Dear family,

This week we went over to a old member's house to ask about some less active families we could go visit.  The first thing she did when we got there,  however, was say how she had some neighbors she wanted us to meet who wanted to learn English.  So on Saturday, we went over and taught English to them.  Also, one time when we were street contacting this week, this guy comes up and tells us he was coming to church on Sunday.  I called him on Saturday to remind him, and he's like "Of course I'm coming."  He showed up about an hour late, but he did come.  I taught him a little bit and gave him a Book of Mormon before he left as well.  He told me he wanted us to call him up to meet again this week, so that's cool.

This member also told us where a couple families lived and gave us phone numbers as well.  She also pointed out some families that would be good to go visit.  So now we have some more direction in our retention work.  We met the Cara (tsah-rah) family last week, who is one of the inactive member families, and they were really cool.  We asked them why they weren't coming to church, and they just kind of dodged the question.  They are a pretty cool family though.  We've talked to some other members as well, and they stopped coming because they didn't get along with a couple other members or something.  Hopefully they get over it.

On Sunday I went to normal second hour with one of the recently baptized members, and the lesson turned into a debate.  It was pretty lame.  After that, I went to the nursery where I had a small break from such loud noise.  I was a little worried because the guy who was stirring up debates said how debating was how we would develop or progress, or something like that.  We talked to some other members about it and they said that most of the time he has a good positive influence on the class and brings up discussions.  So that was good.

Last Saturday there was a branch activity, but we couldn't go because we had work and president said we couldn't.  It was near Durrës at a beach, and it was going to take almost all day.  So it's probably good we didn't go.  We were expecting to have to fill up the baptismal font that day as well, but on Friday we were told that apparently some stuff had happened, and it wasn't going down.  The investigator will be baptized at the end of July, hopefully.  She seems like she's ready for baptism.

President and Sister Ford get here on the 28th, and the Neils leave on the 29th.  There is also a meeting for all the inside zone people on the 29th where we go meet the new mission president. Hopefully that goes well and starts the Fords stay here off well.  And Happy birthday mom!

Love,

Elder Wallentine