Catching up after the Holidays

 

Dear Family and Friends,

The month of December was very busy and before we knew it the New Year arrived.  We will try to catch up with everything that happened.

First, we want to tell you about our trip to the Rome Temple at the end of November. The stake and district sponsored a temple trip for all youth and young single adults in Albania. It was held during the last week in November when Albania celebrates Independence Day and Liberation Day so there were fewer issues with missing school and/or work. We were not planning on going, but just a couple of weeks before the scheduled trip, we were asked to go and help with the food, and also help with the youth from our branch. Another senior missionary couple from Tirana was asked to be in charge of the food and they asked us to help. Three young women and two young men from our branch signed up to go with two young women leaders. Unfortunately, one of the young men got sick just hours before we left, so he was not able to go.

None of the youth had ever been on a plane before, so they were very excited, and pretty scared.  The flight left very early in the morning from Tirana, which is 3 ½ hours away from Korçë, so they left at midnight and traveled by taxi to arrive at the airport by 3:30 am. None of them had seen an escalator before, so they were afraid of using it, and wouldn’t get on until they watched others. When our cute 12-year-old boy finally got on, his smile was huge as he said, “I didn’t die!”

We arrived in Rome and took a bus from the airport to the Temple. We stayed in the patron housing right on the temple grounds. The Rome Temple is beautiful!  That first day we just got settled in and enjoyed the temple grounds and visitors center.

Each day we had breakfast followed by a session of proxy baptisms. After lunch there were classes or presentations for the youth and young single adults with some free time until dinner.  After dinner there were other activities, such as a tour of the Temple grounds, and two social gatherings, including dancing. We had to get up early to prepare breakfast. Lunch was ordered in (pizza or sandwiches), and we prepared dinner each night except for when they had the dances.

Alan had the privilege of performing the proxy baptisms for our youth, in Albanian, and he did a beautiful job! The Spirit was so strong as those sacred words flowed beautifully in Shqip. Kathy sat quietly with our youth, some of them snuggled close to her so she could put her arms around them, another rested her head on Kathy’s shoulder, or held her hand. All of the youth were very nervous about getting in the water, (none of our youth can swim) but they conquered their fears and did the baptisms anyway. The kids had used Family Search to find names of their ancestors and were able to do the ordinances for them. None of our youth have even one baptized parent, so it was touching to see the support from their parents in allowing the ordinances to be performed for their deceased grandparents and great grandparents. In addition, the two, young single adult leaders brought names of their grandparents, and Kathy and I were able to help with the ordinances, including sealings, for them. It was a wonderful to be with our youth and see them react to the beautiful spirit that is in the Temple. All of them are praying for their families to join the church and be sealed in the Temple.

Our flight left on Saturday evening, but during the day on Saturday we had the opportunity to explore some of the sights in Rome.  We visited the Coliseum, the Pantheon, and Trevi Fountain, and were able to have some gelato. It was quite the site with 65 people walking through Rome, and when we finished, we had walked about 8 miles, and our kids were pretty tired. Kathy kept cheering them up and tried to make the walk more fun. Our flight arrived in Tirana a little after midnight, and then the kids had a 3 ½ hour taxi ride home after that. We were proud of the way they behaved themselves and the sacrifices they made to go on the trip.

We told you a little about our friend Ylmer before. He surprised us a few weeks ago when he called the Elders and said he was in town for two days.  We went over to his house and had a pretty good discussion with him about faith.  He really listened this time and his attitude was much softer. He agreed to read the pamphlets and in the Book of Mormon. He said he wants more than anything to believe he will see his wife again. He returned to Greece early the next morning, but said he wants us to come again when he gets back at the end of February.

Enea, the professional pianist, is still taking lessons and learning very quickly. He is planning on going to the United States to work this month, but we don’t know when yet.  He was very busy during the holidays playing at various restaurants in the area. He invited us to come, and we decided to support him. We heard him play at a restaurant in a town called Voskopojë which is about 10 miles away, but the entire way was full of steep switchback roads from Korçë, so it took us over 30 minutes to get there.  Another missionary couple happened to be visiting that night, so we drove up together.  It was a traditional Albanian restaurant, so the music was also very traditional.  There were two different groups at the restaurant and both of them were very engaged with the music.  They were all dancing and singing with the music.  After a time, at the urging of Enea and several other guests, we also participated in the dancing!  We had a good time! Before we left, Enea said we had to try the Byrek from that restaurant because that is the dish they are famous for.  He ordered some for us and it was indeed very good.  We tried a few bites there and brought the rest home with us.

Kamela’s father, Bardhi, invited us and the elders over to his house for dinner about a week before Christmas. They are such a nice family!  Kamela’s brother, Kevin, plays volleyball, speaks pretty good English, and is a really nice guy. Her sister, Klara, studied at a culinary school here in Korçë, and wanted to continue with her studies, but would have had to move to Tirana, so she didn’t.  She cooked the entire dinner for us that evening, and it was delicious! We had many traditional Albanian dishes, and they were all very good. When dinner was over, Klara brought out a huge Trileçe cake. This is essentially the same as a tres leches cake in Mexico.  The cake was amazing, both in appearance and taste.  Afterwards, we learned that Bardhi played the guitar.  We asked him to play for us and he agreed.  He played and sang some traditional Korçë songs and was very good. We told him that he should come and sing those songs at our branch Christmas party, and he agreed to that also! Klara volunteered make a couple of Trileçe cakes for the party! We said she didn’t need to do that, but she really wanted to. We offered to pay for the ingredients, and she agreed to let us pay for one and they would pay for the other.  This family is incredibly kind and engaging!

