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........

New Year's Fireworks

The horn that you here in the background is the Ferry docked in the harbor.

A thousand words

We've talked on the phone and over skype about the"walk abouts" the people here in Vlore do every night and tried to describe how the sidewalks a full of moving people.  But to save a few thousand words of description I thought I would try to drop a video of this activity into this blog. ....  (I think I could have typed a thousand words in the same amount of time it took to upload this video).

I was thinking about adding a video of the New Year's fireworks but it is way too big to fit here.  Sufice it to say they had fireworks all around the bay.  We could see them all from our balcony.  The ones that were set off just below us on the dock were magnificant.  Better than watching them from Adams Field because we are 6 stories high.  What I'm trying to say is they exploded right in front of us.