MIRACLES!! Sep 18, 2017

MIRACLES!! Ok so beginning with my first interview with President Anderson...he asked what I thought about the focus on less actives. K so I've served in wards that have 300 members, 30 active. Like that. I've worked a lot with families that never came back. Never did anything actually. Didn't see a lot of success. BUT we continue to work. So now after many weeks of visiting Sister Dibra we called her Sunday to ask the usual, are you coming like you said you would? annnnd she said ya I'm waiting outside the church....no way. So then we get to church and as we are walking up the stairs she tells us that she has actually never been to this church building...(we moved church buildings 3 years ago) Holy cow. First day back to church! MIRACLE!

Another sister we have been visiting Sister Muriza. So Sister Godfrey went out of the class to call her (we have 2 wards so they come later) and she comes back in and looks depressed! I like kinda asked and she just shook her head. obviously upset. She tells me later so she called her and Sister Muriza said I'm not coming.

why?

hangs up

Sister Godfrey calls her back

are you mad at me?

I'm not coming. That's just how it is.

hangs up again.

Godfrey was so mad. We are never visiting them again. Then she walks into sacrament meeting...and look who's sitting there. "Motra Flipping Muriza" haha surprise :) that little angel woman. haha. 

So two of our beeeautiful members came to church yesterday. It took time. And will still be a lot of time. But it just gave me so much more hope. Nothing gets done with a couple first attempts and never going back. Endure! to the End! Miracles happen along the way :)

Motra Hegërd

Families Lumturinë Sep 11, 2017

Stake Conference. The theme was families and marriage. How applicable. I loved it. Some quotes from it:

it makes more sense in albanian. but a quick albanian lesson for the background...

a really serious goodbye like someone you are never going to see again = lamtumirë

happiness = lumturinë

For our marriages we need to work towards the goodbye...i mean - happiness

nice mistake. it was pretty good. 

The overall message I got from conference is that you can't actually go through this life alone. You literally cannot expect to be saved as an individual. You are born into a family. sealed as a family. and that's how you are going to be in heaven. So I guess we better stop being selfish thinking that- well at least I'm doing what I need to be. Ya great. Do what we are supposed to do. Next. Help someone else I guess. Because salvation can't really be selfish. Gotta do it for someone else. Not like you can make anyone else be saved, but you can help them do it. I don't know if that makes sense. It was just a cool way of thinking about it.

President Anderson when he was little went to Israel for 6 months to study there as a family about the Savior. And with their kids, they did scripture study every morning and family home evening. This is how you have a strong family that loves each other. This is how you don't lose anyone. Is it a surprise to anyone that they did that and now they are a mission president? no. It's nice to want a tight family. It's another thing to do the work for it. And then we can all have beautiful little families one day! :) 

Motra Hegërd

Compassion Sep 4, 2017

So I made a mistake praying to feel more compassion for these people. Because I've kind of gotten used to people making excuses and I've lost that whole feel sorry for them part. Like someone says they are sick...uhuh...andd so I was feeling like ok well I need to actually feel sad and not get annoyed at this. So I prayed to feel more compassion for this people. Answer:

We have been teaching a very poor family. I don't know if I can describe this accurately but they basically live in a cement room...that's under an apartment building. So it's like the foundation of the building. So they just put all their stuff there and covered it with cardboard and blankets for a wall. So the first time we met the mom asked us for money but we can't give out money as missionaries so we have to say no. We have to do this a lot. But we explained that we are here to serve people by teaching them how to follow Christ. She understood and still wanted to meet to learn more about Christ. So now we have been teaching them for a couple weeks. They can't read so we read to them and they sing along with us when we sing even though they can't read. We love them. Then we went back this last Friday. Rita said that the police had been there and told them they have to leave within a week (because it's technically trespassing) Then she told her her whole life story. I don't know what I'm aloud to say...If you could imagine, yeah pretty bad stuff has happened to her. And now she has a 9 year old daughter and a 2 year old son. And she was telling us her story. And her daughter came back from the store for their food that day...and I cried. I can't take this. Ya know we come here and we meet with these people and we cannot help them. Then we go home to our beautiful home and I just felt awful. But they came to church for the first time on Sunday and I've been thinking ok so our message is that if we follow Christ and keep the commandments then we will be blessed both physically and spirtually. Ok so here it is real life. Do I believe that? No WE cannot physically help them, but I have faith that if they will follow and keep the commandments, that they will be ok. Teach them how to fish? well we all know who does that best. We can bring them to Jesus Christ, or rather to invite them to go themselves, then they can learn how to fish. Then they will be set for life. I believe that.

