Becca is in the air Sept 28, 2016

Becca is in the air.  She flew yesterday from Salt Lake to Chicago to Vienna, Austria this morning.  Now she is headed to Tirana.  Should be landing about 2:30 this afternoon.  She had some great moments in the airports.  Hopefully she will share those next week.  In the meantime, here is her new address which you can use for the rest of her mission.  (Postcards, letters, packages).  DearElder.com does send packages to her mission if you are looking for an easy way to ship.

Adriatic South Mission (must be on top line!)

Sister Rebecca Haggard

PO Box 2984

Blvd. “Gjergj Fishta”

Qendra “ALPAS”

Shkalla 5, Apt. 14

Tirana, Albania

oh and of course the corn celebration for the last night in the mtc

Flight SLC to Chicago

3-way Headstand Bridge Sep 26, 2016

Well we are heading out tomorrow morning. How crazy is that?! So for our last Sunday we sang all together in Sacrament Meeting. All the Albanians that leave this week and then the Turks and the Dutch because next Sunday is General Conference so they won't have a last Sunday meeting to sing at. So we sang the EFY Medley which of course is always good but it was just extra special when we sang "we are now the Lord's missionaries..." AHH crazy. And then we ended it with "As Children of God" in Turkish, then in Dutch, then the huge group of 20 Albies, and then finally in English. So bukur! All of our beautiful languages of the zone (oh and the Huns don't leave for 3 weeks so they were the only ones not singing haha). 

If you haven't memorized scriptures, I encourage you to do so. Not just to memorize just to memorize, but do it so that you will always have His words in your heart. I have loved memorizing beautiful Albanian scriptures so that I can have more powerful words in my mind.

Oh and we are leaving so our tripanionship had to accomplish a three way headstand bridge. (photo coming next week) Now we are officially ready to go to Albania!!

Motra Haggard (but now it's Motra Hagërd)

Fear not little flock. Do Good! Sep 19, 2016

K so remember how I was saying how cool it was that we have had 3 general authorities? Well, now we have heard 4! That was 3 in one week! It is an MTC record. On top of that success, Motra Suckow and I did a handstand bridge. Pretty proud of what we are accomplishing in the MTC! We got our travel plans!!!

Me and Motra Suckow doing a handstand bridge! Wow, so talented!

[mom comment: although it looks like a headstand not handstand]

K so we leave next Tuesday on the 27.

(I have no idea how the times line up with what time zones. I'd assume the times are the real times in the certain place...?? so i'm just writing the times from the sheet)

3:50 am MTC -> SLC

SLC -> Chicago

Chicago -> Vienna, Austria

Vienna, Austria -> Tirana, Albania

Wow! We are actually going to Tirana, Albania?! And then it's going to be like a little sorting hat party to see where our first area is for real. Ahhh!

And for our last week in the MTC we are going to do a "Consecration week" which means we are only speaking Albanian (with an exception that we can translate for each other in order to talk to the rest of our zone).

This week my companions and I wanted to do something cute for the sisters in our zone so we picked a quote/scripture for each girl individually to write her a note and leave a little candy. It was so fun because I basically just found myself a whole bunch of precious scriptures that I now love.

DeB 6:34

34 Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock,they cannot prevail.

2 Corin 12:9-10

 9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

Isaiah 42:6-7

 I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;

 7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prisonhouse.

Alma 31:35

35 Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are our brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord,power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee.

ALBANIANS Souls are precious! Can't wait!

Sep 12, 2016

Matching with the Hungarian nővérek :)

Each of His little Qengjat Sep 12, 2016

Acts 16:9-10 

Thank you so much, Sister Bennett, for sending that through my mom. So amazing to think! And Macedonia in that time is what now? I think it is like my whole mission, but I'm not sure. I love when there are specific things about our mission that we find in devotionals and other things .. so cool that it's in the scriptures.

Okay, so 9 weeks in the MTC. 3 General Authorities. How lucky is that?! This week we got to hear from Elder Christofferson on Tuesday and from Elder Ballard yesterday! 

So our job as missionaries is to testify of Christ. We have always tried to "center" our lessons on Jesus Christ, but this week was the first time we actually did that. We taught an investigator who honestly was kind of tough at first because she kept saying, "No, we are not children of God." How hard is it to not push beliefs on people but also try to help them feel that love from God and to have that knowledge that He loves all of us because we are His children?  Well, anyway, after that lesson we were kind of stumped so on the next, we decided just to teach about Jesus Christ because that's what she said she wanted to know more about. I started by describing the picture from the front of the Rivendosja [Restoration] pamphlet. It's so true that pictures speak a thousand words. Just look at that picture and imagine the love He has for each of his little qengjat. [lambs] 

We just testified of all that Christ has gone through and that everything we will ever feel, He has felt. It was so powerful and it was just because we were finally doing our job .. testifying of Jesus Christ.

