The work continues to move along slowly but surely. Every time we meet with our investigators we try to help them get closer to Christ, our main goal being to help them help themselves. We are working hard to show them how to get personal revelation so that they don't need us anymore.
We try to balance street contacting with tracting so that it doesn't get too monotonous. We watched a production (heh, I sound educated) called "Ensign to the Nations", chronicling the church's growth throughout the world. It made me realize that you can't realistically expect the church to explode and become well established through the efforts of one or two missionaries. It's going to take many, many years of the church being in the country before it really takes off, like in South America and other parts of the world. The growth of the church is exponential (ok, that's enough big words for today). I'm just happy to be working in these early years to help lay a solid foundation for the future.
The weather continues to be wet some days and hot the rest. I've sent a picture of the street outside our house during a particularly heavy rain. The water was only a few inches deep, and it drained within the hour, but it's still pretty impressive for a 20-minute storm. We heard through the grapevine about some volcano in Iceland causing problems for air travel. All I can say is that I'm grateful we got here just in time. I don't think we're feeling effects from it here; the air is sort of very polluted already. If an ash cloud the volume of Jupiter floated down, we wouldn't notice it. There's a lot of exhaust coming from the tailpipes of cars and the lungs of people. I heard somewhere that Albania is the most smoking-est country in Europe, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were. Oh well, I'm used to it now, and thankfully it doesn't bother my lungs. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, eh?
Today we went to a big "treg", I don't know what the literal translation is, but I'm pretty sure it would be close to "grotesquely large market place". There's hundreds of little stores in about a half-square-mile with about 4-foot wide walkways, selling almost anything you can think of. It's like an upscale flea market, I guess. About 80% of the stores are clothing places, selling shirts, jeans, track suits, suits, socks and tons of other stuff, some of it actually good quality. I ended up getting a short-sleeved shirt in a very deep blue. I also got two ties for $5 each, and I need to be very wary of going back there with any amount of "loose change". The pull of beautiful ties at a cheap price is almost too much to fight off. I was considering a pair of white jeans to compliment my deep blue shirt and forest-green striped tie, but that will have to wait until I've figured out my pant size in European. I'm color deficient, by the way.
Until next time, remember to pray always and drive safe!
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