Starting to warm up!

In a communist museum / cafe

March is upon us and the weather is gradually getting warmer.  We still have some cold spells now and then, but we are seeing a lot more sunshine lately and we are really enjoying it!

On the last Sunday in January, Kathy finally spoke in Sacrament Meeting. Pretty much all of Bardhi’s family came to support her. Kathy was a little nervous, but gave an excellent talk about forgiving others and not holding grudges. When she finished, the young girls were so proud of her that they started clapping! It was so sweet for them to come.  After church, we had them over to our house for lunch.  Kathy gave Klara, the one who helped her the most, a necklace to thank her.  We also gave Bardhi’s wife a flower, and the family a Book of Mormon. The young girls were given copies of the Friend magazine and they loved it! Kathy is also teaching piano lessons to the girls.

As we have mentioned before, most people in Korçë heat their homes with wood-burning stoves. We have a member that was in need of some firewood. Their uncle gave them a bunch of wood, but the pieces were very large. We took the elders over to see if we could help them chop it up.  We used the family’s axe and chopped a few of the smaller pieces, but we realized that most of the pieces were actually whole tree trunks, and much too large for an axe.  We needed a chainsaw. We were told that you can’t rent tools like chainsaws here. Missionaries can’t use chainsaws anyway, so we needed to find someone with a chainsaw that we could hire. We weren’t sure where to go, so we went to one of the firewood sellers close to our house to see if they knew of anyone. They told us that they had a man who could do that and we should come back the next day at 9:00 am.  We arrived at the designated time, but the man wasn’t there. They said he would be there in a couple of hours.  They took Alan’s phone number so they could call us when he arrived. At 11:00 we decided to go back and check. They told us that the man had just left! Of course, they hadn’t called us… They called him and he said he would be there in 15 minutes, so we decided to wait. After an hour, he finally arrived, but he hadn’t had lunch, so he took another 20 minutes to eat and then was finally ready to go. He gathered his chain saw, a plastic water bottle full of gas, and a metal suitcase filled with things to fix the chainsaw if he had trouble. Once he got there, he very efficiently attacked the large logs and soon the family had a nice stack of manageable pieces of wood.

There was a worldwide youth broadcast from the church earlier in March, but it was not available in Albanian until just recently.  When it became available, we invited all of the youth over to our apartment to watch it. A mother of two of our youth, who is not a member of the church also wanted to come and we told her of course she could come! It was a very good experience.  Even the mother commented on the good spirit she felt.  After the broadcast, Kathy provided a nice spread of snacks and treats which everyone enjoyed. We walked several of the young women home afterward so we got in some good exercise as well- about 5 miles.

One of Bardhi’s granddaughters, Gloria, had a birthday in February. The girls were very excited to tell us about the “upcoming” birthday 2 months before, and begged us to come to the party; so we asked Gloria what things she liked, and we marked it on our calendar. We were ready with her birthday present and asked Kamela when we could bring her present to her. They told us the day and time, and that we should come to Bardhi’s house so he could lead us to their house. Addresses that you can plug into Google Maps don’t exist here, so it is difficult to tell someone how to get anywhere. When we arrived, we discovered that we were the only people there that were not family. We think we might have invited ourselves to the party and they were too nice to tell us that it was a family party. Regardless, the girls were so excited to see us, and everyone was very nice to us.  They fed us some byrek and birthday cake. Gloria’s sister, Bell, speaks pretty good English, so she was relegated to translation work and had to sit by us the whole evening. We felt a bit sorry for her, especially when Gloria received 2 bunnies for her birthday and Bell could only play with them for a little while. We told her she could go and play, and not to worry about us, but she left us for only 10 minutes. Albanians are pretty casual in their dress, even at church, so we were surprised to see everyone dressed up.  The girls wore fancy party dresses, and both grandfathers were wearing suits.  (One of them looked very mafia-like.)  It was such an enjoyable evening and we felt fortunate to be able to experience a real Albanian birthday party, even if we did invite ourselves…

We had planned to drive to Macedonia to visit the senior couple who are humanitarian missionaries before they went home. We had planned the little weekend getaway a month in advance, but at the last transfer, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that two sister missionaries were coming to Korçë!  We were asked to drive to Tirana exactly when we had planned to go to Macedonia. They needed us to help transport the missionaries here because there was luggage to bring for 2 sisters and another elder that would not fit in one little Hyundai, they also needed space in our little Hyundai. We were disappointed to cancel our visit, but excited to have Sister missionaries in Korçë.  We brought the two elders with the new elder’s luggage back here, and the sisters drove the other car with luggage for both of them.  We don’t have a permanent apartment for the sisters yet, so they are living in an Airbnb apartment in the same building as us. It is a 1-bedroom apartment with one queen bed.  The missionaries have to sleep in the same room, but are not allowed to sleep in the same bed, so they are sleeping on the couches for the time being.  They are being good sports about it, though, and are doing a wonderful job of getting to know the members and finding new friends. 

