June 23, 2014

Hey mom,

A lot of times when it comes time to do language study I just feel really, really discouraged. There's only so much you can learn from one stupid book and I hate just sitting down and memorizing words which I forget unless I review them every single day. I forget how much of the situation I've already told you, but the dictionaries here are unreliable, so unless a word is in our grammar book's glossary I'm out of luck. Once I can find a way to bring a new word into a conversation I have it seems to stick from that point on, but when you're not talking to anyone... I can read out loud from our Macedonian Gospel Fundamentals book, but it all gets old fast. I talked to Benjamin about calling him on the phone at night and talking to him, but he said he'd rather talk to Sister Schofield. He disses me so much. Besides, I'm usually too tired at the end of the day to care about knowing Macedonian. Ok, enough complaining.

The Sister Training Leaders from Albania, Sister Kokol and Sister Forte, came to Macedonia for exchanges on Monday night and stayed until Tuesday when we all started driving together to Mission Conference in Tirana. The eventful part of my exchange with Sister Forte was our lesson with the old guy who'd already read so much of the Book of Mormon. His name is Blago, I finally found out. We talked about the plan of salvation and he told me he'd spent ten hours reading the entire Gospel Fundamentals book. Wow. I translated for Sister Forte and at the end she told me, "You seemed to understand each other very well, which is great especially considering he only has one tooth." Since then we've committed him to a baptismal date. That day it poured rain and my feet got soaking wet in a puddle and the rest of the day I was so uncomfortable. We drove to their apartment to stay the night in Fier, and on the way split a giant Milka bar which has cookie, milk white and dark chocolate in it. It contains 1,665 calories of deliciousness. Also on the way, we stopped and asked a woman for directions. She turned out to be deaf. We're really smart. And that's the first time I have ever heard deaf-Macedonian. When we got to their apartment Sister Forte told me to wash my feet because she couldn't sleep with the smell.

The next day on the drive from Fier to Tirana they pointed out Italy to me across the Adriatic Sea. I know I have already said wow in this letter, but wow! I saw Italy!!!! It changed my mental picture of Italy from a shape on a map to a blue mass of land. And the actual Mission Conference was great. I got to see some new missionaries, talk to some old ones, like the ones I met at the MTC or Sister Wilding who I did exchanges with one day. Especially during the testimony meeting at the end, I felt the Spirit really strongly. I was surprised to hear so many people sniffling during the closing prayer.

Today we went to a city called Tetovo and took taxis up to some castle ruins there. Our drivers acted as our tour guides and told us all about it. It was super green and there were a couple of horses grazing there. Our driver even wanted to take us out to coffee afterwards. He said because we were from so far away he wanted to make sure we had a good time. Eastern Europeans are really proud of being good hosts.

At church yesterday Blago told me that I needed to stop biting my nails and that I need to be more outgoing. Shaking my head. Everyone loves me.

I'm grateful that I know that God has a plan for us and our lives though, because it brings me peace knowing that even though my mission isn't having the type of success I thought it would, I know that as I live faithfully God will accomplish exactly what He needs to be accomplished through me.

D&C 88: 73, "Behold, I will hasten my work in its time."

Love, 

Sister Riddle