Dear family,

So we checked emails for a little bit, and then we went to a market to look around.  On the way back, we passed by this big crowd of people.  We find out they were all watching one guy kill a ram.  It was being filmed and everyone was clapping as he slit the ram's throat.  It was right in front of a Mosque, so we're thinking it's possible it was some kind of sacrifice or something.

Recently, we listened to a talk called "Understanding Islam" and that was really interesting.  It talked about how they used to be one of the biggest and most advanced groups of people, and then, due to isolation from others, they ended up being way behind the rest of the world.  It was really interesting.

Yesterday one of our investigators came to church and he said he'd had work the past 2 weeks and had been really busy, but he had been reading the Book of Mormon.  He's now on page 205 or so.

Hopefully he continues progressing.  Also, there's this inactive family we've been meeting lately, and the dad came to church yesterday.  He came to the branch right before our branch, but at least he came.  The wife said she'd come next week, so hopefully that happens.

We've been doing quite a few exchanges as of late.  There are a couple people that president and the assistants are concerned about, so we're doing exchanges with them first.  Also, there's some missionary in my zone that apparently disdains me.  It's funny because he's never really met me.  We've been on 1 exchange, and randomly run into each other.  I think it's because he got one of my companions right after I was with the companion, and said companion didn't like me too much.  Said companion is also a really big talker.  I'm not too worried though.

Anyways, that's about all I got for this week.  It was an interesting week.

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

This past week has been a really busy week.  There were 2 baptismal services, both of which required us to be at the church for 4 hours to fill up the font.  We also had transfers this week.  On top of that, we have been fixing up our house so that the sink no longer drains into a bucket we have to empty all the time and the toilet now has a toilet seat that is attached to the toilet.  Also, there was this neighbor who helped us out with all that who seems to be able to help us out with the water heater at the church with the baptismal font.  I talked to President Ford about it, and he agrees that it is a little ridiculous that we are sitting there for 4 hours every baptism, so he told me to try to get an estimate from somebody to see how much it will cost.  So we'll see how all that goes.

Also, Elder Warburton and I have been going through our responsibilities as Zone Leaders, and there seems to be a lot of things that haven't been done by the zone leaders for a long time that have to be done.  So we're going to talk to president about all that.  Also, in our zone, there are 4 new missionaries, and there are also 4 in the outside zone as well.  This next week we'll be going on exchanges with 1 companionship that has a new missionary as well as the missionaries in Laprakë, because the assistants told us that they are concerned with that.  So we'll see how this all works out. Yesterday, I was teaching in the primary during 2nd hour, and the branch president came in and told me that this lady wanted us to visit their relatives.  So we got 3 more referrals, hopefully future investigators and baptisms.  We'll see how all this goes.

Last Thursday, we cleaned out an old building in Kamëz that had been used for church quite some time ago, but since has been abandoned and we are closing it.  We then asked president if we could get the sign mounted on the side of the church building where we are currently meeting.  It would be great because the current sign is not in a very visible location.

That's about it for this week.  Hopefully this next week continues to go well.

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

So this week we had transfer calls, and I will be staying here as zone leader, and I will get Elder Warburton.  I was a little worried at first because of some things he had been saying recently about not wanting to stay in Tirana, but when I called him up to get the weekly numbers of his district yesterday, he seemed like he got over it.  I'm not too worried anymore.  We had had interviews with president just that morning when he called us for transfers, and he had accidentally kept calling me Elder Warburton.  I thought it was just innocent mistakes.  I had no idea that he was dropping hints to who my next companion would be.

We went to a restaurant this past week and I got brain.  They were out of the boiled brain, so I was stuck with the grilled brain.  I think there was tongue as well.  I don't know what animal they got it all from though.  Possibly a cow or sheep or something.  Anyways, my companion, Elder Smith, is going up to Kosovo as the Branch President there.  He will probably be there the rest of his mission.   It's kind of a bummer that I haven't been able to go to any temple for a while, and when I go home the closest operating one will be quite a ways away.

