Dear family,

So last Saturday I got to go back to Fier for exchanges because my companion had a branch presidency meeting up in Tirana.  So once again, I found myself in Fier.  It's kind of funny.  For a missionary who has never been transferred to Fier, I have spent about half a transfer worth in Fier.  It's pretty cool.  Plus, I get some good food while I'm there.  So I got to go with Elder Norris, who now has 3 months in the country.  In 1 week, I will have 3 MTC groups here younger than me in the country.  It's cool.

I figured last week that I wouldn't add the details of the turtle killing because it would probably make people sick.  They were just living through half the process.  Luckily, we were able to persuade him to kill one quickly so it didn't have to suffer as much.  It had an interesting taste.  It was pretty good, but not too much meat in a turtle.

This week we got 2 mini-missionaries here in Vlorë, so for the next 2 weeks, there are as many sisters as there are elders.  This week, we are going to have special trainings in Fier on Wednesday and Thursday that will take up probably about half of each day.  That should be fun and exciting.  Also, this next Saturday we get transfer calls, and this time it will probably be pretty darn exciting because nobody has any idea what is happening.  This is the first transfer where President has not come down to do interviews with all of us because some things are changing with missions world-wide.  So really, I have no idea what's going to happen, unlike the past couple transfers.  And with these special trainings, the week is just going to fly by.

Being in Albania really shows the negative effect of communism.  There is a very similar mentality among many of the older generations that I think has got to be from being poor and communism.  Luckily, I think the younger generations are less effected by it, although it will take a couple generations for it to all wear off.  I have just learned that communism is not one of those things I will ever want.  It just seems like the older generations tell us they have a lot of faith, but then from what they say afterwards, it just doesn't seem like they understand what it is.  So that is sad.

I used to be really good at writing in my journal, but for a while I was slacking on it, and then I was like 2 weeks behind.  Last night, my companion was feeling a little sick, so we came in earlier and I caught up a bit.  So now I'm only a week behind.  Hopefully I can find time to make that all up.  It seems like in Vlorë that I have been way busier than any other area I've been.  I kind of think I'd like to go back to somewhere like Shkodër where there is only 1 or 2 sets of missionaries.  Sometimes, I don't really want to do district activities with the missionaries.  Most of the time, they are pretty fun though.

Anyways, I can't think of any other happenings for this week, so I will wrap it up here.

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

So I realized the other day on exchanges while I was tracting with Elder Warburton what happens when you stick your finger in the middle of an ant line.  They walk up, and after showing a bit of confusion, they turn back around.  Only like one or two ants actually went around my finger and continued on its way.  However, today on our district trip, I tried it with some bigger ants, and they just climbed on top of my finger and tried moving it or tried to figure out what it was.  We went to a place called Apolonia today and that was cool.  We found a couple turtles walking around there.

On Saturday, We went by an investigator's house, and he was sitting there killing turtles for dinner.  They also invited us to stay to eat with them.  So we got to eat turtle.  It was interesting, and the investigator killed them in possibly the most painful way possible.  It was kind of painful to watch.  He is about 14, and his sister and cousin both are investigators as well.  They all came to church as well.  We had tons of investigators in church, and since Elder Hixson is in the branch presidency and has to sit on the stand through the meeting, I had to figure out how to sit with as many as possible as well as take care of the roll.  It was pretty tough.

Also last Saturday, we had a branch activity at Zvernec which is a pretty cool island where we played soccer and basketball.  By basketball, I mean I played the Albanian version where double dribbling is allowed, you don't take it back when playing half court, and defense is played by running into the person that has the ball so they can't possibly move.  It was interesting, but I think soccer is still the main sport of this country.  Basketball, not so much.  Anyways, it was a pretty good activity.

Recently, we also met with these two ladies who showed interest in learning more about the gospel, but when we came for the return visit, the man of the house just kept saying the same reason over and over as to why we couldn't teach them even though it was completely irrelevant.  He was not very helpful.  So instead of meeting them, we just reminded a less active kid to come to institute tomorrow.

We have recently been running into a lot of people who are willing to learn about the gospel.  After the exchanges from last Thursday, it is also interesting to see the differences in our two areas in Vlorë.  We hardly do any tracting, and yet we find quite a bit of work.  When I was in the other area, we tracted pretty much all day long.  It was surprisingly enjoyable.  We also met a couple people who seemed interested in the gospel.

