The language is. . . . hard.

June 17, 2009

Hey mom!

Okay so to answer your slew of questions:

Things are going good. Except for I'm sick. =( Ugh but I am fighting through it. The only thing I've missed is a devotional last night. Mostly it's just sore throat and cough which I HATE, but it's okay. I've gone to the clinic twice, but they choose not to do anything with me so I guess I'll just suffer through it. I'm hoping it comes to an end before the end of the week though.

I will send my memory card to you next week with some more pictures. I hope these ones are slightly more entertaining. But it really is so hard to find good pictures to take at the MTC. I mean, it's a beautiful place, but it's not very big so once you've seen it, you've pretty much seen it.

The language is. . . . hard. This week me and Motra are SYL-ing 5 out of 7 days so we are trying really hard, but it is definitely not an easy thing to do. We know we will learn it eventually. The Lord has promised us that we will if we work hard so it's just a matter of how long it's going to take. But just as either Jarom, Omni, or Mormon (from the Words of Mormon) -- I can't remember which one it was at the moment, but I read it in my personal study yesterday -- the Lord's blessings come in his time, not ours. I love the language though. I hope I'm not sending a negative vibe about it because I really do love it and it is so cool to be able to speak something totally different. I enjoy going to class and learning it, it's just difficult.

Teaching is always a challenge and something that I will always be working on, but it's coming along I guess. The hard thing is we have to try to incorporate all of the teaching skills found in Ch. 10 of PMG IN ALBANIAN. That is a little bit of a challenge. But we're practicing. We are now to the point where we solely teach in Albanian and in about 3 weeks, we'll be even more to that point because I'M LEAVING!! Ah! Scary!

Yes I get new roommates when the Hungarians leave. That will be a sad day though. I really love my district and I don't want them to leave before me, but I guess they've got a good enough excuse. =) They will be great missionaries.

The food here is really actually not that bad. I mean, I guess that's coming from me who will eat just about anything, but I really don't mind it. I think my favorite is probably this like shepherd's pie thing they do or their gyros. And the worst is probably the cod nuggets. Yeah just listening to those two words together is kinda disgusting, but there's really not a lot of horrible food. And I am definitely fat so yeah. Apparently I'm going to lose a ton of weight in Albania though. So I'm excited for that. =)

Yeah, Elder Call and Elder Mower were both in quarantine this week and I just barely saw Elder Mower, but I think Elder Call is still in there. That is too bad. But I'm praying for him and hopefully he will be out soon. He's written me a couple of letters, but I need his MTC Mailbox number so if you could like Dear Elder that to me like tomorrow or something that would be great! Then I could write him back and let him know that I haven't forgotten about him ha ha.

And yes, I will get you that stuff next week. Remind me in your next dear elder though cause I might forget.

Love you mom! Hope you're doing well!

-Elder Swenson

P.S. Oh! Thank you SO MUCH for that testimony book! It was so dang amazing! Did you do those pages?! I really really really appreciate that! My friends are so dang awesome! Thank you thank you THANK YOU!