Family friends one and all. 

     This week was slow. Sloooooooow. We only had five lessons. If you served a mission or know a missionary ask them if that's a lot. It's not at all. The work is slow here but doesn't mean you can discourage me. The subject line this week come because I PRed(personal record) Contacting time. We contacted for five hours on Wednesday. We contact with this "He is the Gift" poster and we have not been having much success but we're out there doing what we can and that's all we can. I'm extremely grateful I was born here. It's taught me to be grateful for whatever you have and to always have a positive attitude. Contacted for five hours but always keep a smile on my face. This work is hard but I'm preaching the plan of happiness not the plan of sadness and despair so if I expect people to be excited about it i need to be. I miss home and am tired all the time and lessons prish and we only have 9 people in church but it's all about your attitude. Mom i have that little black and yellow magnet you have burned into my mind since I've been here. I've learned it is all about your attitude. There is ALWAYS a positive way to look at something no matter how far you have to stretch sometimes even if everything is against you. You chose to be here you have a God who knows you and what' best you and loves you and is watching out for you. You have an older brother that suffered for you and knows you perfectly. He is walking besides you. Think everyday am I living the plan of happiness or the plan of despair and negativeness. MEN ARE THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE JOY. You exist to have joy. So turn that frown upside down and get to work if you're not where you want to be. I  could go on for hours as you all know. Next week you'll get another rant about something or other that I've learned. This mission is a blessing beyond measure for my life. I see why Satan tried so hard to keep me from coming. He knew how much it would help me in the battle against him. 

    Anyways into my week. Not a lot to report this week because not much happened. Last Monday we had a lesson with a guy named Izmir. (eezmir) he's a super cool guy that speaks really good English which is weird here. He's a student for business and he's going to Norway after he gets done for a scholarship or something. So we showed him the video and talked about Christ and having faith in him and just kind of talked to him about his beliefs. He really liked the quality of the video which i thought he would because he's a business and marketing student and I love how well it's done so i thought he would. But he had some interesting ideas just about that there are these people and gifts that god sends but you can't put a name on it and stuff like that but we just testified and said yes it is Christ and stuff and he kind of changed a little and was like ok. Then we ended and gave him a Joseph Smith pamphlet because we didn't have enough time to explain the book of mormon and when he saw the picture of Joseph Smith he started going off about these alien people called Anonockies no idea if i spelled that right but they are a race they came here and created humans and used them to mine and work for them........ Ya weird right it was just a good lesson that ended very strange but he's just a kid who likes learning and we just need to steer that learning. When we asked him if he wanted to learn more about the book of mormon he was like Of Course! it's a book so he just likes learning and hopefully we can keep working with him and get his desire to learn in the right place. 

     The other lesson worth mention this week was with our investigator named Liza. She has been an investigator for ever and has gone through like 3 sets of missionaries and always changed her number but i told you about our last lesson we had and we text her to read a chapter in the book of mormon and she read it and two other ones so that was exciting. The lesson so the last one was crazy and totally got prished but this time it was only her a couple of her kids and her husband who we were a little worried about because he always talks about money but we started the lesson. We taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ and they understood the whole thing and we're like ya we need to be better people and follow Christ and they just have a ton of faith but when we taught baptism and committed them and they said yes! and you're all probably wondering why I'm not more excited but it's because they said yes but we got the vibe it was more a yes baptism and following Christ is a good thing so they said yes. It's just been a while since she's got the other lessons and we don't really know how much they know. but they said yes and they had three kids well four but the oldest is 17 and married so.... But we are going to review the restoration and the plan of salvation and hit on baptism again and just talk about why this is the right church and why they need to get baptized in this church and do all these things and hopefully they will get a better grasp of it and get the whole picture on baptism and the gospel. I have really high hopes for her and her family though and I'm really excited to see how our lesson goes next time. and TWO  baptismal dates. Been here 2 1/2 months and those are my first ones so HIZZAH! AWAY WE GO! haha 

     The last thing for this week was Albania had a priesthood meeting for the whole country and we were asked to attend by President Weidmann. We had it in Durres because they have an actually church building. It was crazy to see that many priesthood holders there and have a meeting like that. The work is going forth in and it was great to see. A kids who's going on a mission spoke, a couple bishops and the stake presidency. There was probably 150-200 people there and it was Awesome! Oh. and the whole thing was in Albanian obviously so it was like two hours of language study and i didn't get a ton out of it but it was good. It felt like a meeting we used to have in America and it was cool to see that we have that many members that would come. The two hour drive there isn't great but i enjoy driving and take it from my companion so I can't complain. Definitely worth it as well. 

    Well that's all that happened this week. I love all of you and leave you with my simple testimony that Jesus Christ lives and is the true meaning of this great season and time. He lived and died and lives again so that we can all be here and experience joy in this life. Find that joy and become better everyday. Mentally, Physically, and Spiritually become better everyday. Your Favorite Missionary. ( a lot more pressure than i thought it would be)  - Elder Szabo

This letter will be a little different and I should have time to share stuff about my week at the end but I wanted to share an experience I had about a month ago. 

