Great Week!!! --- Sept. 30th

Hi Family!!

It has been a really great week this week. We stayed really busy and worked hard. We spent 2 days in a town called Lushnje and got some great lessons in with Motra Curtis. She is the sister here that her companion had to go home a few weeks ago... so she's been with us! She's so great! In Lushnje we got 2 new investigators and one with a baptism date that she can get started with on Wednesday when she finally gets her mini/Albanian companion!!! I'm really excited for her she is really great! We have enjoyed all working together. Along with being in Lushnje we have really tried to work hard here in Fier. We needed 44 in church on Sunday to get an overall average of 40, our goal, for the month of Sept. We got 45!! We have been committing the members to stay for all 3 hours and a lot of them stayed so that is good! Yesterday's church in Fier was so good! It felt orderly and controlled. The spirit was definitely present and the members also could feel and noticed the difference. We are all working together to make Fier grow and continue to improve. I'm really excited about it. 

We have a wonderful family that we are teaching. They are actually our neighbors! The daughter, Bella, is progressing really well and really loves the church. She is jumping right in with everything and wants to be apart of it! It's exciting. She even came dressed in a skirt to a missionary, street contacting, activity we had with the girls on Friday. One day we went to her home for a lesson. When she answered the door she said she was just reading the Book of Mormon. As we went into her house she had her Book of Mormon, the Book of Mormon study guide/Seminary book and a little notepad that she had been writing in. She said she was reading and a verse really caught her attention and made her think so she started to write about it. She's awesome! Perhaps what we say..."Golden". She is planning and excited to be baptised on the 12th of October!

Her mother, Lumturi, also has been studying and taking the lessons with us, but is progressing a little slower. Their father, also, just got home for a couple months from Greece and he is very nice. He really likes us! Their son ,Doni, has been in a few lessons also and is very smart and interested (whether he would admit that or not). He always reads the scriptures in lessons with such deep thought and interest. It's so great! I'm excited about them and I hope we can get them all to be baptized before the end of the transfer. They are the ones that own a little dyqan or store at the bottom of our building. Last night we went there just to say hi/goodnight as we were going home and the Mom and Dad were there with a lady that lives near. They said such great things about us to her and so I asked the Lady if she would like to meet with us. She quickly said, "yes!" and gave me her number. She was with her son. So hopefully we get to meet them too!!

We also have been working with the Father of the Kallashi Family. The wife, son, and daughter have just been baptized and so now we are working with the dad. He prayed for the first time in his whole life this week and we all kneeled for it! It was Amazing!! We always ask him to pray and he always says no even after trying to teach him more about it and koks him into it, but this time we just all kneeled and closed our eyes and just expected him to do it and he did! It was so beautiful! I had a huge smile on my face! He accepted a baptism date for October that same lesson and we are all excited for him... especially his family! I love working with families and I hope we can only continue to find more and more as time goes on. 

I love you all! I have the best family in the world! I love being a missionary and I'm so happy! It's incredible to help and witness the change of lives! Miracles! I hope I will never loose the special spirit that I'm blessed to feel everyday! It's so strong and so happy!

Our driving adventures are going good. We have a nice little car and we are now learned with the ways of driving, let alone with feeling more comfortable driving after not for over a year! Albanians kinda drive crazy... okay really crazy. It's like un-organized/organized madness... but somehow everyone gets where they need to go and it works so... we'll just keep going with it. It's kinda fun really. Definitely always an Adventure!

I'm really excited for Conference this weekend. This time Albanians all over will be able to watch and listen to it live!! So I will watch it with them in Albanian. I'm so excited. The work is moving!! 

Rrugë te mbarë!

Kalofshit një javë të bukur! 

Motra Huvër :)

The crazy pipe and wire system here... sometimes it get's quite creative!

A wonderful lady that is a less-active or what we call now "returning member" we are working with her. She takes care of her in-laws...

... The grandpa (Gjyshi) is 100 years old!! and a crack-up! He always yells loud as he talks and his voice goes up with every sentence. The Grandma (Gjysha) is more sick and just reaches out so she can hold our hands while we are there. We always say goodbye to them as we leave and we always begin and end laughing. They are so great! Albanians are amazing in the way they love and respect the older generations. They love them so much and give their lives up for taking care of them. It's incredible.

After Church yesterday. We ate at a members home and took a pic at their gate. All the private homes here have grape vines everywhere and they are all in season now. I love them! So good! Lots of visits the family will go out and pick some fresh grapes to give us! mmm...

This is Fier outside of our Apartment that is on the top floor (10th floor) of our apartment building. It's a pretty little city! and it's been really rainy today... welcome to the rainy season again..:/

Today for P-day we traveled to Vlore and waked out to a monistary that is on a little island. You have to walk on a little bridge all the way out there. It was really fun!

The gate to get on the bridge. The sign says "Fishing is not allowed"

The monistary

Motra Wendt and I took a pic in a cool Olive Tree there.

Back to cross the bridge. It was REALLY windy!

On our drive back to the city we were stopped by a herd of sheep in the road... the Shepard eventually helped us pass them. :)

After the monistary we headed back to the city in Vlore and played soccer/futbol on the beach!

It was SO fun! I loved it! Oh i loved it! Right by the sea!  

We made tin-foil dinners on the beach. It took some time to get the fire going because of the wind and it didn't last too long, but the food cooked and it was fun!