Last Suflaqe Feb. 12, 2018

Ate my last sufllaqe today. Tears were almost shed. Ha.

Ok so this is the last email I will send as Motra Hegërd. Gjynah. It's such a better spelling too.

This is where I've seen a lot of missionaries with a list of all the things they've learned on their missions. It's weird because I feel like I've been here for ages but then at the same time...woah...going home this week. SO the list that I have is all the BIG Scriptures for me during this time. In each one, I learned a lesson, or got peace. At all the ups and downs and questions, through the scriptures is where I get the "Ah-ha! I get it now". or the "oh...yep you're right" It's a very cool gift that we have, the ability to receive an answer from a God who listens to our concerns. What a miracle. But I would say out of all of the scriptures that have touched me, the phrase I love the most is..."and I shall heal them". This is what Christ does. This is what He offers us.

3 Nephi 18:32

Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them; and ye shall be the means of bringing salvation unto them.

3 Nephi 17:7,9-10

Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy.

Christ HEALS. even when we don't feel like we aren't even broken. That is the miracle of a mission. We testify of Christ. of Him and what He did and what He does now. We also testify of what people can become because of Him. This is why we have a Savior! So that people, so that we can...(and this is where we come in). Let us never stop discovering what we can do because of Christ! 

Love love :)

Motra Hegërd

Loving Life Feb. 5, 2018

Loving life. These past weeks I've really been studying the Fall and the Atonement. Wow it's weird that we think that we understand something and then someone asks you a question about it and you're like..huh I've never even thought about that before. It was super cool. Eva, a girl we are teaching, is like the contact in the road you always wanted more time to talk to. Let me explain...sometimes there are people in the road that totally believe differently than you, they tell you that, but then they walk away before you even get to explain what you believe. Eva is like that! Except she gives us time to show her! It's cool because-she has cool questions so then I have cool questions to study! So why would God have wanted/been part of His plan for Adam and Eve to fall? Why would He want to give them death, sadness, and sickness? Would a loving God do that? 

ok so i went to lds.org to go to the book of mormon and i got distracted...

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/mormon-messages-2018?cid=HP_WE_31-1-2018_dPFD_fMLIB_xLIDyL1-C_&lang=eng

WOAH talk about questions and how to find answers to questions. First of all I definitely enjoyed how çuditshëm this was...interesting haha but the message in the end. We all can be understanding something and believe we are right, maybe we are not necessarily wrong but there is One who sees the whole picture. The truth of God is the light that we need to see clearly. We have to trust in Him who sees because sometimes, because we are human, we are blind.

so then I guess the "answer" is that God knows. Sometimes we have to trust that He knows what He's doing. Trust.

Isaiah 59:10
We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men. 


Matthew 15:31
Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel.

We don't have to wonder or wander if we let the light lead us. Lead Kindly Light <3

Love

Motra Hegërd

This is happiness people :) BUZëQESHNI Jan. 29, 2018

I'm sooooo sorry. We went to Berat last Pday and I was a little confused about the email situation and thought we were going to be able to do it some more...then we didn't...im sorry :/

Ok let's tell you a little bit about the amazing human that I get to serve with :) We were just talking about the first weekend we were together and she was telling me how scary it was when we talked to everyone on the road. (it didn't seem like that to me because she was doing just that-talking to everyone) I think it was really important that we did that, a solid "scary" amount of time finding at the very beginning so then it wasn't a scary part of missionary work anymore. We love it :) Talking with everyone becomes fun when you just think of everyone as your new best friend haha and then you share with your new best friend what makes you happy :)

In the Book of Mormon, we read about when Jesus Christ, after His resurrection, came to the Americas and blessed the people there, one by one. He is still blessing people today. Some people ask where God is, but we just have to do more than ask. We have to seek Him out. He stands at the door and knocks. What a beautiful picture  (that one with Christ at the door, waiting). We can read about Christ blessing others, and then we can have those blessings in our lives if we, like those in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, Go to Him in faith and let him heal us. 

This is happiness people :) BUZëQESHNI

love

Motra Hegërd

You haven't had a goat brain?! Jan. 15, 2018

Quote of the week from an appalled Majlinda: "you haven't had a goat brain?! how old are you?!"...well watch out for the next couple weeks because something just got added to my bucketlist :)

This week has been so great and so busy. First of all-Romina. She called us on monday and was like hey I got a card and I want to meet (turns out we gave her an "its christmas come to church" flier) So we meet. This is the second person on my mission who has called us off of a card with our number on it. Miracle right there haha. But then at Zone Conference we were challenged to use members with us more in lessons. So we did. And it was so cool because then when Romina didn't feel super comfortable praying, Anita, a convert of about a year, was like ya i get you. Then she had friends immediately when she came to church and didn't hang out with us the missionaries. BLESSED.

Majlinda-So basically she's given up on her "happy ever after" but I have not!!! She deserves it! So we challenged her to do what ever it takes, pray, fast, read, talk with your Heavenly Father and get up the courage to change your situation! Change your life! She's already doing it. She has changed so much and grown and developed her faith. It is really the coolest thing to be able to be a part of. 

I know that people can change! We just have to trust God that He knows how we can be happy. If we just have that trust in Him, and if we have the courage to act on it, to follow Him, He shall direct us for good! It's really a blessing to be His missionary. To be able to be directed, to be able to feel the Spirit guiding this work. What a blessing! 

