Arrival in Albania

Dear Family and Friends,

The Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Korçë

We have arrived in the country of Albania, in the beautiful city of Korçë—actually we arrived almost 4 weeks ago! We feel like we are in the most charming, wonderful place in the mission—although maybe that isn’t a fair assessment because we haven’t seen hardly anything yet. 

We’re going to try and catch up from the beginning, and then try to stay current. We entered the MTC on September 11th. My sister Sherri, and her husband Rick, who live in Vineyard, invited us to stay with them the night before, and leave massive amounts of luggage at their home. They are such incredible hosts, making us feel wanted and welcome. Sherri prepared delicious meals, and they are always ready to play fun games, or simply talk. We were also able to see my AZ sister Heidi, her husband Jon, and daughter Londyn for a few minutes while they were visiting their college kids, but we didn't get a picture.

At the "Tanner Hotel"

Another great blessing was the opportunity to be at the MTC with my sister Terri and her husband Jeff! Seriously, what are the odds that they started their mission to El Salvador the same day—and we were even put in the same District! We were able to be in the same classes and eat meals together. It was such a tender mercy to share that time with them, and I continue to thank the Lord. We always love the young, returned missionaries who teach us; and we became dear friends to the other couples in our District who also left their families and comfortable lives to serve a mission. We love the excitement and energy the new, young missionaries have, and it is a good thing because it was super full and crowded! There were about 2,800 young Elders and Sisters, and approximately 100 Senior Missionary couples!  There is always a great spirit on that campus. It is so amazing when you run into people you know—in our case, Kathy was able to see her cousin’s daughter, and a former piano student.

Our MTC District

During the weekend between our two weeks at the MTC we were able to watch two of our grandsons, James and Jack, participate in a mountain bike race.  They rode hard and fast—we are so proud of them!  Between the two races, we were able to be with Nathan, Kendra and boys at a museum and have a picnic in the park. We attended their primary program the next day. The next weekend we were so blessed to watch Jennifer’s and Karissa’s kids in their primary program in Las Vegas (they are in the same ward) and also Jason’s kids in their primary program in Little Rock. Video streaming is wonderful; and even the timing was perfect for us to watch both programs one right after the other! Yesterday, on October 22, we watched Richard’s youngest son participate. We find ourselves smiling the whole time as we watch and listen to our precious grandchildren sing and recite their speaking parts. Several of them even had solos! We will get to watch Robert’s youngest son next week! Truly modern technology is such a miracle and blessing!

At Nathan & Kendra's Ward
Primary Program

We finished our scheduled MTC activities on Friday, Sept 22.  On Saturday we rented a car and drove that rented car and our truck to Twin Falls to drop the truck off and spend a few hours with Richard’s family. We are grateful for Richard’s generosity to take care of the truck again! We ate a late lunch together, played some games, and had a great time with them. We felt so blessed to have little snippets of time with family.

We boarded the plane on Monday afternoon to begin our 20-hour flight to Albania. We had layovers in New York and Rome.  Neither one of us can sleep on planes, so we felt a little weird. The mission president and his wife, along with the mission secretary and his wife were there to pick us up and take us to our temporary apartment in Tirana. They also took us to eat at a nice pizza place near our apartment.  We have felt very welcome and appreciated since we arrived.

Dropping off the truck in Twin Falls

We spent a few days in Tirana to take care of some training, start the process for our residency permit, and try to get used to the time change.  We didn’t sleep well most nights because of the 8-hour time difference, but after about 5-6 days, our bodies caught on.  We immediately fell in love with the people here.  Whenever we tried to say anything in Albanian, like “hello” or “good morning” they would smile and sometimes even hug us! 

We watched General Conference in Tirana. It was wonderful, but a little different watching at 6:00 pm instead of 10:00 a.m., and the next session started at 10:00 at night. We watched the first 2 sessions live on Saturday, but because we hadn’t slept the night before, we didn’t watch the session that started at 2:00 a.m. until Sunday morning at 9:30.

Successful arrival at Tirana airport
with all of our luggage!

On Monday, we loaded everything up to drive to our permanent place in Korçë. We had an exciting morning because the power went out briefly in the morning, resulting in the elevator not working, even after the power came back on, so we had to carry all 6 of our heavy 50 pound suitcases down 4 flights of stairs, and our 2 carry-on bags weren’t that much lighter. By the time we were packed up, we were pretty hot and sweaty.  We had a pleasant drive to Korçë, which is about 3½ hours away from Tirana. Elder & Sister Brewer also drove their car to Korçë with us. Elder Brewer is in charge of the cars and Sister Brewer is in charge of the apartments.  We needed two cars because our luggage wouldn’t all fit in our very small Hyundai car.  We paid dearly for the extra luggage, but Kathy has complete sets of piano books for teaching free lessons here, as well as church materials, and bags of real brown sugar, as well as a years worth of vitamins, contacts, etc., etc.

