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 

HOW BAD DO YOU WANT TO SUCCEED TODAY?

Family, Friends, acquaintances, and that one random person stalking my blog... 

    This week has been full of ups and downs. Tuesday I had a split with the Zone Leaders in Tirana after zone training. I went with Elder Rawlings and stayed in Tirana for the night and Elder Roemer went with Elder Ostergard back to Shkoder. It was a great exchange!! It was exactly what I needed and Elder Rawlings taught me a lot. That night we had a couple lessons and taught English Class, helped some sisters with a lesson then went and contacted for a bit and he taught me that I should have a huge smile and wave at people and they stop a lot more. It is definitely true. That doesn't sound like very much to teach someone but it is a little difference that has helped a lot. Getting ignored and told no all day isn't really the best thing so I came up with the philosophy this week that I will treat everyone like my best friend or family who I haven't seen in two years and be as excited to see them as I would my family after two years. It really helps because it makes me excited to talk to everyone and I need to do everything I can to get them to listen to this message. Back to the exchange. After contacting we went back to the house and did planing and other stuff. They have a tradition of getting milk and cookies everynight so we bought some before we went back and had those. The next morning we have time to work out in the morning and we started and elder Rawlings played this motivation speech which i'd heard before but had forgotten about and it played on repeat about five times. It's only about 5 minutes long. Apparently he plays it every morning. But it got me super pumped to work hard and reminded me how hard I need to want to be successful. I think only Jarod will know what it is it talks about a guy goes to a guru and asks him how to be successful and they go to the beach and and the guru asks him if he wants to be successful and he says yes so he says go out into the water and they keep going farther and farther and then the guru holds him under until he almost passes out then pulls him up and says what did you just want to do? Breathe! he replies and then the guy giving the speech talks about if you want to be successful you have to want it more than you want to breathe and other things. I LOVE it and it was perfect to get me excited to work harder and do what I need to. Turns out my comp has is on his hard drive so i'm going to listen to it every morning. So that was lesson number two. Then we had personal study and then comp study and Elder Rawlings taught me how important the book of mormon is and that if they it's true they know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet which means our church is true which means we have God's authority which means they need to get baptized and become a member. It was a good lesson to learn and I definitely needed it. We ended with a talk by Elder Holland. Safety for the Soul i think it's called which is basically his testimony of the Book of Mormon. It is a powerful witness of the Book of Mormon you should all go listen to it. If i could bear that powerful of a witness this whole city would be converted right now. Another thing he told me was that the area doesn't matter its the missionaries that are there and I can turn it into the area that everyone wants to go to because it's so successful it's all up to me. So i'm am going to work as hard as I can here and turn this place around. My mission president promised me in his letter last week that there would be more than 9 people in church when I left so I just need to work to see the much promised success. He also told me that there will be more than 1 ward here one day and i'm laying the foundation for it so I'm going to do everything I can to get this place successful. 

    With that said this place is sllllooooowwww. Right now. We are working hard and not getting any success. We are trying to fine tune everything and get everything where it needs to be so we don't have anything holding us back. This place is going to explode soon. EXPLOSION. (Sam and Jarod you better appreciate that). Before I leave this place we are going to have so much work and success we won't be able to handle it all. I am trying to give it my all and become better everyday but bearing your afflictions with patience is a lot harder than it sounds sometimes. We will have success. Pali the guy we met with and were super excited about hasn't met with us again and said that "he'd call us" one of my favorite passive aggressive excuses and Gjergj the old xhaxhi we were teaching said he's too old to learn anything else which I guess is a super common excuse with the older people here But Saturday we tracted into this older couple and had a pretty good lesson with them and they said we could come back so we're going to call and try to set up a return appointment. He's catholic and she's muslim but both were super receptive and attentive so it was good. People struggle with praying here. We explain it and explain it and they don't really understand. So we usually end up just doing it but we'll get better and teaching it it's just weird for people here and Sunday we had a lesson with a guy we contacted into last week. He brought his son and we taught them the restoration. He didn't seem too solid but his son was pretty receptive. The guy was probably 50 and his son was in his 20's. hopefully we can set up another lesson with them but they didn't seem too promising. We will get a progressing investigator soon. This isn't a good thing but when I see people actually progressing and learning this gospel it's weird for me to see. This was a great city to be born into!!! :D Speaking of being born. You wanted to know more about my father. His Name is Elder Roemer. He is from A little town in Nevada call Alamo. The best way to describe him is he's half Swiss and he loves animals. His dad is from Switzerland and runs a watch company. So he's literally half swiss. and He LOVES animals. The members that live below us have two little puppies and they are super cute but he loves them. Whenever we see a cat in the street he always tries to pet it. He's great though! He is on the quieter side but he's not super shy or anything. We grow closer everyday. On Wednesday before one of our prayers I said I have a goal to make this an area where everyone wants to come to and he looked over at me and said is that the Lords goal?! and we both just bust out laughing. It's great. We get along and there isn't really anything that bothers each other. He's a great Dad. If you have any other specific questions about him or anything let me know! 

