I can't believe it's already September! Next September, I will be in my last few weeks of my mission! That may seem like a long time to you, but it's not. And everyone tells me that every transfer goes faster. So this is going to fly by! We have had a good week this week, and are really proud of the effort we put in. We may not have gotten a new investigator, but we know that if we continue to try our best, the Lord will help us find those who want to learn about His church.
On Wednesday, we had a lesson with our investigator, Zana. We started to teach the Plan of Salvation, but she couldn't understand us. Vera couldn't come to the lesson, so we were stuck. We shared a short scripture, and decided to come back again when Vera could help us.
After the lesson, we had a little more time before we needed to go home, so we decided to visit Mimika, a less active member. We have tried to visit her many times, but she is never home, and doesn't answer her phone. We tried to visit her, and of course, she didn't answer the door. As we were leaving, Sister Cheshire said that we could probably find her if we walked home. So instead of taking the bus, we decided to walk. We decided that the left side of the street was where we needed to walk. So we began out Mimika Hunt! After walking for about 15 minutes, we had had no luck. We looked everywhere, but didn't find her. We didn't lose hope though! And then, we saw her! She was walking straight towards us, on her way home! She was so excited and shocked to see us, and said that we could come see her tomorrow. So we set up an appointment right there.Our first time "Mimika Hunting" and we did pretty well:)
Thursday, we had Zone Training. It was really good. We talked about being obedient, and how we can always be better. We can go from just going through the motions, to putting everything we can into the work. We know what we need to do to be more obedient, and how we can be better missionaries.
Afterwards, we had an exchange! Sister Cheshire went to 4th ward with Sister White, and Sister Zollinger came with me to 1st ward. Sister Zollinger is in the last month of her mission, so it was cool to serve with her, since we are at completely opposite times of our mission. We headed straight to our lesson with Mimika. All I will say about that, is that is was a weird, scary lesson. We are going to try to visit again this week, and hopefully it will be a better lesson.
After that, we had english course, and then went to Zana's. We tried to teach the Plan of Salvation again, and it was great! Between Sister Zollinger and Vera, Zana understood the lesson a lot better. After the lesson, Sister Zollinger said that there was no reason that Zana couldn't understand us yesterday. She said that I spoke really well, and that Zana just wasn't listening very well. It was nice to hear that I'm not awful at Albanian!
Friday morning, we had a service project, cleaning up trash around the river that goes through town. A little later in the day, we ended our exchange. Sister Zollinger said that she was really impressed with me and how well I was doing. It was really great to hear that I was doing well! She said she wished that she would be here for another transfer, because she wished we could be companions. She was really fun to serve with, and I'm glad I got the opportunity! She is a great missionary, and helped me know what to work on with the language.
That night, we had a lesson with two of our recent converts.During the lesson, one of them wasn't feeling good, and all of a sudden, jumped up and went into the bathroom. We could hear here splashing water on her face. We didn't know what was wrong, but just continued on with the lesson. After a few minutes of her not coming out, we went to see if she was ok. She was sitting on the floor, and had tears in her eyes. Her stomach was hurting a lot, and she felt awful. Luckily, the Elders were at our center for a lesson too, and were able to give her a blessing. The other recent convert that was with us had never seen a blessing before (besides receiving the Holy Ghost). After the blessing, she was a lot happier than she had been before seeing the blessing. Even though the blessing wasn't for her, you could see how strongly the Spirit hit her. It was awesome to see! I think she needed to witness the blessing just as bad as the other recent convert needed the blessing.
Saturday, we did a lot of tracting! One girl opened the door and said she wasn't interest. So we asked if she knew of anyone who was. She then said that almost everyone in this building was Muslim and wouldn't be interested in our message. I wanted to say, "Don't worry it's not just this building-it's all of Albania!" We didn't have any lessons, but we were able to leave quite a bit of pass-along cards, so that was good! That afternoon, we had a lesson with Zana. When we walked out of their apartment building, the thought came to my mind to visit Anxhelina. Anxhelina is our recent convert, that hasn't been answering her phone for 2 weeks, or coming to church. We also don't know where she lives, just that she lives by Fresku (a restaurant just outside of Tirana). I turned and told Sister Cheshire that I think we need to try and visit her. As soon as I said it, we both got chills! We knew it was exactly what we need to do. So we jumped on a bus, and went to Fresku! Once we got there, we called Anxhelina, but she didn't answer. We then texted her to tell her we were in fresku, and asked if we could meet for 5 minutes. Then, we said a prayer that the Spirit would guide us to where we needed to go. We stood and waited to see if any thoughts would come. We got nothing. Absolutely nothing. We asked some people to see if they knew where Anxhelina lives, but none of them knew her. We walked around, and had no idea what to do. We found a quiet place and said another prayer. We decided to text one of the other sisters to know if she could tell us where Anxhelina lived, but couldn't call her because she is in Kosovo. They can call us, but we can't call them (I'm not sure why, but it has something to do with the phone companies). After that, we stopped to think. We were running out of time, but knew we were supposed to be in Fresku for some reason. So we decided to go tracting. We went to an apartment building, went to the 6th floor, and prayed. It didn't feel right, so we decided to pray again to know where to go (if you haven't noticed, missionaries pray a lot!). We then decided to go to the 4th floor. We knocked on a door, and 2 seconds later, the phone rang. It was Sister Peters! She said she didn't know exactly where she lived, but she described the entrance to the apartment building: red stone stairs that looked like they were floating, and a hallway with a security booth inside. That was it.. It was starting to get dark, and I was starting to doubt whether we would find it. We walked for about 5 minutes, as I asked Sister Peters questions, trying to figure it out. I looked to the left, just as we were passing red stone stairs that looked like they were floating, leading to a hallway with a security booth. I was so shocked! I ran inside, and basically ran up the 6+ flights of stairs to get to her apartment, holding back happy tears! We found her apartment!! We knocked, and knocked, and knocked...and she didn't answer. But we left pass-along cards at her door, and her neighbors, so hopefully, she will see one of them, and know that we tried. We know we tried our hardest this week to meet with her and help her come closer to Christ.
Ok last story I promise! So on Sunday during choir, this lady sat next to me, and told me that she didn't know the song, so I would have to sing really loud, so she could listen and figure it out. The song started, and I started singing, along with everyone else. After about 2 seconds of singing, the lady is basically on top of me, trying to hear me sing! I was basically singing in her ear so she could try to get our part. I could not stop laughing! After the song, she turned to her friend, and told her that I was really good! The next song came, and she did the same thing! Basically on top of me, listening to me sing. Then, the choir director asked all of the altos to come up and sing in front of everyone. The lady looks at me, and tells me that I have to stay with her. Then she grabs my hand, and drags me up there. Somehow, I ended up standing between her, who was on top of me, and Motra Kashari, who is crazy about choir/music, and basically runs the choir. So I am smushed between them, singing in one girls ear, while Motra Kashari is turned to us, trying to help the girl out. I was so squished, that I couldn't even use my own music, because there was no room for me to hold it up, with them and there music so close to me. I looked up to see all of the missionaries laughing at the situation. I was so embarrassed, and couldn't stop laughing at it at the same time. It was so weird! I'm just glad she stuck by me because she needed help, not because she was trying to help me...I really wish someone would have videoed it so I can prove just how weird the entire thing was...
But anyway, it was a great week! I hope you all have a great week! Thank you for your love, prayers, and support. I love and miss you all! And once again, I'm sorry about the length of this email:)
