We are working especially hard with a referral family.

Përshëndetje!

Hey Mom! How’s it going? Pretty boring week this week! It was busy, but just nothing really out of the ordinary ha ha. We actually had a really good week in regards to lessons taught and stuff. We were teaching a lot and we had fairly good lessons. We are working especially hard with a referral family right now. They were given to us when we challenged the Veliu family to share the gospel with their friends/random people they had never talked to before. Motra Veliu chose the latter. =) But this family is doing really well. So far the grandma and the two kids have come to church every week for the past three weeks (except the grandma didn’t come this week). Nermin (Nair-mean) is the grandma’s name and she is the one that seems to be progressing the most. She really cares a lot about her family and we’ve really been trying to show her how the gospel can bless her family tremendously. Reldi, the 13 year old boy, is also liking the lessons. I think he likes the young men’s activities more, though. ;) He loves soccer and we played this last Saturday which was fun. Reldi’s a little different so I’m hoping that the young men in our branch can welcome him in instead of isolate him. They’ve been doing pretty good so far, though, which I am really happy about. The little girl, Antea, is so dang adorable. She is the nicest little thing you ever did see and she has a blast with her friends in primary. She was actually friends with another little girl in church named Abi so that was really helpful. This week we are going to be talking about baptism with them and hopefully setting a date with them that they can work for to be baptized! I hope all goes well with that. We know they have felt the spirit as we’ve talked together and as they have read. And we’ve given a strong commitment to pray and ask God if these things are true so we’ll see what the answer is this week!

Probably the most eventful thing that happened this week was an investigator coming in and introducing himself as his twin brother and trying to get us to believe that he actually was his twin and not himself. I’ll admit, he had me going at first because it was kind of a sudden thing and the circumstances were just weird, but it didn’t take too long to realize that it actually was him and not his “twin brother.” Especially when he had the exact same phone with the exact same crack in the glass . Hmmmmm. . . . . . .

So you’ll be happy to know that I’ve been getting the pictures you wanted of my house and random stuff like that. I’ll send them to you today. Except for I forgot to get the drying rack! But if you want to see it, it’s actually in one of the pictures you are having me label today. But I’ll get some pictures of it in action and send them to you next week.

Well say hi to the Wilson’s from Elder Swenson! I’m sure their mission was a killer success and hopefully they have had a good time since they’ve been home. I can’t believe Matt is leaving. If you see him again, tell him good luck and don’t forget to pray! He’ll be an awesome missionary. I can’t even imagine leaving for your mission on your birthday. That would be so bizarre. When does Tim leave, again?

And that stinks that I’m not going to be there to see Lindsey graduate. You’ll have to take pictures and send them to me. Lindsey looks awesome in those senior pictures you sent me! You should send me that one with Bear and the one of her in that tree thing. Where is that?! I swear I’ve seen that before, but I don’t know where it is.

Well you have a great week, mom! Be safe and have fun! I love you!

-Elder Swenson

Newest Pictures

Cool Tie!

Amphitheater in Durrës

A cool room at the amphitheater

Me And Elder Monson at the amphitheater in Durrës

Me and Elder Monson on the way down the street. Ironic how this picture is in front of The Good News Church. . . .

Exchanges in Shkodër on T’s birthday

Socks

This is our apartment. Our bedroom actually. The American flag is covering up the creepiest picture ever of the pronari’s little girl. Also you can see our drying rack there in the background!

This is a goat with it’s head stuck in a crate. Actually it wasn’t stuck but it was funny

Me and Elder Monson after an incredibly tiring day. And sorry for the scandalous immodesty of Elder Monson! I told him he should stop doing that. ;)

Me and Elder Shields on our last day together. How sad.

On a bridge in Durrës

I’ve got pictures

Hyello!

How are ya, mom?! So I’ve got pictures to send you this week! =) We’re going to an internet place finally today so I can send them to you so you won’t have them with this e-mail, but you will have them today. Sorry I took so long. Our days are always really weird cause things like get in the way of lunches which is when I would have time to do that. But today I’ll have time!

