English Course was ok. We got about 20 people there.
Probably about 40 people called Elder Chingas about it, so we were expected a
bit more, but what can you do. We taught the beginner class and it was really
funny seeing all these people trying to make the "th" sound for the first-time
in their lives. And they were started attacking us saying that we're teaching
them "American" and not "English", but luckily, Elder
Dibble is a half Brit, so he was able to show them that there's hardly a
difference between the two. At the end we share a 5 minute spiritual thought.
No, we don't read our prayers. The Orthodox Church is all
about ritual, and as a part of church services and daily life, many of their
prayers are pre-written in prayer books and they read them. So the students got
mad at us when we said prayers from the heart, saying that we have to read it,
or at least write it down after.
Prosina, the mom in our family, is still struggling with the
Word of Wisdom in drinking coffee, so we've been trying to help her with that.
And the kids are finally starting to say their own prayers in the lesson! They're
really good at keeping their commitments, except for the biggest two, which are
to be baptized and to come to church. They found a traditional dancing class
for their kids that starts at 10 am on Sunday, so they've been choosing to go
to that instead of church. They kept telling us that they wouldn't come to
church, but we showed up at their door at 9 on Sunday anyways just to make a
statement. They felt really bad about it, so hopefully they'll remember that
and come next week!
Finally! A lot of work went into that, so y'all know.
Elder Dibble is such a trooper, I just gotta say that. He's got two pretty nasty ingrown toenails right now, and he hasn't even complained about it once. We took him to the hospital in Skopje that the church recommends. I had the opportunity of watching the doctor clean out the nail and cut away at the skin. The doctor kept asking "There's no pain, right?" to which Elder Dibble kept replying "Nope, there's a lot of pain. A lot a lot of pain." I was dying laughing in there. The mission nurse asked what prescriptions the doctor gave, and it turns out they're just for athlete's foot. So now Elder Dibble will get to see the doctor in Tirana on Wednesday when we travel there for the Trainer Trainee Half Way Training meeting.
We got paintings hung up in the church! Our house looks more
like a church now :) In other news,
Elder Krajnc, my 2nd companion here who was from Slovenia, got married about a
month ago
As the almighty District Leader, I did my exchange where I
got to do all the judging! I was with Elder Bishoff, Elder Chingas' trainee.
All of us went tabling together that morning, then we did some contacting,
where we got quite a bit of phone numbers. All these new missionaries are
pretty dang good, not going to lie.
That's all for now. I'm super excited for Christmas, mostly
to Skype you guys! Only like another month and a half. Elder Rigby