This is going to be a pretty busy week.  On Tuesday, we'll have transfers in the morning, and then me and my new companion will be filling up the baptismal font for a baptism at around 4:00.  Then on Friday we have Mission Council, and on Saturday we are going to have to get the baptismal font ready again for an American family whose son will be getting baptized.  Hopefully, we'll be able to meet with quite a few of our investigators throughout the week as well.  I've got a lot of untried contacts that we need to try, so hopefully we can find the time to do that.

This transfer probably went faster than all the other transfters I've had so far.  That'd be cool if it continued going this fast.  We just need to stay busy.  Anyways, have a good week.

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Dear family,

So I recently met this guy from Kuwait who was really Muslim.  I went to the Mosque last Monday to once again try to get an English Koran, but the Imam, the guy in charge, wasn't there.  This guy was, and he tried finding one for me, but he couldn't.  We met with him on Tuesday, because he was going back to Kuwait the next day.  He works in the oil companies with a lot of English and American people, so he spoke really good English.  He had heard a little about our religion, but not too much.  He had heard that we practiced polygamy, and when I said we didn't anymore, he was like "Why?  That's too bad."  or something like that.  Here is how Muslim he was: He lives in the middle east, has a beard, 1 wife from Albania, 1 wife from Russia, goes to the mosque, speaks Arabic, and has 12 kids.  He told us something interesting that would be fun to bring up in a pointless argument with another Christian hating on the polygamy thing.  In the Koran, I guess it says that a person can have 2, 3, or 4 wives, but if a man cannot treat them equally, he should only marry one.  The guy said that the Koran is the only holy book anywhere that says to only marry one wife.  That was interesting.

Anyways, this week went pretty well.  We have started meeting with this investigator who had been really busy for quite a while, so that's cool.  There is also this guy named Bledari who we started meeting with yesterday, and he was really cool as well.  As we left the church, he was saying how he was doing martial arts, and then he showed us something.  He ran at the wall, and did one of those back flips where they jump off the wall.  It was pretty cool.  I'd only seen that kind of thing on youtube before.

Anyways, the new president is cool. This next week the president is going to have interviews with all the missionaries, and he wants to go out to do missionary work with one companionship from each district.  I think from that he will be able to see where we're at and what needs to be done.  So if anything really starts happening, it will probably be within the next month or so.  I have a feeling he could possibly be more strict, but we'll see.  President Neil just kind of told us what we needed to do, let us govern ourselves, and then he corrected things if necessary.  We'll see what President Ford does. This Friday is transfer calls, so we'll see what happens.  President Neil had a transfer sheet filled out with what he wanted to happen, but with the new president, nobody can really predict anything.  At the end of this week, I will have finished my last 7 week transfer of the mission.  Then I just have two 6-week transfers left.

I don't think there's much chance that I'll go to Kosovo.  Missionaries that go there can only be there for 3 months at the most, and I only have 3 months left.  Also, I just got into this area as a zone leader, so I don't think that I'll be moving.  There's a small chance that I could go, but I think it's unlikely.  I would enjoy it though.  I talked to one of the elders from Kosovo the other day and he said that the branch president there is from Belgium.  That was interesting.  They speak Albanian up in Kosovo, but they have a different accent, they use some different words, and I think they might write the language differently.  I do have this book called Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit that is the old law of Albania in the north, and it is written in the Gheg accent of Albanian.  So words change like: fëmijë = fmi, shtëpi = shpi, and një = nji.  It is kind of funny also because "që" is written "qi" in the book, and that is a bad word in Albanian.  Që is also a commonly used word.  It means "that".  I heard that that is how they write in Kosovo, but I'm not sure.

So far, I think my one sentence for my mission would be: I did my best, I have no regrets.

  

Anyways, that's all I got for this week.

Love,

Elder Wallentine