Today, I got to see the inside of a huge mosque in Fier.  We went in and it was pretty cool.  When you stand in the middle of the room and talk, it seemed like you were talking in a microphone.  It was way cool.  Anyways, nobody was there except this lady who was cleaning up.  I went and asked her about getting a Koran in Arabic, and she said she could only give our group 1 since she's just a worker.  So even though I asked, it ended up being given to the sister who was going home in October.  I was kind of bummed about it because I felt like I had done the work to get it, and somebody else got it.  I did end up getting a Koran in Albanian though.  The Korans are pretty cool looking, but I will most likely not be reading it any time soon since my time would probably be best used reading the scriptures we have.   I had always thought that the Mosques were kind of like our temples for Muslims, and it kind of is concerning being kept nice and everything.  I was just surprised how it was just open to the public for anybody to go walking in.  It is interesting.

Anyways, I can't think of too much else that happened this week, so I'll just end here.  Have a good week.

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

This past week, Elder Hixson had a training for district leaders up in Tirana, so I was on an exchange with another missionary for 3 days.  This missionary is typically in Durrës which is pretty close to Tirana, about 2.5 hours from Vlorë.  Also, they didn't have too much going on in Durrës, and we had tons of potential work here in Vlorë, so we ended up spending all our time down in Vlorë.  So last Wednesday, I spent 5 hours traveling.  It was pretty tiring.  Then for the 3 days we were in Vlorë, we were only able to get one of the lessons we had planned for.  But we also were able to print off the fliers for our English Course.  Oh yeah, I was with Elder Castro-Guzman those 3 days, who was my companion from France in the MTC.  So that was cool.  We ended up passing out about 1200 English fliers during our time together.  Last Friday was when we headed back up to Durrës to meet up with our companions, so we stopped in Fier on the way up to pick up some Pizza Roma.  It was awesome even though it was raining.

However, we got up to Durrës, and we found out that our companions were going to be late so we would not be able to make it back to Vlorë that night.  So we just did work in Durrës and spent the night there as well.  We went street contacting and I talked to this evangelist guy who was pretty set in proving me wrong, and I kept wanting to just correct errors in the logic he was using, and I would correct the most important things, but in the end, I gave him a pamphlet about the restoration and told him he needed to read and pray about it.  He told me he already knew it wasn't true because it didn't stand with the Bible, which I pretty much just had to go right out and contradict.  I think we both enjoyed that conversation, and hopefully he realizes that this stuff does indeed go with the Bible.

The other day in personal study, I was reading in True to the Faith, and I read a part under gratitude that was pretty good.  It said, "Gratitude is an uplifting, exalting attitude. People are generally happier when they have gratitude in their hearts. We cannot be bitter, resentful, or mean-spirited when we are grateful."  I realized that that was not one of the attributes included in Preach My Gospel under Christlike Attributes, and also that in the end it tells us to seek to gain those in Preach My Gospel as well as those found elsewhere in the scriptures.  I think gratitude is a pretty important one.  That part I read made me realize that you really can't be grateful and bitter at the same time.  It was cool.

This morning, I woke up and started reading Revelation in the New Testament.  It seems like I understand more of that each time I look at it.  It probably is not the most relevant stuff to teaching people here in Albania, but it is cool.  I also looked at a seminary study guide for revelation, and it talked about how most people think of that book as crazy stuff like 7 headed monsters and the end of the world kind of thing, but it also said that if we read it, we can also learn a lot more about Christ, His power, and basically just all about Him.  So that is cool as well.

Yesterday, we headed out to see a less active member to remind him to come to institute today, and he wasn't home.  So we continued on our way, and we ran into a ton of these kids.  We ended up going to one of their houses where we found out that he and his sister had learned from missionaries about 2 years ago and had also come to church.  We also met their cousin.  This kid's name is Mario, so we have found another Mario here in Vlorë.  They agreed to meet with us again this Thursday and to come to church.  It was way cool.  We're excited to start teaching them.

Well, I think that's about all the excitement that happened this past week.  We'll talk next week.

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

I'll start out with the whole testimony thing so I don't forget to put it at the end.  There's been a kind of recurring theme throughout my mission.  It seems like I have run into many problems that have often seemed really big for me, but then through prayer, faith, scripture study, and all those little things we're constantly told to do that I somehow make it through.  A big thing to all that is you have to want these things to help or else they can't really help.  There's some scripture that says how we choose to be happy or miserable.  Remember the things that seem simple, and do them constantly with real intent as we learn from the scriptures, and we'll find help.  If we trust in the Lord, then not only will he help us, but our faith will grow, and we will become better because of it.