Motra Haggard

Photos Sep 5, 2016

The beautiful new bathroom signs in our new home

All the motrat minus 2

Motra Dunn, Elder McDivit

Really I'm loving the MTC.  I can't see anywhere else I'd rather be. Some people may think nine weeks is long, but I need it. It's helping me with language and learning how to teach people. So in the TRC, the guy we were with on the second lesson gave the closing prayer and basically blessed us in the whole thing. It was so powerful. Thank you, thank you! Bless these sisters to become the missionaries that you need them to be. Yes, please :) Aww love being surrounded by all these amazing people.

Macedonia Sep 5, 2016

Interesting scripture that Sis Bennett sent me this morning. Acts 16:9-10 (Because Becca is going to Adriatic South, which includes Macedonia)

9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.
10 And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.

Aww, I shared that with everyone. Thanks for sending this. I seriously hope I get to go to Macedonia. Motra Kokol said that is where they are very poor. And the city is split by a river- half Serbians and half Albanians so the culture is conflicted.

Aug 29, 2016

Faith- Motra Bland

Strength- Motra Dunn

Blessed- that's me wow what a hand model

Happy- Motra Suckow

Fearless- Motra Miles

Oh, also, if boys get haircuts in Albania they say Shëndet! and slap the back of their head. Dad would probably like that haha and all the elders got haircuts this week so Vellai Bangeter and Vellai Knight slapped them all. haha soo good :)

BLESSED Aug 29, 2016

So we are now the oldest in the zone! And we have been in here for a month so we took a halfway picture. It's crazy that we get to be in our mission in a couple of weeks. Woo I also got to get my immunization shot this week so now I'm so ready to go...well maybe I'll stay for another month so I can get the language a little bit. 

On Thursdays for exercise we now play kickball outside. I love how close our zone is becoming. We also keep growing because we got the new Dutch on Wednesday.

So we get to go out in the real world because one of my companions goes to the dermatologist. Every time we always get cute little ladies that are like wishing us good luck and telling us that they are praying for us. Wow, what a Utah crowd, am I right? Love it.

K Albanian word "çfarë" is like inception. When you put ç' before another word it's just short for çfarë... so literally çfarë is çfarë farë meaning what seed or like what kind...I don't know if that made sense but mind blown.

Also Motra Bland's mom sent every motra a bracelet with a word on it and mine is BLESSED. Such a great reminder to have on every day to know that I am blessed! Blessed with so many good people here in the MTC and outside that care. Thanks so much!

Thanks so much to Sister Farrell for the letter! Everyone was so surprised that I got a letter from my seminary teacher. Thank you for going above and beyond your calling.

Huge thanks to the Gandolph family for the incredible package that totally made my day on Tuesday! I'm saving the corn for a special day to celebrate. All the roommate motrat loved the corn story haha.  [mom note:  What's the corn story?  So basically I was at the Gandolph's house for Thanksgiving, right? And they were going to throw away all the corn and I hate wasting food, right? So I promised I would eat it. Then that night as we were watching a movie I like pulled out the corn for a snack...and they always make fun of me for it. Weirdo eating corn out of a bag while watching a movie...

420 Pushups. Aug 22, 2016

420 PUSHUPS

 Wed: 110 Thurs: 100 Fri: 100 Sat: 90 Sun: 20

So now that we are elders and sisters we are supposed to use those official titles and not refer to a group as "guys". So I started this thing that when I say the g-word "guys" I have to do 10 push-ups. Apparently I said it a lot more than I thought I did because well you can see how sore my arms are...BUT! wow look at the improvement on Sunday! AND we even taught relief society and I didn't say it once. I think I'll still do at least 50 a day though since I would love to get stronger. We also practice doing handstands at night with the push-ups.

One of the elders going to the Belgium/Netherlands mission can chug a whole glass of chocolate milk in 4 seconds. Life goal right? So I'll come back being able to do all sorts of important things.

On Wednesday we got the opportunity to host the new missionaries coming in. It was weird how hard it was to see the families say goodbye :( Like this one elder saying goodbye and his little 7 year old brother starts crying. Oh it broke my heart. But they don't even know how good this is going to be. I'm seriously so excited to go to Albania. Today the Dutch leave so we will be the oldest in the zone. That means we are the next ones to leave, Lopë e Shenjtë.

So in the MTC we teach "investigators" to prepare to teach the people in the Adriatic South, so we have been doing that from the beginning, but this week we got to do our first TRC (I have no idea what it stands for, but it is where we teach equivalent to a home teaching lesson to return missionaries from AdrS mission). I loved it. It felt like I could totally be myself which we realized we lack in investigator lessons. Maybe I'm just excited for the real people, to teach real lessons.

Incredibly not prepared of course-but everyday getting better at this language. Singing hymns in English we can somehow remember the words in Albanian and sing it, it's amazing. 

We also got to see the Nashville Tribute band, and as usual through music is where I can feel the Spirit so strong. Telling the story of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith through the beautiful songs was just perfect. Look them up!