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

Si thoni "I'm going to Shqiperi"

It's amazing how much I've grown in the last two months. I thought I had a testimony and knew this gospel before I came in here but you don't know this gospel until you have to study and teach it everyday. It isn't easy and there are ups and downs but it's worth it. OH. before I forget WE GOT ANOTHER APOSTLE!!! and because I told everyone what they had already heard before if anyone reading this heard a talk from M. Russell Ballard in the last week you can skip this section! He started off by saying I haven't really prepared a written talk but wish to talk to you as a grandparent would talk to his grandkids... Ya you can say that's awesome! Have you ever watched an apostle go by the spirit for an hour because it's pretty great. He basically just gave us advice for our missions (well obviously what else would he talk about...) but it was really just things he'd learned from his mission and that we should do. Stuff like goal setting, taking time to interview yourself and see if you're doing all you can, and always being in a position where the Lord can use you. Just cool stuff like that. Being 50 feet away from an apostle I realized they are actually real people. That sounds dumb of course they're real people but we get too used to them being on our tvs twice a year or reading a couple of their ensign messages. We have real men guiding this church. This church is so real. Those men carry such a special witness of Christ and if you take conference for granted you're doing life wrong. You have the opportunity to listen to PROPHETS and APOSTLES speak to YOU! Go read some of Pauls words or Nephi's and then realize you can listen to the words of modern day prophets. Goodness it's exciting stuff. Oh and you can listen to conference in English so go sing count your many blessings and realize how lucky you are. The first Sunday there I get to struggle through listening to the talks in a language i don't know at all. It will be cool to see in 6 months how far I've come with this language when we get to listen to conference again. I hope you all realize how amazing it is that we have prophets on the earth today and you're not just supposed to listen to their words for two days and then say Oh boy was that good I can't wait to hear them again in 6 months. What! Ah! NO! Go reread those talks everyday ponder study cherish them with all your hearts! That is revelation for you! in this day. Alright I'll stop ranting now and tell you what's going on. Sorry little ol missionary me got the spirit in him. I don't think i'll have a problem telling the Albanians how important this gospel is... yikes. 

    Mom i'm going to need you to make sure you're sitting down for this next part and have an ambulance on the way..... Alright. I wish I would have played the piano more before I came. When all the moms reading this get up off the floor from their heart attacks i'll keep going......... You learn to appreciate music here when  only have it one day a week and all we get is motab. I've never loved singing more in my life. We sing three prelude hymns and then start the meeting with a hymn. Yep you read that right be glad you only have three in sacrament meeting. Music is such a strong way to bring the spirit and I'm glad I have the ability to play the piano and need to more when I get home. 

    For all of you who don't know I leave the MTC in 5 days F I V E D A Y S. It's been a long two months but i wouldn't trade it for anything. Being away from your family,learning a language that seems impossible, giving up everything you knew and dedicating yourself to this gospel for 2 years. Why in the world would a 18 year old kid do that? I honestly didn't know before I came out here. but I know now. I can testify that we have the truth and this gospel blesses your life more than anything in the world. It's so true. SOOOOO TRUE. My little mustard seed testimony is a small tree now and is still growing but i have been prepared to go preach this gospel. Predikoni Ungjillin Tim. 

   Anyways I mention leaving in five days to tell you that I we leave Tuesday at 3:30.... AM. Yep then we have a little journey of about 30 hours total until we get to good ol Shqiperi. We fly to Chicago with a four hour lay over and then  to Austria! Yep that's about a ten hour flight then little (Two hour) jump to Tirane. It's going to be a long two days but I am so pumped!!! I love fake teaching but teaching real people and getting doors slammed in my face and not understanding a word of Shqip is going to be so amazing. Such an amazing experience. hmm keep me in your prayers and Go to the temple for me because I went to it today for the last time in Two years. It might be the greatest place on earth. Disney land is a close second but it wins. Another thing Elder Ballard counseled us to do was stay close to your family. Let them be on your mission with you and strengthen them as you are. So I am going to be writing every detail of my week with you guys! I will probably leave out most of the bad but I will write about everything. I love you all keep up the hard work where ever you are and Stay close to this gospel. 

Benson Gunther goes to the MTC on Thursdays to act like an investigator.  Benson went to the same mission that Drew is going to, and he reported to me when I spoke with Benson last week that Drew is picking up the language really well.  

With Albanian, it's not expected to be conversational by the time they leave the MTC, but Benson said he is doing better than many others. - Scott

Brother Szabo

I got to spend to spend some time with Elder Szabo in the MTC tonight. He is doing very well in all regards. I got him the letter you put together. I am very excited for him to serve in the Adriatic South Mission! I told him that you and your family love him very much, and gave him a big hug from y'all. Here's a picture: 

CITIZENS!!! 

