A Day in the Life of a Missionary

There is a picture of a Furgon when we went to Zone Conference.

Another. picture of the Fetollari family who I have visited in their home and who came to our apartment for interviews. The father (Hasan) is not baptized but has committed in two weeks from now, He and the entire family was at church on Sunday. The son (Egy) was committed to wear a white shirt and tie and pass the sacrament which he did on Sunday. I interviewed the Daughter, Alda, and talked about her worthiness and being an example to others by being reverent in sacrament meeting. The mother received a Temple Recommend interview but still has a few months before her year is up. She is so excited to go to the Temple.

The Temple trips from Albania to Frankfurt Germany and the Church pays for their first trip. I am trying to convince Motra Lilli Fetollari to wait and go with all her family, I think I will be able to but she is so excited. I prayer is that we, Sue and I, will be able to go with them to Frankfurt. This would be next September.

12Jun To give you an idea of what our days are like.

UP at 5:00AM and read the scriptures, chapter 15-16 of 3^rd Nephi. Showered and ate a small breakfast. Then a meeting with the two sets of missionaries to set up what three of them would do while I took Elder McGloclan (my First Councilor) to Tirana (3 ½ hours away) for a District Branch Presidents meeting. We left at 7:30 AM and finally arrived at the meeting at 11:15 AM, 15 minutes late after walking for 15 minutes from where the Furgon droped us off. The meeting had not started yet so we were not late. We rode in a Furgon which is a nine passenger van, full, and no air-conditioning. We walked to the place where the Furgon’s are which is about a 10 minute walk from our appartment. You ask for the one going to Tirana, get in and wait until they have the van full and then they start off. It was 88 degrees and 80% humidity when we left at 8:05 AM. The roads are rough, narrow and they drive a little crazy but not real fast. Our meeting lasted until 1:30 PM with no breaks and was all in Albanian but Elder McGloclan interpreted for me. Elder McGloclan is my 1^st Councilor in the Branch Presidency so we held a Branch Presidency meeting as we went. It was a hot and stick ride with my cloths all soaked even before we left on the Furgon.

After the meeting we talked with a Medical Doctor, who is in the District Presidency, about Sister Eva Isufi and her serious medical condition. He gave us some good advice and we left the meeting and took a Taxi to the Mission Home. We picked up some Temple Preparation Manuals and the heavy Preach My Gospel manuals. We then took a Taxi to the Furgon station and waited in the van for about 15 minutes, sweating, until it was full and we took off for Vlore. It was a long trip back and we arrived at 5:00 PM and was able to eat a sandwich before I interviewed twins (Parold & Parid Bylyshi) for the priesthood as Deacons. They are very polite and smart young men and excited to be able to hold the priesthood. (I found out after their interviews that they had studied all after noon so they could answer any questions I might ask!)

Then we had the Young Adults come for the first activity ever in Vlore. We were hoping for three to show up but we had ten, 5 members and 5 investigators. I think they are hungry for something like this to get going. This was an overwhelming success. We started with prayer talked a little about us and let them ask questions about us then we had each one of them talk a little about themselves. This was to let them know something about each other because they did not all know each other. We then played a game and closed with prayer and had some cookies, fruit pizza, water melon and water. They all had a ball and really enjoyed themselves. We decided on starting institute on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM at the church and that we would call a president and a vice president to start organizing activities ect.

Elder McGloclan and I then walked 30 minutes to Sister Isufi’s house and talked with her about what we had learned from the Doctor and her order of garments that was lost somewhere.

I then felt impressed to see if she would like a blessing for her illness. She said yes and asked me to be the one giving the blessing. I met her children, three (two boys and a girl) she plays the piano sometimes at church. She is only 12 years old. We then walked home and I said goodbye to the Elders at their apartment and I walked back to our home.