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