Hello Hello! :)
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| Missionaries headed to Valbona, Albania for a pday activity! |
First off, I wanted to thank everyone who wrote me a
cute note in my valentine's package. I absolutely loved all the letters and the
drawings from the kiddos as well. Thank you so much for that! It absolutely
made my day!!
Wow. What a week it has been. It has been a crazy busy
week, but none the less an amazing and fun week! One nice relaxing highlight of
the week is that we are taking a break from our english class hoping that it
will sift out the ones who don't want to learn...which means no more battles
with the younger boys. Which is a major relief. *phew*.
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| move over missionaries, sheep need to get to Valbona |
We had an awesome district meeting on Tuesday. We were
practicing role playing, and Elders Jorgenson and Temple gave the best role
play ever on the Word of Wisdom. They did it like a pre-game pep up talk. It
was hilarious and so much fun to watch. haha. :)
We sorta accidentally took an unplanned vacation this
week. So, we had sister's conference down in Tirana, we were going to drive
down Thursday so we wouldn't have to do the early drive down on Friday. So, we
went to Gjakova Wednesday night to sleep over at the STL's house so that we
could just drive down with them in the morning. Literally as we were about the
leave they got a call that said to not leave until Friday morning. So...we
didn't know what to do. I ended up going with sister Boettinger to Peja for the
day. That was a lot of fun. It started snowing there though, which was
absolutely freezing....but Peja is such a gorgeous place.
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| Sister Conference in Tirana, such a photogenic Zollinger :-/ |
Sisters Conference. It was absolutely amazing!!! I
know that I was so incredibly excited to see Sister Russell!!! When I saw her,
I just screamed and started to jump up and down and then I ran to her. I love
that lady so much! It was so good to see the other sisters as well. I just love
them all so much!! Sister's Conference was so good! We watched a cool video
called "The Invisibile Women" we talked a lot about our special
gifts/talents that we have and how we can really help others and build them up
with our talents and vise versa. It was super good! The only down part of
sisters conference was the end... it was so bittersweet. All the missionaries
that are going home in about a week shared their testimonies. I was doing
absolutely fine, until Sister Russell walked up to bare her testimony. Then I
just started bawling. That is one thing that I have learned, how badly I hate
saying goodbye. It is the hardest thing ever.
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| Sister Conference Pictures |
On the way back from the Sisters Conference (which is
in Tirana), we stopped and got some yummy food at Time-out, they have such
yummy suflaqes!! Well, I had a suflaqe and some fries right as we started
leaving. I knew I was gonna probably get car sick...but i didn't know it was
gonna be that bad. With the skill of Sister Davis we were able to get back to
Gjakova in an incredible shorter amount of time, but that also made me more car
sick. so note to self, don't eat right before big car trips. It ain't
fun.
The suflaqe that I ate, my body didn't like that too
much. My stomach just felt *meh*. If ya know what I mean. But I wanted to get
this *meh* feeling to go away. (this meh feeling was a sick stomach ache
feeling, but a bloating and it just felt super full kind of meh feeling). We
didn't have any pepto bismol in the house to help with it, but there were some
Fiber digestive biscuits across the street at the store. They worked for Moter
one time, so I thought I'd try. It was desperate measures so I ate the entire
box (that really was the only thing I ate that day too, 12 biscuits)... well it
didn't work. It just gave me a bad stomach ache and stuff. So note to ya'll out
there, don't try other stuff....just do pepto.
I made it a goal at the beginning of this transfer, to
do a musical number for sacrament meeting. So, I did one yesterday. My hands
weren't even shaking that bad. It went well. It was really funny though,
because half way through a little boy in our branch (he can be a little stinker
some times), he walked up to the piano and started hitting some keys, so one of
the elders grabbed him from the piano. But as they grabbed him, this little boy
turned the volume off on the piano. I just started giggling...that sneaky boy!!
It was funny. It was sorta fun to do a musical number, it went well.
