4th of July Celebration in Prishtina?

Saturday we had one of the most unique experiences ever here in this country:

A member of the church invited us to go with him to a community celebration in his village.  The village is located about 20 miles northwest of Prishtina.  We had no idea what kind of celebration this was or what they did there but thought it would prove to be a fun day.  We asked the Sister Missionaries if they wanted to go with us because this member did not speak any English.  They agreed and we all jumped in the car about 12:30 and drove out to this village.  While we were driving though this beautiful countryside it began raining and the sky was getting quite dark.  By the time we arrived it was raining quite hard with lightning bolts and thunder all around us.  As we pulled into this pasture and parked where there were several other cars parked the rain was coming down so hard we couldn't even get out of the car.  After about half hour of this storm I began to be worried that we might not be able to get out of the pasture because the ground would be too soft.  Our member friend grabbed an umbrella and said he would walk up to where they were holding the event and see what was going on.  Within 10 minutes after he left the rain let up, the storm passed and Dixie and I and the Sister got out and walked up to this country school house.   We we found our friend and about 200 other people gathered inside the building and under a big canvas tent and by this time were starting to spread out over the school yard.   The view of the valley and surrounding hills was stunning.  Very beautiful and pastoral.  There were cows grazing on the hillside. and homes tucked here and there among the trees.  Following the rain the gathering begin to come to life.  A stage had been build with a large backdrop banner showing the name of the celebration and the community.  We were taken back a bit as we observed on the Banner an American Flag with the "4th of July, American Independence" written below it.    Soon there were dignitaries on the stand some sort of award ceremony was conducted and then they had various singing groups come up on the stand and sing different "Albanian" songs.  Everyone was obviously enjoying the music the speeches and being together as a community.  We were really impressed when when a group of dancers came out of the school building all dressed in traditional Albanian costumes and performed.   As we were continuing to enjoy the occasion, wandering around among the crowd, enjoying the food and having this fantastic cultural experience a couple of the organizers of the event came up to me and asked if I would come up on stage and say a few words.  I was shocked and  inquired a little more about why they would want me to do that.  They informed me that not only were they celebrating their own community event they were also celebrating the American 4th of July Independence Day.   They said that you are American and were glad that we had come there to be a part of their celebration and would like to hear about how America celebrates the 4th of July.  They told me a little more about why they try to get all of the members of this mountain community together to have this little festival  and gave me a few more ideas about what my remarks could be about.  Well, I said I would be happy to say a few things about Independence, country and the importance of family and community.  So they came to a brake in the music, dancing and festivities and ushered Dixie and I up on stage.   I can't remember half of what I said, but do remember that I was interrupted several times by applause.  At the end we invited the Sisters and our member friend to come up on stage with us and all the dignitaries also came up on stage with us to pose for pictures.  We went down from the stage and started shaking hands with everyone there.  They were so cordial and seemed happy that we had joined them for their gathering.

It was really a great opportunity to be there and be a part of this event.

A Marvelous Group of Musicians (American Flag on the Banner)

Notice the back of this shirt - An American Flag

Tasty Home Made Bread and Treats

It rained so hard even inside the tent was wet

Fairly Large Gathering of Neighbors

Balloons, Cotton Candy and Hamburgers

Notice the Beautiful Hills and Valley

Sorry I don't seem to be able to upload the video

We really enjoyed watching these young people perform

click on the following link to view a few pictures of Prishtina

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Prishtina/@42.657283,21.163487,3a,75y,264h,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1s120023569!2e1!3e10!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2Fproxy%2FSxA8Ep5xZRF266fi93KG3LzQvpny_kc2i9iiqmD7754SeuKJgMAcPLbeXDa2-xwJmKq41IUq-WtsFSyA7m1Gj6gOxTaW4Fo%3Dw217-h100!7i3469!8i1594!4m5!3m4!1s0x13549ee605110927:0x9365bfdf385eb95a!8m2!3d42.6629138!4d21.1655028!6m1!1e1

Summer Festival

It's the beginning of summer in Albania and the folks are celebrating.  This year we have enjoyed the folk dancing and also the motorcycle rally.  The Folk dancing goes on three evenings in a row and the motor cycles are lined up for just one night so I thought I would attach a few pictures about these two things.

