day?  In Albanian, Dora means the hand, so Dora the Explorer is like The Hand the Explorer.  It's kind of funny.  Another thing that is kind of funny is that some people here are named Yllber (pronounced Ewl-bear) which means rainbow.  Anyways, I love you too.

Love,
Elder Wallentine