Anyway that is so weird that Mike is leaving! Nobody even told me he got his call! But that’s cool that he’s going to Singapore. He was just made for learning really weird languages. Why are Natalie and Tyson over there? What does he do for work again? Or were they just bored and decided to move there.

Yes I have met the Ahlborn’s. Actually I was in their branch for a little while with Elder Hagen. But yeah they’re in Tirana so we see them quite a bit. They are awesome people. Very very self sufficient. Just really really good people. And they are working hard to get the outreach centers going and stuff.

Holy cow how are all these people getting married at like the same time?! You’ll have to send me an announcement of Kevin’s or e-mail it to me or something. That’s crazy.

So this week went by so fast. Busy busy busy. We got to go to Elbasan on exchanges which was intense. The road there is like four miles above the ground and when you’re not the one driving it’s pretty dang scary. It is gorgeous, though. I didn’t know Albania had that kind of scenery. I should have taken some pictures but I was too busy either driving or holding on for dear life. But it really was breathtaking. Next time I go there I will definitely snap some pictures and send them to you. And a trip to Elbasan also means that I got to drive Big Blue again! I only stalled once this time and it was when we pulled over so it didn’t even count. I also almost ran straight into a tourist bus, too! Sweet, huh?

Elbasan was funny. We had to be bouncers for their English Course cause there’s a ton of little kids that come and just make lots of noise and distract everyone else from learning so we had to stand out at the fence and be the selectively permeable membrane for those that were good and those that were lame. We actually literally had to be bouncers too. Like I physically had to push people off of the fence. It was pretty fun. There were some funny kids, though. There was this one little, happy, chubby kid that was hilarious. So we made a couple friends, too. ;)

We have also been working with a woman in Kosovo. Yeah, we’re basically opening the country. =) No, but we’ve been teaching her through Skype. Her name is Donika and she has been going to church over there for four years now and there’s an American couple in Kosovo that got in touch with us and wanted to start the lessons with her and so far she’s really good! Just really hard to meet with. That would be so sweet if we lined up a baptism with her and she got to come down to Tirana or we got to go up to Kosovo! (Probably not going to happen, but why not have hope?)

Well, thanks for your e-mail, mom! I love you so much! Have an awesome week!

-Elder Swenson

We are here to help the members.

Hey Mom!

Guess what?! We are going to be talking in like five days! Sweet, huh? I’m pretty excited.

That’s great that Chase is ready to go! Argentina will be sweet. Good soccer as well. ;)

Ha ha ha ha ha and yes that is the Elder Monson that I’m serving with now. That was hilarious cause he saw that picture on my screen and he was like, “Um. . . . .what the heck?. . . .” So yeah last week on Wednesday I moved back into Tirana. This last week was super busy getting ready for Zone Conference and making sure everything was going smooth. We also gave a training about working with the members. We called it “The Easy Way to Have Lots of Missionary Work.” Man I was so exhausted by the end of this week. On Wednesday (the night before Zone Conference) we ate lunch at 8:30 p.m. But I’d personally rather be busy as a missionary than have nothing to do. So it’s good. I do miss regular missionary work though. I mean we still do it, but there’s also lots of stuff we do that’s just kinda logistical stuff. Oh by the way, I think some people are confused that I’m an office Elder. . . . .I’m not. Elder Dittmer took that bullet for me a long time ago. ;) But now Zone Conference is over and we’re hopefully going to be doing a lot more finding and teaching this week.

