We arrived next in Tirana, Albania for our Humanitarian Conference. This small country is noted because of its love for Americans. They are extremely friendly. We saw George Bush Café and George Bush Boulevard. These people think more of our past presidents than most Americans do. It goes back to when Albania was struggling to become its own nation. It seems that the United States was the first country to recognize them as sovereign. Our humanitarian conference was 3 days in a nice hotel in downtown Tirana. The country is dry compared to Moldova. They don’t have big grocery stores. They have many small convenience stores that they use. Albania is a poor country by European standards and is like Moldova in that regard. We met with 5 humanitarian couples who serve in Albania, Serbia, Romania, Croatia and Slovakia. We all made presentations about our countries and what projects we were working on. The Area Welfare Manager, John Mulligan was there along with our Area Welfare Specialists, Elder and Sister Durrance. We were able to tour the local area and visited a rest home for some very needy old men and women. We also were taken to a school where “Roma” children are taught. These people are the gypsies of Europe. They are severely discriminated against. Their children cannot go to the regular schools and for the most part, all the adult men are unemployed. It is truly a terrible situation. The local missionary couple, Elder and Sister Snow do a wonderful job there.
Elder Causse’ from the Area Presidency was also there and we got to visit with him again. We were asked by the local Young Single Adults to make our Space presentation once again at a Fireside at a local meeting house. It was packed, with many investigators. The presentation went very well and Elder Causse’ made some concluding remarks. He was very complimentary to Rodna and me.
