A New Year

Kanine Castle

Dear Family and Friends,

It is hard to believe that January is over.  Time is flying by. We have been in Albania for over four months! We continue to enjoy our time here.

Winter has arrived with a vengeance!  The first few weeks of winter were quite mild, and we were beginning to wonder if we would have much snow this year. Well, a big storm came through three weeks ago, and we now have lots of snow, and even more ice! We’ll talk a little more about that below.

For the last Sunday in December, we were both asked to speak in church. We only had 3 days to prepare.  Speaking through a translator is difficult because we have to speak in short phrases and it makes the talk take twice as long, but speaking in Albanian is also difficult because we have to read every word, some of which we don’t really understand, and it is difficult to really express our feelings. One of our Elders in Korçë is very good at translating, but we both decided that we should give our talks in Albanian. We were busy all day Thursday visiting people and families, and teaching with the Elders in the afternoon until night, so we worked on figuring out what we should speak about late Thursday night. We spent a lot of time on Friday (and Saturday) writing, translating, and practicing our talks. Kathy studied carefully and chose a Conference talk, but after working on the translation, she didn’t feel good about the topic after all; so, she studied to find another talk. After she spent another two hours studying that one, she didn’t feel like it was right again. **Kathy taking over here** I was starting to get frantic. I prayed and studied many talks, and finally felt like I had the exact topic I was supposed to share, but it was a combination of a couple of talks. It was very late on Friday night when we finally went to bed. We got up early on Saturday and received a call from our Pogradec missionaries about our New Years Eve dinner for Sunday late afternoon. We hadn’t prepared for that dinner yet, and everything takes so much longer here because of the tiny everything—and I only have a few pans- a frying pan, a medium-large pan, and a small saucepan. We rushed to the meat market to buy roasts, and butter. We rushed to the produce market to buy vegetables and fruit, and we rushed to the little market for eggs and milk. While Alan worked on his talk, I rushed around to make all of the food I could make in advance- like homemade mashed potatoes, and cooked carrots. Those reheat really well in the tiny microwave. I also made a large fresh fruit salad, and dessert. All the time, I was worried and stressed about my talk which still wasn’t perfectly translated. I had to count lines on my talk or look for words I knew and find them in the church translation to write in my talk because my talk wasn’t just from one talk. Even if I had chosen one talk from one leader, I couldn’t have given the whole talk because I didn’t have that much time, and besides, I need to share personal thoughts and experiences. I kept going from the stove to the table to write something down while I waited for food to boil, etc. I was so worried about my talk, that after Alan went to bed around 1:00 a.m., I went into the only other room to practice. It was about 3:30 when I crawled into bed. I knew I had done my best with the short notice we were given. I had done my best to be prepared for the dinner for the missionaries, and we had done our best with our missionary assignments and visits on Thursday. But I knew my best wasn’t going to be good enough, and I was sick about it.

Roadside Water Fountain

I got up after a few hours of sleep to mix up the yeast dough for the homemade rolls for dinner later that afternoon and hurried to put the roasts in the oven to simmer for the day. I practiced saying my talk again, but I felt sick to my stomach because I really wasn’t prepared to say all of the difficult words. I prayed so hard for help and left it in the Lord’s hands. Weeks later—as I write down this experience, all of the sick, frantic feelings I felt, are surrounding me again.

The two young missionaries spoke first, and our new Elder took about 20 minutes.  When Alan started his talk, there was only a little over 10 minutes left, and he took 10 minutes, so I was not able to give my talk. I was VERY relieved and felt like God had given me a miracle I hadn’t even dared hope for! I kept thanking the Lord over and over!  

After church we had the whole district over for New Years Eve dinner and a few games.  The missionaries didn’t stay long because they had to be in their apartments by 7:00, and the Pogradec missionaries live at least 45 minutes away. At midnight we went up on the roof of our building to watch the fireworks.  There were no organized fireworks displays, but it looked like almost everyone in the city was shooting off fireworks.  It was incredibly beautiful!

On New Years Day we decided to hike up to a big cross on the mountain.  We left a bit later than we had planned because we were so exhausted from too many late nights, and it took a little longer than we thought, but we made it to the top of the mountain. The way there was mostly paved road, but the last 100 yards or so was a dirt path.  It had snowed recently up there, and the snow was now melting, so the path was covered in very deep, black mud.  It was getting late, and we didn’t feel like getting our only running shoes all muddy and basically ruined, so we skipped the last part.  We did see some incredible views, though, and the air was so clean and fresh. There were no homes—hence, no campfire smell of burning wood. We hiked 7 miles and will definitely do that hike again! We felt so good!

