Dear family,

So today was another preparation day.  From about 6:30 in the morning until who knows when, we went down to this beach a bit further south than where we usually go, and just kind of hung out down there.  It was kind of cool, although there wasn't all that much to do there.  I ended up playing a game of chess with Elder Thorpe which ended up being a very close match.  Afterwards, we went to this restaurant called AFC (Albanian Fried Chicken).  The name probably sounds familiar.  That's because when you get into Albania, you enter a nice little bubble free of copyrights, and you can do whatever you want.  So they have look-a-like of McDonalds and KFC here.  It's pretty funny.  Elder Thorpe and I split a mini bucket of 24 hot wings (not quite all that spicy) and had french fries and drinks.  It was pretty good.  I also managed to win a game of Uno.

After lunch, we met the senior missionary couple at the bank so we could take care of some work we had there.  We just wanted to make a quick deposit and withdrawl, but apparently our names were not on the account still, so we couldn't make the withdrawl.  So we ended up spending 2 hours at the bank waiting for them to figure things out.  That wasn't too bad.  We basically just sat there talking to the couple the whole time.  It seems like we get to talk to them a ton since he's the branch president and my companion is the first counselor.  Anyways, I still feel pretty relaxed today, especially since I just looked at the cell phone and found out it is only 2:20 instead of 4:50 as the computer says.  That is closer to what it felt like.  That means I have 2 and a half hours more of p-day.

Anyways, the assistants came down this past week so they could interview our investigator that is to be baptized next week, so they went on exchanges with us.  It was pretty fun.  Elder Foulk (one of the assistants) and I were together, and after not being able to meet with several people, we started street contacting.  Then all of a sudden, a little boy ran up, stole my nametag, and threw it on a roof.  Luckily, I have a backup name tag that is spelt how it would be pronounced in Albanian.  So now I'm Elder Uallentajn.  It's pretty cool.

So, I just got a phone call from the mission president as I was typing the last paragraph, and I found out that I am going to be going to boys camp!  That will be happening the day after our investigator's baptism.  So that is going to be awesome.  We basically get to teach the young men how to do camping and scouting stuff like set up tents and light fires.  It's going to be awesome.  That is also the week of zone conference and transfer calls, so it's just going to be a nonstop week of excitement.  Weekly planning is going to be extremely easy for that week.  Numberwise, it will probably be our worst week ever.  That is probably understood though since we will be put somewhat out of comission for 4 days of the week.  We'll probably have the other elders take care of a lot of our work those days we're at camp.  I'm pretty excited.

Anyways, this week, we ended up getting like 5 new investigators.  I have also started a little calendar thing where I am now working on things that I should be doing, but noticed I had been kind of slacking on them.  Stuff like waking up on time and doing language study and SYL every day.  I made a list of quite a few things like that, and then have been marking off each day I do each one.  It's been working pretty well.  It feels more rewarding when I can mark my progress.

Well, I think that's about all I got for this week.  

Love,

Elder Wallentine