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12

Go out and have joy! What a happy missionary scripture :)

Love 

Motra Hegërd

Wisdom Teeth Miracle Jan. 8, 2018

Majlinda is doing well. She is stopping smoking right now and working for the 17 of February to be baptized. So get this. We need to stop smoking right? So all of a sudden she has to get a wisdom tooth out. So she can't smoke for this whole week. A miracle no? :)

The cool thing to see with her, is a person changing because of the Book of Mormon. She reads it, studies it, loves it, and then finds what she has to change because of it. She is amazing. :) Gati? So she read a chapter of the Book of Mormon and read this verse about idol worship and she was like so when I read this I suddenly understood that a cross can be an idol. I used to think that I couldn't pray without it. But I bought this. Someone made money off this. I don't need to hold this to talk to God. It was a super simple principle, but she learned it because the Spirit teaches us when we read. It is SOOO cool to see her changing because she is reading the Book of Mormon.

People change. That is the coolest thing that you learn about yourself and others when you are on your mission. I don't know how much I've changed. But i know for sure that I can't think a lot about "normal life" too weird. It has been a lot of time here. What a blessing. I used to think missions were just for the people who "don't know". There's a lot more people out there that have a need for you in their life. We can be angels in peoples' paths! Not just missionaries. Anyone who wants to care :)

Love

Motra Hegërd

One Thing Is Needful Jan. 2, 2018

Motra Christensen and I are now over the first and third wards in Tirana. Taking over the other sisters' area. We are looking forward to a busy transfer. 

Motra Godfrey finished her mission. To be poetic: Godfrey taught me how to dance in the rain <3 Bye buddy. Ishalla me një fat të mirë.  [Mom comment: Hopefully you will have good luck - something like that.]

Majlinda, the investigator who left after the baptism fiasco, came back. Ready? So she said after she left, the whole day she felt like she was hearing the Spirit tell her that she needs to continue learning with us. And she felt so bad. So she was praying hard for forgiveness. Then she said that she just felt this peace, that she was forgiven. She got her answer. She said that she's not looking for that sign now. She doesn't need to see a sign. Not anymore. And everything that happened on Monday had to have happened so that she would leave, so that she would get her answer. She came to church on Sunday.  She is finding her faith and it is really cool to see! Now we are going to stop smoking. Here in comes the power of God. :) You never know why things happen. It's a good thing God does.

"The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly than it will carry the investigators."  (Missionary Work and the Atonement by Elder Holland aka the BEST talk EVER) So I have really had a cool past transfer, really thinking about what I'm doing here. It's been kind of hard when you think of what the "good" missionaries do, ya know what you are supposed to be doing here. And when you don't have all that success, you begin to wonder why. Why don't we have success? What am I doing wrong? Then you start feeling like an awful person, like a failure. This is why a mission is hard. But this is also something that you don't have to feel. I think I just kind of got to a point this transfer when I decided you know what? I don't want to be depressed right now. Everything just fell through. Everything is my fault. But I don't want to be sad anymore. Then I read in the Bible, Luke 10:40 - 41 "And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Then it hits, ok ya ya I get it, ok I'm worried and troubled about everything. But there is only one thing that cannot be taken away from me. Investigators will leave, members will leave, things will not go as planned, but Christ will not leave. So if we take our own advice, to build our foundation upon Christ, then we won't fall, we won't get sad, when everything around us fails. So I obviously need to change my focus. Of course we are going to keep working hard, of course we want to find success in helping people come unto Christ, but my goal for this transfer is to know my Savior. So then at the end of the transfer I can see success. I will measure my work on how I have come to Him. :)

Love,

Motra Hegërd

Christmas Day Dec. 25, 2017

So this has been a great week, full of miracles and lights and Christmas. 

Majlinda.  so we found her last monday. She is totally searching for the truth. She hasn't been baptized yet because she wants to really feel it. She says that she feels so good when we come over and she loves the scriptures, really reads and studies and understands them. We met her off the bus the other day and right away she whips out her Book of Mormon and shows me a scripture that she loved about baptism. Then she asks ok give me more scriptures to read. ok will do. amazing.

[Mom comment: Becca explained a sad moment after church which heavily discouraged Majlinda.  She doesn't want to come back.  The sisters talked to her and invited her to a baptism later that day.]

Sunday night; we go over to the Capi's house (members) because their 8 year old is getting baptized on Christmas. The 2 year old has a fever but we have a good lesson then when we end it...the mom shoots up on her feet, the baby's choking, he's suffocating, and they can't fix it. They take him in the other room, everyone is hysterically crying and freaking out. They keep saying "u shkeput u shkeput" which means he's gone he's gone. We are standing there not knowing at all what to do. Holy cow it was so scary. Seeing the mom was probably the worst part. She thought that her baby son was dying. She was so pale I thought she was going to faint. Then they take him downstairs to the neighbor, we basically are just standing outside with the 2 little girls and are hearing the panic but not seeing anything. So we decide to say a little prayer with the girls. The 8 year old gets down on her knees and asks me to say it. Shaky. ok like 3 minutes later-he's stable, he's ok he's ok. They take him to the hospital. Whew. That was probably the most traumatic moment of my life. I think afterwards we were in shock. Not fun. Not fun. BUT he is ok! He is ok! Christmas miracles :)

[Mom comment: Another stressful incident at the baptism later that day.  Again Majlinda is wanting no more to do with the lessons.]

i love christmas bye

[Mom comment: So sad to see your daughter have such a great week and then a very disappointing Christmas Day.]

motra haggard