Aug 25 Letter- A Move!

This week has been good.

We moved houses this week because our last house is falling apart. It
has a lot of problems (electrical, water, and many others). We had
stalagmites, and stalagtites forming on and below our collapsing roof.
We hung in there for a while, and battled it fixing things along the
way, but finally we realized that it probably wasn't worth it. So we
are out! We are in the same building one entrance over, and a couple
houses down. It is where I lived with Elder Gray.

I feel the weather is cooling down. We recaived a notification this
week from Germany about staying hydrated. It is totally true! It maybe
would have been helpful a couple of months ago haha, but they are
definitly looking out for us!

This week A completed the "Stop Smoking Program." We have had
events for him throughout the week. We set it up so we all got invited
to a member house for family home evening! It was a huge success! On
Saturday night we had a party with all of the other missionaries, and
Vellai Balla for him. It was pretty short, but it did the trick. We
ate cookies and fruit, and played ping-pong. We shared Ether 12:27
about weaknesses becoming strengths. All in all a success. Also he
came to church in a white shirt and tie.

Another man who we are working with is named A. He kind of found
the church on his own. He has been a few times before. He is in our
English course. He is a father of two little boys. They didn't have a
Book of Mormon before. We have met with them twice after English to
establish expectations and gain trust. Now we are making a huge push
to get to his house. I am pretty confident that he will get baptised.
We got him to that baptism last week, and it was great. At the start
of this transfer President Weidmann told our companionship that if we
had faith and worked hard we would have 3 baptisms by the end of it.
We are going to get them! The Gospel will be great for their family!

I promised I would tell you a bit about Albanian weddings. Before the
wedding they have multiple huge parties for the entire week before.
Weddings are a huge deal! They spend a ton of money on them. The day
of the wedding they have a huge party (around 12 hours straight of
eating, and drinking, and dancing). It lasts all through the evening
and night. On the morning of the wedding they have a car parade with
nice cars decorated. They drive around honking, and making noise! It
is really cool. They usually have a big camera sticking out of the
roof videoing the parade. We have been in a couple of videos walking
along the road and talking with people.

Also I didn't really explain Krujë. Back in the day Albania had a
bunch of cool castles. Skënderbeu had a huge thing going. Krujë was a
big base. THey have old maps with all of th cities labeled. They say
things like Paris, Istanbul, Frankfurt, and other big notable European
cites, but Krujë is also listed. It was a big deal!

Today for p-day we basketballed it up in Tirana! I had a blast. I love
playing basketball, and I really like getting together with the other
missionaries. It is good to get to know the ones that I don't know as
well also. We had 4 teams of 4. Halfcourt kings court. We played hard
for two hours straight. I loved it. I also saw Elder Holm, and Roemer,
and Brayden from my MTC group as well as lots of other Elders! It was
fun! The gym was pretty nice too!

Walk Buddy!!

Love Elder Stewart

The gym where they played basketball. Not bad!