    I was cleaning up my stuff around the house trying to get it all organized and came upon a letter that I had received while in the MTC. I had forgotten about it but not the message inside. It was from Amy and had the typical update stuff what's going in your life type of stuff which I love to hear about but also included was one of her recent blog posts. I opened the letter again and began to read the blog post. Amy lost her husband a couple years ago while he was serving in the military and the blog post was about an afternoon she had had  battling her feelings and going to his grave and the feelings that accompanied the day and then going to a place for lunch and a song came on that had been the last song that had really meant something to the both of them and the love that she felt from her husband because he had sent the song to her and the love she felt from him. Because of the plan of Salvation and that she knew where her husband was and that she'd see him again one day. I won't try to repeat the whole story because I couldn't do it justice. She writes much more beautifully then I do. Go find it and read it. But I share this because as I finished the letter my eyes watered up a bit and I was filled with an appreciation for the Plan of Salvation that I am privileged to know and to share for the next 2 years. As I sat and reflected I didn't really know why I came on a mission honestly. I almost didn't come on one but I prayed and got an answer it was the right thing to do. I could write a whole other post about that parents you can ask about that later but as I sat there and thought about what i had just read and the plan of salvation I realized why I'm here. It's to share this beautiful message of the The Plan of HAPPINESS of salvation the perfect plan that guides our lives and gives us direction here. The plan that can comfort a young widow or strengthen a young boy 8000 miles away from home. I'm here because people everywhere need this beautiful message of this gospel and that plan that accompanies it. I found my WHY? I've come to realize while I've been here that before i came the gospel meant very little to me. I went to Church, to seminary, read my scriptures on and off. Did the stuff I was supposed to but didn't really realize the importance that it should have in my life. I almost didn't come out here but I will be forever blessed because of this opportunity i'm having right now. This plan that we know of is a blessing beyond measure. That we can all come here experience our hardships and one day return to God. Our loving father. This is all possible because of a brother that lived, suffered, died, and rose again. For each of us individually. Because of him all we must do is come unto him and become a little better everyday. Try a little harder. Learn a little more and he will comfort us, strengthen us, guide us, and so much more. I sat and reflected all of this as I set the paper down and realized the true purpose of why i'm here on a mission. To bring about the salvation of souls. My purpose as a missionary became so real and got so much meaning in that moment as I realized this plan that made the story i had just read possible was why i was here and everyone needed it. What is your WHY? for being in this gospel. Find that why and hold onto it. Strengthen it everyday. Become, learn, and grow in this gospel. If your 8 or 80 you can find something to improve on. This gospel is the most important thing in your life and you should treat is as such. I don't write this pretending to be perfect or that I have ever done this in the past. I didn't put it on the level it should of been but I know I should now and I think everyone of knows that we should but life gets in the way. Search for that WHY?  Hold on to it and try be a little better everyday because of it. People. I know Christ lives and knows each one of you. You have a loving heavenly father who knows you and what's best for you. His commandments will give you blessing beyond what your mind can imagine and you will find joy like you have never had if you hold onto this gospel and follow it's teachings. Find your WHY? and happiness will find you. Don't make what i'm doing out here be in vain. 

   "The gospel should not be a checklist or something you do out of a feeling of responsibility to others but should be lived because you have a personal why and you know your purpose here in life" Yet again this made no sense and was a ramble but I hope you got the message i was trying to convey. 

    That was long and different but I've wanted to share that experience since it happened and just got around to it. Didn't really make much sense or come out how i wanted it but oh well. 

     This week was a normal week not much happened. We've running around getting it trying to spread this he is the gift message. We made a goal for 4 baptisms when I first got here and we have a mission goal to get 300 baptisms before the end of the year. We need 86 as a whole mission and 4 here... That doesn't sound like a lot but here in Shkoder that is a lot especially when you think that we only have 3 weeks to do it now. We have two twins that the other elders are teaching that are super solid and progressing but we need two other people that we can commit. We have some hopefuls but it seems like everyone of our potentials would be hard to get by the end of the year and we can't meet with them very often and we haven't gotten any baptismal dates yet. I have no idea how its going to happen but we are trying to have faith and do everything we can to achieve this goal. I honestly have no idea how we're going to do it but Nefi didn't know how he would get the plates, Moses didn't know how he would get the people out of Egypt and so on. The Lord works in mysterious ways and We are trusting in him and not ourselves. Because the he is the gift thing isn't in Albanian our mission has kind of had to improvise so we got Albanian subtitles for the video and got Albanian pass along cards for it and these big posters posted to contact with. and We got it on this big screen that's in the middle of Tirana. It's a shortened version of the video that is about 30 seconds long that plays every three minutes!! Isn't that awesome???!! it's basically the times square equivalent of Albania! It's cool to see what we've been able to do with it even though it would have been a lot better in English because we could just say hey go watch this video you speak English! We have to get people to come to the church or carry around our little dvd players for lessons. It's been a little difficult but at least we have all this stuff. It's better than nothing! Always a positive perspective. We had a couple lessons this week that we got to share the video in but 2 of them weren't super effective because the first one was with a lady named Liza who we started meeting with again. She's met with a bunch of missionaries and changes her number then meets with another set but we actually went to her house and had a good first lesson with her but this one there was a ton of kids in the house going in and out and her husband wants money from the church so he was talking about not having work and how America is a fairy tale where everyone has work and lives on rainbows and at the end of the lesson her dad and brother came in and totally prished the lesson. So we just ended and left. We shared the video and got a little good discussion but it wasn't the right environment and didn't have the impact it could have. But the good is that she's actually reading the book of mormon and came to church two weeks ago. But the husband might be a challenge we'll see. 

    The other one was with the family that has an active member that moved. It is really hard to get all of the families attention at once and people are in and out and the five year old doesn't sit still. We showed the video but it didn't go very well. Just not the right environment again. But the grandma who is super catholic has been reading the chapters we've been leaving them. I didn't really know what do about that family because they know about the church and we just need to get them excited. We will keep working with them hopefully something happens. 

    The last one was we went to the other Elders less active who is an old lady. Not the crazy one other one but she wasn't home so we knocked on her families door who are our less actives who we called and they came to church two weeks ago and they never answer the door but she did and said to come in so we have an improv lesson and showed the video and they really liked it. It was her and her daughter but she is one of the leeches and was talking about how they didn't give her enough help and she knows better than everyone and all this stuff but we hope we can get her excited about the gospel again and the dad isn't a member so it things progress we can get him involved too. That's it for this week. Not much happening here. I love you all. Keep me in your prayers. Elder Szabo

No, Actually i'm not a J-Dub.

FAAAAAAAMILY AND PEEEEEOPLE OF AMERICA. 

    I have so much to say but not much time to write this week. We went to the castle today and had to walk and stayed longer than we thought. But I got to go to a castle so that was awesome. 

    This week has been slow as usual only a couple of lessons but You can not bring me down. Honestly I don't really get discouraged anymore I just put my head down and go to work. It's actually just normal now. This mission thing is tough and long sometimes but I learn so much in the process. 

