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| Forgetting Sunscreen Motra Z?? |
Hello Hello!! :)
Wow. What a week. The weeks here just keep getting
more and more exciting, it is amazing!! I absolutely love being a missionary
more than anything else in the entire world. Honestly, it is miraculous.
Good luck Poopers and Parker with starting school! That
is crazy sauce, but I hope that it all goes super super well! Stay strong. Work
hard. and don't procrastinate because it only brings you sorrow. You really
should try and fix it, but you could do it tomorrow. ;) honestly though, don't
procrastinate. I am a living witness of that. Go get 'em! :)
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| Poor Elder Stuart forgot tennis shoes |
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| Service project clearing for futbal field |
This week all of the Tirana missionaries got together
with the Shkoder missionaries and did a major service project! We went to the
near by orphanage and we were working in their back yard, starting to build a soccer
field for them. That day we were just taking out tree trunks and cement borders
and the good old dirty stuff. It was so much fun! I miss getting all sweaty and
dirty working in gardens. It was a stinkin' blast! Everyone got some pretty
good blisters from that day. It was totally worth it. It was exhausting though,
we were up there all day. It was so much fun though!
Sister White and I have started to have super intense
chess matches during our lunch hour or after nightly planning. It is a lot of
fun though, because neither of us are really good at chess-but we pretend we
are. haha. and yes, we are keeping score. It is tied 2-2. hahahaha.
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| Missonary selfies are the best... |
This past week we found some spaghetti squash!!! So we
baked it!!! It was so good!! It didn't taste how I remember it tasting, but
maybe that is because I don't have my couple tablespoons of Costco butter to
put in it. But it was still super super good. Afterwards we baked the seeds as
well. It was a ton of fun. It smelled like fall. We loved it!
We have started visited a widow in our ward. She is so
stinkin' adorable, I can't even handle it!! :) She is the sweetest thing, she
can't hear really well though. So we are practically yelling at her so that she
can understand us, and she just laughs and smiles because she still can't
understand/hear us all the way. During the prayers she has to peek so that she
knows when we say Amen, and she just giggles when we say amen. She is stinkin'
adorable!! I am pretty sure that cute widows/widowers in wards are the meat of
the ward families. I love this girl so much!
It was cooler this week. Like a lot. I didn't sweat as
much, which was really nice. hehe. The weather is finally starting to cool
down! The leaves have already started to fall. So, I walk down the streets like
a 5 year old as I am jumping on all the leaves that I can to get them to make
that wonderful "crunch" noise. It is so much fun!
American football. I don't think that Albanians have
ever heard of that sport nor seen the football. It was hilarious, because the
Elders had brought that with us to play the real manly sport of soccer. But on
the walk home, Sister White and I stole the football and started throwing it to
each other. It was really funny to see all the facial expressions of everyone
around us. I guess they haven't seen one of those before. hehe.
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| Motra White and Motra Zollinger |
Yesterday we had another member visit, and I was able
to visit the real Linda Inftiu!! :) I was so excited!! I had met her already a
couple of times at church but I was able to go to her house! I told
"her" in the MTC, as her daughter pretended to be her and we
practiced our albanian and our teaching. I was so happy when we left her house
last night! She is amazing! and while we were there, her daughter, Sister Iftiu
who was one of my MTC teachers skyped her and I was able to say hi to her! It
was super cool! :)
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| Missionaries trying to get the frisbee... |
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| Still being obedient |
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| Coastal View of Durres |
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| Coastal View of Durres |
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| Another view of the coast Durres |
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| Missionaries Pday Activity at Skenderbeu's castle |
This past week I became obsessed with the scripture
Alma 37:6. It has taken on a whole new meaning for me, especially as we have
done that for a lesson with all of our recent converts and active member
lessons. It has been so good!! We are so lucky that we have the Book of Mormon,
because in verse 6, we can learn how God works. We can learn His pattern to
answering our questions, and how our personal revelation will come. God
gave us the answer and what His answer will look like. He literally put the
answer in our hands. It is by small and simple things that God works. Every
thing in this Gospel, is line upon line and precept upon precept. Because it is
avash avash we can grow so strongly in our faith and our patience and our
character as we are preparing ourselves and working so that we can receive
answers. Joseph Smith is a perfect example. He had a question to learn of the
truth, and so he studied and prayed. Then eventually he went to the grove to
ask God which church to join. That answer that he got has changed history, and
God knew the impact that that answer would have, and so God instructed Joseph
Smith line upon line, avash avash. Joseph didn't have the first vision and then
that next day find the golden plates, and get the priesthood, and then fully
restore the church. That would have been absurd if it happened like that! God
doesn't work like that (not saying that God couldn't have done that, but God
worked how it explains in verse 6). First, Joseph had the first vision. Then a
couple years later as directed by Angel Moroni he recovered the Golden plates.
He received the priesthood. After some time the whole church was restored. But
it didn't happen over night. It was a year span before everything was restored
that needed to be restored. It is just like a sunrise. It isn't dark one second
and the next BAM! light. There's no beauty in that, and there's no learning in
that. We can't be grateful for the light if we don't know what it's like to be
in the dark. This past week I have been thinking a lot about my mission thus
far and I am just amazed at this same principle. All throughout my life God has
been working with me in small and simple things so that I could be here in
Albania at this time interacting with the people that I am. When I first got in
the MTC and I heard people speak Albanian it sounded like complete and utter
gibberish. But i took it one day at a time, and it was small grammar principles
added upon other principles and I was able to speak a little more. And now,
almost 16 months later, I am able to talk to people and converse with people
and they can understand me! This most certainly did not happen overnight. But I
am so grateful that it didn't. Because if it had been easy to learn this
language, then I wouldn't have been able to grow as much as I have. I wouldn't
have the testimony that I do now about how God keeps His promises and how He
helps us in everything. I am so grateful that God works by small and simple
things, that He tries us with our patience. I also know that once we are
familiar with how God works and how He will answer us, that our lives will
change! We will know even stronger that God in fact does love us and cares for
us. That even when we think that we are not getting any answer, that we will
realize that we have already started to get some answers. I know that it is
true! God loves us, so much!
Have a wonderful week! Smile lots serve lots and
treasure trials!!! :)
Love,
Motra Zollinger
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