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