Week 7? 8? 9? Who knows....

Dang... Time is really flying by. It has already been 3 and a half months since I have seen you guys and it feels like it was just yesterday that I was saying goodbye at the airport. Hopefully this pace can keep up for the next 20.5 months. 

So, do you remember how I told you about the weight-loss "program" that we have? Apparently it got pretty bad with a few other elders. The senior couple in Prishtinë helped us all get some stool samples to a lab to check them for diseases or anything serious. Luckily, we all passed with flying colors and no one is dead. 

On a completely different note, we are about to start our first English class this weekend! The past couple weeks we have been handing out flyers and telling everyone about it. I did notice a trend, however, while passing out the flyers. Everyone is super excited about the class until the see "Jezu Krishtit" written on the paper. Then they just turn and walk away. It makes me kind of sad, but that's just how it is here. Anyway, we have 3 different classes: beginner, medium, and advanced. It is about 95% teenage girls so it should be really interesting to see how seriously they take it. A lot of the girls here (if not all) just want to go to America and are trying to find anyone to take them whether it be through marriage or something else. Thankfully I don't have to worry about any of that. I have someone better in the great U.S. of A.

A couple days ago my companion and I went to the center (the place where the nënë Tereza statue is) and did a tabling session for a few hours. We had a couple people come up to us and ask us questions and my companion took them by himself to go teach, leaving me at the table. I was a little nervous, I'll be honest, especially when a lady came up to me. I had a complete conversation with her in Albanian and told her about the Book of Mormon, the things we believe, and even joked a little bit. I understood every word she said and I am pretty sure she understood me. It was so cool to finally see my language skills being put to the test... and to succeed!

To make the story even better, after that lady left a Muslim guy came up and asked about our church. I started introducing everything in Albanian and he said in English, "If you want, you can just speak in English". Thank heavens. So we had about a 45 minute conversation about what we believed and what his faith believed. It was interesting to see the similarities that Islam and our faith have. He was a really cool guy and I hope that we will be able to talk again!

Now let me finish up by telling you a quick story: There is a girl that I would see all the time with her friends on the street and she would always giggle and say "Hello" in an Albanian accent. We see a lot of girls do this, by the way. One day I walked by her and told her "të puth fortë" in a joking way (I can say that kind of stuff because I am still learning the language, right?) and she almost lost it. I'm pretty sure she giggled all the way home. So late one night we were tracting (or knocking doors) at a pilatë (or apartment complex). We didn't have any luck until we got to the last door. The person who answered it was the same 12 year old girl from the street. Talk about amazing coincidence. She went a got her dad and we had a lesson with him about our beliefs and it went really well. During this entire 30-40 minute lesson, I could see out of the corner of my eye this girl taking pictures of me with her iPad. It was pretty funny. After the lesson I asked her if she had any good pictures. She laughed pretty hard and her face got all red. The end. 

So that was my week. I hope you all enjoyed it and stay tuned for next week! Stay safe!

Love, 

Elder Allgaier 

P.S. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPENCER!!!!!!!!!!!

My new outfit (action shots will come later)

Keeping patriotic during English course sign ups

English course flyer

Me and a boy I play soccer with

Writing a letter to my sister! (I'll send this week.)

Me eating a giant block of pita bread

Another funny sign that you can try and translate (I don't understand it)

Just Another Week

Hey Guys -

I have decided to try a different method to writing these weekly emails. As I'm sure many of you experience weekly disappointment at the shortness of my emails and have an unquenchable desire to know more about me and what fun things I do, I will begin recalling my weekly events by using my journal. Yes, I know. My very own personal journal. So buckle your seat-belts and prepare yourselves for one of the most barely above average emails you have ever read in your life.

Let's take it all the way back to October 1st, or last Tuesday. Apparently the Adriatic South Mission is pretty notorious for the weight-loss "program" that all the missionaries go on during their 18 or 24 month stay. I have begun that journey. If any of you want to join this program, it starts with camping out in the bathroom and is similar to preparing for a colonoscopy. So, that being said, I have lost a record 11 pounds since entering the MTC and now I weigh 185.6 pounds! Woot Woot!

On that same day I also went on an exchange with one of the Zone Leaders (ZL) to Prishtinë. We had 4 lessons planned within a 2 hour time block and only one of them dropped! I'd say that is a huge success. All 3 of the lessons went really well and the investigators are really cool people. The next morning in Prishtinë we taught the owner of the local bus station and that was a very interesting lesson. We walked into his office and were greeted by a healthy dose of smoke. Probably enough to kill an elephant or 2. Anyway, he had two of his buddies there and we tried to get a lesson going. It didn't start very well and it was looking like we should just leave, but one of the boss's workers leans over to us and starts asking us questions about the Church while the boss kept chatting away with the other guy in the room. We had a relatively successful lesson and gave him our number and asked to meet him again. Hopefully the ZL's will have a chance to teach him more.