    Since I don't have much time I'll just tell you about the two lessons that were good this week. One was with that family that we met with last week. They are great and we love going to them. I think I told you about them but honestly can't remember so if i haven't let me know. Anyways the power just goes out in Albania all the time because that's normal and when we got to their house the power was out so we had a lesson by CANDLE LIGHT! It was awesome. I love that family and want so much for them to be interested but they are super catholic so we'll see. But surprisingly enough the Grandma of the family who is super catholic was the one who read the Book of Mormon assignment we left with them. She said in the middle of the lesson that they weren't going to get baptized or join our faith or anything but they are awesome and we're at least bringing the spirit into their home and strengthening their faith. We taught them about Christ and his purpose on earth and the blessing he is for us * Huge side note. Their is an initiative called He is The Gift. Go to christmas.mormon.org and go check it out! It's awesome and that video gets me every time. I love the church's media department because they do work and their videos are amazing and I love good videos and almost want to work for the church just so i can be a part of it. Anyways go check it out and SHARE THE GIFT. * I have really high hopes for that family especially because they have a family member that is a member but she leaves far away. They are awesome and are willing to listen and agree with everything we teach them we just need to get their faith aimed in the right direction. When we close with a prayer and ask one of them to say it the grandma always leads them in the Lords Prayer and it's delightful. Gotta love them Catholics. But I really hope that as we continue to visit them and the grandma keeps reading and hopefully a couple of the other ones will read as well they will realize the truthfulness of the gospel. That was a really good lesson this week. I love that family so much and I've only met with them twice. It's amazing the love that comes when you're trying to bring people to eternal happiness. 

    The other lesson was last night with the two members that live below us. PAVLO AND MIMOZA. Good googly moogly I love them. I honestly want to stay in Shkoder for my entire mission. Not even kidding I would stay here because of them and because i want to see this place grow and we're right on the verge. Anyways! lesson. So we planned to teach them the Restoration again because Pavlo's only been baptized for a month and we found out a really good way to start teaching it so we started the lesson (which is literally the floor below us) and talked about why we need a restoration and that God is our loving heavenly father. and they just started going off on how they want to do missionary work and things that we should do to improve it and That we need to get the church in a better place and Mimoza said that she was going to go by the college and tell people about the gospel and they were just saying all this great stuff. My goodness You want to light a fire under a missionary have members talk about doing missionary work in a place that only has four members. It was so good to see them excited and wanted to help and all their ideas. It was awesome. but the main reason I liked the lesson was because I got an idea about missionary work that totally changed my perspective. This is going to sound dumb to everyone else but it fits me. When They were talking about how we need to get the church in a better place i realized what am I doing as a missionary? I'm marketing the church to people here. It's just like dropping a new product or something. This sounds dumb to everyone else but I love marketing and business and it totally changed my perspective because I'm not just a missionary who isn't having success but now It's my job for the next two years to think of new and exciting ways to market this church to people. and this brings partly to my subject line because of a ton of people think we're jehovahs witnesses and I hate it and I really want to change that and get the church super known here and get us recognized as who we are. I'm super excited about this. It's amazing what one little thought can do to your whole mission. I was excited about the work before but I'm pumped now to see what I can come up with to Market the church here and get it super known and obviously convert hundreds in the process. Everyone is thinking what is in the water in Albania but hey It's getting me excited so whatever works right. That probably made no sense to anyone but I thought I'd let you know and that I'm super excited to go through the next two years. IT's amazing what happens when you forget yourself and go to work here. You don't have time to worry about home or yourself because all you want is for people to come unto Christ and know this happiness. 

   In Nefi he describes the love of God as better than anything Lehi had ever tasted before. It was more desirable than anything else. This gospel is more desirable than anything in the world. Sure we may be a peculiar people but we have the plan of happiness. It's called the plan of happiness for a reason. It's not the plan of never ending sadness and despair. NO. It's the plan of happiness.  A perfect plan that if we follow it we can find joy and satisfaction everyday of our lives no matter what is happening. MEN ARE THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE JOY. You live so that you might find joy in this life. How do you do this? Follow the commandments and find gratitude in all you do. Everything has a positive. Go read 1 Nefi and tell me you can't find something to be grateful for. He literally never complains and neither should we. We can find so much happiness in this life and the life to come. Everyday rejoice because you have the knowledge of this plan and the way that you can be happy and return to your loving heavenly father one day. Before I came out here this gospel meant nothing to me. But having to work for it and testify of it everyday has made me realize how important it is. Don't make what I'm doing out here be in vain. Read your scriptures and pray everyday. Attend the temple OFTEN. and everyday put a smile on that face in your heart because you have the knowledge that an eternal perfect being is your FATHER in heaven and he has a plan for you. and you have the truth. Find your testimony and hold onto. Grow it everyday. The gospel is a escalator are you going up or down the escalator. Find the truth and hold it close to your heart. Search the scriptures and find them open the truths of heaven in your life. Rejoice because of this truth you have. You can find happiness everyday and become better everyday because it. EVERYDAY try to BECOME a little better LEARN  a little more and GROW mentally and spiritually. I could go on for hours but I will end with this. I know Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He came to this earth Suffered everything and raised on the cross  and rose again so you could have happiness and return to God one day. He did that for you and you and you and you and even you! He loves you and knows you better than you know yourself. Turn to him and become like him everyday and he will lift you up in this life and in the next. He is Christ and he Lives. Remember that he is the true gift of this Christmas season. 

   Much love your favorite missionary. Elder Szabo  christmas.mormon.org 

Laaaaaaadies aaaaaaaand geeeeeeeeentlemen. You're looking at the last Szabo missionary. 3 down 1 to go. Seems crazy that Jamie and Molly are home now. Seems like just yesterday we were taking them to the MTC. Ooh mtc don't miss that place. 

