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.
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