I just talked about the scriptures and how awesome they are.

Hey Mom!

I’m so sorry that my e-mail didn’t send this last week! I even tried just copying it and sending it to Dad so he could e-mail it to you, but I guess the internet just didn’t like what I wrote. Well basically I just talked about the scriptures and how awesome they are. Because they’re dang awesome. I’ve been reading a section in the Albanian Doctrine and Covenants every day and then just going to the Book of Mormon in English after that. It’s been so good. I love the Book of Mormon. I knew pretty much nothing about it when I came here and I still don’t know very much at all, but I’ve learned a ton and I’ve really grown to love it. I hope I can still teach people about it when I get home.

So that YSA stuff sounds fun. How many people go to those activities? What do you do exactly with the YSA’s? Man it’s going to be weird to go to stuff like that. . . .sigh

Well all in all this week was pretty disappointing. Almost every single one of our investigators fell through on us. Awesome. Ha ha so last night I was just kinda upset (so upset that I started cleaning!) because we hadn’t had a very good week and just kinda ornery. I figured, “Well, I’ll go to sleep and in the morning I will feel better cause I won’t be thinking about it. Well this morning my alarm wakes me up from a dream in which I was EXPLAINING TO SOMEBODY HOW LAME OUR WEEK WAS. Needless to say, it didn’t really work. But we just got back from a good district trip to Berat, so it’s all good! We’ll just have to do better this next week.

On the bright side, this week we found an awesome old lady that we now call Mrs. Potato Head cause apparently her voice sounds exactly like that. Her real name, though, is Liria. And the cool thing is that—yes she’s old—but she understands really well. I die for those kind of investigators. We teach a lot of people that have just never really had to think about God before because they grew up in a communist regime and so when we find one that actually does “get it,” it’s a real refresher. She is an Orthodox and she loves Jesus Christ. The first time we met her, we had given her an assignment to read 3 Nephi 11 so we could discuss it next time. (I wanted her to read that because it has a part that talks about authority and we already knew she was concerned about being baptized twice.) When we came back, she had read it along with the cross-references in the footnotes and everything. We had a really good discussion on the restored priesthood authority and we committed her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. We’re really excited to keep working with her.

Sunday night we also found an older couple and get this. Their names are Ilir and Liria. I guess that doesn’t make much sense unless you know what that means. Basically “Ilir” means “free” and “Liri” means “freedom.” Isn’t that just so cute? But they were really good as well. We’ll be going back to them on Wednesday I believe and we’re also really excited for them. Oh man, when we were there Liria gave us these things called “gliko.” Gliko are made from the rinds of different fruits and they are boiled in sugar water and soak up the sugar. I don’t really know the whole deal, but that’s the basic jist. Anyway, usually gliko are pretty disgusting, but these were SO good. They were from lemons instead of like oranges or watermelons or stuff like that. If I ever learn how, I’ll definitely make you all some so you can try them. But that might never happen so don’t get your hopes up. . . .

So those were probably the two highlights of the week. I don’t really know what else to tell you! Happy Valentine’s Day! Oh gotta tell you this. We visited the Berat castle today which was actually probably the best castle I’ve seen in Albania. But while we were walking around the castle, Elder Knowles and I hear this horrible Albanian version of “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion playing off in the distance. I was thinking, “Man, that sounds like karaoke!” And it was! We checked it out and there was this HUGE karaoke concert dealio going on at the castle. It was sweet. So we checked it out for a couple songs and it was pretty fun. But let me tell you this, if you are not pretty dang legit, you better not try to sing a Celine Dion song because it’s going to rock you.

Anyway, that’s pretty much all I’ve got. Thanks in advance for all the stuff! And tell Grandma that I got her card and that I said thanks a ton! I actually just sent a bunch of thank you cards out in the mail last week for all the Christmas stuff I got so she should be getting one fairly soon hopefully.

I love you, mom! Have a happy Valentine’s Day!

-Elder Swenson