After the lesson in the bus station we went to buy a suit and eat lunch before heading back. The food was amazing, but the suit makes me look irresistible (Pictures to follow next week). 

Wednesday, not much happened but I did get my haircut and my face shaved with a straight razor. I have never looked so European in my life. Look out ladies! (Just kidding, I love you Hollie!)

Friday was a fun day. Every week we try to get out to play either basketball or soccer at the local high school to talk with the kids about the English class we are getting ready to start up. We (mostly me) played soccer with the kids and I had a really good time. It's so cool to see how good basically everyone is at soccer here. Whenever we walk around the city with a soccer ball, random kids ask for it and start juggling it. You would never see that in America.

Saturday was probably the best day of the week. My companion and one of the other elders weren't feeling to good so the other elder and I went on an exchange to Prizren while they stayed home and rested (Aren't we so caring?). Prizren is a city about an hour south-east of Gjakovë and in my opinion, is a lot more gorgeous. According to the other elder, it is a lot more tourist friendly, too. If you have a chance to look at the pictures, Prizren is a lot bigger than Gjakovë and the people there seem to be so much happier. Sadly, it's not an official area of the mission yet but hopefully if we can get a couple members there, it will open up sometime next year! I would love to work there. So, back to the missionary aspect of Prizren. The other elder had a couple lessons planned out. One of which was a young couple (20 and 24) that seemed really awesome. We waited on a bench by the canal that ran through the city and they never showed up. Bummer. Why let something like that ruin a good day? We went suit shopping for the other elder and I got a new pair of shoes and a belt at a store. The ladies that worked there were flirting like crazy. I had to use my best defenses to lure them away. "Sorry, I am a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ). It works wonders, let me tell you.

And now for the highlight of the Prizren trip. We visited the castle that was there and it was awesome! The castle was pretty beat up from the Serbian and Kosovo war, but it was still really cool to see. If I go back there in 10 years or so, I signed my name on a rock and I can tell my kid(s) how cool I was. He will totally believe me. 

It was a pretty good week and I had many adventures. The work in Gjakovë is still moving along and we are starting to bundle up for the chilly weather that has come. Its been down to about 7 degrees Celsius (no idea what that is in Fahrenheit) and its only the beginning of October. 

I love you all so much and thank you for the support and love you give me and my family. Stay safe!

Love,

Elder Allgaier

Burek me mish

One of the most delicious crepes I have ever had (nutella, banana, whip cream, kiwi, and magic)

Soccer at the school

So ghetto it's almost beautiful (notice the monument of guns)

Prizren Kalaja (or in English -Prizren Castle)

Prizren Kalaja 

I am one risky sitter

Overlooking Prizren

Probably my favorite picture (overlooking Prizren from the castle wall)

Watching General Conference just like we do at home

Good morning!

Hey family (and fellow readers) - 

The family we are teaching has an unofficial baptismal date of October 27th! We still have to teach them a couple doctrine principles and make sure they follow them, but I think they will do well and I look forward to writing about them in the next month or so. 

General Conference is next weekend. This coming Sunday will be your standard church and then we will watch conference as a congregation the following Sunday in the translated Albanian. The reason we don't watch it right away is (aside from the time difference) because it takes the translators in Salt Lake some time to translate the conference talk. I think It'll be interesting to watch conference in Albanian, but I don't think I will get as much out of it when I cant understand everything.

I have been talking about the food here lately and I have have picked up a new favorite drink. Its chamomile (herbal) tea. Super delicious and because everyone here drinks tea, It shouldn't be a problem to get a hold of. 

Im sorry these letters home are so staggered and unorganized. I was talking with Hollie and we both agree that it is so hard to fit a weeks worth of events into a single email, especially when you don't have anything to help you remember. I do keep a pretty good journal that I try to update daily, and I have only missed a few days here and there. So maybe when that fills up I can send it home and you can scavenge through that for a good story. 

So here is my spiritual food for thought: (from one of the apostles)

God watches over us and He especially watches over us in times of trial. And this is the coolest part to me: When we feel like He isn't there, He is even closer than ever. 

That about wraps up my week! I hope you are all doing well! Stay safe

- Elder Allgaier

The senior couple in Kosovo (the Jones')

The lovely stroll around the restaurant 

My Mexican Specialty

The Anglisht menu at a restaurant we went to

Funny english spellings

Flower picture

Its gorgeous outside Gjakovë

Outside Gjakovë

All the trash we picked up outside our church doing service.