With that same transfer, our favorite elder left to go home. He was transferred to Korçë about the same time we arrived, and we had come to love him and rely on him a lot.  He was an amazing translator—the best one in the mission – and a very friendly, outgoing person. We miss him so much, and many of our friends miss him, but the work is moving forward anyway.

Our mission president has asked all of the senior elder missionaries to be District Councilors. We act sort of like High Councilors in a stake in that we visit a branch each month, Alan speaks in Sacrament Meeting, and then we both visit with the Elders Quorum President and the Relief Society President to see how they are doing and provide any support we can.  We were assigned to the Pogradec branch, which is just a 45-minute drive from here.  Our first two visits went well.  We are getting to know the members in Pogradec and we look forward to our visit there each month.

There was one week this month when we felt like we were running a restaurant! We hadn’t planned it this way, but everything just seemed to happen.  We had planned on inviting our friends, the Terezi family, to dinner on Sunday. They are a really nice family that run a restaurant supply store that imports ingredients called Neranxi in Korçë. That store has saved Kathy’s life because it carries many hard-to-find items like soft brown sugar.  Tuesday is the normal scheduled day that the missionaries in our district come to our home for District Council meeting and for a very big lunch. Later, we found out that another senior missionary couple was coming to do a financial audit that same week, and we invited them to dinner on Wednesday. Then, when our friend Bardhi, found out that new sister missionaries were here, he wanted to meet them; AND his daughter, Kamela, was going to have her baby the next week, so we invited them along with the missionaries, for dinner on Friday.

When asked what she would like to eat, Kamela told us she loved Mexican food, so Kathy told her she would make it. She made chicken enchiladas and beef tacos, along with nachos, and just in case someone didn’t like Mexican food, she made a fresh fruit salad, rice pudding, cornbread, and a chocolate dessert which is also Kamela’s favorite. The dinners were great on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the Mexican dinner wasn’t what they were expecting—and it wasn’t even spicy.  The young girls had the hardest time, but they liked the side dishes we provided, so no one went hungry.  Kathy served roast beef with the works, including homemade rolls, on Sunday, and that family loved it.  They said that it was very similar to what they cook.

We had a really good time with the Terezi family. The mother told us that she had been a teacher for a long time, but when the socialists came into power in the government, they told all of the teachers that were not registered socialists that they were not needed anymore, and she was fired. Then they hired registered socialist teachers to replace them. Fortunately, they were able to get this job with Neranxi about 6 months later, and it has been a good business for them.  Their dream, however, is still to go to America someday.  There is a lottery every year in Albania where a certain number of people are granted visas to move to Albania.  They enter the lottery every year, but so far haven’t been selected.

We were asked to train the leaders here and had this great idea that we would meet with the Elders Quorum and Relief Society presidents and try to teach them about ministering.  The Elders Quorum president is young and was recently called.  He is anxious to learn, and we had a good visit with him. Kathy was pretty excited that she understood some words that neither of our missionaries knew. When we met with the Relief Society President, however, things did not go as well.  Part of the problem is that in Albanian the words for service and ministering are the same, so it can be a bit confusing when trying to discuss the “ministering program” and trying to distinguish it from regular service. The Relief Society President is an amazing woman who gives a lot of service for the sisters in the branch. We tried to teach her that the ministering program could help relieve some of the burden she carries, and although the sister missionaries did their best to translate for us, we feel like she felt criticized—that we were telling her that her service was not good enough. She does all of the visits that are done, and remember no one in our Branch has a car; she makes all of the phone calls to check on people, she is the only one who helps people, and she was the only one who taught the lessons on Sunday. Recently, another woman taught a lesson one time. We felt pretty discouraged after that visit. We would never want to hurt her feelings. She is a very sweet woman in her late 50’s and is a widow. We’ll continue to work with the Elders Quorum President, but we think it will be best to leave the Relief Society as is for the time being.

The Korçë branch has one returned missionary, and she is absolutely amazing!  She served her mission in England, so she was able to learn English pretty well, even though she knew absolutely nothing before she left, and she didn’t have the opportunity to go to an MTC to learn English. She has had a hard life.  Her parents are divorced and she missed a lot of school when she was young because of problems with her parents.  She said she spent more time in the police station than school. She is a gifted artist and was accepted into a special art school, but after a couple of ugly encounters with one of the deans of the art school, she decided she didn’t want to paint anymore.  The missionaries found her about two years later. A couple of years later she decided to serve a mission, which was the highlight of her life. Since then, she has struggled.  Her current home situation is not good, both physically and emotionally.  She lives in a 2-room house, but one of the rooms has a hole in the ceiling so it can’t be used. She shares a bed with her mother because the other bed broke. They dragged the old couch in that room to sleep on, and it also broke. They have no indoor plumbing, and no running water. She lives in a small village outside of Korçë, so it takes her at least 45 minutes to walk to town for church or anywhere else.

