Dear family,

So I will start with some fun tracting.  We walked up to the 10th floor of this building by stairs (there was no elevator) and knocked on the first door.  The door opened by some little kid.  We asked if his parents were home, so he went to get them.  Then, some guy walks up the stairs into the house after we greeted him.  Then, this lady comes out, and tells us to leave.  So we go down to the next floor and knock on some doors.  Then the guy came and started telling us that nobody lived in the building and that we had to leave.  He then followed us down the 10 flights of stairs that all of us had just walked up until we left.  As we left the building, we then stopped and talked to some Muslim guy.  I wasn't all that happy with the first guy.  I tried having some kind of conversation with him, but he was pretty rude.  So after lunch, I wasn't really in the mood to do more tracting, but we did anyways.  We ended up finding a new family we could teach.  The dad and 12 year old son were there, and we taught them and set up a time to return.  I think they are pretty promising.  Also, we found a couple people who could be promising another time.

Yesterday, we also had a good experience.  There was this kid who is always outside that usually shouts stuff trying to bug us missionaries, and yesterday he called us over.  So we went.  We talked a bit with him and I asked him if he and his friend knew why we were here in Albania.  Thus, we told him why we were here and a bit about what we were teaching.  He was never any big problem before, but I think he's a pretty cool kid.  One of my favorite parts of the conversation was when I told him about Joseph Smith being a prophet, he asked if he had killed anyone.  He then asked if he was a good person, and I told him how you kind of have to be a good person to be a prophet. 

Also, this past week, we were tracting, and we were talking to this lady who said she was Muslim.  So I said something like: Oh, great, so you believe in prophets.  She said she didn't and didn't believe in any books like the Bible or Koran.  I at least informed her that that means she was neither Muslim nor Christian.  I think there are many people who really don't understand anything about religion.  Especially the people who tell us that Islam and Christianity are the same.  Many people also tell us that religion is pretty much just politics and also that they were only made by people who wanted to get gain.  I can't say all that is always false.  Usually, when we ask them some kind of question, it is easy to see if they are really willing to learn or not.  For example: Would it be important for you if there was a prophet today?  An interested person would say yes.  Someone who didn't care and wanted us to go away would say no.  Someone who did care but wasn't interested would hesitate and respond with something with no connection.  And others would say yes and then tell us they didn't want to learn more.  It's kind of silly sometimes.

I think most of the success we've had tracting here in Durrës has been people who just let us in without a long discussion at the door.  It's interesting.  Anyways, we had another good week this week.  We got a total of 10 lessons again, so that's good.  The next couple weeks, we have quite a few things that will interrupt normal missionary work, and it's the holiday season, so we'll see how it all goes.  I know that on New Year's Eve we have to be inside by 4:30 because it will be dangerous after that due to tons of fireworks.  Anyways, have a good week.

Love,
Elder Wallentine