36th Pday Email from Albania!

Dear Loved Ones,

As I begin to write this to you, I feel an overwhelming sense of joy, love, and excitement for this work. I love missionary work! I seriously have been blessed tremendously that I cannot even begin to express the miracles I have experienced this week.

The first thing I want to express my witness of how the Lord works in His own timing and that we need to do all that we can to rely on him. Meaning having full faith and trust in Jesus Christ. This week we were blessed with seven new children of God who have desires of coming unto Christ and gaining a deeper relationship with Him.

Two I want to talk about are from a young man. He has been coming to church now for a long time. Recently though we had come to find out that his sister who had been coming to church was not a member and that she and her mom wanted to take the lessons.

Can I just say that this family is just AMAZING! They have dates for the 25th and I seriously am so grateful for their sweet spirits. They are gifts to this world and I am so privileged to know them. The girl has such a sweet testimony. I just almost cry every time we go to teach them. The most amazing thing about them is they both came to church!!! The joy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I am seeing is giving greater happiness to this family and will one day go to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity.

Another we met was on the street at a fruit stand. Let me tell you up front that this girl was seriously just amazing. She has so much knowledge for the bible it was crazy. She kept referencing sections and asking questions as the meaning and what we believe for our church.

I remember we kept inviting her to meet us again and she kept just ignoring it and would ask another question. Well, time goes by (like 2 days) we go street contacting and we bump into her. I knew right then that God needed us to keep talking and inviting her to learn more about his church. She asked if we found a reference to a question she had the day before and that is when I asked her if we could meet the next day for us to explain.

Well, she actually agreed. I was not in that town though the day Sister O and Sister C met with her because I was in another area for an exchange. Well, long story short, from what I heard, we came to the conclusion she is just not satisfied with her religion. She is thirsty for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in her life. I know the Lord kept putting us in her path because He knew she was a little harder to open up to. But I know that as she learns more, her heart will open and began to expand with a greater love than she has now.

An amazing story that happened was with an active member. We taught her about gratitude but after we closed the lesson I looked at her and just felt I needed to ask her who were all the members in her family that were baptized. When I asked her, she told me her siblings were but her parents weren't interested.

The weirdest thing happened next. I just remembered the spirit working through me testifying to her that one day they will be baptized and will go together as a family to the temple because of their examples of standing for the standards of the church. Her parents will recognize the change even more in their lives. I could see that in her eyes, something really hit her about what I said and I knew that what I testified was true and would come true, if they did their part.

My exchange with Sister J was one of the biggest lessons I learned this week. There was so many small little lessons I learned with in this exchange but one of the biggest things I learned was you seriously CANNOT WORK WITHOUT THE SPIRIT AND SOME SERIOUS PRAYER! This is the Lord's work. An example with this was with our last lesson of the day. The lady was having LOADS of trials and I mean loads of them!

But I just remember that we were talking about Prophets and testifying of them, she kept looking like something else was going on in her eyes. Later in the lesson she looked at me and said, "your words have sunk deep into my heart." This honestly was not expected and later Sister Jackson and I were heading back to the home, she pointed out that the spirit was seriously teaching that lesson because there was something else she was learning inside and it wasn't prophets.

AHHH! I just love missionary work.

This week I had a unique experience... I turned 20. This was a time it really gave me the opportunity to look back over the past year and see the changes I have made and the spiritual growth I have gained from my Father in Heaven. I honestly can say that the person I am today is not the person I was a year ago. I mean it is me still, but with a deep witness about who I am and my importance in the Lord's work.

It really hit me finally. A spark. A spark for missionary work. A spark of life. A spark of a new day to serve the Lord with all my heart. I beginning to understand that no single missionary is perfect, but the work of the Lord is WITH the spirit. He loves us and as we teach testify testify teach, we grow a deeper knowledge of the work we are embarked on. I know God lives and that He loves us.

Remember that we matter to him even with all our imperfections!

Motra Bezas

Motra Bezas got to see her previous mission companion

when Sister C's traveling choir came to Motra B's area!