Dear Family,

My companion had a couple migraines this week, so we were out of commission for like a day and a half.  I got quite a bit of studying one day where I finished Leviticus and got partway through Numbers in the Bible.  Last P-day wasn't too bad being stuck inside.  I just practiced the piano, swept, drew, scrounged the house for food, and other P-day-type activities.  We still managed to get 11 lessons for the week, which isn't too bad concerning our circumstances.  We held church in English last Sunday because nobody showed up.  We found out that one of our members is now in Italy, and the other active member may have not come because it was Easter.  It was a short meeting too because it was fast Sunday.  We were able to watch the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions of conference.  We had to go to internet cafes as we do for e-mail, so that was interesting.  The headphones were really really quiet and uncomfortable, and there was music playing and people talking all over.  It was hard to listen, but we somehow managed to drown out all the noise and got quite a bit out of conference.

The language seems to be going well.  Some people, I'm surprised how much I can understand.  I still have to guess a little about what they're saying, but I can usually respond well.  I'm also getting to be able to repeat their question in different wording so I can make sure I understand the question.  They have a really thick accent here in Shkoder, so it's hard to get used to, but it's getting better.  Some things that probably make it harder is that people shorten tons of things.  For example, "Cfare je duke bere?" can be said as "Care je tu bo?" (both C's are the weird C symbol they have that make the "ch" sound.)  They shorten participles too.  Like ndodhur, vrapuar, and pasur all change to ndodh, vrapu, and pas respectively.  It seems like just the most random things get changed, but it's not too bad.

There's this one road here in Shkoder that has been under construction for a long time and is finally finished... at least, half of it is.  It doesn't really affect our work or anything, but it looks nice.  It looks just like a normal road from home looks now.  It seems like when roads go under construction here, they are under construction for a long time.  The road from Shkoder to Tirana takes 2 hours because of the construction that is always going on there.

So, last Saturday, we got transfer calls, and I'm heading out of Shkoder back down to the south.  Elder Fahey is going to be training in Shkoder, and I'll be going with a companion who I think has been here in the country for a long time.  He was an assistant with Elder Flack before I got here in the country.  So that's fun.  Anyways, I'm going to be trekking down to Vlore, as far south as I can go.  So in my 3 months here, I will have seen both ends of the country.  I'm excited to see what it'll be like.  I hear the branch there is growing crazy fast.  Also, I hear it's a nice city.  I've heard that after being in Shkoder that it's easier to understand people from the south, so I guess I'll see about that.  Total furgon time will be 5 hours down to Vlore. It'll be 2 hours to Tirana, then 3 hours to Vlore.  I'm not sure how long the transferring process is going to take in Tirana, but we might be able to get a half a day of proselyting tomorrow.

This transfer really seemed to fly by.  It went by so much faster than my first transfer.  Probably because we actually had lessons and it was only a 6 week transfer instead of a 7 week one.  I'm kind of dreading packing all my stuff up again.  That's probably the only thing I don't like about transfers.  Maybe I'll be able to stay in Vlore for more than one transfer.  We'll see.  I'm pretty excited to go to Vlore though.  It's going to be much different.  There will be 4 elders, 2 sisters, and a senior couple down there unless something changes.  All this missionary work is getting easier and easier.  I am getting a lot better at stopping people in the street.  It's not all that strange anymore, at least for me.  It's probably still strange for everybody we stop.

Love,

Elder Wallentine