Last Friday, at around 7:30, I was on exchanges with one of the zone leaders, who happened to be Elder Fahey, my English companion in Shkodër, and we received the mail from the senior couple who had just gotten back from Tirana.  So on September 3, I got the wedding invitations of Jason and Ashley.  Then, I realized that I got it all on the same day Ashley was getting married. It still kind of weirds me out that I now have 2 sibling-in-laws.

I recently found out that taking naps during lunch time is usually not a good idea for me.  We have 3 hour long lunches, because from about 1-4pm proselyting is pretty ineffective.  So our schedule is adjusted so we go out earlier than usual, and we have no dinner which is a normal thing year round. The 3 hours really just consists of 2 hours lunch, 30 minutes taken from sleep, and 30 minutes for language study.  Most of the time, I just eat and then try to study Albanian for as long as I can before I am falling asleep.  I have noticed that if I end that time with sleep that I don't feel very good at the end of lunch.  A lot of times, I am actually able to stay awake for those three hours, so that's good.  I just need to find a way to stay awake.

Oh yeah, so I remembered a couple weeks ago that back when I called home for mother's day and said how my trainer would give the advice of "don't suck" that mom said she had been trying to get people to stop saying that word.  Well, there have been many times where I had really wished that word didn't exist.  I think I also had recently noticed that I didn't say it nearly as much as I used to.  Being around somebody who says how much things suck is not fun.  Especially if you're already not having a good day.  Moral of this story, that word kind of sucks.

Here in Albania, I think we get a good mixture of people.  Some people seem to love us and be really welcoming while other people can be really rude.  If people let you come teach them, it is a custom here to always give your guests candy, or a drink, or something.  People are pretty hospitable for the most part.  I think a big problem we have here probably comes as a result of communism.  A lot of people are pretty confused with religion.  The other day, an investigator was telling us that Jesus was Muslim.  He didn't seem to get that Islam came about hundreds of years after Christ's birth.  Other people tell us that all religions are the same.  Everyone understands the fact that there is only one God though.  We are constantly reminded of that fact.  I can never tell if people are just trying to get us to leave, if they really don't know, or both.  I think both can apply in many situations.  All in all, Albanians are pretty cool.

I did have a fun experience last week.  We were trying to track down this kid who had sent us a text message giving us his address.  Unfortunately, addresses here in Albania hardly exist.  So we found the correct building, and asked around using the vague information we had of this person, and we ran into something that seems to be pretty normal around here.  A ton of little kids started talking to us, and near the end of our conversation, they throw out all sorts of English cuss words.  I have noticed that a lot of missionaries seem to lack patience when it comes to misbehaving children around here.  That in turn brings a downward spiral of missionaries getting upset, and the children having fun upsetting them, so they get worse.

So, my companion went to talk to this other lady, as we were surrounded by all these kids.  So I pulled out a piece of paper that was in my Book of Mormon, and I made a cootie catcher with it.  As I was making it, I made the leader of the group agree that he wouldn't bug my companion anymore if I gave him whatever I made.  They had already seen the cootie catchers, so I pulled out another piece of paper, and accidentally made a bunny out of it.  They had a kick out of that.  They then asked me if I could draw.  I said yes, and they told me to draw an apple.  So I drew an apple, then added a face along with some arms and legs, and named the apple Gëzim which is an Albanian name that means Joy.  I then drew a banana with the same kind of thing, and I named him Gëzim2.  They had a kick out of it, and then they were just fine and stopped trying to bug us.

One thing I have learned about Albania is how cool the elections can be for the Prime Minister candidates.  The elections ended quite some time ago, but I have heard some of the political songs that they made.  Apparently one of the candidates, Edi Rama, was a former rapper, so he made his own rap song that talks about how Albania is changing and how we are the future.  The songs are pretty awesome.  If I ever run for president, I'd totally want to implement some of that.

Hey Caleb, I like being a missionary.  I get to help a lot of people.  My favorite part of my mission is being able to talk to all the people here about the church in a different language.  It was kind of hard to learn the language, but now it is fun to speak it.  Maybe I could teach you some Albanian when I finish my mission!  Thank you for writing me!

Yesterday, we were walking along on our way to go tracting, and we kept running into people that seemed interested in learning about the gospel.  It was one of the days where it just seemed like we were constantly talking to people as we went on our way.  We also accidentally found a less active member's house as we continued on our way, and we told him about institute, and he said he'd come and he'd try to come to church on Sundays.  That would be really cool.  So hopefully he comes.

Well, my time is out.  Tell everyone I enjoy getting their e-mails and everything.

Love,
Elder Uallentajn