More Pictures - August 2009

The Kamëz house

Elder Bullough looking confused. =) Ha ha just outside the Kamëz house.
Nate's Birthday


Yummy crepes! Elder Bullough is teaching me how to cook. On the street in Kamëz the first time it had started to rain since I had been in Albania. Pretty exciting moment.

Prophets are Definitely Important

C’Kemi!

“C’a ke bërë” literally means “what have you done?” but they basically just use it like “how’s it going” or “how have you been?” Ha ha yeah the pictures were pretty sweet I thought! =) Besmir and his bros are seriously some of my favorite people on this planet. They are such good kids. No their parents are not members, but Besmir is hopeful for them. He says, “One day my dad will get baptized.” He doesn’t know if it will be while he’s on this earth or not, but he has confidence that eventually he will accept the gospel. The other two members are Alketa and Alma. They’re around the same age, both girls, and both awesome. We’ve been struggling a lot with Alma lately. She hasn’t come to church in almost three months now and we don’t know what to do. We’re trying to do everything we can for her, but nothing seems to work. Alketa is way awesome too. She wants to serve a mission so bad. She has come to a couple teaching appointments with us and has been so good. We are going to visit her with the Sisters tonight so I’ll get a picture of at least her and I’ll try to get one with her whole family too since this is probably my last week in Kamëz. =( This next transfer is going to be pretty intense. There are 14 new missionaries coming in which is HUGE for Albania. Almost every single missionary is either going to be training or in leadership. And when I say almost, I mean like maybe one or two won’t. It’s going to be awesome though.

Thank you SOOOO much for the packages! But holy cow you need to stop sending me those!!!! They are so freaking expensive it’s ridiculous! But thanks for the stuff! I think the thing that I absolutely loved the most was the pens ha ha. I had just run out of black pens and I bought a couple that weren’t like the expensive kind and they were just horrible. They were seriously irking me so bad and then I opened that package and saw like a thousand black pens and I was in heaven. So thanks. =) And stop sending me packages!

Thanks in advance for that workout. You could have just e-mailed it to me though. Sorry I probably should have mentioned that. I basically just need it so I don’t have to go outside to run during the winter. Brrr! I am not excited for the cold ha ha. But don’t worry, I’m sure I won’t get too skinny. I think I’m kinda at that point where it just stays where it’s at ya know? But I’m trying to be healthy and eat right. Mmmmm they have some of the best fruit here ever. So you know how I always made fun of you for eating your apple pie with cheese? One of my favorite snacks now is a Boston (kind of like a honeydew, but a thousand times better) with some good old feta cheese. Oh my heck it’s so good. So I guess I can’t make fun of you anymore, huh? Right now the persimmons are just getting in to season. I had never tried one until last night, but they are pretty good! That’s what I ate for breakfast this morning. =)

I’m glad that your BofM class is awesome! Prophets are definitely important. That really is our message to the world. We have a man with the power of God that speaks with him and directs us and helps us in our lives. They have the eternal perspective that we don’t. We had a devotional at the MTC where they showed a picture of this guy on a canoe just flowing down this river and there were beautiful trees all along side the river and it was just a gorgeous picture. They asked us, “This looks good, doesn’t it?” We all obviously agreed, but then they un-cropped the picture. The man was rowing straight for a gigantic waterfall where he would obviously plunge to his death. After they had shown us that, they asked, “Is that still lookin’ good to you?” And that is kind of how the prophets see things. They have that insight that only they can receive from God. Things that we might not think are dangerous or that look really good right now can lead to dangerous things ahead. The prophets can warn us of danger and keep us on the path that will make us happy. I have really come to appreciate that doctrine as I’ve been out here preaching it every day. So we better all listen to General Conference, huh?! Yes I will be able to see some of it. We go to the mission home and watch it at like 6:00 at night. It should be cool. I’m not gonna lie though, I’ll miss watching it with you guys. But it will still be great!

Holy cow I’ve been kind of a lafazan today! Sorry about that! I better go e-mail Lindsey and dad now. They can give you anything I didn’t say here that I told them ha ha. I love you mom. You are setting a great example for me even all the way across the world.

Thanks for everything!
-Elder Swenson

We finally met our goal!

C’a ke bërë?

Alright so I finally got some pictures with some members. The picture of us all together is at the Kamëz branch building.

We have church in the first floor of a house. The oldest brother is Besmir and his two younger brothers are Ardit and Janus. Janus is the youngest and Ardit is in the middle.

