Sunday, November 21, 2010

Life in Albania - Week 6

Whasssup!?

okay, I will begin with questions as always.

1. Don’t forget to tell me about the Boy’s eye and if you were able to get all of my emails regarding what the doctors thought and what he should do.

We are currently working with that. I will try and get more information and keep you up to date. Thanks!

2. Did you get Alexis’ senior pictures?

I haven't seen them yet! Send em on over!

3. How is your new apartment?

We don't actually move in until the end of November. I am pretty excited! It doesn't have two bathrooms but it is way nicer than the one we have now. It doesn't look into the sea anymore but it looks towards the mountains which is way cool too.

4. Do you ever hear about the other missionaries you were in the MTC with – like how they are doing?

I have talked to Elder Owens on the phone a few times and he is doing really well. He is THE MAN at the language. But yeah, I think that everyone is doing good.

5. You mentioned that you went on splits with an Elder Askuith. That is a different name. Is he from the states or somewhere over there?

He is from the states. He is pretty crazy though.

6. How is the girl doing that came to church? (The one that her Dad originally said couldn’t come anymore but did)

She is doing way awesome. She loves the Church and comes to EVERYTHING! Like, she goes to all of the English classes, Young Womans on saturdays, and all the other activities. She is going to get baptized for sure! I'm so excited for her. I think she would get baptized now if her parents would let her but I'm not sure how ready they are for that. Anyways, she is way solid and has been reading in the scriptures every night.

7. Any new investigators for you and your companion to teach?

YES! We found 2 new investigators this week!!! It's so amazing what fasting and prayer can do! Rinalds cousin is now interested in the church and now we are teaching him! He is pretty excited to learn! and then there is a Woman named Sefi who is in her 40's? and both her and Rinalds cousin came to church yesterday! It's awesome. And Church was really good yesterday! I'm pretty excited to start teaching the lessons to them.

8. Are you still cooking every day? Do you need any ingredients that you can’t get over there?

We still cook a lot. We stick to pasta type things and so there aren't really any ingredients that we need. Thanks though!

9. We had our time switch – so we got an extra hour of sleep last weekend. Did your time switch? So are we 6 or 7 hours behind you now?

We also had a time switch which was great! Nothing like an extra hour of sleep haa. You should still be 6 hours behind us I think.

10. Do you go to PEC meetings every week at church? I know you mentioned that you don’t have Sunday School. So investigators just go to Priesthood and Relief Society for the second hour? Do they have Primary and YMYW during that second hour?

We don't have PEC meetings haha. It's kinda crazy. We have a lot of different meetings. In fact I don't even really know what the names for some of them are in english. So yeah. But yeah Investigators just go to the normal classes second hour. Everyone here is so new to the church that basically everyone is an investigator haha.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay! Well, I'm sorry if I didn't answer all of the questions but I don't have time to go through and pull out all of the questions from your emails so make sure to put them in a section where I can just copy and paste them if you want to me make sure I answer it.



Okay so this week was really good. We found two new investigators and I am thinking that things will only get better. I don't know if I will be staying in Vlore or not for this next transfer but either way, I'm sure I will love wherever I am. Today we went on our District Trip to Kote Albania. Kot translates to worthless/vain and the city name is pronounced the same haha. That is pretty much the only reason we went there. And It was just exactly that. Kot. It was kinda funny though. We just walked around this tiny town and people just stared at us. Sounds like Ohio State pulled off a close one? haha Who knows, maybe with a few key losses Ohio State can still take it all? I don't have my journal with me right now and my memory is AWFUL haha so I really don't have a ton of stuff to say and I don't have a ton of time either because we have a lot of stuff we have to do today still. This week it rained SUPER hard. I have never seen streets so flooded. There were parts of the city flooded knee high. I was soaking wet. My pants and shoes and socks were completely drenched. Oh haha I also made a big rookie mistake. I somehow avoided doing this throughout all of college. But, I accidentally put one pair of black socks through the wash with my whites. Bad idea... Everything is gray now haha. Everything. So yeah maybe that Christmas package with the restocking of those things might need to be sent a little sooner haha. It's not my fault though! Okay.. It is. But seriously, I thought I checked to make sure there weren't any darks in there! haha. Oh well.

Dad, You would LOVE the pizza here. In fact, I already know exactly where I'm taking you when you come to Albania. Oh I also wrote Brent last monday and told him that he was going to come with you if you came to pick me up from Albania. What is a family vacation without brent?! And if you wait til I come home and then we go back, Brent is still coming haha. I would love to bring Evan back here too. But I don't know what he will be doing/ busy with at that point in life haha. So how is life back home? What does winter feel like?! AHAHAHA! I live on the beach. no big deal. So, this week at English class, I had to take the advanced English class on my own because the other missionaries couldn't make it in time and so I had to teach the religion part on my own. I had the help of a member but it went super well! I taught the plan of salvation and the spirit was super strong. The language is getting better every day. I still get frustrated when I can't understand everything but it is truly a miracle that I know how much I do for only being here for a month. I know that I have TONS of help from the Man upstairs.

Hopefully you all are doing well? I wish I could remember more things to say.. I always think of things after I get off of the email that I could have said.. Oh well. Oh yeah! I was listening to General Conference talks this week and when I was listening to Elder Holland from the quorum of the 12 Apostles talk from April 2009, I had a feeling that I should tell Michelle Baker to listen to it. I don't know why. Not because I think she is lonely or anything. I just had the feeling to tell her to listen to it. Maybe she knows someone that could benefit from listening to it. It is a SUPER good talk that talks about Jesus and how he performed the Atonement for us. I think everyone should listen to it. Here is the link: http://lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,23-1-1032,00.html and then just go down to the "Sunday Morning Session" and then listen to the talk by Jeffrey R. Holland. The talk is called "None were with Him". It is truly amazing. So Ashley, How did your test go!? I prayed my guts out for you. Alexis, I'm stoked for you to get into BYU. I hope you are all doing well. Sorry if my emails are lame. I wish I had more cool stories to tell. A lot of them are personal and then it's hard to have a ton of stories when we are doing a lot more finding rather than teaching. Hopefully i will start to have better ones. Uncle Mike, You should have your class listen to that talk as an assignment. It's pretty awesome. Anyways fam, I gotta email President now to give him my weekly update. I love you all and hope that you all have a good week. Stay safe, be awesome, represent Ohio well, be good examples, and on the less important note, do well in school. :) GO BUCKS! PEACE LOVE HAPPINESS!. Later Gators! I'm excited for that package to come! I will probably get it next time someone from Tirane comes to Vlore. AKA A MILLION YEARS! haha the roads here are so bad that it takes like 3 hours to get to Vlore when it's like not far at all. Anyways. I love ya'll! Have a good one!



-Elder Eckel

No comments: