Jayson visits Albania 2010

Jayson at the Porto Pollermo Castle.

Jayson went to Germany on a working trip and just hopped on another flight over to see us in Albania. We had five fun filled days showing him around the country. It is so very beautiful everywhere we visited.

We went to Kruje first, the place to see and hear about Skanderbeg the Albanian’s main hero from the 1400s. He saved the country from being taken over by the Ottoman Empire for over 25 years. While we were there two news reporters from Kosovo who were there doing a news report of the Kruje museum. They interviewed Motra Smith about her thought s of the museum and it will be on TV in Kosovo in the next few weeks. They said that they will send us the web link and we will send that link on to everyone.

Jayson in Tirana

This is Jayson at the monument where Elder Oaks dedicated Albania for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Kruje Visit with Jayson

Skanderbeg!


Off the lookout toward the mountains in Kruje.

Prison in the Castle

Dark in Porto Pollermo

Jayson walking in the dark in the Castle in Porto Pollermo. We used the camera flash to walk down one of the dark hallways and rooms in the Castle.

Swiming in October

Jayson and Mike swimming near Porto Pollermo.

Rome Italy Temple Picture

Rome Italy Temple Ground Breaking

The Rome Italy Temple will most likely be have Albania in its district. This will mean a much easier access to the temple and travel time and cost will be much more within the reach of all Albanians. This is great and welcome news! This is also the day we in Vlore are having a temple worthiness lesson for 4 of the Branch families to begin prepairing to be sealed together forever.

Announcement: 4 October 2008
Groundbreaking and Site Dedication: 23 October 2010 by Thomas S. Monson

Groundbreaking

President Thomas S. Monson will preside over the groundbreaking ceremony for the Rome Italy Temple on Saturday, October 23, 2010, where an architectural rendering of the temple will be revealed. Attendance is strictly limited to invited priesthood leaders and special guests. However, the proceedings of the ceremony will be rebroadcast to every chapel in Italy on Sunday, October 24, so that all may participate.

Temple Design

A beautiful complex of buildings has been designed that includes the temple, a stake center, a visitors' center, and a patron housing facility. Although just a small section of the site was originally permitted for construction of the temple, recent zoning modifications—a miracle in itself—allow the entire parcel of land to be used for construction of these buildings.¹

Temple Site

The Rome Italy Temple will be built on an elevated 15-acre site in northeast Rome near the Grande Raccordo Anulare, the circular road (beltway) that surrounds the city. The picturesque country site, punctuated by an exiquisite stand of olive trees, sits on the outskirts of the city at a freeway interchange.²

Building sites in Rome must be examined for Roman ruins before construction is permitted. The inspection is carried out by digging trenches every 10 to 15 feet across the property. The day the temple property was to be inspected, Church members in Rome held a special fast. No ruins were found over the entire property, yet an old Roman village was discovered just 100 yards beyond the property boundary line. The Church purchased the property in the late 1990s.³

Temple Announcement

Italian members met the announcement of the Rome Italy Temple with the animated cheering and enthusiasm you would expect to see in a sports arena during a last-second win, explained President Massimo De Feo, president of the Rome Italy Stake, in a recent interview. He added that since the temple announcement, the Stake is seeing the baptism of full families for the first time. In just the past five years, the number of stakes in Italy has grown from three to six. And temple attendance at the distant Bern Switzerland Temple has been much higher from the Saints in Italy than from any other country in the temple district.⁴

In the Conference Center, President Thomas S. Monson's announcement of a temple to be constructed in Rome produced wide smiles and an audible gasp of surprise from the congregation during the Saturday morning session of the October 2008 General Conference.

Temple Facts

The Rome Italy Temple will be the twelfth temple built in Europe and the first built in Italy and in the Mediterranean region.

A charming Italian villetta, which stood at the highest point of the temple site, was razed to make way for the Rome Italy Temple. The villetta served for a time as an apartment for the full-time missionaries.

Temple History

The growth of the Church in Italy has not been without its opposition. Just three years after the Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, the first missionaries arrived in Genova, Italy, on June 25, 1850, including Elder Lorenzo Snow, who would become the fifth president of the Church. Over the next three years, 221 people were baptized and organized into three branches. But most proselytizing in Italy stopped in the early 1860s in the face of local opposition and because of a request from Church leaders for Italian members to immigrate to Utah. An attempt to reopen missionary work in Italy in 1900 was refused by the government.