Great looking bikes

LED's and everything

Harley Davidson??

Folk Dancers

This is the instrument Secttion   

Visit from home

I don't seem to be able to blog as well as John does.  I can never get the pictures added right, and the background goes bad.  But I will give it a try.
Jill and Alyssa came to visit us, and it was like a fresh taste of home for us.  They arrived on Saturday, April 2, and left us on April 8.  We took the week off from our usual duties, and just toured and played.  So relaxing for us.  JnA had spent a week in Italy, including attending Easter Sunday mass with the Pope.  So we got to hear all about their trip, but unfortunately, we didn't take enough time looking at their pictures.  They arrived on Saturday, and we held a traditional dance at the church in their honor.  We decorated the church and bought some traditional costumes.  The Albanians taught us how to dance.  It was so much fun.  During the week, we spent some time with our Vlore members, and Jill and Alyssa got to find out why we love them so much.  They got a taste of our delightful city streets.  Jill and I even had to drive to the bishop's house to get a signature.  I don't usually drive that one, but Jill was able to help me stay in the middle so I didn't scrape the car on the walls or run down Keni and Ade.  Speaking of "taste," we ate traditional foods, and I will try to include a photo of Jill trying dhalle, a sour milk drink the Albanians love.

JnA at Gjirokaster Castle

Monday and Tuesday we drove the tourist loop of southern Albania.  We saw Ali Pashe Tepelene's castle, Sarande, Butrint, Blue Eye, and Gjirokaster.  We even saw Greece, but being the obedient missionaries that we are, we did not ride the raft across the pond to say we had been there.  On Thursday we went to Kruje. We visited a total of 5 castles, and did lots of souvenir shopping.  The weather was perfect.  Except for having to say goodbye at the end of the week, it was all we could have wanted.
These pics were taken with my phone, and it only takes blurry pictures.  John took some others, but his phone was stolen last week, so these are the best I have.  More about that later.

It is hard to say good-bye.

Life Goes On

I'd like to share a few pictures with you

Small Donkey - Heavy Load

When we travel through some of the small villages to get to the larger cities we run across some pretty interesting things.  We've often see these small burros pulling a cart heavily loaded with sticks or hay or other farm products.  It's a real paradox to see the farmer on top of the wagon talking on a cell phone or even working on a laptop computer.  I'm not sure what they use the sticks for - either as firewood or fence building.

YSA Dinner and Devotional

                                                                         
This year the stake president wants us to hold a dinner for the YSA group every other month.  At that dinner we serve a small setdown dinner and watch the world wide YSA devotional or other YSA broadcasts.  The young people really enjoy the dinner and being together.  I think they have been very successful.

Fun Afternoon at the Beach

We really enjoyed the Monday beach party a couple of weeks ago.  Some of the YSA and the sister missionaries just decided to bring some snacks and a few sausages and cook them up on the beach.  We played volleyball and had a nice time eating and talking.





Last time we went to Tirana Dixie said that we needed to get a picture of that :"Dr. Suess" building and send it home.  So here it is.  Some interesting architecture right in the heart of downtown Tirana.

Nice looking valentines

The YSA Valentine dance and conference was held in Durras again this year.  We had a couple of workshops, a dinner and a dance.

Which one is the real Albanian?

To celebrate Valentine day Dixie and I went to Logara (a national park) and on our way home we stopped at this restaurant and had some fresh sea bass.  The restaurant was decorated with old Albanian stuff.  This is a picture of one of the corners in the restaurant.  Traditional Albanian costumes but couldn't tell you from what period they are.