    Guess who has two thumbs and plays the piano? This guy! WARNING: any mothers or piano teachers please sit down for your health and well being before proceeding to the next statement* I had to play the piano in Church Sunday and boy do I wish i would have kept up with it! What's that you just heard mother? Yes I wish I would have practiced more and kept up with it after I stopped taking lessons. I really enjoy playing the piano but it was rough playing in church. I practiced a little this week but I can only play the right hand well enough and just have to sight read them. It was a little rough but we got through and it wasn't too bad but I'm going to have to play as long as I'm here or another Elder who plays better comes here. I'm going to get pretty good over the next 5 weeks though. I'm going to practice through the week so it isn't terrible for sacrament meeting. Speaking of Church we had..... 8 people this week. 4 missionaries 2 members 2 investigators. Both were the other Elders. None of ours came. Pavlo and Mimoza left town again. Mimoza's mother died so they left for Vlore and aren't coming back for a couple days. Oh and it was my week for a talk. So I had to play the piano then stand up and give a talk right after. If you've forgotten I have to give those talks in Shqip. I prepared a little and made points like I always do but I couldn't find my talk before we went to Church so I basically had to wing my talk but 15 minutes winged talk after being here 7 weeks isn't too shabby. I actually love giving talks its just hard in the language but I'm super grateful i have to give talks because it helps my language skills. My speaking ability is a lot better. My flow has increased even though I make a lot of grammar mistakes still. But those will come with time. It's hard because verbs and nouns are both conjugated. Verbs for whose doing the action and what tense it's in. So theres present simple past and imperfect and verb declinations are very hard because there are 12 ways you can change them there are three types of endings for indefinite singular definite singular indef plural and def plural. It changes based off of where it is in the sentence. One of the hard things about the language is they conjugate things with nominative accusitive and genitive/dative/ablative. It's very confusing and none of this is probably making sense but be proud of me because I'm doing decent with the language. It will come with time and hard work. My understanding is still pretty rough i can get the general idea most of the time but it's still a little rough most of the time. But the moral of this long story was that I wish I would have played the piano more and Mom always told me that I would have to use it and she was right. Mothers always know best. ALWAYS. 

    This week was slow as usual we get a lot of numbers but then people don't meet with us but cool story for the week. So we teach English course two times a week. We have the course then share a spiritual thought for those who want to stay. But we started a new course a couple weeks ago and this cun- (choon) ( c with the little tail it basically means young boy/ teenager/ young adult. don't know a good equivalent. This guy was like 22) came with another guy and two girls and he was a typical cun. Loud disrespectful and making dirty comments stuff like that. Wasn't really interested in coming. Made the whole class not fun and we didn't really want to teach him anymore but he came back a couple times. My comp really did not like him. Background to what happens next. We decided to go tracting one night and decided on some buildings and we knocked on a door and an old couple who wasn't interested then the second door we knock on guess who answers..... The annoying cun we don't like! We both really didn't want to go in but he invited us in and he was there with two of his friends. They all live there kind of like a dorm room. So we talked to them for a little and it turns out they were actually super cool and we taught a really good restoration lesson to them. The one we didn't like was the least interested but his two friends were really engaged and it was a really good lesson. We had run out of book of Mormons so we didn't have any to give them but left them with some pamphlets to read AND it gets better we invited them to FHE and the other two actually showed up and participated in the lesson and really enjoyed it. It was a really good lesson in judging a book by his cover and it was a really cool turn of events. We gave them book of Mormons at fhe and are meeting with them tonight so we are really hoping that they are still interested and have read.     We had three other promising lessons this week. One was with a guy we contacted into while the zone leaders were up here helping us out. We speaks really good English so we gave part of the lesson in English. his friend he brought didnt' speak as well so we balanced it but they seemed really cool. They didn't seem super engaged during the lesson but they looked for like 30 minutes to find the church and still came so we are hoping we can meet with them again. They live in a fshat and have to leave town early with a frigon if they come into town. Another was a guy that Elder Roemer taught a bench lesson to when we were contacting. He taught him the Plan of Salvation and he was super interested in it and believed. He has some weird beliefs but after we taught him the Restoration and were walking back with him he was talking all about how God has given us everything and we need to follow his will and we need his help and all this stuff so we were super excited for him. But We tried to call him to set up another lesson and he answered then hung up and we called back and he ignored the call then turned off his phone. So we don't really know what's going on with him or why he lost interest. We hope he'll answer when we call back. The other lesson was a family of a lady that's a member but she moved to Sweden or somewhere but she's a super strong member and we were over by her families house and Elder Roemer was like hey we should see if we can meet them so we talked to a guy on the street to see which one exactly was the house and it turned out to be the dad an old guy and he told us we could come by that night. So we stopped by. There is a grandma and grandpa a daughter and her husband and their two kids that live in the house and it was kind of crazy because people were in and out of the room and weren't staying then the Grandpa came home during the lesson but we just talked with them for a while. The kids were super cool and the little one was really cute they were probably 8 and 5. But we just shared Helaman 5:12 and talked about having a foundation in Christ and they were just all agreeing and talking about how important he is to have as the center of your life and all this stuff and I was getting super excited but at the end we invited them to church and the grandma was just like it's too far for the kids and I'm too old to walk that far and all this stuff so i was really bummed about that but they've read a little bit of the book of Mormon before and the 8 year old knew all about Joseph Smith and the dad of the two kids was flipping through the book  of Mormon the whole time and reading and they said we could come back again so we will keep working with them and at the end we invited the 8 year old to give the prayer and he was about to give an amazing prayer but the grandma started having him give the lords prayer and they all said it. The kid looked at us after like he knew that's not how he was supposed to pray though so that was super good. I was devastated when they wouldn't come to church but we'll keep working with them and trying to bring the spirit into their house. They are a super good family and I love them even just being with them that once. The grandma was hilarious and her laugh was great. I have high hopes. 