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| The trip to pday activity. |
Today we had quite the p-day adventure!! We went to
Valbona. Valbona is a national park that is just outside of Kosovo in Albania.
We woke up at 4:30 this morning so that we would be able to get there and back
in time. We went with the Peja and Gjakova missionaries as well. The drive
there was fun, it is absolutely gorgeous! But, there was snow. We didn't think
there'd be snow, but there was. The snow was super super high!! So, us being
the mature 19-21 years olds that we are, we all went and played in the snow for
about an hour and a half two hours. No, none of us had on boots or thick coats
or anything. But, it was totally worth it. We just walked through the snow and
had snow ball fights. One of the elders who went to college to play baseball
nailed me in the thigh three times with a snow ice ball. haha. it stung bad. but
it was a lot of fun! hahahah. Unfortunately, I think all of the Kosovo
missionaries are probably going to be sick later on this week, but it was
totally worth it. :) By far the funnest p-day that I have had in Kosovo.
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| Valbona had snow and the missionaries were not prepared.. |
It is crazy how quickly time goes on a mission. This
is the last week of this transfer. On Sunday President Weidmann will be calling
and letting me know where I am transfering (I am pretty sure that I won't be in
Prishtina another transfer, because I have been here 6 months...). With the end
of a transfer coming up, I have reflected a lot on the past 3 months and the
things that I have learned and what I have done and everything. I thought a lot
this week about a scripture that I read earlier last week. It is in Job chapter
23 verse 10. It says "For He knoweth the way that I take, when He hath
tried me I shall come forth as gold." I absolutely love the beginning of
this verse, because it says that God knoweth. That is something that I have
defnitely learned this past transfer, that God knows what He is doing. Like,
honestly. He really really knows what He is doing. He knows what He is putting
in our life, what He is wanting us to over come and to do, etc. But He knows
what He needs and wants us to become. God is like a mirror maker (yes, it probably
has a real term for that, but I don't know what it is). So, picture it like
this: God has a rough piece of glass and some silver, and that is us. God knows
that He has the materials that He needs to make it a beautiful mirror, He knows
exactly what we can become and how He needs to do it. So, God starts to
sharpen the materials, He shines them, cuts them, breaks them, thins them, etc;
basically meaning that he tries the materials, when the materials are put under
light their spots or their weaknesses are amplified and He knows what he needs
to fine-touch on more. So He does what He needs to do to make the mirror the
beautiful, unique mirror that He knows it can become. When all is said and
done; when all the materials have been fixed to how they need to be (which all
along was to the potential that they had), when God holds up the mirror, He
sees His reflection. This is the exact same thing for us. We are all these
materials that make a mirror. As we go through our own personal Gethsemanes, or
refiner's fires, we are getting thinned or cut or sharpened or we are getting
closer to the potential that we do have. The closer we come to God and Christ;
the more we know them. The more light from knowing them shines on our weakspots
and we then know what it is that we need to fix. When all is said and done,
when He hath tried us...we will come forth as gold. God will be able to see
Himself in us, Christ will be able to see Himself in us. That is what gold is,
it is celestial glory. God knows our potential. We need to trust Him, because
He knows who we need to become and how we need to become who we need to become.
Whenever hard times come, there are glorious moments because they have the
potential of being some of our most sacred and celestial experiences while in
mortality. Treasure your trials. I have come to know my Savoir Jesus Christ on
my mission; and the ways that I have gotten to know Him weren't easy, BUT those
trials that I did have are now sacred. They are sacred because they helped me
come closer to my Savoir. There is only way to make it through life with a
smile on and gratitutde in our hearts and that is by relying on God. Trust God.
Have faith. Everything will work out for our good, but we need to have faith to
be able to see or else we'll just be looking.
Have a wonderful week!!! Smile lots serve lots and
treasure trials. I love you all!! :)
Love,
Motra Zollinger
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