Pres. & Sis. Auras met us at the airport

The two elders in Korçë, and the two elders and two sisters from Pogradec (40 minutes away) all came to meet us and help us move in.  They carried all of the bags up to our 3rd-floor apartment (no elevator), which was very appreciated.  We all went to lunch and then the Brewers took us shopping to finish furnishing the apartment. 

View of Lake Ohrid on our way to Korçë

We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here in Korçë so far. The food is amazing! The branch here is small, but the people are wonderful.  We look forward to getting to know everyone better and participating in the branch.  Kathy has already started up a piano class here! We attended a branch FHE on the first Saturday where we read and discussed a couple of chapters from the Book of Mormon and played games afterward. The YSA’s and youth are planning a temple trip to the Rome temple in November.  We might get to go with them, but we aren’t sure yet.

We are trying very hard to learn enough Albanian to communicate with the branch members and the people on the street. Albanian is a difficult language, but we are working hard and with the Lord’s help we think we can do it!

A pretty Cobblestone Street in Korçë

We have met so many nice people. Here is an example.  We ate at a restaurant that had very, very good food. A few days later, Kathy wanted to buy some chicken.  Since this was our first time buying meat, we were not sure where to go, and there are real butcher shops everywhere!  Kathy decided to ask the people at the restaurant where the chef bought his chicken because it was so good.  We went to the restaurant and the waiter we had before was there.  He speaks a little English.  We tried to explain that we wanted to know where we could buy meat that was safe. We thought that if he didn’t know, he could just ask the chef and then tell us, but he went to get the chef. The chef was so happy that we loved his cooking, but there was definitely a language barrier because the chef went back in the kitchen and came back with the spices he used and gave us little cups of those spices for chicken and another container for meatballs.  He seemed very pleased that we asked him!  We thanked him profusely and then explained one more time what we wanted and used some google translate. The chef then directed us to a meat shop down the road.  We bought some fresh chicken there and it was indeed very good.  (His spices are also very good!)

Grilled veggies with feta and
balsamic glaze.
Delicious!

We needed to get a little cupboard/cabinet of sorts to fit under the small bar in the kitchen so we could store more food, and hot pads, etc. We went to several stores and struggled with charades to explain/show what we needed. In one of the stores, the man had lived in the US for 4 years as a boy and spoke English very well. He didn’t have what we needed but his mother ran another shop and he took us in his car to go see it! We couldn’t believe he would just take strangers in his car to help. We felt bad because it ended up not being what we needed, but he was still super kind, so we took note of where his shop was. The next place actually had what we needed and the man told us he would follow us home with the cabinet and he carried it all the way up to our apartment!

Lunch with our district

We keep meeting nice people everywhere, so we made a lot of cookies and put them in little bags with notes that read, “Faleminderit që jeni kaq të sjellshem” which means, “Thank you for being so kind to us.” Our wonderful missionaries gave us the translation. We ended up delivering 12 bags of cookies and 2 large plates. Each person was so touched, and surprised—they either hugged and kissed us, or put their hands on their hearts and kept thanking us. It is a beautiful beginning of friendship for all of us! We are trying to stay with the same butcher, the same bakery, the same print shop, the same sweet shop, and we have two favorite fresh produce market/stands, etc. We can visit each of them every week. We will visit the other people- like the furniture family, and chef, waiter, etc. every 3 weeks or so. Apparently, no one does that here, but it has started now with us.😉

Kathy's Kitchen

When the missionaries, and a young man age 12, and Alan and I were waiting on the steps for the rest of the piano students to come, I smiled, waved, and said “Përshëndetje” to each person who walked by across the street. Each person turned and smiled and replied back. The young man asked me if I knew these people and I said no, but I like to greet everyone. He said people usually only talk to people they know, and he was surprised that every person called back with a smile and a couple of them offered a heart hug and air kisses. Almost every single person we greet will greet us back with big smiles, and kind greetings. Many people start talking a LOT in Shqip, which is the Albanian language. They are smiling and so happy to have

Get-together with family members
at BYU before we left the MTC

someone to talk to. We don’t know that many words yet and cannot understand what they are saying. We are practicing this phrase, “we are sorry, we are learning shqip”. I honestly don’t know when I’ve been kissed so many times on both cheeks by women and men, and on my hands from the sweetest older gentlemen! The city Korçë is such a lovely place and we love it! These people have suffered so much with communism and war, but they are friendly and so kind to us! 

A lot more has happened since we’ve been here, but we are going to send this out now and try to get another letter out soon. We are having a great time and thoroughly enjoying being here. We are impressed with the faithfulness of the church members here as well as the young missionaries. May the Lord bless and watch over you all!

Love,

Elder & Sister Manwaring