We actually had a pretty good work week considering all the other stuff that had to get done. We’ve been trying to be examples of what we talked about in our training and working with the members to get referrals. One of the things that we really incorporated into our training was that we are here to help the members. They are not here to help us. Really if you think about it, it would make no sense if the missionaries were in charge of the missionary work. That sounds dumb, but look: Missionaries come into a branch for a fairly short amount of time and usually don’t have enough time in the area to see the whole process of finding, teaching, and baptizing. They usually leave somewhere in the middle of that process. The members are the ones that see everything and that will be there before and after to check on the progress of the new convert. For me it helped to compare it to when I was working at Chili’s. I remember there were about two weeks when the chefs from Headquarters came and did kind of hands on training for the chefs in our branch. They worked with them and just helped them become even more efficient than they were before. Then they left after a little while. It’s exactly the same with us. We come and make sure the teaching is going well. We are here to help the members with whatever they need to bring their loved ones into the fold of God. I don’t know if this is making as much sense to you as it did to me in my head. It was really an epiphany for me and it’s changed my way of thinking about missionary work. Ask me more on Saturday if you want to know more. But I’m guessing probably not.

Anyway! So we’ve met with a couple of families and hopefully we are going to be meeting with a couple referrals this week. I’m excited to see some real missionary work going on here. We also have just started meeting with a girl from Kosovo. . . . .over Skype. Her name is Donika and she lives in Kosovo. She’s been going to church there on and off for about four years. There is an American couple there that found our website or something and contacted the mission office so we finally got to meet with her on Thursday. The connection was really horrible so we’re gonna try it on a different computer that hasn’t had as many problems and we’re going to do it at a later time so hopefully there won’t be as many people on and hope things go better this time. Kosovars are so awesome. And they have a killer accent.

Okay so about my shoku. Elder Monson is from Orem, Utah and he’s been on his mission for like 22 months now. He’ll be leaving in July. Things have been going really well lately and President has been giving me some awesome companions. We do still get to drive although they just cracked down on the auto policy so not as much anymore. But we usually drive “Big Blue,” a huge, nine passenger, Volkswagen van that is a manual transmission. I haven’t driven it yet, but then again I haven’t really asked. But I think we’re going to Shkodër on Saturday so I’ll see if I can’t get some driving time in then. ;) Ha ha funny you say that I’m the one that’s always involved in emergency transfers. I came to the conclusion that, whenever they find out that there’s going to be an emergency transfer, the first thing that they do is say, “Okay, how can we involve Elder Swenson in this?” I’ve been a part of three now and they’ve all been fairly stressful, but whatever. This was actually probably the least stressful one.

Okay holy cow I have just been blabbering this whole time. I love you and I will talk to you on Saturday!!

-Elder Swenson

This really has put the importance of temples into perspective for me.

Hey Mom!

Yeah that was a picture of the district I was in before this transfer. We were up at Shkodër castle like all the other ones. And speaking of Shkodër, Elder Johnson is serving in Shkodër and he is in (well. . . .was in) my district. He’s going to be awesome. He is super excited to be here as far as I can tell and he’s willing to get out there and talk to people. So tell Karen to tell his parents that he’s doing great! He also has a great companion, Elder Fahey, so he’s in good hands. =)

Okay so the latest news. I was involved in yet another emergency transfer. So I am no longer in Durrës as zone leader, but now I am back in Tirana in 1^st Branch. I am serving as assistant to the President with Elder Monson so unless I get injured or something and have to move, I will be here until the beginning of October. That was pretty weird when I found out I was moving. But hopefully I’ll be able to do my best.

Ha ha it was so funny to compare your account of Jade’s farewell to Dad’s. Your words were “I’ll have to admit it brought some tears to my eyes.” Dad’s words were, “Mom was blubbering the whole time.” =) I laughed a hearty chuckle right there. Man that youth conference was so memorable! It was pretty dang fun. Seriously I don’t think any one of us that was there is going to forget that. And who doesn’t appreciate sister missionaries?! Whoever it is, they’re insane. Sister missionaries kick Elders’ trash. At least here in Albania they do. There’s just some people that the Elders could never get to, when the Sisters can. Jade is going to do great and God will definitely appreciate the work that she does in his vineyard. Tell her good luck from me again if you see her before she leaves!