   We got an apostle this week!!! We waited for 7 long weeks but we finally got one. Elder Richard G. Scott came on Tuesday and talked about prayer. He started about by saying don't just have a good mission have a blast on your mission and that all good things in his life are from serving a mission. He then said I wish I could sit down with each one of you and have an interview for an hour but that would be unpractical and near impossible but there is someone far greater than he who we can have a long talk with. Our Heavenly Father. We all get so excited for apostles to come but we forget that we can talk to God whenever we want! The big man upstairs the one in charge of this! We can talk to him whenever we want and he's always willing to listen. His whole talk was on gaining a relationship with YOUR father in Heaven. Don't rush through prayers or just pray to pray. He is a real person and he's your father so pour out your heart to him in sincere prayer whenever you can. It was an amazing experience and those 15 men really do carry a special witness of Jesus Christ and God. Since i'm a missionary I'm extending a commitment to any readying this. We all know any good missionary always leaves a commitment. That's week 1 stuff psh us veterans know that. Anyways anyone reading this I Challenge you to gain a personal... PERSONAL.... PERSONAL!!!! I don't know if i remembered to say personal but personal. Relationship with God. Get on your knees tonight and talk to him don't recite some things you remember to be grateful for just so have some words to say. Open up your hearts and pour them out to God. He is there and he will listen. Answers will come if you are doing what you are supposed to. I'm already disappointed in anyone who doesn't go through with that commitment. I can feel the tears coming. You made a missionary cry.....

    I only have 12 days until i'm off to Shqiperi (Albania) Go get a map and find Albania! I'm going to that place. Isn't that crazy? Who goes there! I do... I don't know if it's a real place yet we talk about it a lot and are learning this weird language but I've been here for a long time... I guess they are trying to teach me hope and faith... I don't know. I hope it's real! We get our flight plans TOMORROW. We never thought this day would come. But it's getting so close. We only have one more p-day in the MTC. I don't know about you outside people but the time is flying by. The language is coming along. I feel really good about it until I remember I'm going to be useless for a couple months. That will be fun!! A magical land where people speak a language I think i know but can't understand at all. Hazzah! The day is mine!! 

   It has been a long couple of weeks. I have had some sickness and ear pain at night for a couple nights and my ear has been clogged for a week. It's like half my head is under water. Plug one of your ears and try to talk. That's how i feel all the time. I'm healthy again my ear problem is almost gone and my sleep is getting better. It's amazing how amazing you feel when you actually get some sleep for the first time in 4 years. I hope it continues to improve so I can serve God with all my strength. All is well and I am extremely happy even with the troubles. 

    I love you all. You're in my prayers and thoughts. ( but not enough to distract me from being a missionary don't worry) Go to the temple, Pray, and read your scriptures. People in Albania don't have a temple some don't know who God is and some don't know what the Book of Mormon is. Don't take what you have for granted because others don't even know it exist. Much love You're Favorite missionary in  a couple months. -Elder Szabo

 We got caught in that huge rain storm playing shoes and had to sprint back from the field. We got a little wet... Still look good 

C'kemi Familjen 

   Not much to report this week. Kind of in the MTC groove and the days are just counting down until we can get out of here and to the country. The food is getting pretty old too. What i'd do to be able to make whatever I want. Mom I'd cook every night of the week if I could! We only have 3 weeks left. 3 WEEKS! I can't believe I've been here that long. The language is good but I remember daily how much I still have to learn. They conjugate everything. Nouns and verbs. Nouns conjugate depending on first whether its masculine or feminine then if it's Nominative, accusative, or Genitive/Ablative/Dative. All of that only decides which line of conjugation you have to use. After all that it depends on whether its definite or indefinite singular or plural. So for the word Tempull it goes tempull tempulli tempullin tempullin. Then for nouns most of them are OJ verbs which means they end in oj so they have conjugations for i, you, he/she/it, we, you all, and they. oj, on, on, ojme, oni, ojne. Harroj, harron, harron, harrojme, harroni, harrojne. And that is just for present there is conjugations for simple past and imperfect past. So there's a little preview into why we're here for 9 weeks in case you were wondering. I know you all thought Albanian was a breeze but it's pretty tough. They do a lot of crazy stuff and say stuff different so if you say I Like that girl in Albanian you use the verb to please and say that girl pleases me. All sorts of fun stuff! My brain is just on Shqip mode all the time and is trying to collect as much as it can. I can't wait to get over there and be able to understand literally nothing! They talk so fast it's crazy. I love the language though. You guys are going to be amazed at how good I can speak in December! 

   Really not much going on here just the same old daily grind. The Hungarians started consecration week today which means they can only speak their language and have to translate for each other. They get their flight plans tomorrow and we start all of that next week. We'll all be out of here so soon it's crazy to think the old Finns left a couple of weeks ago. This place is such a time warp. I know what day and month it is but it doesn't really mean anything. I mark the days by Tuesdays, P-days, and Sundays. I think I have a family that reads these letters.... I love you all. Keep me in your prayers. You are in mine. Your favorite missionary in the mtc. Elder Szabo

 ​the two finns we used to shoe with

 ​Elder Greener

 Greener searching for some sisters. It's been too long.

My companion and our old zone leader.