The basement of the church flooded with about 2" of rain. Elder Peterson doing work with the shop-vac.

Elder Rawlings also doing work.

We plugged the hole with a bunch of rubber gloves.

Cool scripture card

Another Week

Hello my dear family and friends!

First, let me answer all the questions that you sent me in the last email.

1) What kinds of food are you eating?  Your companion's dad said that the missionaries sometimes take the members and investigators out to dinner there since you have more money than they do. 

 - I am eating a lot of interesting things. Nothing that wouldn't be completely out of place in America, though. Today I had a qofte sandwich which is basically a piece of bread with little burger sliders in it, lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Its really good! Sadly, we don't have enough money to take the members out to eat. I would really like to because a lot of them are struggling financially, but so are we. Its tough to live on 200 Euro a month. 

Qofte sandwich

This guy makes amazing bread

2) Do you have a favorite dish yet?

- So far, my favorite dish is a breakfast item. It's called a samun (sah-moon). What we do is we go around town and pick up sygyk (sausage, basically), eggs, and some cheese. We take all those ingredients to the local brick oven bakery and have them put it all on a a piece of bread and cook it. Ill try and take a picture of it this next week. It is so good!

3) What's the weather like there?

- The weather is really nice. Its a little dryer than MD and it rains quite a bit. Its getting chillier here and I love it. Its probably getting to around 10 degrees Celsius here at night. And apparently in the winter, it snows a ton. 

So those are the questions. Now I will do my very best to recall the weeks events and put them into a captivating and exciting story that will amaze the masses.

We had zone conference this week (which is when Prishtina, Gjakova, Shkoder, and Macedonia all meet up to discuss the work) up in Prishtina. We left around 6 AM and got back to Gjakova at around 9:30 PM. good times were had by all.

The other Gjakova elders have been teaching this family that have been super awesome. They have been coming to church ever since they met the husband and they have been really interested in all the lessons.  The church is true, we are missionaries and we are all children of God. 

One last little story. We have made it a goal to start doing more activities that are outside of church to invite more people to learn about our church. We are gonna try and start and movie night, start an english class, and have a weekly sports night where we play basketball or soccer. Obviously, I have been a bit more zealous to get the soccer night started and we have had a couple days where we played. One was last week and the other was today. We invite a bunch of people to play and we usually have a really good turn out. The only reason they play with us though is because we are American and tall. But hey, whatever works.

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the real world. Stay safe!

Love,

Elder Allgaier

The church sign in front of our building

The church!

Newly baptized member and missionaries (Elder Allgaier is far right.)

We set this table up every Saturday

The set up

Didn't have many clothes, so I wore a jacket and Xhaxhi to the ATM.

Xhaxhi shoe

Picture taken of Elder Allgaier when it was "stolen" by a little girl who is a member of the church.  
He calls her "Sassy Pants".

Me and the poor broken car. (The wrong gas was put in by ? and so it needed to be towed.)

The best juice in the world!

This is a gypsy (a very poor person).

The rivers here are very dirty.

Hotel Kosvegas!

Walking the kids to school--one of them is "Fancy Pants" who is precious. 

A very good snack thingy a member made for us when we taught at her house.

A beautiful sunrise!

This weekend I had my first baptism for a girl named Dafina. Since we don't have baptismal fonts out here, we rented out the pool in a local hotel (hotel Pastriku) and had our baptism in that. It was a really cool experience. I also forgot to tell you all that last Sunday I had the opportunity to be in the circle to ordain Niki and Almir to the Aaronic Priesthood. This was also a really fun and spiritual experience. I remember Andy told me a story about how his first week or two in the country everything sounded like white noise. I could not agree any more with him on that. I have no idea what these people are saying and I struggle to hold a conversation. Luckily for me, the members are forgiving enough and dont get upset when I dont understand them. Yesterday I taught a lesson with the Marku family (their oldest son is Niki) and we taught about enduring to the end. They have a girl who is about 12 years old and I had her read a paragraph out of a pamphlet that I brought. I didnt know that she struggled with reading and it took her a good couple minutes to make it through this paragraph. At the end I told her, "Ne durimi deri në fund për këtë paragraf". That basically means that we endured to the end of that paragraph. I couldn't believe I said that. I meant to tell her that she did a good job enduring to the end and she did well reading, or something like that. Oh well, everyone had a good laugh.

Im gonna write another short letter later today with pictures and stuff so you can add that one to the blog as well. (He ran out of time to write more, but he was able to send some pictures.)

I love you guys! Stay safe!

Love,

Elder Allgaier

A cute little basket this elder used at Nertilli's

A guy hanging outside a window during construction 

A little church I saw on my way to Prishtina

A local butchery