     Other things this week. It rained for two days. The first day it poured for a good 8 hours straight it came down. I'm really glad i had that nice umbrella it was very helpful. but I haven't had rain like that before and it was great. Way better than snow. it rained on and off the next day and hasn't rained since but it definitely brought winter. It's gotten a lot colder the last couple days and contacting is getting pretty cold at night. Time to layer up. Humid cold really cuts to the bone and it is cold! Going to be a cold winter. Oh and the second day it was clear in the morning so we didn't think it was going to rain but we were at lunch and it started and we had to walk home without umbrellas in the rain. It was off and on but we got pretty wet. Another thing we've been running every other morning and we always joke with our members that live below us that they should come with us and on Friday night we had a lesson with them and Pavlo said he was coming with us the next day and we thought he was kidding but the next day he came and knocked on the door and he ran with us. It was a pretty slow jog but he has to be upper fifties so it was impressive he came with us and he's super funny so It was great. It's gotten colder and my comp doesn't like the cold so we're not going anymore and he said no one else in the mission would go running so a little bummed about that but I just need to find a kettlebell. A funny thing Albania is weird and on these sidewalks they have holes in them because they are planting trees but it takes them forever but there is just like 10 holes in the side walk 2 1/2 feet wide and we can avoid them in the day but we were walking home and it was dark and we were walking and all of the sudden I hear Elder Roemer make a sound and turn around and he had fallen in on the holes. Just one of those only in Albania moments and luckily he didn't hurt his leg or anything but we just had a laugh that he fell in a hole. The last thing for this week is Motra Prena the crazy lady that tries to feed us terrible food and is crazy. We found out she had an accident of some kind and was in the hospital she fell or soemthing on her way to church so after church we found out what hospital she was in and went to visit her but Albanian hospital.... We walked in and there was no one at the front desk or anyone to help us so we just started walking and it was just sketchy and the best was to describe it is a hospital where they would film a zombie movie. It was just weird and there was no one walking around or to help you and it was weird. We were all a little scared about being in there but we found her walking out the hospital she was fine so it must not have been to bad but the hospital was definitely not an American one and I think i would die if i had to go to an Albanian hospital. That's all for this week. Not much success but we keep working hard. I love you all keep me in your prayers. OFFICIALLY the favorite and only missionary left. Elder Szabo

Pictures

My lunch.

 Three sulfaques.  It's there hamburger here.  It's basically a gyro but I got three, which was a lot.

 olives . . .disgusting, but they're growing on me

 My view from the table.

 My comp playing with the dog.

 Selfie

 Our car at the gas station, broken down.

 The end of my first planner.

 Our car in it's parking spot for the night.

 We taught FHE and did the tree of life and this was the other Elders attempt at trying to draw it.

 We got a bakery pizza. Delicious!

 Our phone.

 Our fridge.

 My breakfast.

Albanian version of a breakfast bowl.

 It has been super foggy in the morning.

 Aloe vera plant on our window sill.

 You can't see it very well but we did service for one of our members in his vineyard grape thing
and we had to carry the branches and that was my arms after.  

It was good to do some hard physical work.

 Boulevard where we contact sometimes.  Busiest part of town.

 A cat, lounging on a house.

Soup, our member made us.  She's awesome. 

 Chicken tomato stuff I made.

 drying rack, they don't have dryers here

We bought a bag of potatoes.

Our house

At one of our members house, stuffed ferret.

I almost stabbed you in your sleep last night!

Hey Hey Hey. I think only Jarod and Sam will understand how I just said that but it works. 

    I'll start with the subject line so you guys aren't worried the whole letter... My companionship has taken a turn for the worse.... haha Just kidding. We were doing companionship inventory last week we do it every week with weekly planning and the first question is what is the strength of your relationship. Joking around I said it was terrible and I hate him and stuff then Elder Roemer responded with ya I Almost stabbed you in your sleep last night. We just burst out laughing and went on with our comp inventory. That probably doesn't make sense to anyone and you're all just wondering  what has happened to him over there! But it was hilarious and I guess it shows the strength of our relationship if we can joke around like that. He says little stuff like that all the time that just makes me laugh. Mostly things about his love for animals mostly cats... I don't understand it but he likes them a lot. I'm really blessed to have him as my trainer though. We have little arguments or disagreements sometimes but who doesn't. We're doing really good and have a really good relationship. It'll be interesting to see what I get after him. 

    Shkoder... That's all there really is to say about it. I think we hit an all time low on lessons this week. We had 5 total lessons and 3 of them were our recent converts which are a given because they always are willing to meet with us. We couldn't meet with our "progressing" investigator because he went to visit his family in a little fshat so he hasn't been here. The great couple we met with last week keeps prishing (prish is a verb that means to break so missionaries use it in our English and you can't just add the ing that's just americanizing it. Holy cow Americanizing is totally a word that's awesome!) us and only want lokal lessons so i dont' think they'll go anywhere which is a bummer because they were so awesome and I was excited. The one lesson we did have this week was with a guy named Lufti. He's a little guy in his 50's he's a sweeper/cleaner guy ( In albania they have people who walk around with little kart things and sweep up leaves and garbage. Yet this place still has a ridiculous amount of trash everywhere.) who elder Roemer has been talking to since he came here and he's never met with us or came to Church.I think I talked about him last week. But we finally met him this week and he was AWESOME. We only got to teach God is our loving Heavenly Father because he came late and we had another lesson ( with Gjarit and his wife who ended up prishing us so that was a bummer.) but he was just agreeing with all of it and would talk about what he believed and it was all spot on. He talked about how much God has blessed him and how we need him in our lives. I was super mad we had to end early and especially for a prished lesson but I'm glad we got to meet with him and really hope he goes somewhere. He's probably five feet tall and has darker skin but he's hilarious and loves coming to Church so high hopes. 

    Church this week.... Any guesses on how many people we had??? Nope. 8. Three of our four members weren't there. Mimoza and Pavlo went to Tirana for a birthday Party thing and It rained Hard in the morning so Arsen didn't come. We had Pres. Kraja, the missionaries, and the other Elders Investigator and his two kids. If they wouldn't have come we would have had 5 and almost all missionaries. It's normal now to have less than ten in church. Only in our ward would you go from giving a talk to sitting down and playing the piano for the interlude song. Elder Anderson did that. We do everything and giving talks in Sacrament is going to be nothing when i get home. Every other week in Albanian. It's actually a good way to gauge how my language has improved. I love giving talks but it's tough with the language. 

