A Change in the Weather

Dear Family and Friends,

Daylight savings time has ended and it is now dark by 4:30 pm each day.  The days are cool and the nights are cold.  It has been raining a lot lately also. The only other permanent family, an older couple, in our apartment building left to spend the winter in Greece this week. However, Korçë is known for its Christmas decorations and there is currently a lot of activity around town setting up lights and Christmas displays.  We are excited to see them when they are turned on.

View from the village where
me met Ylmer

We want to tell you about some more people we have met in Korçë.  Last Monday after we finished some of our responsibilities, we decided to take a walk up to a small village about 2 miles away before it got dark.  We had a delightful walk and greeted several people on our way up the hill.  On the way down, an older gentleman that we had greeted on the way up called out to us. He pointed to Kathy’s eyes and said some things.  We didn’t understand it all, but we heard the word “beautiful” a few times. We went over to where he was sitting and he stood with his cane and Kathy shook his hand and patted his shoulder. He didn’t speak any English so we struggled to communicate with the few words that we know. He was a very sweet man, and wanted us to stay and talk with him. Kathy asked him if we could come back and visit on Wednesday with some friends that could translate for us.  He said we could and we agreed on a time. He then pointed out where he lived down a small lane. We weren’t completely sure but had a good idea.

At the village where we
met Ylmer

On Wednesday it was raining hard all morning and was still raining at noon as we went back up the hill with the Elders, this time in a car.  We had to drive up, back, and back up again before we recognized the spot where we had met him. From there we walked down the muddy path he had indicated and went through the gate of the house we thought was his. We had to go an hour earlier than we had agreed to because we unexpectedly had to leave for Pogradec later that afternoon. We found him sitting outside on his porch waiting for us! He “jumped up” as best as he could with his cane, shouted bravo, bravo and grabbed Kathy in a big, tight bear hug. Thankfully the Elders could translate because he kept saying, “you came, you came—I didn’t think you would come because of the rain. I have been waiting for you.” He kept hold of Kathy and invited us in. We found out his name is Ylmer.  He is an 80-year-old retired grade-school teacher.  His wife passed away 6 years ago and he now lives alone.  He invited his niece and her two daughters to join us. We had a very nice talk with everyone and the Elders gave him a Book of Mormon. His niece said he reads constantly, so we are hoping he will read some from the Book of Mormon.  We are planning to go back and see him this week.

There is a young single adult in our branch named Tomas.  We were at a branch Book of Mormon reading activity and he made the comment, “I am a killer, Tomas is a killer of bad things!” He went on to say that he was going to kill all of his bad habits and things he does wrong.  It was awesome!

Gift from Kamela,
the produce lady

We found a nice produce shop close to our house.  The lady who weighs the produce and collects the money is very nice and speaks a little English, which is a big help to us.  We have taken her some treats with thank you notes a few times to thank her for her kindness.  When we went to buy some vegetables this week, she saw us and said, “I have a surprise for you!”  She handed us a bag and inside was a hand-embroidered wall plaque that she had made which said “I love you” and had our names stitched on it!  We were surprised that she remembered our names.  We found out that her name is Kamela.  She is married and has 3 children.  We asked her if they would like to come over for dinner and play some games with us.  She tentatively agreed, but said she would have to check with her husband first.  We are constantly amazed at how friendly and kind the people are.

Visiting the Nazif family

Last Sunday, both of us received callings in the branch.  Alan was called as the branch clerk and Kathy as the Relief Society 1st counselor. One of the counselors in the branch presidency speaks some English, so Alan will have a built-in translator, but Kathy has a real challenge in that no one in Relief Society speaks any English.  The Elders are probably going to be attending Relief Society quite a bit from now on, except they are also needed in YW/YM…

Our apartment building in Korçë

One of the elders here, Elder Longmore, is being transferred this week. Both Elder Longmore and Elder McPherson speak Albanian incredibly well, so we have two translators to use on Sundays. Elder Longmore will be replaced by a brand-new Elder, so we will only have one translator available.  We are excited, though, to meet this new Elder and feel the enthusiasm of a new missionary.

We realized we haven’t said much about our apartment.  We live on the third floor of a 3-story apartment building.  There are 3 apartments on each floor, and then one additional apartment in the basement along with some underground parking. We do not use the underground parking, and we don’t even have the code to get into it either.  We think that might be an extra cost, and so far there has always been room to park out front.

The apartment is fairly new and modern.  The kitchen is small but functional. The stove top and oven are electric so we don’t have to worry about refilling any propane tanks.  One interesting thing is that we have a cupboard for the plates and bowls that has a water-collection pan at the bottom.  We wash the dishes and put them in the cupboard to dry and then they are ready to be used again.