Well this week was pretty interesting as you could imagine with the emergency transfer and everything, but the work in this area seems to be doing a little better than my last couple of areas. Hopefully I don’t curse it forever ha ha. One thing that really hit me this week is how much of a sacrifice some people have to make to go to the temple. We have it so lucky in Utah. When we want to go to the temple, we don’t have to decide a year or more in advance or start saving up money. We don’t have to arrange for plane tickets or worry about visas and passports and other such things. I could decide at noon that I felt like going to the temple and be there in ten minutes. This really has put the importance of temples into perspective for me. These people start saving up money and preparing way in advance just to go even one time in their entire lives. But it’s because they know they wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity of an eternal marriage and family. And when we have the opportunity to go so easily, we need to take advantage of that and help others to seal their families for eternity as well.

Well, I should probably get going. I feel like this letter sounds kinda weird. Sorry! It was kind of a strange week so hopefully next week I’ll have my feet set a little bit more. I love you, mom. Thanks so much for your e-mail. We get to talk in two weeks! Have a great week!

-Elder Swenson

Well this week was interesting.

Me and Elder Shields waiting for like the seven hundredth no-show in a row.

A visit to the Cani Family

FHE Durrës Style

Hey Mom!

Well this week was interesting. We were out of Durrës for like four mornings in a row so the work suffered a little. But that’s okay cause I got to drive. =) And to answer your question about how much I drive, basically anywhere we go my companion will drive one way and I will drive the other. But we usually don’t go too often. This week was an exception. I’d say we go somewhere probably once a week on average, but I think this week we might be here the whole time which will be cool.

Me and Elder Shields decided that we had an average of about three no-shows per day which was pretty awesome. We spent a lot of time waiting in vain. But that’s okay, that’s just how it goes sometimes. Ha ha yesterday while we were waiting for our investigator to take to church this guy comes up and says, “How’s it goin’, Elders?” in like perfect English. I was so taken off guard that when he asked us where we were from, I said, “America.” He replied, “Well duh, but where?” It turned out he was there with the Army and he’s from Nephi, Utah. If we see him again I’ll ask him if there’s some way I can give a shout out to his family with like an e-mail address or something.

So a couple of funny stories really quick. We went tracting a couple of days ago and we took the elevator up to the top floor. It was a beautiful view and I saw that the door to the roof was open so I figured we’d get a picture while we had the opportunity. So we went up to the door and as soon as I stepped one foot through it, I saw that there was a woman watering plants or something so I said, “Hello! How are you?” She flipped. I guess I scared her so she flipped out and started to push me back through the door and tell us to get out of there. I asked her nicely if we could just take a picture from the top and she would not let us for the life of me. So we just left without complaint and began to knock doors. But would she let us go quietly back to our work? Never! As soon as we started to knock on the doors she told us to leave and not bother the people or else she was going to call the police (never true). She followed us down like two floors before we could finally get back to our work and knock doors in peace. So that’s why I don’t have an awesome picture from the skyline of Durrës. =P

And the other one happened yesterday at church. Saturday, we had a meeting with a woman name Viollca that may have been the most awkward lesson in the history of missionary work. But she agreed to come meet us and walk to church together the next day so it can’t have been too bad! Also she doesn’t have a phone so we can’t call her. She didn’t understand me when I explained how to get to the church (not because I suck at the language, but because she’s just weird). INTERRUPTION: The song playing at the internet café that I’m at right now is Layla (acoustic) by Eric Clapton. END OF INTERRUPTION. So we had to meet her at the train station which is like half an hour walking distance away from the church and we can’t drive her in our makinë because the church has a rule against that. She showed up about 15 minutes late and I was going to be giving a talk in sacrament meeting. So we had to walk fairly fast out to the church and got there right in the middle of sacrament. When we finally got to go into the chapel it was my turn to speak so I headed up to the podium while Viollca sat down with Elder Shields in the pews. I started to talk and seriously no later than ten seconds into my talk, she got up and left. Elder Shields followed her out and then came back alone about 20 seconds later. I finished my talk trying to not be weirded out by the whole situation. As soon as I got back to my seat, I asked Elder Shields what happened and he said that Viollca had told him that she felt like she was in hell when she was in there. Man! Church must rock here in Durrës! Ha ha but we had only had one pseudo-lesson before that so I don’t really blame her. She agreed to meet with us again tomorrow so I think she just wasn’t used to the whole church thing. Hopefully we’ll get a good lesson in tomorrow.