Despite her situation, she has been very upbeat and positive about life.  She completed BYU Pathway Connect and has started BYU Pathway Worldwide with BYU Idaho.  However, over the past few weeks, things have deteriorated quite a bit at home.  Her mother has always told her she is slow and stupid and so her self-esteem is very low. The District President knew her and he and the Mission President said we should try to help her move from her home in the village to an apartment in Korçë so she could get a decent job. Her mother doesn’t want to move from the house, and she was hesitant to leave her mother at first. The District President found a potential online job opportunity, and we worked with her to apply for the job. She was getting excited about it, but they felt that her English was not quite good enough. A short time later, however, we visited our favorite bakery and noticed a help wanted sign out front. This bakery is only 2 blocks away from the church, so that Sunday after church, Kathy literally “dragged” her over there to introduce her to Xheni (pronounced Jennie), our dear friend and the owner.

To make a long story a bit shorter, the subsequent 2 weeks have been a bit taxing on her, on us, and even on Xheni. Her first 5 days were training. She loved the bakery and loves Xheni, but was afraid she wouldn’t be able to learn everything she needs to know.  Xheni is having a hard time right now because two of her workers left and she is very busy trying to do everything. Xheni realizes that training her is important, but it takes even more of her time. We met with her daily trying to build her up each time after her mother was angry and yelling at her and slowly taking her apart piece by piece. We have helped her with math, and we feed her. Over time she has become more confident and stopped threatening to quit. She was officially hired so we started looking for an apartment for her. Although we couldn’t actually go out and look. We are Americans and we look American, which means the price goes way up, so we asked for help.  Her best friend found one available right across the street from her. She received the keys this week and we have all spent every night cleaning after she finishes with work. Her apartment is almost ready and we hope she will be able to move in on Monday.

Even with the challenges and a considerable amount of drama, it has been fun to watch her change from a discouraged, disheartened person back to her normal optimistic self. It has changed her life to feel needed and to feel like she is helping someone. Our cute girl has the keys and opens the store alone, and she shows up for work a full half hour before she is supposed to be there. She says she wants to clean the store and have everything just right. She constantly stays late- almost an hour, because she wants to make sure Xheni is okay!  Her boss is so happy and excited that __ is an artist and is having her help a little with her cakes; and not just a front counter person who serves food, takes the money and washes dishes. Our friend also leaves her boss inspirational thoughts or a scripture each day before she goes home. One night she didn’t, and her boss asked, where is my special note? Life is so grand!  Xheni is incredibly talented and her cakes are unreal!

We met Xheni when we first came to Korçë. She is a very nice woman and has become a good friend. It is amazing how the Lord put us here in Korçë where we could meet Xheni and our dear friend, and put the two of them together when she was in need of a job, and when Xheni needed a loyal worker. They are both extremely happy with each other and tell us what a blessing it is to work together. The Lord is indeed involved in the details of our lives.

One of the members in Pogradec runs a foundation for “social orphans”. These are kids that live at home but their families are not able to care for them. A missionary couple here, the Ellsworth’s, are humanitarian missionaries and they organized a project with the foundation to provide firewood for families of 200 social orphans.  We went to help load the firewood into trucks for the first 50 kids. They will do the remaining ones over the next few weeks.  It was fun to get out and do some good manual labor, although we were a bit sore the next day or two.  

Kamela finally had her baby!  She was scheduled for a C-Section three weeks ago on a Monday, but when she went in the doctor decided to wait another week.  However, two days later we learned that she had the baby on Tuesday evening.  Both mother and baby are doing well and are home now.  We were able to see the baby a couple of days ago and Kathy enjoyed holding him.

After our visit, the Relief Society President gave Kathy some knitted slippers.  They are common here in the winter because Albanians always take their shoes off in their houses.  The cement floors are very cold, so they wear these slippers to keep warm. Kathy wrote her a thank-you note and made some cinnamon rolls for her and we ventured out to find her apartment.  We took our cute friend with us before she started her job, so she could translate for us.  We had only been to her apartment once and she lives where there are a group of identical buildings. We finally found her apartment on the third try and were able to leave the thank-you note and treats with her adult son.  It was dusk when we were walking around and there was a very pretty sunset that night.  Our cute friend took a picture of the sunset and captured us in the picture also.  Later that night she added some words and music to the picture and sent it to us.  She is such a sweetheart!

We will end with this quote by Jeffery R. Holland, “I testify that bad days come to an end, that faith always triumphs, and the heavenly promises are always kept.”

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

Elder and Sister Manwaring