   The other big thing this week was we had a mission conference in Durres because President Dykes and his wife came for a mission tour. I believe he's the area 70. But since it's in Durres we have to leave pretty early to get there it's about a 2 hour drive. I don't know if I've told you about our car but we have the worst one in the mission and it has lots of problems. It shifts horribly and sometimes it gets stuck in a gear for a couple seconds and just revs. Our AC will just randomly break so it only works on the highest setting. Lots of problems but still drivable. So we make our way to Durres and the car is making a weird clicking sound off and on then when we get a little bit out of Shkoder it starts making it louder and the car is struggling to accelerate then it won't accelerate at all so we pull over at a gas station and we had to end up leaving it there because there was no way it was making it. So the gas station guy called a taxi for us which was just a xhaxhi's car so we were a little cramped in the back with all three of us. So we make it to the conference on time luckily. It was really good. It's the whole mission... Jamie and molly a couple of your zones is probably about the size of my mission. We only have like 16 sisters and 70 total missionaries i think. But Durres has an actual church building!! I forgot those exist. Ours is just the bottom floor of a building and it's tiny so it was cool to see an actual building in Albania. There is a sister in our mission that reminds me a lot of Jamie so I guess we have an equivalent in each others mission. President's wife spoke then he spoke,Then President Mema spoke (Albania's stake president for the whole country... He's awesome!) President Dykes wife spoke then He Spoke. The whole thing had a faith centered thing but president Dykes wife spoke on your personal story and kind of gaining a personal testimony of things then President Dykes spoke on becoming a master teacher and some other stuff. A lot of stuff was covered and it was about three hours long so I'm just summarizing. It was super good and very enriching and it was really cool to see everyone from my mtc group. I would definitely say I got born in the hardest group. One of the kids has a cleaning lady! What is this South America!? :) but it was really good. Then came the getting home part... Remember we don't have our car. So we ended up taking a bus to Tirana and then a frigon( it's a van that drives to and from certain cities) back to Shkoder but it took a lot longer than it would have if we had our car we left Shkoder at about 7 and didn't get back until 8 30. It was about 7 hours of travel. The travel back was very long. We left Durres at about 4 I think and it took that long because we had to walk to the bus station then walk to the frigon in Tirana and wait for it for a little. It was a LONG day but the conference was very good. and we get to go back to Tirana this week and next week and we don't have a car still so yay frigons!!! This week I have to go to the U.S. embassy for my green card thing then next week we have our actual mission conference mission conference so we get to go back for that. So lots of travel this month. Seems like we do every month but it'll be harder without a car.

    Some other things for this week. We were contacting on the bulevard and a guy walked by and he spoke english and he stopped and told us he owned a restaurant in town and he loves talking to english speakers so he'd show us his restaurant and he said he'd be back in 20 minutes. I didn't think he would come back but he did about 30 minutes later so we walked to his restaurant and we had never heard of the place but when we got there we realized it was the traditional place we eat at about once a week. So it made it even cooler. So had a drink with him and talked about his restaurant. He has the one we eat at in town and another one on the river and he showed us pictures and it looked super nice and delicious food. We just sat and talked for a while and he was a super cool guy. It was super cool that we got to meet the owner of that restaurant because we eat there all the time and he told us he'd give a discount. He was just a super cool guy and we spoke English the whole time because he says he likes to practice and keep it up. It was just a really cool experience though and was cool we were there at the right time and he stopped for us.  

    That's it for this week. We're still having no success but I love this place and know it'll pick up one day and I'm becoming such a better person. I'm excited to look back on the end of my mission and see how different and better I've become. I love you all. 8000 miles  is a long ways and i hope my prayers get to you over the ocean. :) I'll be the only missionary in two weeks!!! That's weird to think about... I remember taking Molly to the MTC. Where does the time go?! Love you all keep me in your prayers. 

All Packages are to be shipped to the Mission office.  Postal Service will work, but the best way to do it is to use DHL.  

DHL is more secure and has a much better tracking ability.  The Postal Service here is not as good as it could be and sometimes packages get lost and/or it takes an extra-long time to arrive.

DHL is much more secure.  It may be a little more money, I am not sure how much, but it will get here faster and in better shape. 

As far as delivery before Christmas the packages are generally delivered monthly to the areas thru the Zone Leaders that come to Tirana for Mission Leaders Training and take the mail and Packages back to their area with them. 

So, again, the best address to ship packages to is to the Mission office. 

Make sure they use This Address:

Adriatic South Mission  

Attn: Missionary Name here      

P.O. Box 2984                   

Rruga Qemal stafa, Vila 1                             

Përballë Postës Nr. 22                   

Tirana, Albania            

Find Joy in the Journey.

People of America. 

    The weeks are starting to fly by and I feel like I'm beginning to get in the groove of being a missionary. It's kind of weird being a missionary. I have to be in the same room as someone 24 hours a day and I preach the gospel and get told no a lot but it's life and it's becoming normal. This week the zone leaders came up for a couple days to help us with our area just offer advice and get another perspective. They are great guys and taught me a lot. It was good to have another perspective to give us some advice. They were here from Monday night to Wednesday morning. Nothing too exciting happened with them except the last night they were here we wore helping hands vest which are bright yellow and walked around looking for service because a lady prished on us. We were just six Americans walking around in bright yellow vests asking people if we could do service. It was completely Kote.. but we didn't have time to do anything else because we changed clothes for service so it is what it is. 