Besmir with Elder Bullough

Ardit Janus We went over to their house yesterday for Bajrami which is a Muslim holiday. Ha ha it’s funny because this whole last month has been Ramazan which is where they are supposed to fast during the day and only eat at night and at the end of Ramazan, you have Bajrami which is where you basically just eat as much as you can all the time. =) Not many Albanians really truly keep Ramazan (although they use that as an excuse for why they can’t listen to us), but I’m pretty sure every single Albanian has no problem keeping Bajrami. Ha ha yeah so we went over there for lunch yesterday. It was way fun. I wish you guys could meet these members. They seriously are soooo good. No matter what, Besmir and his brothers are at church every single week. It’s gonna be kinda sad when I leave Kamëz.

And then there’s one picture of me and a chubby kid named Romeo. He is our pronari’s (landlord’s) son. Looks like me when I was about that age, huh? =)

Well I’m glad to hear that Bear is doing better. I was sad for him. Ha ha I miss him too! I can’t pet any of the dogs here and it’s weird! So the Webelos are doing good then? Oh man knots are the best. Ha ha there’s always that one who just can’t get it though which is always funny. =) So good luck with that! That’s so cool that you’re taking a Book of Mormon class! Is it like just a ward thing or is it like Institute or something? Where is it held? I’ll tell you what, I went to Institute one time with Kiersten and it was probably one of the coolest lessons I’ve ever been taught. So I’m betting that you are going to have a great time at that class. Do you get graded and everything? Ha ha that will be funny when you’re doing homework with Lindsey. That’s sweet, mom.

Holy cow I miss those family dinners. Ha ha where did you play croquet? On the hill? Me and Tim actually played on the hill once I think. It was interesting. How is Shawn doing? I’ll have to write him soon. I am a horrible writer, but we’ve had some extra time these past couple of P-days cause we haven’t had to go into Tirana so hopefully soon I can get a letter off to him. What’s his address? And yes I had Marisa in my class. Ha ha she is the funniest little girl ever. Tell her I said hi! And I had one of the Ross boys in my class and I want to say it was Dallin, but maybe it wasn’t. . . .I don’t know. But he was way awesome too. We had an awesome primary class for like the 4 weeks that I was there.

Well the mission’s going well. This week was really good. We finally met our goal for new investigators! We got 4 this week! It took us all the way till yesterday to do it, but by golly we did it! We are really excited for this one family that we found. Qemal is the dad’s name. His wife is Merita and their daughter is Sara. Sara was in a really bad makinë (car) accident when she was little and is handicapped now. We found out that she really liked music and so we said the next time, we’d sing a song for her and she got so excited. But this family has definitely been prepared. Or at least Merita has. We were talking about what usually happens when we meet with people and we had said that as we meet with her, we will talk about baptism because that is how we show our Heavenly Father that we are willing to keep his commandments for the rest of our lives and she can choose to be baptized or not. She is orthodox right now and has already been baptized so she asked me why she would need to be baptized again. And let’s just say that I murdered the answer, but she was very humble and she understood what I was trying to say. And she agreed to meet with us 2 or 3 times a week! We are really excited to see this family progress together.

Well I better go write Dad and Lindsey now. Mom, I love you! Thanks for your e-mails every week and all your support! You are always in my prayers.

-Elder Swenson

Pictures-Albania August 2009

An old amphitheater in Durrës, the second largest city of Albania located on the central coast about 21 miles west of Tirana.
Elder Bullough
A xhami (mosque) in Durrës
On a beach in Durrës

Pictures-Albania July 2009

Skanderbeg Monument - Skanderbeg is a prominent historical figure in the history of Albania and of the Albanian people. Known as the Dragon of Albania, he is the national hero of the Albanians.
An art museum in the Qender (Center) of Tirana
Qender of Tirana


Mother Albanian Monument

View from the Mission Home in Tirana



Road to the Kamez house.

July 6th Pictures

Me, Sister Bentley and Vellai (Brother) Tamanaha - One of my awesome MTC teachers
Vellai (Brother) Krumweide - The other one of my awesome MTC teachers
Me and Sister Bentley the day before leaving the MTC

July 4th Pictures at the MTC

These are Pictures from July, but wanted to share them with you.

Kubricky Elder with me and Heintze Elder in the background. Both going to Hungary.

Sister Bentley


Hintze Elder, my Hungarian companion in the MTC for about 5 days