Dear family,

So I think I have mentioned 7 year-old Daniel before.  Well, we are teaching his older brother Ketjon, and as of today, we have met their other 2 brothers, Domaniko and Laert.  They are all always smiling.  It's crazy.  I guess Elder McGlothin and his previous companion had been trying to meet with Daniel's mom for quite a while, and now we've met the whole family.  The mom came to church on Sunday, and Ketjon said something about us going to his house sometime.  That would be way cool.  The sisters had asked their mom if they could meet her at her house, but she replied with "avash avash" (slowly slowly).  However, if Ketjon wants us to come over to teach them, how can they refuse?  That would be way cool.  I think they would be a way good family in the church.

We had a primary activity for all the kids in Albania on Saturday.  We weren't going to go, but we had some investigators who couldn't go unless we went, so we went.  However, their mother is extremely protective of them, so they still didn't end up being able to come.  That was a bummer.  Their neighbors however did come, and after these kids' baptismal interview last friday, those kids became new investigators.

This is a pretty cool story.  This Parime lady had been going to church for a long time, and at first just wanted money, but one day, she approached the elders and said she believed it was true.  So she started learning and just recently got baptized and confirmed.  Before her baptism, we started teaching her twin boys at their house.  Then, as we met more often, they have been bringing friends to almost every lesson.  Now we are teaching her sons (Parid and Parold), their friends, (Olti and Kristi), Kristi's sister, and another neighbor girl.  We are going to ask Kristi and Olti if we can meet with their families one day.  That would be way cool.  So potentially, we have 3 families we could start teaching.

In church, between all of us missionaries, we had 10 investigators in church, and a total of 69.  It was also quieter than usual as well.  Although we are going to have to start turning on the air conditioner.  It's getting way hot.  Thus, we now have 3 hour lunches in the middle of the day because everyone takes naps then.

We are taking a lot of big steps to strengthen the branch here in Vlore.  We have tons of people, it's just most of them are really young, so there are problems that come up.  We have typically had 2 hours of church; in second hour, we have elders quorum, relief society, primary, institute, and seminary.  However, seminary has caused problems with the boys and girls in the same class, and we thought it was important for the boys to learn about the priesthood and the girls to learn about the young women stuff.  I also went to primary last Sunday where we have ages 3-12ish coming.  That causes problems.  The kids under 10 years old are not a problem at all.  It is the kids between 10 and 12.  So, last Sunday, we met with the young men's and young women's leaders and proposed some changes.  We are now going to split up the classes more.  We will have young mens, young womens, nursery, valiant, institute, elders quorum, and the relief society.

At first when we proposed this change, the young men's leader (17 years old) said he didn't agree with it because seminary was important too.  So we said we could have 3 hours of church, which he also wasn't okay with.  We did finally decide to put seminary on Fridays with mutual kind of.  It will really just be a seminary lesson followed by an activity.  There are also being major changes with the dress of members.  The youth are all going to be more encouraged to wear Sunday clothes.  I have a feeling our branch is starting to get better and better.  This really strong family, the Hodajs, brought their cousins to church as well as the Friday night activity.  We are meeting the Hodajs tonight, so hopefully we can start meeting with them.

Yesterday, we went out to this family, the Fetolari family, and they had to go somewhere, so we walked with them and stuff.  As it turns out, the dad now wants to be baptized.  He has always wanted to be a member, but when he gets baptized, he wants to be a solid member that can do all that he is supposed to do.  He's great.  The only thing he has worried about is that he has to work on Sundays sometimes.  I guess he doesn't really have to work every Sunday anymore, but he might still be called in on Sunday.  We are going to start teaching him all the lessons, so that will be cool.

So I was wondering if you could send me one of grandpa Decker's "What's the Object" books with all those object lessons.  Those would be really helpful in teaching people here.  I think most people here are visual learners, and they learn by simplicity.  Most people really need to just be taught the lessons very very simply.  I was just thinking the other day when we were teaching Ketjon that those object lessons could come in handy.  Anyways, that would be great if you could.

