Elder Christofferson's Visit

Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, and his wife Kathy visited us from May 28-31. Our Area Seventy, Elder Wondra and his wife Ursula were also visiting. After their arrival in Tirana on Friday afternoon, we whisked them off to the U.S. Ambassador's office for a half-hour visit, then went to the opening of a Roma (gypsy) pre-school where the Snow's had arranged some LDS Humanitarian Services aid of kitchen appliances, desks, chairs, and supplies. It was a colorful cultural event! That evening we hosted a dinner at the Tirana Sheraton so Elder Christofferson could meet several people here in Albania who work on goverment religious committees, the diplomat Michael Gray, from the U.S. Embassy who deals with religious affairs, and our attorney here in Albania.



At the Roma school, Sister Christofferson was drawn into the traditional line dancing and we were treated to dancing by the Roma children.

I had been concerned that I had not purchased flowers for the conference meetings in Elbasan and Durres on Saturday and Sunday, but the Roma people gave us three large bouquets of flowers. Problem solved!

We left the mission home early Saturday morning for the exciting and beautiful drive to Elbasan where we held an all-mission conference in the brand new Elbasan chapel. This was the first all-mission conference we've held since we've arrived. It was thrilling to be all together and had a wonderful two-hour session. I arranged a small choir of missionaries who sang an arrangement of "Behold the Wounds in Jesus' Hands" by David Naylor. Elder and Sister Christofferson loved the music and requested that they sing it again for our closing song.

After the mission conference, we sent the missionaries into the streets of Elbasan to find lunch and investigators, while we drove our guests to a Greek restaurant where we were the only diners and the owners rushed to serve us a delicious lunch. Then we returned to the chapel for two afternoon sessions with members of the district. At the end of the afternoon session, Elder Christofferson dedicated the new Elbasan chapel. We now have two church-owned chapels in Albania. The other is in the city of Durres. In Tirana where missionary work began in the early 90's, we still do not have a church-owned building. The four branches meet in three leased buildings. Back home that evening in Tirana, the Baird's (Marty's counselor and diplomat of military affairs at the U.S. Embassy) hosted a reception so the branch presidents and district presidency could meet and mingle with Elder Christofferson.



There were two sessions of conference in Durres on Sunday, and Elder Christofferson was the featured speaker at an evening meeting with the Young Single Adults in Tirana where he gave them an Apostolic Blessing. Throughout the conferences, Elder Christofferson was very generous with his time and shook every person's hand who wanted to meet him, and posed with several for pictures. The Albanian members were thrilled to have an apostle visit Albania. It has been five years since the visit of Elder Nelson.

Marty was able to arrange a meeting with the Albanian President, Bamir Topi, on Monday morning, and then we said goodbye to our guests. They took our personal mission van with a professional driver to Macedonia to visit with a few saints who live there, and after a night's stay, the Christofferson's headed back home to Salt Lake City, and the Wondra's to Vienna. Our van arrived back on Tuesday morning. We were also supposed to have gone with them to Macedonia in our larger mission van, but the clutch on that van burned out last week and was in the shop. We were so tired by Monday morning (I don't know how they kept up their busy schedule on this two-week tour!) that we were grateful to be staying behind.

We barely had time to catch our breath and then we held our two zone conferences Thursday and Friday. It was quite an exhilarating week!