This might be a good time to talk about the dogs here.  There are a lot of dogs, some of which have owners and some of which are street dogs. However, as in Mexico, we have not run into any aggressive dogs at all.  All of them are pretty chill.  When we hiked up to the cross, a dog jumped out of the woods right at the top.  He startled us a bit, but he was very nice.  Kathy even pet him.  When we started down the hill, he stayed right with us for over a mile.  We were wondering if he was going to follow us all the way home, but when we passed a small hotel, another dog chased after him and he ran away. Kathy has always been afraid of big dogs because she was bitten once and almost bitten other times, but she became confident and secure with the dogs in Mexico. After she realized the dogs here are just as sweet as there, she became even more comfortable. One of our Young Women is terrified of dogs—even though none have ever bitten her or chased her, nonetheless, she is still afraid, so Kathy offered to walk her home from church while Alan stayed to help the Branch President. **(Kathy) As we walked, in the pounding rain, we were soaked even with our umbrellas. We walked with our inside arms linked, and we tried to keep our umbrellas from collapsing from the wind and the rain and avoid the deep puddles. We laughed like schoolgirls as we jumped out of the way from big sheets of water sprayed by the cars as they drove by. It was one of my most fun walks here, but by the time I returned to our apartment, I was nearly frozen. Alan had finished his responsibilities at the church long before I made it home. It took more than an hour to start to feel warm and stop shaking.

We have one returned missionary in our branch.  She served a mission in England, so she speaks very good English. She recently completed BYU Pathway Connect, so we decided to give her a surprise “graduation” party.  We invited some of her friends—the youth in the ward, two young single adults, and the young missionaries. We think it went well.  Greta has a difficult life here so we wanted to make sure she knew she was loved and appreciated.

On another P-Day, we drove to a small village not far from Korçë called Bobosticë, just to look around. Since it is winter, there wasn’t much going on in the town, but we were able to climb up to an old unused Orthodox church on the hill and look out over the valley. We saw there were words scratched on the church door, but as we looked closely, we found that it was not the normal graffiti about who was there, or who loved whom.  Instead, each one was a short prayer of thanks to the Lord. We were very touched by that.

The mountains and valleys are green and beautiful here.  There are also lots of springs everywhere, and that water is clean and drinkable. As we drive along the highway, we see several small fountains where people can stop and fill up their water containers.  For dinner we drove a few minutes up the canyon to a restaurant called Alpin House.  It was a very quaint restaurant serving traditional Albanian food.  At the recommendation of the waiter, we tried some nettle soup.  It was very green and looked like it had thick moss in it, but, with the addition of some salt and a lemon, it was pretty good.

Nettle Soup

We invited Enea’s family over for lunch last week.  Enea is the professional pianist who is taking lessons from Kathy to learn to read music.  He brought his parents and his niece.  They are all very wonderful people.  Enea’s mother told us about some dreams she had about God. We had a wonderful time with them.  We hope that they will be interested in learning about the church someday.

Kathy was asked to give her talk again.  She worked hard on her own, and then she asked our friend, Bardhi, and his family if they would help her with the pronunciation in her talk.  We went over to their home and the daughter, Klara, spent over 2 hours with Kathy going over her talk paragraph by paragraph, practicing the pronunciation of the words. She was so kind and patient. Her parents were also there, offering suggestions now and then. It was an interesting process since none of them speak English and we don’t speak enough Albanian. Once they asked their son to help, since he speaks some English. We tried to leave after an hour because we felt like we had taken enough of their time, but they insisted that we stay longer. They must have thought I needed to practice a LOT more!😊

Two missionaries, an elder and a sister, who used to be in our district here- are now in a city called Vlorë. The elder is going home in a couple of weeks, but he has struggled the last couple of months, so with our Mission Leaders encouragement, and appreciation that we could go; we drove down there to see them. We took all of the missionaries some homemade cookies and out to lunch.  (They don’t have a senior couple there to spoil them.) The weather had been quite nice during the first half of January, so we didn’t think much about it. We left on Thursday and the day started out nice and sunny, but after about 30 minutes it started raining.  It rained hard most of the way to Vlorë, over 4 ½ hours! When we got there it was not raining, but it was very windy. Friday, however, was a very nice day.  It was warm enough that we didn’t even need our jackets for part of the day. We had a very nice visit with the missionaries while we ate lunch. So far, we have been impressed with every missionary we have met.