The Church was finally reestablished in Italy in 1951, following the conversion of Vincenzo di Francesca, who happened to find a burned copy of the Book of Mormon with a missing cover and title page. Italians who had joined the Church in other countries began to return to Italy during this period. They attended Church with LDS serviceman stationed in Italy in various branches. By the end of 1964, Church records showed 229 members in Italy. That same year, Elder Ezra Taft Benson, an apostle who would become the 13th president of the Church, petitioned the government for permission to resume missionary work. Permission was granted, and missionaries began to proselyte on January 27, 1965. By 1978, membership has grown to over 7,000 and increased to 14,000 by 1990. Today there are over 22,600 members organized into 6 stakes and 7 districts.⁵

Although missionary work had been allowed in Italy since 1964, the Church began in 2000 the lengthy process of seeking a concordat with the government that would grant it state-sponsored status. This status was granted to the Roman Catholic Church in a concordat signed by Mussolini—a relationship that was perpetuated into Italy's post-fascist constitution. Since 1984, however, the Catholic Church has had to share this level of government recognition with other religions operating in Italy. Approved churches become concordates, which receive tax funds and other rights from the government similar to those received by the Catholic Church.⁶

At a London fireside, Elder Kenneth Johnson of the First Quorum of the Seventy related events that have contributed to the Italian government's official recognition of the Church. In October 2006, he accompanied other high-ranking Church leaders, including Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, to a meeting in Rome to make a case for the Church to the government. President Uchtdorf noted the Church's longtime presence and reputation in Italy, but the presiding government official seemed unmoved. Instead, he related that he had traveled—without announcement—to Salt Lake City in preparation for the meeting. Two Italian sister missionaries had served as his guides on Temple Square. He noted the deep impression left on him by these two Italian citizens, and then inquired when the Church might build a temple in Rome. Once these papers are signed, Elder Uchtdorf replied. The officer signed. On April 4, 2007, Prime Minister Prodi gave his signature, and then it proceeded to Parliament.⁷

With legal recognition still stalled in Parliament in late 2009, the Church took the step of hiring a Washington, D.C., lobbyist to help push through the approval. A. Elizabeth Jones, a former high-level State Department employee and ambassador to Kazakhstan, who is now an executive vice president at APCO Worldwide, is lobbying the U.S. embassy in Italy to support the Church's application. The intesa—an Italian term referring to an "understanding" with the government—would carry certain privileges including facilitating the authorization of bishops to perform civilly recognized marriages and making the renewal of visas for missionaries easier.⁸

On May 13, 2010, the Italian Cabinet, or Council of Ministers, approved an intesa with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, granting the Church Italy's highest status given to religions. This action elevates the legal recognition of the Church from charitable foundation to official religion. Just a few more formalities remain before the intesa becomes law.⁹

Official Registration of the Vlore Center for Young Adults‏

We just received the email from the Center for Young Adults Area Committee and we have our Vlore Center approved. This is the email from Germany sent to our District President with a copy to Sister Smith and I:

Dear President Kashari and Friends of the Vlore Center for Young Adults,

We are delighted to inform you that the Center for Young Adults Area Committee has approved your application for registration. That means the following things:

· You will receive a supplemental Center operating budget from the Area. Elder Josef Perle will contact you with further information.

· Your Facilities Management supervisor will also receive startup funds through the Area that will allow you to buy some basic things to make your Center more comfortable. Please contact the Facilities Management supervisor for your stake/district who will coordinate the costs to get that process underway.

· The Center only needs to file quarterly reports in the future, not monthly reports. That means we won't see your next report until the end of the current quarter (March, June, September, or December).

· You should prepare goals for most effectively using the Center to increase young single adult attendance at Institute classes as well as number of YSA convert baptisms, re-activations, mission calls extended to YSAs coming to the Center, and YSAs coming to the Center married in the temple.

Please be aware, if for some reason the Center’s performance falls below the qualifications for a new Center, you risk losing Area registration and supplemental funding. That would only happen following communication from our office and reasonable time to bring the Center into compliance with registration criteria.

We commend you for the wonderful efforts of all involved in developing this Center for Young Adults. We look for great things in the missionary and search and rescue areas with your young people ready to make friends and invite.

We encourage you to involve your Advisory Council in planning how to best use your Area supplemental funding. That is a great learning experience for the YSA Council presidency and allows them to have input into where the money goes. Remember, as stake or district president, you are the priesthood leader for the Center and you can happily counsel together as you work your way through the next few months.

