38th Pday Email from Albania!

Dear Precious Gems,

I just want to testify right off saying that as a mouthpiece for our Lord and Savior, He loves you. I feel it with every fiber of my being. He loves you and is always thinking about you and is aware of you in all you face.

This week was just full of peace for me. In so many ways than one. That the work that we put forth every single day to do all we can to follow the Savior and bring others on the journey towards their Savior is not our work. It is the Work of The Lord. Through the spirit I have seriously learned that. Which then followed the feeling of peace. Our Savior is fully aware of us. I can't fully express this, but I am gaining a deeper witness of it everyday as I teach others through the spirit of the great gift that has been made for each person on this earth that has lived, lives today, and will live from Jesus Christ.

It is the great Atonement! I describe it our investigators as an analogy:

Imagine a gift that is wrapped up all beautiful with a bow and all and imagine the Savior talking with you and asks for your name. You tell him it and he looks at his list. He smiles and sees your name. He then hands it to you and expresses how long he has waited to give this gift to you. Because he has paid the price for this precious gift specifically to you and your needs. That gift is the gift of the Atonement.

As I express this analogy to the people we teach, I clarify that the gift was made for them and no one else. No one person's Atonement is the same. When he paid the price for your gift, he did it one person at a time. It is the same with how he works with us. It is done one on one.

A goal I have made for this transfer is to learn more about the Atonement and all that Christ has done for me and the people we teach every single day.

So an amazing miracle happen this week. One of our sweet investigators got baptized this week! The best part, her whole family came to her baptism. Man! If I could even express the testimony she gave as if you were there, it could not be done. All I can say is that as she went up there she talked to us before hand and even told Sister O and I, that she had no idea as to what to say. We just simply told her to share what she knows about the savior. Well, she went up there and after a minute into her talking the spirit that filled the room was like you got hit by a brick wall. Her testimony bore witness to me of many things.

First, that simple testimony is SUPER POWERFUL!

Second, age doesn't matter to measure your spiritual growth.

Third, that each person has spiritual gifts that are needed on the earth at times set by our Heavenly Father.

And forth, that she has a HUGE role to play in the coming of our Lord and Savior for the generation that will one day meet him!

As missionaries, we discussed this afterward and it was something we all felt. She is seriously one of the great elect that we were supposed to find. I know that she was sent to her family to lead them to their Lord and Savior. I know fully well that Satan is aware of her and he will send all that he can her way to tear her down. But from this knowledge I have gained peace knowing that the Lord is aware of her and will be watching over her.

A cool story we had with another investigator this week was: we were going to her house and saw that we had unexpectedly missed her call and so we tried to call her but she didn't answer, so we hurried over and got to her house. She answered the door and we came on inside right away and asked her if everything was okay. After we sat down, she then said that she was having a bad day. We asked her why and she just said she was just upset at life in general and didn't even go to work for that long because she just couldn't deal with life that day.

We apologized to her that we missed her call from before and asked if there was any reason in specific. She then told us simply, "Oh it was nothing. I just was feeling really upset and decided to read in the Book of Mormon and after awhile was just wanting your guys to come over right away so I could feel better."

That really touched my heart. She is gaining her own conversion because she recognizes the difference and the impact it is making in her life.

Another amazing experience was with Mission Conference this week. During the Question and Answer Session of the Conference I really began to understand my Savior more than I have ever before. Like something new clicked. Our Lord and Savior is EVERYTHING! He is the one who told our Father in Heaven, to send him to suffer the pains of this world. He is the one that created this world and all that is on it. He is the love and light of the world.

HE IS EVERYTHING! I then wondered how does he then become our everything in our lives and is our center? BY MAKING HIM OUR EVERYTHING!!!

I know that the Lord has given us the tools to make him our everything as we follow the commandments of God. And by follow, I mean ALL of them. Reading about him, praying in his name, and partaking of his atonement through the sacrament each time, are the foundation to having him become our everything.

I love my Savior and the peace that he gives me every single day as the world becomes more dark and becoming more a world of lies and a world of Satan. I know without a doubt that we are where we are called to shine the Light of Christ to all those that come into our path to have their become their EVERYTHING!!

Motra Bezas

A rainy day...