So this week, there's this 7 year-old kid here that I taught how to say indubitably a couple weeks ago.  This week, I taught him how to say "Mah boi" so now he's going around saying "Indubitably mah boi!"  We also have epic arguments with Yes! and No!  It's pretty awesome.

This morning I built a huge sand castle at the beach when we were playing Frisbee.  It was pretty cool.  We also went to a market where I was looking for a shirt that I'd seen that said "Better action coconut", but I couldn't find any.  So that was a bummer.  Well, that's it for the week.  It went pretty well.

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Dear Family,

So, as we left our apartment this morning to do internet, we passed by this kid who just yelled "Banjo!" when the j is pronounced like a y.  Basically it's pronounced like the Spanish word for bathroom, and it also means bathroom.  It was pretty funny.  Anyways, we just finished a game of Settlers of Catan with the other elders, so that was fun.

This week was probably one of the best weeks we've had in Vlore for a while.  The amount of lessons we've had was high, and then about my third week here, they plummeted quite a bit.  Now, they have been steadily working back up.  Our worst here is still better than the average back in Shkodër.  We are also finding lots of new investigators and getting lots of referrals.  We are teaching 3 deacon-aged kids and one 14 year old.  We will probably be getting a good sized deacons quorum going here soon.  These twins we're teaching keep bringing friends to their lessons and to church and everything.  That's way cool.  Yesterday, one of the twins' friends brought their sister to church as well.  They all have Book of Mormons as well.  It's cool.

We also got a referral for a family of 10 yesterday, but when we called them, they said they didn't want to meet with us.  So we're going to have the members who referred them talk to them.  Still, work is pretty awesome here.  I guess in branch council yesterday, members brought up that they wanted to start up a visiting teaching program here, so for a while, it will be people going out with missionaries to visit other members.  That will be way cool.  I guess here in Albania, there are 2000 members, but only 500 active.  So less-active work is pretty important.  I think the activity rate is better here in Vlore than the rest of Albania, so that's good.

Last Tuesday, I found out that language study is indeed important.  I had been slacking with it for a while, but I started up again, and all the sudden, I felt like I could understand a lot better.  I still need to pay a lot of attention to when people are talking though.  I have found it is so much easier to talk to little kids because most of the time they don't really care if you understand them.  This Daniel kid and I started telling each other, "Jam shumë i ofenduar!" which means "I'm very offended."  It's pretty funny.  He has also taught me a couple nursery rhymes.  That's fun.

There's a sister in our district now, and apparentally her family now lives in Brussels over in Belgium.  I found that out today at district lunch.  That's interesting.  I've also heard Belgium mentioned here a lot of times.  That's got to mean Belgium is a pretty big deal.

I think this next week should be at least as effective as the last week.  We're going to be restarting our English course because the numbers have seriously been dwindling.  Hopefully we don't have members coming and disrupting lessons anymore.  In Shkodër we had a problem with young boys disrupting English course.  Here it's just a bunch of members that come and goof off.  It is not really that big of a help.  Hopefully we can remedy this situation.

Our teaching pool seems to really be filling itself which is really nice.  Sometimes it seems like there are more people stopping us than us stopping people.  Missionary work is so much easier when we have members helping us out.  That is the big problem we had in Lushnjë and Shkodër.  Anyways, we should be having 2 baptisms in a week or 2, and then I wouldn't be surprised if we have a couple more later on here in Vlore.  I think the other elders also have a lady that will be interviewed for baptism this weekend so that is also cool.  Well, that's about all for the week.

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

So this past week went pretty well.  We had our baptism yesterday, and it went really well.  I directed the baptism and Elder McGlothin baptized her.  Her sons were there, and they have a baptismal date for the 6th of June. These kids that have been recently baptized also have this cousin that is 7 years old that is always with them it seems, so he comes to church and all the lessons with them and stuff. 

We talked to this member family the other Thursday, and we asked them to make a list of people who we could meet together.  We are going to follow up with them tonight, so hopefully they have some people in mind for us.  Also, the 14 year old of that family said he was going to start bringing the brother of the previously mentioned 7 year old to church and to activities and stuff as well.  That is really cool.  Apparently a lot of people in the branch are trying to get that whole family to learn about the gospel, and I think it will start with this brother of the 7 year old.  I think this brother is supposed to come tonight when we meet with this family as well, so that will be cool.