New Adventure Every Day

I thought that I should mention a couple of things we have experienced this past week.

The father of a member of our ward, (Gentian) passed away last week.  Since he is a good friend of ours we thought that we should skip the stake training meeting and go to the funeral.  He lived in Berat a town about 2 hours away from here. As we were trying to find out where and when the funeral was beiing held we discovered that the missionaries in Berat were participating in the funeral by dedicating the grave.  Gentian is the only member of the church in his family so we were quite suprised that the Elders in Berat were even aware of the funeral.  But it seems as though Gentian had called on them to administer to his ailing father last week.  We were pleased that the family and especially Gentian could receive some solace from that blessing as their father and grandfather passed away.

To describe in detail all that transpired in the hours leading up to the burial of this man would take a few pages; so let me just touch on a few things and add a couple of pictures.  When we arrived at the home of the family the body was in a small casket in the middle of the small living room.  The room was lined with women sitting in chairs.  The lid was off and all were welcome to view the body.  The men were all setting, smoking and talking in another room in the front of the house.  We brought flowers laid them on the casket and Dixie stayed in the room with the body and the women while I and the elders went to the other (men's) room.  There we talked while the elder's interpreted until it was time to move the casket down the street to the hurst.  6 or 8 men after closing the box lifted it up on their shoulders and walked down the street with other family members following.

The cemetery was quite a ways from the house so most everyone (about 30 people) road in a bus following the herst.  When we arrived at the cemetery the men loaded the casket on to their shoulders (there were no handles on the side of the casket) and walked a 100 yards or so to the grave site.  After a man read something (I believe an obituary of some sort) the missionary dedicated the grave and the box was lowered into the ground.  They also placed along side the casket a couple of bags of clothing or somethings, I couldn't really tell what was in the bags..  Then someone came forward and threw a shovel full of dirt into the hole.  Then everyone else came forward and threw a shovel full of dirt into the hole.  Then it was over and people started leaving. Or so I thought. but just before leaving the cemetery the principle members of the family lined up in a reception line and all the rest shook hands and kissed and hugged these people.  There was a long porcelin watering trough just as you left the cemetery and everyone stopped there, washed their hands and threw water over their shoulders.  We got back into the car and bus and went to a restaurant downtown where everyone was served a huge meal.  More food than I could possibly eat in two meals.  We had a YSA activity back in Vlore so we left the meal early to get home in time for that evening.

The other event started out as an early morning walk with my friend Emiljano.  We went up this fairly steep stair way to a place where people light candles for their deceased loved ones.  There is also a nice sheltered grave of an obviously important person there.  Just behind this "holy place of worship" is a large building and standing out front was this man all dressed in religious clothing.  Emiljano asked if I would like to talk to the man.  Of course I would. So we went up and introduced our selves and he invited us inside.  We set and talked about 10 minutes about what I'm really not sure (Emiljano didn't interpret it all for me) and stood to leave.  I told him that I appreciated the time he took to talk with us and that I would like to give him the gift of a book that was very special to me.  I told him I didn't have it with me but would bring it back the next day.  The next day Dixie and I wrapped up a Book of Mormon, picked up Emiljano and drove up to the building on top of the hill overlooking Vlore.  We spoke with this same man for about an hour as he showed us around the building and talked about how we were both involved in the same great work of teaching people about God and their relationship to Him.  We found him to be very cordial and respectful of what we were doing and we in turn attempted to show our respect for his position as leader of the Muslims here in Vlore.  The visit has caused me to read a little more about the Koran and consider it's message and impact upon the people here in Albania or the world for that matter.   My views have been expanded and my appreciation of the Bible and the Book of Mormon has been reinforced.  There are lots of good and honorable people all over who want to see peace and love overcome evil and hate.  I am grateful to have met one.

Something New Every Day

Pictures associated with the above story.

Enjoy........