   I Love you all. READ YOUR SCRIPTURES. Those things are great. I love you and miss you all like cray. Keep me in your prayers. 1 month away from being your favorite missionary. Elder Szabo

I don't get out of bed for less than a baptismal date OH!

People, Citizens, Family, and Friends. 

    This week has been so much better than last week. I was pretty discouraged last week and it was really hard at night when I would just think about getting told no all day and no lessons but now I can't wait to go finding and get some people to teach. I still don't understand these people or speak very well but I'm hungry for some baptisms and these people can't hide from me for 12 weeks. I will find them and my companion will teach and baptize them! Because I can't speak very well or understand them! But I will be there! Being in the hardest area in the mission has it's downs and downs wait... Ya it's extremely hard only having a couple members and people not accepting the gospel but it just motivates me to go our and work as hard as I can. 

    Alright lets get into this weeks festivities. Tuesday night I believe it was we decided to go tract in a different area and we go into the building and a lot of times there are no lights on in the halls so it's just pitch black in the halls if it's not an open stairwell and it was pitch black so we took the elevator up and started knocking and no one was answering their door so we were a little sketched out and we got on the elevator to go down to the next floor and hit the button the door closed the light turned off and the elevator didn't move.... We both had a minor panic attack and tried to open the door and hit the button then my companion hit the floor we were on and the door opened so we basically ran down the stairs and I was ready to get out of their but my companion said we should keep going so we knock a couple of doors AND THEN Pali opens the door! He said we should come in and look at these catholic pictures he had and we were like well we're in here lets teach a lesson so he let us teach and Good googly moogly I felt the spirit! It was my first lesson and it was a good one. We taught about the book of mormon and I only bore my testimony but I know he felt the spirit. At the end he was like are we meeting again when can we meet again? We were so pumped. We walked out of his apartment and the whole city could have told me no and slammed the door in my face it didn't matter. Those few yeses are so worth all the nos. It was such a good lesson and it was probably the start of me not being discouraged and doing better. Unfortunately we haven't been able to meet with him again because he's been busy and out of town but we will! Because we're baptizing him and his whole family! 

     We had to go to Tirana AGAIN. For a district leader trainer thing with the zone leaders so we drove there again. Another 2 hours there and 2 hours back. We're getting really sick of having to go there and we have to go again Tuesday for a zone training and then my companion has to come back again because we're going on an exchange with the zone leaders. more on that later. So 3 out of the four district leaders are training which means that they have three greenies with them and we got to go on a little split during the meeting so two of us had to go out as newbies and of course I got to go out. It was super good to catch up with on of the elders from my group. We handed out english course flyers and then went and contacted. We only got one guy to stop and he just went off about how God is everywhere and Jesus is just a good guy. We can't really say or understand much so we just stood there and tried to testify and tell him stuff but he just talked a lot and then they were calling us to come back so we gave him a pass along card. Even though we didn't really understand him the whole experience was a lot better than I thought it would be. Even if we did get thrown in the deep end. 

     Last story for the week. We live above two of members. A middle aged married couple. I told you this last week. But Mimoza makes us food sometimes and it's so great!!!! It's like having Albanian parents that i literally can't understand but love with all my heart. anyways on to the story. So Pavlo the husband got baptized last saturday so we were going to teach him about the priesthood because he's getting it next Sunday. So we got back and prepared for a little then went to teach the lesson and of course I didn't say anything because I have no vocab to teach the priesthood but as my companion taught and I watched I felt the spirit testify to me so strongly that this gospel is real and everyone needs this in their life. Something I've grown up with my whole life this man was hearing about for the first time and it was so amazing that I could be there and witness this. I felt so much love for these people and I can't even understand them it was such an amazing experience. This gospel is so amazing and i'm so glad I get to spread it to these crazy amazing people. It's true!! Don't forget it people. 