There are also these 2 friends of the 2 sons of the lady who was just baptized that we are going to try to start teaching as well.  They have been showing up for meetings with them, and they are all well behaved.  We are also trying to meet with these boys we met a week or two ago who never seem to be home when we go to meet with them.  We seem to be getting a lot of people who seem really promising as of late.  It's pretty cool.  It's a pretty good ending to my companion's mission.

We had transfer calls on Saturday, and it seems like we just barely had last transfers.  I am staying here in Vlore which means I will be here for at least 3 more months since Elder McGlothin is going home this July and they most likely will not white wash this area.  President even told us that I would probably be here for quite some time, so the only excitement for next transfer will be my future companion.  Elder Roney, Elder Smith's current companion here in Vlore, is leaving to Tirana, which is kind of a bummer for everyone.  Elder Thorpe, however, will be coming down which is fun because we were both up in Shkoder in the same district as well.  The mini missionary that has been with Sister Hall here in Vlore is now going back home in Tirana, and she almost wasn't able to endure the whole mini mission.  She wants to serve a full-time mission, but president told her to do a mini mission first.  Lately, she seems a lot happier than usual, but she seemed pretty upset or miserable a lot of times before.  So now a new sister is coming down to Vlore that will also be heading home in July.

Oh yeah, the other day as we were walking from the church, we were getting shot at.  Well, sort of.  It was just a bunch of little kids with toy guns pointed at us and pretending to shoot us.  That's basically the most dangerous thing I've contacted here in Albania.  Other than the gaping holes in the ground.  Those hurt when you fall in them.  I haven't fallen in one yet, but I saw someone who did, and that didn't look fun.  

The other day, we got to the church where 3 kids were trying to bug the sisters as they were waiting for a lesson.  We were also starting to wait for a lesson, so naturally, they turned on us as well.  Little did they know, I have played their game many times before.  They were just doing what many kids do here, and I pulled out a small piece of paper and began making a cootie catcher.  I gave it to one of the kids, and told him to destroy it, knowing that he wouldn't if I told him to do so.  And he didn't.  As I began making a second, they kept asking me questions, so I just said, "Ugh" to them.  They all laughed, and told me to do it again.  So I held out my hand and said "5 bucks" in Albanian of course.  They apparently didn't think it was all that amusing, so when I gave them the second cootie catcher, they just left and stopped bugging us.  It was pretty cool.  They are usually really difficult to get to stop irritating the missionaries.  Although, at the moment, I don't think any of the missionaries here in Vlore get too frustrated with the little kids, so that's good.

Last Saturday, we had a branch activity to Berat, and it rained almost the whole time.  Luckily, everyone seemed to enjoy it.  It was a pretty good activity.  On the bus ride home, they were playing lots of Albanian music and tons of people were dancing in the aisle of the bus.  It was pretty funny to watch.

We planted flowers outside the church recently, and we found out somebody was taking flowers from the church.  Luckily, they returned them, although they also pulled out almost every flower and left them on the ground.  A little girl, that is apparently rude at times, replanted all of them for us though.  That was cool.  So now hopefully they are all going to survive.  I can't remember exactly when it was, but we saw something exciting the other day at the church.  We were on the second floor, and these two guys ran by.  One guy stopped and went into one of the apartment buildings while the other one kept running.  Then, two other guys came, grabbed rocks, and followed the guy in the apartment building.  We heard a little tussle, then the 2 guys left in a run, and the other guy came out with a knife.  That was pretty intense.  I don't think that's that common here in Albania.

A fun Albanian phrase that I learned yesterday is "Të hëngërtë mortja" which means "May death eat you" and pronounced: "tuh hungert mor-tya".  I'm thinking that is probably not a very nice thing to say to people.  Anyways, that's it for now.

