Whew, What a Week!

Monday: Loads of preparations for Zone Conferences. I assembled 60 of these refrigerator magnets as a Christmas handout. The words are by Marvin K. Gardner from the song "Room in the Inn" by Vanja Watkins. My daughter Erin stamped and embossed the small manger cards for me before we left the states, and I cut and assembled the cards based on her design.

Tues., Dec. 9: We were invited to attend a concert with the Grimci's (District Presidency) of "The Tenors," an Albanian version of the famous "Three Tenors" concerts. It was not exactly high culture, but entertaining none-the-less, and the featured tenor from Italy was excellent, as was the orchestra. Also featured was an aging, bleached-blonde soprano from Italy who waltzed out in a slinky red dress with a fox-fur cape. She was all shtick and schmaltz, and had a knee-length vibrato. Cultural events here are very inexpensive to attend. Our tickets cost us $10 each and they were front-row seats!

Wed., Dec 10: An LDS family gave us second row tickets to the National Opera where the husband and wife play violin. It was a trio of "short" Puccini operas. "Short" is relative when it comes to opera, and we left after two and a half hours, missing the third opera. The Opera House is a concrete building, built in 1963. It is unheated, and there was cold air blowing on us throughout the performance. Fortunately, I brought a scarf with me which I wrapped around my neck and head, with only my eyes peeking out. My feet froze, though. If we hadn't been so cold, we could have enjoyed the excellent singing more!

Thurs., Dec. 11: Mulek Zone Conference. A real spiritual highlight of the last six weeks. My preparation included a Power Point presentation on cleaning apartments. I modified a presentation my friend Sandra Ludwig gave when her husband was president of the Greece Athens Mission. O.k., so that wasn't spiritual--but it was necessary! New Year's Day is a huge holiday here and follows a night of merry making and crazy fireworks, so the missionaries are staying inside for most of the day to "make a fresh start by deep cleaning their apartments." I also put together a missionary musical number; cinnamon rolls for the break; and a beef stew lunch for 34 with Christmas-decorated tables and large Christmas-tree cutout cookies for dessert. Marty gave two presentations, including one he developed with the Assistants on our vision of how we can have a stake here by mid-2011. They call the project "Korab," which is the highest mountain peak in Albania, and compares climbing a high mountain to the work and faith we need to accomplish our goal of a stake. Then the Assistants showed a beautiful slide show they developed of Christ's life in art, from birth to resurrection, with an accompaniment of a choir singing Mack Wilburg's "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need.

"The Sisters ended up at one table. You can see we dress to be warm here! One sister at this table told me she had on four pair of tights! The weather has been fairly mild, but the cold is a damp cold which chills to the bone, and it sometimes seems colder in our concrete and tile buildings than it is outside.

Fri., Dec. 12: Lehi Zone Conference. Same presentations, cinnamon rolls for break, and cutout sugar cookies, but for the "outside" zone we hire two women (both former caterers) to cook the lunch.

We left before the lunch because we had to get back to Tirana to take a dozen missionaries from the inside zone to the U.S. Ambassador's residence to sing carols at his annual Christmas reception for the embassy staff. They sang beautifully, but Marty said it was like missionary work: "Only a few people listen." The ambassador, John Withers, II, was most appreciative and the finger food was very American and very delicious. Marty had six or seven deviled eggs.

Sat. Dec. 13: Our 40th Wedding Anniversary. Marty gave me a beautiful Swarovski crystal angel. He had meetings until 2:15 and then we had lunch at an American cafe. It's not far from the mission home and it's the only place in town you can get a real hamburger and mexican food. Then we drove to the big QTU shopping center which is outside the city and hit the EuroMax supermarket to stock up on groceries.

While at the grocery store, I was waiting for the clerk to weigh my bananas (you bag your own produce, but it has to be weighed and tagged before the main checkout), when a man stepped in front of me with his produce. This has happened to me several times in lines and at elevators, and as Marty has told me, "You can't show weakness!" Actually, he was talking about driving when he said it but I decided I'd had enough and blurted out, "Excuse me!" in Albanian. He motioned for me to go ahead, but I'll bet he doesn't get challenged often, as this is a "men first" culture.

It was pouring rain and we didn't feel like doing much that evening, so we stayed in and watched a movie on our new Sharp Aquos, 32" screen, High-def, LCD, 1080p TV. Actually, this was an anniversary and Christmas present to ourselves and it replaced a small 20" screen TV that was here when we moved in. Well, we did need something bigger on which to show the missionaries General Conference, didn't we?! It will be our gift to the mission home.

Sunday, Dec. 14: Church in the little unit in Kamez, a suburb of Tirana. 19 people in attendance: two elders, Marty and me, the Vogli family of five who were the visiting speakers, one member and nine investigators. Pictured is the wonderful Vogli family. Brother Vogli is the man who sculpted our marble bust of Christ as a surprise gift. He also carves the marble name plates on our branch buildings. I'm going to teach Ester, who is eight years old, piano lessons. This was a very sweet Sacrament Meeting. Elder Monson and Humphreys are doing a wonderful work in Kamez.
After church we took a drive part of the way up Mt. Dajti (pronounced "Dyetee") which is directly to the East of Tirana. There is an aerial tram that you can take most of the way up the mountain, but I don't think I'll be getting on it unless they drug me first. Marty and Elder Shupe say they'll take it while Sister Shupe and I sit in the cafe below and drink hot cocoa. Marty is standing on one of the many concrete bunkers on the mountainside.


It's going to be what the missionaries call a "White Christmas" in Albania, due to all the baptisms scheduled for Christmas day. We're expecting as many as 25 convert baptisms in December, many of them coming from a little branch in Shkodër, which has had missionaries for only a year or so. Things have exploded following the baptisms of Adriana and Toma as they are wonderful member missionaries! (See Adriana's story below in Marty's post "Two Convert Stories.")