    We went to Theth for P-day today. We had to wake up at 3:30 because it's a long drive. Theth is a city in the mountains by Shkoder. it's about a 2 1/2 hour drive up there. We found a guy that was willing to drive us up there so he drove and it was probably the worst drive I have ever experienced. It was paved for about half but once we got into the mountains it was straight rocks and switch backs. Imagine the bumpiest drive you've ever been on and times it by ten and do that for two hours. We were bouncing around and bumping into each other and it was not the pleasant part of the trip. The good part was theth!!! It was one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen in my life. It was basically utahs mountains but better. We went on a hike to this little pond called "blue eye" super pure water and a cool waterfall. It was so great and beautiful and worth getting up so early. The drive back was even worse but it was worth it. The driving here is crazy. We got behind this dump truck thing when we were almost back and it was driving like a race car. Remember some roads comfortably fit one car so when two come one goes off the road a little and you squeeze by. We thought he was going to kill someone and he had to hit the breaks pretty hard a couple times. But moral of the story is Theth is gorgeous and the hike up there was so beautiful. IT was a good second p-day. 

   I love you all. Keep strong in the gospel. Don't make what I'm doing out here mean nothing. I love you all. YOu're almost favorite missionary. ELder SZabo

and i totally forgot to tell you about conference. We only got to watch priesthood and sunday morning but we downloaded them in english and have listened to all of them. It was an amazing conference. I challenge all of you to study one of those talks every single day and apply it into your lives. It is so hard listening to conference. It's 2 hours of hard concentration and not being able to understand anything. I had to try not to fall asleep. Its always good to hear the language but i'm so grateful we got it in English because at this stage I got nothing out of it in Albanian. Please study those words of our PROPHETS AND APOSTLES. Isn't that cool that we have a prophet on the earth today! 

 This is my district. I wanted you to have one picture since I couldn't upload the other ones. 

6,7...8....9!

People of America! 

     I write this week from a very foreign land... I don't even know where to start. Talking to you guys was so good. 30 minutes was not enough but it was good to hear all your voices and actually talk. It was weird talking though. It's a these people are still alive and you're my family but then you hang up and you're back in mission mode and I miss you but I don't. I don't know it was weird. 

    THE FLIGHTS. I would not recommend traveling for 30 hours straight. I love Chicago and wish I could have explored but We flew to Chicago had a four hour lay over? then flew to Austria... Ya Austria. That second flight was extremely long and I slept a little on it but your body is so off schedule. Then we had another 4 hours then flew to Tirana. Apparently the president was flying on our plane when we landed because they rolled out the red carpet and there were guards and cars and people were like Presidenti! So I don't really know if it was him or another politician but it was sweet! We got off the plane got our bags and went and met the mission president and AP's.

      Oh I almost forgot when we got to Austria we went to find our gate and as we're walking we see some missionaries coming the opposite way. We get to them and turns out it's the Old Albanian missionaries coming home! Isn't that crazy. What are the chances. I saw Ari/Sister Kokol. The missionary Jamie knew and that gave me advice before I came out. It was awesome to see them and crazy she was in that group.      Alright back to Albania... So we  meet the mission President and his wife and the aps and the office couple are there and the Weidmanns daughter is staying with them right now and she has two of the cutest daughters ever. Molly I will try to get a picture of them so you can be jealous. So we go to the mission office and set our bags down then we almost immediately went on Splits with some missionaries and went and taught a lesson then went contacting. That was tough. We were tracting and were going to walk to another building and a bunch of little kids were outside 8 and 9 year olds and we started talking to them and I started teaching about Jozef Smithi and got about two sentences in and they were all like what! So my companion just took over and taught them and I stood there and smiled. I do that a lot. I understand nothing these people say but more on that later. After that we had interviews at random times so we went back and had my interview. The two things I remember from it are he told me to memorize my plaque scripture because it was God speaking to me and in his prayer to end it he told me that i would teach a lot of people but other people would be baptizing them so I will be leaving a lot of areas with baptismal dates. Which after being here for a week I don't even care as long as their getting baptized i'm fine. So that night we went and ate at Presidents house. 10 missionaries dead tired not really saying anything 2 aps mission president and his wife and the office couple. The food was amazing. It was so good to have homemade food after 9 weeks in the MTC. After that we went to the little hotel across the street and we got in our room and they hadn't put a third bed in there so I got to sleep on the floor. They had really fluffy bedding so it wasn't terrible but it it's still the floor. We woke up had breakfast at Presidents then drove with the APs to where the country got dedicated. Read the prayer and had time to think about it. Then we went and had time to pray and dedicate ourselves to the Lord for our missions. It was so cool reading that prayer and knowing that God wants this place to have the gospel right now. After that we went back got our trainers and went to our areas but..... Lucky for me my companion and me have a car so we got to watch an hour long training video on how to drive safely which is basically useless here. The driving here is insane! It's like playing a video game. I'm not even kidding. People pass people whenever they want there is a ton of people walking across streets and on bikes and the streets are crazy narrow so you have to let people by all the time. It's madness. My companion had me start driving today. Good luck driving with me when I get back. After two years of this i'm going to be a crazy Albanian driver. We drove to our area after that which is SHKODER. Put the dots on the e. Sh-ko-dur. We have four elders here and they are super great. I just got here one has been here 6 months my trainers been here a year and the other has been here a year and a half so we got the whole spectrum. 