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Hey family,

So transfer calls are this next Saturday, but I don't think there will be all that much change with me.  I'm thinking there's a pretty good chance I'll be staying in Vlore, but you never know.  I'm pretty sure my companion is sticking around here too, and since he'll be going home in July, that probably means I'll be here for another transfer as well.  So if I end up staying for next transfer, I could probably make myself comfortable in Vlore, at least, in the house.

Anyways, the zone leaders came up last Friday so they could do interviews with our investigator who is to be baptised this next Sunday.  That will be cool. Our district really seems to get along well.  Half our district is from my MTC group.  It's kind of cool.  Today we went to the other elders' house to play a game of Settlers of Catan. We also played this game called Bang which was way fun.

I just made it to 2 Nephi in the Book of Mormon, and made it to Alma in Libri i Mormonit.  I also took quite a few pictures of the beach this morning, so maybe one of these days I could send some of them.

I thought those scriptures showing the difference between Laman and Lemuel versus Nephi were interesting as well.  Laman and Lemuel were still obedient in many things, but they complained a lot.  Then whenever they had the chance, they would start making their way back to Jerusalem.

I had thought about what my mission would have been like had I started out somewhere like Vlore.  I think I'm glad I started out in Lushnje.  I think Lushnje and Shkoder helped me learn how to find people better, and Shkoder and Vlore have been really helpful with teaching.  Vlore is also good for learning to work with members since there are actually members to work with.

I'm not sure anything could really make me homesick.  It just seems really normal to be here in Albania now.  It's probably a similar thing to Belgium and college and stuff.  Just kind of what happens.

Anyways, I think I'm going to try to hit SYL and language study a little harder than I have been.  I've been kind of slacking in those departments.  Sometimes we miss a lot of lunch because we have so much going on that we don't have time for the full 2 hours.  It is nice though.  Whenever a lesson doesn't go through, we just throw in part of our lunch time then.

I'll let you know what happens with transfers next week.

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

So this past week, we had lots of lessons fall through.  I think we ended up having about as many lessons happen as lessons that didn't happen.  We haven't been able to meet with 3 of our investigators with baptismal dates for quite some time.  So now we really only have 1 progressing investigator who should be baptized on May 16.  Hopefully, those other investigators will be able to meet with us more often.

We went to the beach this morning and played a little ultimate Frisbee.  That was really fun.  I will have to take some pictures of the beach sometime while I'm here.  It's pretty cool.  There is trash all over the place, but other than that it isn't too bad.  It isn't a very good beach if you want to go surfing though.  There aren't really big waves or anything at this coast.

We had zone conference the other day, and they told us about this 40 day fast thing we will be doing.  We are pretty much just supposed to make a list of things we will start and stop doing and then do our best to do and not do those things for the next 40 days.  On top of that, we are all going to be reading the Book of Mormon together.  I've already been able to learn a lot from the beginning of 1 Nephi.  It's pretty cool.

Today we cleaned our house.  I did some sweeping, mopping, and cleaned off our counters and sinks.  It ended up taking from the time we got back from the beach until it was time for lunch.  It is amazing how relaxing cleaning the house is compared to missionary work.  I was thinking about it the other day, and service and all those cleaning jobs seem really fun now.  It really makes sense why missionaries aren't allowed to play electronic games or anything like that.  It probably makes all the service and stuff seem much more fun.

I recently heard that one of the investigators from Shkoder has a baptismal date.  That was exciting.  It wasn't anybody I thought it would be either.  It is this girl that Elder Thorpe and I had taught one time on exchanges where our lesson didn't go very well.  The next time Elder Fahey and I had met with her, it went better, but it's cool that she wants to get baptized now.  I also hear that this other investigator there wants to get baptized as well.

One thing I have noticed about my mission is the difficulty isn't anything I expected it to be.  I expected it to just kind of get easier the longer you were here, which it does but in a different way than I thought it would.  It is pretty much like the whole story about Alma and his people when they prayed and their burdens were made light.  The difficulties never seem to go away, but they don't seem too bad either.  I remember talking to my trainer back in Lushnje about what was probably the hardest part of the mission, and he just told me it was always hard, just in different ways. I think that's it for this week.

Love,

Elder Wallentine