Salve Fratelli e Sorelle [Greetings Brothers and Sisters]
I was going to write a little Italian paragraph, but nope, wrote a line of Italian and then erased it. But President Dibb [mission president] just made the announcement that everybody will be speaking Italian whenever they are outside of the house, so that's intimidating and exciting, looking forward to that.
So this week has continued to be ferie, the vacation month, and we don't have anything like it in Canada. Literally most of the shops are closed until the end of the month with a little sign in the window saying when they will open up. Our supermarket is still open, and that's the only one we really use anyways, but I have no idea how everybody pays for these vactations since they have a 2 hour lunch break every day and come home at 5 or 6. One clothing shop has signs plastered all over "everything 70% off!" but they're also closed until Sepemeber. And it's been hot, like usual.
The fourteenth day of the eighth month of the year twothousand and thirteen- Got our biggest bidone of the mission so far, dissapointing but also funny. Bidone is trash, what we call it when an appointment doesn't happen. Set up a return appointment with this guy in a tiny park, it only has one entrance and a meter high fence surrouning it. We walk in, see him sitting down, and he gets up and I think "well, if he doesn't want to talk to us today at least we can say hi" since the only entrance is at our back, and he walks the opposite way and climbs over the fence. That was the highlight of the day just because it was so different
Agosto 15- Today was ferie di Agosto [August], a holiday they celebrate when everybody is on holiday anyways. And not for a specific reason, just the 15th of Agosto is considered a holiday. So we went with the bishop to a little picnic with some members and non-members, and played basketball (in dress cloths) against Bishop Vescovo and a non-member and we destroyed them. Then played a game of futsol where the goals with a soccer ball are the posts of the basketball nets, and they destroyed us. Last goal non-member was facing backwards and flicked it off his heel without looking at half court to score.
16-Cool miracle today. Doing strada [street contacting] in Arcore down the tracks, just missed our train back that we wanted to take, so went out for another 30 min before the next train came and taught a street lesson. Lord works in mysterious ways, but so cool looking back and realizing that that missed train was a blessing.
17- Met one of the members of our ward while walking, he's around 70 and the first member of the church in Albania and doesn't know any Italian. But somehow communicated to us that he wanted us to come with him, and wanted us to sit and watch him run laps around a park. So that's what we did. And by the way he's overweight and was running in sandals, jeans, and a hat, but hey, when you're the first person to be baptized in Albania you can do what you want.
18- Felt so good to go to the church, still don't understand a lot, but just love the feeling I get there.
19- Big miracle, not lots of time to write about it. Planning on walking back from a far appointment with a less-active, they gave us a ride, Anziano [Elder] Locklear felt like we should bike up to centro, we started, and met a potential that we hadn't been able to get ahold of. So walked our bikes alongside her to her apartment, and taught her a lesson outside her apartment. Funny once we got to the apartment -potential "what are you going to do now?" Anz. Locklear "We want to teach you a lesson" potential"about what?" Anz. Locklear "About Jesus. Can we start with a prayer?" potential "sure" If only all lessons were that easy to start. But again, Lord has his hand in everything we do
20- Scambio [companion exchanges] with Anziano Paulson who is 6'5, so we turned a couple heads with the 2 giants walking down the street.
You can always tell when I look at the time and realize that I have 15 minutes left to write everything and to president and send pictures. But thanks for all the prayers and support, the church is true!
Anziano Berg
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