Dear family,

So this week, we moved to a new house on Friday, and our new house is a lot better than our old one.  The doors are kind of broken, but all the important things are in good working order.  On Saturday we had a branch activity for Easter, so that was pretty fun.  We went to this field area where we played a bit of volleyball and various other games.  We had a good time.  Afterwards, we headed out to a village about 40 minutes out of Tirana to visit with an investigator we have who should be getting baptized soon.  They just recently moved back out there because they were having a really hard time living in Tirana.  We helped them move last Monday, so that was good.  Now we can only meet them 2 times a week since they live so far away.

My companion and I were talking the other day, and it seems like we constantly change how we feel about the mission.  Sometimes, we just want it to end, other times we never want it to end, sometimes it doesn't seem like it will ever end, and other times it just feels like this is how life always was.  It's kind of weird.  It is kind of weird that we're about half way through another transfer.  There are 7 weeks in this one, and we're entering the 4th week.  My companion and I have decided that we have no idea what's happening with us.

Today we played some basketball with some other missionaries.  That was pretty fun.  It seems like this next week will be pretty close to a normal week again.  We had quite a few weird days recently.  Hopefully we'll be able to find some more people to teach this week.  Our investigators have started kind of dropping off.  There are a couple that have potential, so we'll keep working with those.  Have a good week!

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Dear Family,

So this week was interesting.  On Thursday, I woke up around 2 am because I had to throw up.  So we ended up staying in all day that day.  On Friday I was feeling better, but then on Sunday, my companion threw up.  So we stayed in again.  Last week, I was assigned a talk in sacrament meeting, but I couldn't give it because we watched general conference.  So I was supposed to give it yesterday, but then my companion got sick.  I think I'll probably give it next week.  We'll see.

This week we ended our English course.  We'll start over again around May 10, and we'll probably be starting from the beginning, which is nice.  It seems like English courses always stretch on and we run out of things to teach.  The one I had in Durrës was kind of nice because it eventually just dwindled down to 1 person who would come and have enough questions to occupy the whole time. He would also say at least one of the prayers to begin or end the course, and he would listen rather attentively during the part where we talked about religion.

Anyways, not too much happened this week.  Just meeting with people, getting over sickness, and stuff like that.  Say hi to everyone for me!

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

I enjoyed the duck last week, but next time if I have duck, I'll probably get the one with orange sauce or something.  The fish ball soup was pretty darn good too. Thanks for sending those parts of Elder Oaks' talk.  Hopefully the Liahonas aren't too late getting to us.  My companion just got an email that one of his family members met this Albanian girl from Vlorë that knew me.  She is also engaged with some return missionary that is from Eagle.  I think his name is Melvin Hale or something.  I met him once when he had come to visit in Vlorë one time.  He seemed like a good guy.

There's this family we meet, the Lami family, and they were all baptized right before I got to this area, except for the dad.  This week, we gave the dad a baptismal date for May, so hopefully we can help him get baptized then.  Later that week, I had exchanges with Elder Moyes, one of the zone leaders that was in the same MTC group as me.  We went out and met this guy who seems really good.  He had a friend give him a Book of Mormon to read at work, and he said he wanted to meet every day if possible.  He even came to church yesterday.  He seems like a great guy, and I think it's possible that he'll get baptized one day.  Unfortunately, he's moving to Dubai in about 2 weeks, so I don't think I'll be able to be around for that.  He'll be there for 2 years earning money to go to college. Hopefully he'll meet the missionaries when he comes back.

Another new investigator we found was this guy who had lived in England for 10 years, so he spoke perfect English.  I'm not sure how interested he is in religion, but he's willing to meet us again.  We got to watch the last session of conference yesterday in church, so that was cool.  It was a bit harder to get stuff out of it because it was in Albanian, but I think I got the main topics.  Anyways, that's about all for this week.

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

So I thought I would start off this email with what I had for lunch last Saturday.  I had Fish ball soup followed by Fragrant and crispy duck.  No those are not typical Albanian foods.  We went to the Chinese restaurant because we had quite a bit of extra money for the month and I wanted to try duck.  So that was fun.

We got to see the two morning sessions of conference this past weekend.  I was a little bummed when I found out that Elder Oaks talked in one of the afternoon sessions.  He's pretty cool.  I was pretty excited that the Meridian, ID temple was announced.  On Sunday, we were watching conference, and the internet was going slow every now and again, but we could still watch it and everything.  Near the end of President Monson's talk, we lost power and missed the rest of the talk.  It was right after he was talking about how the temple in Rome was going to be really special.  

So we've been teaching this family recently that has 2 young boys.  It's their mom and their grandmother as well.  The first time we met with them, I showed the boys a couple magic tricks with cards, and they loved it.  They, along with their mom, had lived in America for a while so they speak English as well.  So that's cool.  Last time I taught them a game that we could play that Elder Hixson had taught me back in Vlorë.

So on Saturday we had transfer calls and me and Elder Loose are staying together here in Laprakë.  That was a surprise to us because we thought he was going to be training.  So we'll be here together for at least another 7 weeks.  Meanwhile, The zone leaders in our district are also staying the same, so the only change will be that one of the sisters is going back to America on Wednesday and the sister that is staying will be training.  So that's the update on transfers.

Anyways, I think that's all I got.  Thanks for all your support and birthday greetings. I had a pretty good birthday.  I also bought a delicious cake to eat.  Caleb, I like being 21.  It's good to hear from you.  I also learned another word in Albanian the other day.  "Pupë" (pronounced poop) means cacoon.  I thought that was funny.  

Love,

Elder Wallentine