At Kanine Castle

After lunch we drove up to an old castle called Kanine Castle.  This castle was originally built in the 3rd century BC and then rebuilt in the 6th century AD. There isn’t much left except some walls and fences, but we could tell it was once a huge complex.  The most awesome thing about it, though, was the view of the city.  We were there right at sunset, which was totally awesome!

When we woke up on Saturday to travel home, it was raining heavily.  It rained all the way to Elbasan, which is about the half-way point. We stopped to eat and then started the last leg of our journey.  Shortly out of Elbasan, however, it started snowing. Between Elbasan and Lake Ohrid is a mountain pass with some pretty steep inclines.  As we approached a steeper section of the road, the traffic just stopped.  At this point the snow was sticking to the road and a lot of people were stopped and putting chains on their cars.  There isn’t much room at the sides of the roads here, so people were just stopped on the road.  We waited for over 30 minutes, not even moving an inch!  Google was also showing red congestion all the way to the lake. It was snowing hard, getting dark, and getting colder. 

If we would have had the road to ourselves, we would have continued on, but the other drivers made us nervous. We decided to drive back to Elbasan, rent a hotel room, and wait until morning to try again. On Sunday we attended church in Elbasan and then headed home. The day was bright and sunny, although still very cold.  The roads were mostly clear and we made it home safely without encountering any traffic jams. We returned to about 6” of snow in Korçë.  It is beautiful, but very cold and slippery.

The worst thing about the delay was that Kathy was not able to speak in church again.  However, the Elders called us and told us that Bardhi had come to church! We hope that this family will also want to learn more about the church soon. Kathy has been asked to speak in church this coming Sunday.  Let’s hope that the third time is the charm!

WWII Martyrs' Cemetery

After returning from Vlorë, we needed to do some shopping.  We thought we would explain what this entails to give you an idea about what shopping is like here. Most people either don’t have a fridge or have a very small one, so they will go shopping every day to pick up food for that day. There are no large stores here, and nothing like Walmart; and of course, no Costco which is her favorite store.  There are some “modern” grocery stores, but they rarely carry everything we need, or it is very expensive, so we end up visiting several small specialty shops; most important- we love to support the small family businesses as well. Kathy has had to adjust so many recipes because you just can’t find the ingredients here. Literally everything is made from scratch- Lipton Onion soup mix, Catalina dressing, cream of chicken or mushroom soup, everything… This was our shopping experience on Monday:

• We walked to the little neighborhood store close to our house to buy some eggs and milk, and brought them back to the apartment. (Eggs here cost 16 cents each. They cost 25 cents each at the grocery store.) The eggs are also bigger, better and cleaner at the shop.
• We walked to the butcher shop not too far from our house to buy some ground beef/pork mix. We then walked to the produce shop we usually buy from, but it wasn’t open so we walked to another nearby produce shop to buy some vegetables. 
• On the way home we took a 2-block detour to stop at the bread store that has the bread we like. (Bread at the small bakeries cost 60-70 cents per loaf). Bread at the other store lasts for 2 months without spoiling, so we choose no preservatives. Then we headed back to the apartment again. 
• We needed to buy a toner cartridge for the printer at the church, so we had to take the old one to the print shop to make sure we get the right one. We walked to the church to pick up the toner cartridge from the printer, then back to the apartment.  
• We drove the car to the print shop to show them the old toner cartridge. (We would have walked there also, but we had a big snowstorm and the sidewalks of cobblestones were all covered with very thick sheets of ice, so we decided to drive this time.) They said they would check to see if they can find one that will work and call us in 2-3 days.
• We drove to a “big” grocery store to get the rest of the groceries we needed, like flour which is sold in tiny 2 pound bags—I go through a LOT of tiny flour bags, laundry soap, dish soap, etc. 
• We drove back to the church to put the toner cartridge back in the printer. 
• We drove home and unloaded the car.

Total Time: about 3 hours and about 5 miles of walking.

We spend quite a bit of time with the Elders teaching lessons, or we are out greeting, meeting, and visiting people, helping with lessons or activities, teaching piano, studying, and doing everything anyone asks. We also spend time cooking for everyone- including the 7 missionaries in our District. We are definitely busy and we love it!

We will end with this quote by Elder Dieter F. Utchdorf; “When we look at our lives and see a hundred things to do, we feel overwhelmed. When we see one thing—loving and serving God and His children, in a hundred different ways—then we can work on those things with joy.”

We love each one of you, and we pray daily for you!

Elder and Sister Manwaring