We wish you well. We are sure you will continue to bless the lives of others as your Center grows. We are confident that your young people in the Center will mature into fine leaders in the Church as you work with them.

Sincerely,

Sister Janet Shumway, Member,

Center for Young Adults Area Committee

New Mattress

Trying to be a little more comfortable. When we moved into the apartment on the third floor we only had two twin beds that we tied together to make one bigger bed. We decided we needed to have something a little more comfortable so we went shopping, which in Albania is much more difficult. We found a little whole in the wall mattress store and purchased the largest mattress they sold, 6 foot 3 inches square, 190 cm and 11 in deep. They had to order it from a town north of us and it took a week to get it to Vlore. They delivered it in a dun-dun and tried to hall it up the stairway but it didn't fit, it was too big. We then tied it with a rope and hefted it up three floors over the balcony. This was the excitement of the day for everyone in the area, they all stopped what they were doing and watched. It was so heavy that we broke a piece of the balcony cement off around one of the metal posts. There is no such thing as a soft mattress but it is much nicer not having a crack down the middle of the bed.

2nd YSA Center Baptism

We have had our 2nd baptism associated with our Center for Young Adults. Gentian Demiraj was baptized Saturday, 2 October 2010 at the Vlore Branch building. Genti has been taught the gospel by the Sisters, Motra Hall and Bentley. Genti was smoking before he was taught and successfully went through the stop smoking program with the help of many of the young single adults in the Center.

Center for Young Adults (4 Months)

Another Historic Day in Albania. 1) We have now been in Vlorȅ Albania for four months. 2) The registration forms for the registration of the Vlorȅ Center for Young Adults has been send to our Area Seventy, Christian H. Fingerle. We have fulfilled all the requirements to establish the Center for Young Adults in Vlorȅ, Albania. We now wait for the final approval and it looks like the Center for Young Adults Area Committee will visit our Center and meet our Young Adults, they will come from Germany.

Statement from our registration forms: “Young adults in the Vlorȅ center have helped one of the missionaries investigators navigate successfully through the stop smoking program. This was a positive experience for everyone involved and this young adult who has stopped smoking will be baptized 2 October. After a FHE meeting the senior couple had some of their young adults ask many questions about life. They wanted to know what they needed to do to be successful in life. It was a wonderful opportunity for the couple to teach some gospel principles and give some positive life experiences to their young adults who want so much to do the Lords work. The young adults are hungry for knowledge and were so grateful to hear what this couple had to say. The young adults want so much to do the right things and follow Jesus Christ’s example. At one of their YSA Council meeting one of the youth adults brought up some things they could do to help the less-actives. Without any coaxing or prodding they split up all the less-active and planned to visit them all during the week. These young adults are envisioning the program and what they can do to bring all unto Christ. When these young adults went to visit the less-active they were able to get one of the less-active to attend institute classes and a Family Home Evening. They are still working on having him attend Sacrament meeting.”

What it takes for a YSA Center

• Have a sufficient number of Young Single Adults who will be able to gather at a central place (a minimum of 5 is required for the Center to be registered)
• Designate a space for the Center, usually shared use (and in cooperation with the Facilities Management group), that is available during open hours
• Ensure that an Institute teacher is called (in council with the S&I Coordinator)
• Have an S&I authorized Institute class that meets weekly
• Establish an Advisory Council that meets monthly
• Call and train a YSA Council Presidency that holds weekly YSA Council meetings in which responsibility for missionary, search & rescue, and transition efforts as well as service and activities is taken by the YSA.
• Ensure that a Senior Missionary Couple is assigned to the Center (either local service or full-time)
• Establish a weekly Family Home Evening
• Have fulltime missionaries assigned to the Center in cooperation with the Mission President.
• Set operating time of the center with the Advisory Council (3 to 5 afternoon/evenings per week)
• Request training for the Senior Couple (through the Area Seventy) by Area Committee Members, soon after the Center begins operation
• Instruct the couple to submit monthly reports for the first four months of operation
• Assure that a Stake Technology Specialist is called and functioning to support any computers in the Center
• Mission (Stake) President, submit a letter of application to the Area Seventy, Elder Christian H. Fingerle" who must support the application and forward it to the Centers for Young Adults Area Committee.

YSA Center Begining

This was the day we started our Center for Young Adults. Our first meeting was in our house and 10 YSA's came and We were hoping for 5. This was amazing.