    Two lessons this week that were promising. We met an old xhaxhi (basically old grandpa but they're crazy and awesome here) named Gjarit and his wife and our first lesson they came to the church and kind of just wanted to learn some English but we taught the Book of Mormon at the end and I didn't think it would go anywhere but when we called them for a return appointment they said they'd meet and apparently his wife loves us. We had a local lesson ( in Albania they have a ton of places to sit outside and people drink coffee and meet and do nothing all day called locals)which aren't the best but it's better than nothing. We met with them and they are a funny and great old couple! We talked for a while before the lesson and they are just a super awesome old couple who value marriage and family and are a great example. They told us at one point that they're not just married they're friends. They were joking around and laughing with each other the whole time. It was great to see and there is so much potential there if we can just get them excited about the gospel. They didn't come to church because they had friends at there house which was really disappointing but we are really excited for them! I really hope they progress. I still don't understand a ton and it's hard because i just want to make a connection with people but I've come a far way in 6 weeks. By the end of this transfer I'll be self sustaining and I won't need to old my fathers hand but it's going to come slowly. It's really my biggest struggle out here is the language. I feel like I'm opening a door slowly but pushing with all my might. I just want to be able to talk and more understand. I know it will come but it's a hard journey. The second lesson was with our one progressing investigator. His name is Marko... not Marku we've had a lot of confusion with his name but it's been settled. Marko. Anyways we went over there last night. I don't remember if I've told you but he's a 30ish year old guy that lives in  a fshat about 5 minutes out of town. He is great! Everytime we call or go over at some point he always tells us that he's going to find us wives and that we need to look for them and we tell him after the mission and he just laughs. This was the third time we've met with him and his brother was there last night but wasn't interested at all. We taught him the rest of the plan of salvation and he was super accepting to all of it and knows its true but he hasn't been reading a ton in the book of Mormon and still hasn't prayed about it but our lesson was good. He kept telling us that he knows I'm smart I'm just not talking much and he kept looking at me and saying what do you think? He's such a great and funny guy and he's so close to a baptismal date he just still says he's ready to be baptized but doesn't know when. Hopefully he prays about it and the book of Mormon like we asked him to and he'll get his answer. He's funny and speaks a little English and always says ok mister in the funny accent then laughs about stuff. I can't really explain him but hopefully I can a picture with him when he gets baptized... 

     Little stuff this week. We've been doing the wake up at 5 30 go to bed at 9 30 thing which is super weird but I feel like it's been effective because not many people are out at night in the winters but it's not my favorite thing. Today we rolled out of bed at 5 30 and went for a run... We are both very out of shape and ran like 2 miles but it felt super good and we are going to be doing it 3 times a week. I feel like I'm going to stay in pretty good shape even though I sleep like garbage and never feel like working out. There are two types of dialects in Albanian Gheg and Tosk Gheg is like dirty slang Albanian and they speak a form of it here in Shkoder. The farther north you go the worse the gheg. So the south speak super proper and high and in Kosovo they speak deep and dirty. I really hope I go to Kosovo. I do not want to go to the south. But anyways The gheg is a kind of a lazy form they cut a lot of stuff off and say stuff different so I'm learning a dirty form here but I like it a lot. Oh and with the Three countries. I won't ever be going to Macedonia they call missionaries specifically for there but there are cities in Kosovo people serve in. They speak mostly Albanian in Kosovo but very little in Macedonia. I really hope I get called up to Kosovo and stay there a while though. That's all for this week. I love you all. Keep reading the book of Mormon and going to the temple! It's worth it no matter how far you have to go or sacrifice. IT's worthy it!!! Dad I'm taking your comment as I'm your favorite so Officially my fathers favorite. Elder Szabo! 

Two hands won't cut it this week!

We had 16 people in church! 2 of them were President and his wife but still. It was weird having that many people. I will never take a ward for granted again I can tell you that much. The missionaries have to do everything. We usually bless and pass the sacrament lead and the play the music and give the talks. So when you get that call that asks to give a talk in church or when you get that calling that you're not too excited about REMEMBER REMEMBER that it is a blessing and an opportunity you have not a burden. I have to give a talk every other week and it's in this crazy language called Albanian so count your many blessings. You don't know what you have until it's gone and it's all gone! Just motivates me to work harder. We don't need baptisms we need members here! People who will stay and build this place up. So next time you get a call for a talk you rejoice and say It would be my honor to teach about his gospel and to testify of it's beauty. 

     This week wasn't much different than the past weeks but some stuff did happen. I had an exchange because every transfer your district leader goes on an exchange with an elder we did that. Not too much happened. We had a lesson with a guy named Erlind (airleend). He's Muslim but believes that you should continually be learning so he wanted to learn about us and what makes up different. The other elder kept giving me opportunities to speak but every time I would I'd get a couple sentences in and he'd have a question so the other elder would answer and then they got into some other stuff that I did not have the vocab for so I didn't really say much and he wasn't really interested after but it was a good discussion. I'm still kind of a baby with the language but it gets better everyday and can see a huge difference already. After Three months I should be golden. I honestly feel great right now this area sucks but it's the normal now and I feel like the language is the only thing holding me back. 

   We had interviews this week! Let me tell you President Weidmann can light a fire in you. He started off by telling me i'm a successful missionary because it's about my commitment to find teach and baptize not the numbers. He knows how to be blunt... He was like Do you believe God knows you personally? Do you think he knows what's best for you? Then is it a coincidence you're in Shkoder? Yes yes yes!!! You just want to apologize for doubting. He then told me that what I'm learning here isn't just for my mission but for after my mission so that was really cool to hear because it was cool to think these hardships will prepare me things after the mission. Then he dropped some revelation and was like you were standing in the preexistence with Aaron and Ammon and they said we're going down to the Lamanites and I said I want to come! but I have to go in the fullness of times so you guys go to the Lamanites and I'll go to Shkoder but it'll be just as hard... but that they had the same God that we do today and you can have the same success with that God. So I should study what they did and do that and I will have success. President knows how to drop the hammer on you. He's so led by the spirit and is such an amazing man. It was exactly what we needed right now because we were doubting whether we are bad missionaries or just need to be patient and he answered that for both Elder Roemer and I. and he told me that I should just find joy in testifying everyday and I've really been focusing on that. I don't care what success i have but it's just an opportunity to go out everyday and testify all day of this gospel. So you could say after that interview i'm just ready to go to work and find joy in testifying and being happy with that. I feel like this area is a great area to start off with because anything I get after this will be cake and I will never take any success for granted. 