We have a living/dining room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Our kitchen table doubles as a work/computer table.  We have heater/AC units in the living room and the bedroom, so we are always comfortable. The apartment is small but we can do our workouts- barely. Our washer is very small and can’t fit many clothes in it, but our drying rack is also small so whatever fits in the washer can fit on the drying rack.

The only thing that is a little strange is that there appears to be only one other apartment in the building with a permanent resident, but we have only seen the man a couple of times. We think that a couple of other units are rented out occasionally with Airbnb, but the others just seem to be empty.  Maybe some will come back in the summer…

Our first tastes of byrek

Something we have really enjoyed about Korçë are the smells from the many restaurants in the city.  As we walk down the streets, we are bombarded by one delicious smell after another.  One of the traditional foods here is called byrek. It is a savory sort of pie made with a flaky phyllo dough and filled with different things like cheese, leek, spinach, etc.  There is a place called Mik Mak where we first tried it and we loved it. Later we tried some from another place and realized that all byrek is not created equal.  We will stick with the first place in the future. There are lots of places that sell gyro sandwiches and there are a lot of varieties, but they have one thing in common—they all have French Fries inside of the gyros! 

Our friends, the Hansens, who served here last year, told us to try the Cheeseburger Pizza and it is actually the best pizza we have had here! We are trying to eat out once a week and try different foods. We have found a few nice places, but we have only just begun our investigation.😊 Back to the smells— one of Kathy’s favorite smells is the smell of burning firewood. All of the poorer people heat their homes and cook with wood—if they have enough money to buy it. There are many very large, incredible homes here for the wealthy people, and also several newer, really nice apartment buildings; and there are many small, humble homes here as well as many, many old apartment buildings that have very small rooms. The disparity between the rich and poor is very great.

Salad with smoked salmon
and pomegranates

We were in a meat store the other day and happened to noticed what looked like some marinated beef.  It was labeled “biftek” which also sounded like beef.  Kathy thought that would be good to fix when we invited the Elders over for dinner. We bought some, but when we started cooking it, we realized that it was actually pork. It was good, but just not what we expected. 

Another time we were in the grocery store and we saw some packages that looked just like the packaged sausage at a grocery store in the US, except that these packages were labeled in either Greek or Albanian.  Google translate said it was sausage, so we decided to try one, but when we opened it up, we found that rather than raw sausage meat, it was like a big fat hot dog.  We fried up some pieces and it was pretty tasty, but certainly not what we expected. We continue to learn things by trial and error.  It makes every day sort of an adventure. It will be really nice when we can read and understand the labels at the stores…

Sea bass

One significant difference between Mexico and Albania is Jello. In Mexico City, grocery stores would have an entire aisle dedicated to just Jello. You could also buy Jello dessert items at almost every bakery in town—it was everywhere!  However, we could not find any pudding anywhere.  In Albania, we have not found Jello anywhere, but pudding is everywhere. 

At the opening of a branch
member's new perfume store

We have also not been able to find anything like Rice Krispies, or regular white marshmallows.  We have found some similar cereal that is chocolate-flavored, but even that isn’t made out of just rice. Since Kathy makes a treat each week for our Branch activity night, and for each of the gatherings after the baptisms, we keep our eyes open for things we can take, and things that aren’t too expensive. She finally gave in and bought the chocolate Krispy cereal and the pink and white “marshmallows” to make “Rice Krispie” treats. It didn’t set up the same—it was stickier, but everyone loved it and wanted to know how to make it. It is interesting how different cultures latch onto different types of food.

Cute Greek restaurant we
found in Elbasan

Another beautiful thing is the Muslim call to prayer. Several times a day they play a recording from the mosques.  We don’t understand the words, but the music and the melodies are beautiful.

We were told by our Shqip “teacher”- one of our missionaries- to read the BoM every night in Shqip. We have learned the Shqip alphabet which has 36 letters instead of the normal 26 letters. The first night we read a chapter it took us over an hour and we were definitely not reverent! We laughed and laughed as we tried to make our tongues wrap around words with 3-4 consonants in a row and say words like jashtëzakonisht which means extremely or exceedingly, and there is one word that sounds like manure- mënyrë which means “way”. After 3 weeks, we feel much more comfortable and we don’t even laugh— well not much. We can pray in Shqip and are starting to understand more words when people talk to us. We pray these words, “Ne të kërkojmë të na bekosh me dhuratën e gjuhëve” —which means, Bless us with the gift of tongues.

We will end with this quote- “An umbrella cannot stop the rain but it allows us to stand in the rain. Faith in God may not remove our trials but it gives us strength to overcome them.” Author unknown.

We love and pray for you!

Elder and Sister Manwaring