Busiest Week of our Mission!

On July 1st we passed our two-year mark! We've been praying for the new mission presidents, since we remember the fear and trepidation of coming to a new country and not having a clue about what we were going to be doing. We still wonder if we're clueless, but hope the missionaries don't notice.

This last week, July 4-11, and the two weeks prior, were some of the busiest weeks of our mission. We were preparing for our "big transfer," Tues. and Wed., July 6-7, when we said goodbye to "dying" missionaries and welcomed in new ones from the MTC. Leaving are (L to R) Elder Joshua McGlothin, Elder Evan Monson, Sister Brooke Larson, and Elder Tim Rispoli. All but Elder Rispoli left at 5 a.m. on Wednesday. Elder Rispoli went home to Australia, so left on a flight later in the day.

The beautiful new missionaries (L to R): Sister Rachel Halabuk, Elder Trevor Miller, Elder James Norris, Elder Zach Platt, Elder Tyson Knowles, and Sister and Elder Wilson, our Humanitarian Aid Couple, who arrived in May, and joined us on this trip to the monument.

Thursday, after breakfast, the trip to the monument, and mission-specific training, Marty announced the trainers for each new missionary and we quickly left for the airport to pick up Elder Causse, the first counselor in our Area Presidency, and a member of the First Quorum of Seventy, who came to do a mission tour, mission conference, and District Conference. Friday we held a conference for the entire mission, and I cooked lunch for all 50--Mexican rice/black bean/chicken bowls with cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips. I made 100 large peanut butter cookies, and served them with Rudi's ice cream for dessert. This is what I meant about being very busy in the weeks prior to this one. I cooked and froze chicken and beans, thawing them and putting the ingredients together in big pots the night before. Sister Ahlborn cooked all the rice ahead, froze it in zip-loc bags, and reheated it in the microwave an hour before the lunch. We kept the rice hot in their bags in an ice chest. Worked great--a great tip for long-grain rice that has to be made ahead of the meal because you lack stovetop space and pots. Our wonderful couples helped me so it all went smoothly.

Elder Causse had some wonderful instruction for the missionaries and for us. The most valuable thing he told us is that while missionary skills are important, even more important is the culture of the mission, and we should do everything we can to foster a positive culture, and a "culture of success." We do have quite a bit of success, and Marty calls and praises the missionaries once a week for the progress they've made, but the missionaries get discouraged because they see new members lapsing into inactivity, and have difficulty establishing the culture of the church as we know it in the States. He reminded us that Albania is in the early stages of establishing the Church, and we should not expect instant change. He reminded us to keep things simple and to encourage the members to do the work, instead of the missionaries, so they can learn to lead.

Just today, Marty received a packet of new instructions from the Missionary Dept., regarding a new focus on teaching skills, which will involve extensive training of our mission leaders, who will then teach the missionaries. There will be a new mission schedule--no longer based on the six-week transfers--but a monthly calendar. Zone Conferences will be four times a year, as well as missionary interviews. Missionaries in the MTC will receive the new training, starting with the group that arrives in the field May 2011. By then, all the missionaries in the field will have been trained with the new materials. We're excited to be part of the changes!

Our new District Presidency are L. to R: Besmir Desnica, 2nd Counselor; Sparti Kashari, President; (Elder Causse); and Agim Grimci, 1st Counselor.

Saturday and Sunday were filled with back-to-back District Conference meetings. Somewhere during the week, Elder Causse and Marty found time to interview men for a new District Presidency, as Tony Baird and his family are leaving Albania to return to the states for a year to prepare for Tony's new diplomatic post in Azerbeijan. Tony was District President for only nine months, but has managed to fit in an amazing amount of valuable training for our Branch Presidents and other leaders. We will miss the Bairds!

Whew! We collapsed when we returned home from the airport to drop off Elder Causse, and we're still recovering. Since the old and new missionaries stay at the mission home, and Elder Causse also, I was fixing a lot of meals, and we were constantly moving from meeting to meeting, and giving talks also. I also organized a few musical numbers for the meetings. We never quite recovered from our 2:30 a.m. alarm on Wednesday to get the departing missionaries to the airport, and by the end of the week, we were both running on fumes. Now we're out of gas! Elder Causse told us that they usually don't schedule mission tours the same week as transfers, but somehow his tour was scheduled anyway.

We've had some wonderful baptisms this year. Pictured here are Sparti Kashari and Jeta Bejko. The two have worked together for years on our translation committee. Jeta knows so much about the Church from translating lesson materials, but when she finally tried the experiment--to be taught short lessons three times a week by two fine missionaries, and to pray to know if what she learned and studied was true--only then did she receive a witness of the truthfulness of the Church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And now she's sharing it with her relatives.

Elders Swenson and Monson are teaching Donika, a young Albanian woman in Kosovo, via Skype, as there are no missionaries in Kosovo. She's been attending Sacrament Meetings with a group of LDS members in Pristina at the home of Rich and Wendy Sweeny, and would like to be baptized. Wish we could attend the baptism! Now that Elder Monson has gone home, Elder Foulk, our new Assistant, will continue teaching Donika.

The sign on this car reads "Kujdes! Shoferë e re!" (Warning! New Driver!) The "e re" means it is a woman, as "i ri" would be the masculine way to write it. So basically, this sign says "Warning! New Woman Driver!"

And finally, we were jolted out of bed at 12:15 a.m. early Saturday by a 4.8 magnitude earthquake, centered 15 miles SE of Tirana. It gave a couple of good jerks, and then shook for a few seconds. Those few seconds always seem like an eternity when you're wondering if this is a "big one!" Elder Causse slept through it!