Hello All, Our ward in Vlore is huge. There are 254 members, but only about 90 of them are active. It's actually a ward and not a branch here. There are 6 wards in Albania and I'm in one of them. The rest are branches. Tuesday was a really great day. We have an investigator who refuses to pray. We’ve tried to teach her that it’s not hard, and we’ve taught her how important it is. Even her best friend, who is taking the lessons from the elders, told her to pray. We’ve asked the elders for suggestions about how we can help her to pray, or what we can do to help her understand the importance of prayer. So, we brought her friend (the elder’s investigator) to her house today, because they live across the street from each other. The lesson didn’t go according to plan. We felt like we were led by the Spirit, and we ended up just teaching out of the scriptures. Then we asked if we could say a prayer, and she answered “Can I do it?” We both answered, Yyyeeeessssssss!! We have stake conference coming up and the Stake President gave us fliers and asked us to pass them out to all the ward members. Which was kind of a blessing because then I could meet all the ward members and know where they live. We spent 2/12 hours today contacting and going to each member’s house. We visited with a girl we haven’t seen for a long time and had a lesson with her. Then we visited another humble family and gave them a lesson. They are very, very poor. They can’t afford to put their kids through school. There are two girls that have become good friends with our investigator in our English class. They have become respectful of the church they go together to institute activities every weekend. I hope they come to her baptism. She is planning to be baptized at the end of the month. Last Sunday the Relief Society president took us out of class at church and gave us a name and told us her have to contact her right now. She said she is interested in English classes and religion. Now we have two new investigators, and two less actives we are teaching. We were bursting with excitement! We got to go to all of the conferences this week and they were super good. We spent 3 days in Durres. I loved seeing all the members. I got to see all of my favorite people. All of the members from Albania and Kosovo were in the same place at the same time. I loved it so much. I was so glad that I had a camera, I got the package you sent...we already ate all the food. We are going to try and make root beer with yeast, it’s just not possible to get dry ice in this country. I’m just not patient enough to wait 4 days for it. I love you all to Gallifrey and back!! Love, Motra Xhohansën | |