      This area is super rough. I haven't taught a lesson yet. We've had 4 people bail on us and we find a ton!!! I've already gotten used to being ignored and people saying no me so that's great. We only have 4 FOUR F O U R. Yes four members in our branch. A branch president and a couple which the husband just got baptized saturday and another guy who can't make it a lot because we works and lives far away. The one who lives far away is going on a mission soon and President Kraja wants to leave. I'll tell you the background of the branch. We had about 30 thirty members once upon a time but there was a program where you got welfare if you were baptized so basically all of them got baptized for that and as soon as they got cut off they stopped coming. So we're down to four. We had 9 people in Church... It was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced. We watch Conference the week after so we had fast and testimony meeting this week. Our building is super small and it was crazy to only have that many people. We had the missionaries, Three members, an investigator and her brother. I passed the sacrament and led the music and lucky me I got to bear my testimony! It went well. I can speak a lot better than I can understand so It wasn't terrible it's just hard because you want them to understand but don't want to make mistakes so you don't' want to say stuff. We only two hours of church. Aren't we lucky?!?!??! NOT. I have never wanted more members in my life! I've never wanted any so bad in my life. I just want to build this area up and have a great branch. After sacrament we have gospel doctrine class and we basically just read the manual and ask questions and teach a short lesson. Its weird but i'm glad we have the members we do. I'll tell you about the baptism we had next week. We live above them they have this weird three story house thing and we live in the top floor of their house. It's really nice and they have puppies!!! I'll take a picture with them and send it to you. Our members we live above are basically my parents who I can't understand but I love like crazy. They're great I just wish I could get to know them better. One day! Basically all we do here is find. We've street contacted or tracted every night and haven't got a single lesson yet. Finding is great! We stand on a street and say hi to people they either ignore us say hi and keep walking or stop and then aren't interested. It's a great way to start off the missionary experience. If i only get told no and don't teach lessons my first transfer then i'll be so prepared for success the rest of my mission. But really I hope it turns around and we can grow this place like crazy. This is where the old president used to send bad missionaries. So the attitude is slowly changing but I think it still has some of that mentality in the city and there isn't a lot of work because the old missionaries weren't the best or willing to work hard. We are going to have to work like crazy and I pray we can find a lot of work. We might be down to 2 or 3 members soon so we need members bad. This letter was long and scattered but I just wanted to tell you about how everything is and get it all out. I'll tell you more details next week about My trainer and the area and the baptism and members. I just don't want this letter to a novel which it already is. I love you all. Keep Shkoder and me in your prayers. I love you all. Your Favorite foreign missionary. Elder Szabo

 Motra Pemaj Pictures

We went and gave a thought to this crazy lady in the middle of no where. She's inactive and she tried to feed us this gross stuff that we didnt' know what it was. I'm trying not to burst out laughing in this picture. 

Your missionary has arrived

Dear Brother and Sister Szabo,

Your son, Elder Szabo, arrived safe and sound at the Mission Home today. He will be serving in the city of Shkoder. This will be in the Tirana zone. His companion will be Elder Roemer.

There was much prayer concerning who his trainer would be and we have followed the direction of the spirit.  The trainers that we have for the new missionaries are some of the very best missionaries.

Sister Weidmann and I are so pleased to have Elder Szabo as one of our missionaries and look forward to getting to know him well. We know that he will be able to contribute much to the missionary effort in teaching the people of the Adriatic South Mission about Jesus Christ. Thank you for allowing your son to serve a mission for our Savior.

Missionaries absolutely love to receive mail and can be contacted either by email or by sending letters through the post office to:

Adriatic South Mission

Elder Andrew Szabo
PO Box 2984
Rruga Qemal Stafa, Vila 1
Perballë Postës Nr. 22
Tirana, Albania

When sending mail please use this address exactly; the post office will not accept any other variation of the address.

If you have any concerns at all please feel free to contact us.  We have enjoyed meeting your son and feel he is well prepared for this mission. 

My warmest regards,

Louis Weidmann

President

Adriatic South Mission