Our branch Christmas program went very well. Kamela’s family all came and when Bardhi sang his songs, everyone joined in.  Everyone loved him! We sang a duet, and Alan shared a short testimony in Shqip. Kathy made over 200 sugar cookies and the frosting, and we bought lots of sprinkles and candy for everyone to decorate cookies—if they wanted. No one had ever done that here before, but all of the kids and teenagers had a great time! (Sidenote, we had to go to an import store to find sprinkles and they aren’t the same, but it worked. We also cut up gummy candy they have here into little round pieces to use for decorations.) Kathy also made hot chocolate, and 3 different kinds of sweet breads for refreshments. Klara’s Trileçe cakes were a big hit with everyone.  We had over 80 people there, so it was a huge success. We had enough food for 100 so we didn’t run out. Our youth helped us put together new gloves with chocolate candy bars wrapped with white paper colored and decorated to look like a snowman. Most people are very poor here, so the gloves were needed and the candy very appreciated.

Korçë is a big Christmas/New Year destination place in Albania for Albanians. They have a lot of Christmas light displays, concerts, restaurants, and hotels. We shop at a store called Neranxi that is essentially a restaurant supply store, and they said they work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week during December and the first part of January. This family has also become dear friends. There were more cars and people here than we’ve ever seen, but still the charm of Korçë remained intact.

Bardhi told us about a free clarinet concert and invited us to attend with their family. The clarinetist was Bardhi’s wife’s sister’s husband.  We’re not sure what we were expecting, but what we experienced was certainly unexpected, but very much enjoyed.  All of the music they played was traditional music from Korçë – not just from Albania, but from the Korçë area. Besides the music there were singers and dancers.  It was amazing! Words cannot describe the experience, so we will include some video for your enjoyment.

On Christmas Eve we drove to Elbasan for a mission conference. Kathy helped by providing cinnamon rolls for the breakfast, and her layered pudding dessert for 80 people.  On Christmas Eve we had a special mission sacrament meeting and Kathy was asked to give the opening prayer.  We had some issues with our oven, traffic, and roadblocks and just about missed the opening prayer, but we arrived in the nick of time.  Kathy offered the prayer in Shqip, and everyone was totally impressed.  She is doing so well with the language, especially praying.

Christmas day was a pretty casual day, with food, missionary gift exchanges, a visit from Santa Clause (our mission president’s wife), a service project where we tied many blankets for an orphanage, a catered dinner, along with Kathy’s dessert, and a movie at the theater.  We watched Disney’s “A Christmas Carol”. Tuesday, we talked about our mission goals for the year and then most of the missionaries went to the beach for their P-day.

We stayed at a nice little hotel in Elbasan, but our stay there reminded us of how grateful we are for Korçë.  Elbasan is much bigger, has a lot more traffic, and is just not as quaint and pretty as Korçë. Every time we go somewhere we are reminded of how blessed we are to be here in Korçë. There were four senior couples staying at the hotel and the woman used Google Translate to tell us “This world would be different with more people like you, so kind and cultured.” The people are always so kind to us!

We had a fun experience at our favorite restaurant called Find Four. We have been there several times, and Kathy has brought the chef and the wait staff different treats and thank you notes. The last time we went there, we decided to try their pizza because the elders told us it was really good. When we ordered the pizza, the waiter told us that the guy who makes the pizza was not there at the moment, so we could not have pizza. We asked for a few minutes to decide what else we wanted, but he came back after a minute and said that they were going to give us two orders of chicken ravioli for free!  We also ordered a salad, and all of the food was very delicious, as always.  When we left, the chef came out to say goodbye and wish us a Happy New Year.  We are constantly amazed at how nice and friendly people are to us here! We love all of them!

Kathy needed to print some materials for her piano lessons, and the first print shop we found couldn’t do it because their printer wasn’t working.  We found another one, but they said they couldn’t do the binding we wanted.  The girl from that shop then took us around the block to another print shop that we never would have found on our own.  It is run by two brothers, one of whom speaks quite good English.  They have been so nice to us and have helped us with many printing projects. We have taken them a couple of treats and thank you notes. The younger brother, Dorian, asked us once how we liked Albania, and we told him we love it here, and we especially love the people!  He said that we are seeing a mirror of ourselves in others—because we are nice, others are nice to us. When Greta, our returned missionary in the branch, graduated from BYU Pathway Connect, they gave her a digital diploma.  She asked us to print it for her, and we thought it would be nice to print it for her in color on card stock.  We took it to this print shop, and they did it for us for free as a Christmas gift. Just this week we dropped off some little Christmas gifts for them, and Dorian asked us for our number so we could get together later to “go have some coffee together.” (We’ll explain about the coffee later.) Everywhere we go, we find wonderful people that have become dear friends.

We will end with this quote by Neal A. Maxwell; “The same God that placed the star in a precise orbit millennia before it appeared over Bethlehem, has given equal attention to the placement of each of us in our precise human orbits so our light may not only lead others, but warm them as well.” We are truly feeling humbled and warmed by all of the good people everywhere in this big, beautiful world! Thank you for your love, support and prayers. We love you!

Elder and Sister Manwaring