the one about fireworks

This week wasn't as slow as cold molasses flowing uphill, but close. We only had four lessons, even with all three of us working in both areas. We met with one guy named Elvis (el-veese), who is a really, really nice guy. He works as a bouncer so he has to work out and stay huge, but he's a big teddy bear, also. He brings us treats every time we meet. The only problem is that he doesn't want to take things too quickly, so he's really reluctant to commit to anything. Another guy was Lulëzim (lool-zeem), and he's just really quiet, so it's hard to get him to participate. The other two lessons were retention lessons with members who had been baptized in the last year. All of the other time was spent standing on the streets and visiting members. Man, these people really love us here. On New Year's day a family had us over for lunch, and it was amazing. We're going to the branch president's house tonight and they're probably going to feed us, too. I feel so blessed to be in an area with such great members!

Transfer calls were two nights ago, causing some anxiety to all. Usually President Neil calls everyone starting at 9PM. We got kind of antsy when 9:45 rolled around. Turns out he forgot, and everyone got called a bit later. Oh well, no worries. I'm staying in this area for another six weeks, which will make six months in all. And the companion I'm getting is elder Castro-Guzman. He's 3 months ahead of me in the mission, and he's French. He speaks English decently, and his Albanian is about as good as mine, so I'm looking forward to some adventures in language learning!

And to top this post off: On New Year's eve, we were extremely lucky to live in a house that was owned by a member. He gave us the keys to the roof, and we had one of the best views of the fireworks in the mission. I think I will remember that night for the rest of my life. You see, here in Albania there are no laws whatsoever against fireworks. Anyone can buy huge tubes of fireworks that shoot off about 60 feet in the air and explode beautifully. Everyone buys a few tubes and just shoots them out their window at midnight. We went up to the roof at about 11, and people were already shooting some off here and there. It was kind of cool to hear them going off in the distance; it felt like you were in a war zone. Then it got more and more frequent the closer it got to midnight. And at about 12:05 it was in full swing. I wish my pictures could adequately capture the beauty of it all.

Elder Weaver