    The other thing for this week is that we met with our 1 progressing investigator Marku. I had only met with him once before and I didn't think it would  go anywhere but he called us yesterday and told us we could come to his house but it turned into quite a story. We didn't know exactly where we were going because he lives in a Fshat (little village around the city) so we drove for about 15 minutes and then called him and turned out we had gone the opposite way so we drove back to the city and it had gotten dark so we went the right way and got to the Fshat and called him and he said we were in the right place but we turned down this little road which was the wrong way so we turned around but a truck with a bunch of corn husks in it was driving the opposite way and you can't get around each other on this road so he stopped and just dumped the load and these people started moving it off the road. We tried to help but the lady told us that we couldn't help... Albanians! So we just had to sit there and wait for them to clear it. but we did help because our car lights were on them so they could see. It gets dark at about 6 here it's super weird and terrible. So they finally clear the road and we can get by then we drive by and find his house. It was quite the process but we got there! We talk for a little then start the lesson and 2 minutes in someone outside yells that we need to move our car... So we run out back it up and park it in another spot then go back and start the lesson again. Finally. It was quite the adventure just getting there. It was a great lesson! He's a great guy and really funny. He's about 30 and he just kept telling us that he was going to find us Albanian wives and we would just say after our missions you can. But it was my first plan of salvation lesson... Only took a month. We didn't get through all of it because he would kind of get off topic and talk about things a lot but it was fine because we came taught and testified. We almost got him on a baptismal date! We said he wants to he just doesn't know when he'll be ready. He said Christmas but we know he can be ready before that so he said he'll pray about it and let us know. It was a super good lesson he agreed with all of it and reads the book of Mormon but I just couldn't get a read on him whether he was knowing it was true or not but he's a super great guy and I hope he progresses. He told us at the end of the lesson that we were angels sent from the Lord and thanked us. So it went really well. He's Catholic so he knew about Adam and Eve and that stuff but we taught he preexistence and why we're here. After the lesson we had to go straight home even though it was only 8 because Albania is weird and everyone goes in super early so our mission president while he was here said we should try going to bed at 9 30 and wake up at 5 30. So we are trying that for a week and seeing how it goes. It is super weird being in at 8.. You feel like you're breaking the rules but we'll see how it goes. I don't know if I've told you about Albania being weird but We take our lunch and dinner and study hours at lunch time because everyone goes inside at lunch so we're useless. I don't love it because we don't eat dinner and we haven't had anything to eat at night so I've been going off two meals and a snack but it's what we have to do. I felt super useless at the beginning because we're inside for 3 hours but it's what we have to do and it gets even worse in the summer. No one goes outside at lunch time from about 1-5 it's pretty dead and in the summer it's literally dead. It hasn't gotten too cold here it was actually warm here today so I don't know what's going on with this winter but i'm sure it'll get colder soon. That humid cold keeps your hands and feet cold all the time though it's lovely! but it's not Minnesota and it hasn't been cold at all so i'm not complaining!!! I love you all! Keep me in your prayers and Keep reading the book of Mormon... :)  You're favorite missionary in less than a month... Elder Szabo

pictures

 These are what I use for weights.

What do you mean your Catholic!? What does that even mean!?

People of America. ( Is it weird to anyone else that i'm in a country called Albania. I live here and it's not America....) 

    They tell you this mission thing is going to be hard but they didn't tell me I would be coming to Shkoder! We are having zero success right now. We're being obedient and working hard but no one wants the gospel. I am learning to not love Catholics here. I believe Shkoder has the most in Albania and they are kind of the worst. I know I am supposed to love everyone and I do but they are so frustrating!! They won't listen to us at all. You'd think all the Muslims would be harder to convince but it's all these Catholics! They have the bible and don't need another book or they're already saved all that jazz. I don't really have a lot to say this week. We've been contacting a ton. Last night we had a 3 hour contacting session. It was freezing. and no one was outside. We tried tracting a couple buildings and no one was having it. Then we tried to contact but literally no one was outside. We taught a kid at the very end of the night then his friends came back and we talked to them about nothing for a little but it was worth it because the one was interested so hopefully he'll read. Last night was the first time I've gotten frustrated and mad. I was just sick of everyone saying no and no one being outside. It was a long night. We came home and I changed and just laid on the floor after planning. We listened to the talk staying motivated as a missionary and that really helped. This is an extremely hard birth place. I have an amazing father and we work extremely well together but we are seeing no success and everyday you have to pick yourself up and keep pushing. I have to remember quite often that this is not my mission it's the Lords and success comes when he wants it to. It's hard but the time really flies. I can't believe next week i'll have been here a month. My mission president told me I was building the foundation for Shkoder.   Maybe that means I won't get to see the house but it's going to be one strong foundation if I have anything to say about it. We only use the finest cement in Shkoder. I don't have much to write this week. I can't wait for the day when I can actually understand these people instead of listening with all my might and then picking up a couple sentences or ideas. I feel like a brick wall sometimes. I have my contacting approach down pretty good but when they start to say stuff back I just look at my companion. As one of our goals we try to SYL when we're alone as possible so whenever we aren't with the other elders we do. We break a lot because it is very hard to do but I can definitely tell it's helping. I have a long ways to go but I have come really far. I can tell people are actually saying words now instead of just a lot of loud sounds being yelled at me. I can't wait until I can say whatever I want and Testify with Power! They can say no but they can't not listen to my testimony!! The weather has gotten a lot colder. Last week we were wearing short sleeves and it was warm but we had a crazy rain storm that blew in the cold front and ever since it's been varying degrees of cold. It was freezing the first day and I honestly don't know how Molly survived her mission or why people live in Minnesota! The humid cold hasn't really gotten to me yet. It gets to you but I feel like Utah winters prepared me pretty well. Besides the first day I haven't been uncomfortably cold yet. I hope to be able to report lots of lessons and things we did next week. Keep praying for me I need all I can get. Don't take this gospel for granted. Most of have had this gospel our whole lives and it's easy to forget how important it is. and for goodness sake everyone read this go to your nearest temple right now!!!! Even if it's far if you have one in your country then you're closer to one then me. I love that place and want all of you to take advantage of it for me. Be grateful the closest one isn't three countries away and in another language!!! Read the book of Mormon everyday. HOly cow i took that book for granted. It contains so much power and blessings that you're only holding yourself back if you don't crack it open and partake of it everyday. If you let go of the rod of iron for one day can you find your way back?? Everyone reading this I challenge you to read at least a chapter a day. If not i'm disappointed and so is God.... It's the most important thing you can do everyday so don't waste an opportunity. Don't take it for granted because it sits on your nightstand everyday. I have to try to convince people everyday that it's true and it's just sitting in your house waiting to be read. You know it's true so read it!!! I love you all. Your almost favorite missionary. Elder Sabo