Anyway, holy cow sorry I just babbled on there! Tell Grandma that yes I did get her package!! I thought I already told you that, but maybe I forgot. Thanks for sending me those pictures! They were so good. I absolutely love pictures.

I have got to go! My time’s almost out! Thanks for the e-mail, mom! I love you so much! OH! We are going to be talking on the phone for Mother’s Day here pretty soon. Cool, huh? =)

-Elder Swenson

It’s spring now!!

Some cool ruins right next to the road in Durrës

A funny little punëtor (worker).

Ç’kemi!

It’s spring now!! We are wearing short sleeve shirts which is pretty awesome. Some of the days are still pretty cold though, but hey, we’re allowed to so we will. But it’s been pretty nice in general. I am now in Durrës which is right on the beach. Well, my area is not the beach, but it’s still pretty close. I’ve heard it’s the mildest climate for the summer, but I honestly don’t think it’s going to make that much of a difference. It is going to get dang hot and that’s just how it goes here in Albania. But right now it’s nice. Also, I get to drive places which is fun. Ha ha I’ve only driven once and I only stalled like eight times on the way to the church! But only once on the way back. =) Improvement. So hopefully I’ll be rockin’ at stickshift by the time I get out of Durrës.

This week has been pretty intense. We got here and there was nothing for us. No investigators. One recent convert. That’s it. So we’ve been doing a lot of finding and God was definitely on our side this week. The first couple of days we spent mostly street contacting and getting phone numbers. Now, usually it takes about seventy numbers to get an appointment to actually go through (exaggeration, but that’s beside the point), but this week we had eight meetings show up from street contacting! And six of them turned into new investigators! That’s probably the most success I’ve had yet on my mission from street contacting.

We had a really cool experience with one of them yesterday. We had set up a meeting with a kid named Xhefer (Jeff-air) after church. It wasn’t a super sure meeting, but he had said he would come and so we had to go wait for him. But what do ya know he showed up. The only problem was he was with two of his friends. You should probably understand that these were 15 year old boys trying to be cool so this did not give me any outstanding expectations for the lesson that we were going to have. It was hard enough to get them to agree to walk to our little meeting house to actually have the lesson. Then on the way there, his friends were making fun of us the whole time and thinking this was the dumbest thing they had ever done in their lifetimes. We got to the house and his friends wouldn’t even come in (which we were actually grateful for). Xhefer definitely did not want to be there and even if he did, the pressure of his friends was not helping us or him out at all. I was really hoping that we would just be able to teach him without him leaving in the middle of the lesson because he thought it was so stupid. I was praying in my heart to be able to get along with him and help him feel something to realize that this wasn’t a joke and it wasn’t something stupid. So we started teaching the lesson and he listened. He didn’t oppose and he didn’t make fun of us. The Lord helped us to keep it short, but at the same time to say what we needed to say. The lesson turned out to be really good. I know he felt something because I felt something. He seemed to take it all in as well. Maybe he was just putting on a good act, but we’ll see. At the end he even said a prayer and agreed to meet with us again. He turned out to be a really good kid when his friends weren’t pressuring him. As he was walking out the door, I told him not to let his friends bother him about it cause I knew they would. He laughed and said, “Okay.” We have our next meeting set up with him tomorrow and I really really really hope he comes. It was just so cool to see the environment completely change because of the hand of the Lord. If Xhefer has been prepared to hear the Gospel, then God will certainly do everything he can to help him meet with us.

Anyway, thanks for everything, mom! Oh and thanks for sending me the recipe! I’m definitely going to try that out. I love you, mom! Tell everyone I say hi.

-Elder Swenson