Motra Hegërd

Baby Shower Aug 28, 2017

We threw a baby shower for a young mom in our ward!! It was sooo fun! And holy cow so scary planning a RS activity...the pressure. But ah it was so cool because albanians don't have baby showers so it was a first for all of them. We just had a bunch of typical little games and what not and decorations. Alma (the mom) afterwards told us- I never thought that I would ever have a baby shower. Thank you so much. 

awww it was very nice to be able to share a little bit of our American culture. These are normal things for us but no we don't do activities like this. But we are going to. This month we have a bunch and we are encouraging all the members to join us for this Month of Invitations. It's going to be so good!

Emiliana looking at a picture of the temple in Rome "I will go there someday" she said it almost in a whisper super subtle but ugh the power. Temples are the best places that we can have a goal to go to. I miss it a lot. Some of our members are preparing right now to go to the Temple in Switzerland. it's far. But soooon we will have one in Rome!!! which is wayy close for these members here in Albania. Because of temples we can be families FOREVER. 

And last thing: an Albanian expression

Zoti vonon por nuk harron.

(The Lord is late but doesn't forget)

ah such wisdom. Just because He may not give us an answer or something we expect in the time we want, does not mean that He forgot. He didn't. :)

Motra Haggard

Shared dinner with these delightful, devoted motras.  Steve & Laurie Sowby, Am Fork, UT.

Read one page of the Book of Mormon. Aug 7, 2017

Read one page of the Book of Mormon. It's a challenge we did as a tabling activity. A lot of people say a lot of stuff about the Book. Read a page. Or read the whole thing. Then tell me what it is. Ya sure there are some pages that probably aren't the most interesting to you at that certain moment but I can promise that if we want to know if the book is true, it's really simple, just read it. And then you can open it and find a page that really just "happens" to speak to you and your situation. It's almost like someone cares about you enough to have put that page in. We can get a lot of information from people and from Google. But then people are just people. God can actually tell us pure truth. And He knows us so then He can give that truth to us in the exact moment we need it. Life gets a lot easier when we don't try to drive this road ourselves.

Know you aren't alone. There is always someone who loves you and knows you, and who knows you are beautiful.

Motra Hegërd

* the other week in sunday school the bishop forgot my last name, it's a hard one for them to say so then he was like ok Motra Egër. Take off the h and the d, practically the same, just e egër means wild. sweet. haha thanks peshkopi

Story time with photos July 31, 2017

Story time with photos. So the bus was so packed that I was in the bus driver's view and I was like I don't know where to go so he was like hey sit right here on his little driving platform. Sweet ride. Gotta love the buses.

I love Ded. Adopted another gjyshi : i can't find the other bracket thing to make a smile...sorry from keyboards that are messed up...but he just makes me happy. 

Shkodër. Had an exchange in Shkodër. Fun thing about this place is that people are very Catholic. And they actually practice. Another fun thing. They have a huge church in the middle of town and everyone knows where it is and goes to it...next little road over...yep that's our church which is located in a little apartment building on the first floor. I felt just a little weird when we always met investigators at the big church and then walked over to ours. Nice meeting spot. Nice.

​​I still can't get a good photo of Tirana. I will keep trying. is it smog or humidity?