Dear family,

So about half of this past week, I was feeling slightly under the weather.  It felt kind of like a less severe version of what I had had the week before going to the MTC.  Last Thursday was when it started getting bad, and it happened to be on the 30 minute walk to our baptismal date's house.  I was feeling pretty horrible when we got there, but we were able to have a really good lesson with them.  It was really good.  When we returned home, I slept really well.  I then continued to sleep for most of the next day, and most of the day after that.  I also slept the majority of Sunday as well.  There were several things in that time that we really had to take care of that were kind of difficult.  We were taking over the Sisters' English course on Saturday which would be combined with our course, so we were obligated to go to that.  Then, of course we had to go to church on Sunday, and then later on Sunday, we had to teach a temple prep class.  Luckily, this just happened to be the Sunday we were having branch council so I got to hear slightly frustrated sounding people talk for an hour and a half after church.

The water in our apartment has been out for quite some time as well, so we can't really do any laundry either.  That is kind of bad since I'm running out of clothes.  Oh well.  We'll make it through.  

Luckily, I'm feeling a lot better now, and hopefully it doesn't come back.  I think this has come up mostly from stress and worry lately.  There have been a lot of things bothering me and getting me a little uneasy.  I think that along with the normal work probably didn't help me too much.  I read a talk in the conference Liahona in Albanian by President Uchtdorf about patience on Sunday night when I couldn't sleep.  That was really good.  That really is one trait that makes a really big difference in missionary work I think.  It's too bad you kind of need patience in order to get patience.  There are a lot of things like that.  Just got to use it in order to get it.

With that member that is struggling at the moment, I don't think he's going to leave the church for good, but he could stop coming to church for a period of time enough to have some bad effects.  I have sent him some text messages that I hope will help out.  He has sent me a message saying how he still thinks of me and him as buds, but he really doesn't like my companion due to some kind of confrontation deal that happened last Sunday.  That was one of those things that was kind of worrying me last week, but I think it should all turn out alright.  I just need opportunities to talk to him.  He can be a great example to all the YM and all the youth here, so it is pretty needful for this to all work out.

We got a Deacons quorum presidency called now.  The only problem was that half the presidency didn't come to church on Sunday because they were sick.  So half of them are set apart now.  Thus, we almost have it up and running.  Institute is going great.  Last Wednesday, I sent out a mass text to all the institute aged people reminding them of the activity.  We ended up getting a pretty good turnout.  There was also this really inactive member who came that I have never seen in my nearly 4 months here in Vlorë.  That was cool.  Apparently this guy has a really strong testimony, but he's just lazy.  President Neil in one of his past e-mails reminded us that we are dealing with a first generation church here in Albania and we shouldn't compare it to the church back at home.  That's another good thing to remember.  I'm sure it takes a while for people to become a delightsome people as they say in the Book of Mormon.  Another one of those patience things.

While I was sick, the zone leaders were here on exchanges with us, so my companion was able to go out and teach some lessons on Friday night and Saturday morning.  One of these meetings was with a previous baptismal date (the one who was hit by the car and now her mother is really stressed out), and she said she could leave the house after 6 pm now.  She also said she could come to church next Sunday.  That's exciting.  Hopefully we can get her sister and neighbor to come as well.  Maybe that could be our chance to teach all three of them together.  I think things with them will be looking up.

Well, that's about all I got for now.

Love,

Elder Wallentine