#43 Monday, May 5, 2014 (with pictures!)

What's going on everybody?!

This last week has been really good. The big cap-off was Saimir's baptism. He is awesome and we are really looking forward to him progressing. His life right now is kinda the pits and we know that he can find happiness and answers in the Gospel, he just needs to go and do now! He gave an awesome testimony after his baptism which was so great to hear.

So, some other new on the week. Florjan had a baptismal date set for the 3rd, however, he was not ready for that and we are still working with him to be ready to enter into the waters of baptism. He has been doing really good this last week and so we are hoping to see his testimony continue to develop and his desire for the Gospel increase.

We are working with some girls that are in our English Course. One of them, Pamela, was the one that initially showed interest in the Gospel. She has come to church the last 2 weeks as well as our branch activity in Apolonia this past Thursday. However, she has a hard time accepting all of God's will. She wants some answers to questions in her life that are really hard, and they are questions that can only be answered through personal revelation and prayer. Humility is an interesting concept. She has been humbled by some things in her life but there is still a portion of humility that she needs to develop. Ema and Eda are two twin sisters that are good friends with Pamela. We are still kind of getting a feel on their interest for the Gospel, but they have also come to church and seem really cool.

There is one other girl (I don't know if I will ever remember her name) as well. She is also a friend of these other three girls. She told us in English Course that her father is a priest in the Orthodox church. I was thinking that that would probably put a damper on things. However, she, during the spiritual thought at the end of English course will ask really good questions and seems super accepting of the answers that we give. On Wednesday we were sharing the scripture Moses 1:39 and she asked where we would be going after this life. We told her that we had an awesome answer to that, but it was a little bit long. We invited all that wanted to to stay after and learn about it. About 12 people stayed and we taught the Plan of Salvation. It was really cool, and she was totally accepting. She is also really good friends with a girl in the branch and so that is really cool. We will be giving her over to the sisters to teach, so hopefully that turns out well.

So the work here is going. New investigators are being found, progressing investigators are being baptized, and, though there can always be progression, we are definitely going in the right direction.

Qofte nje jave te mbare. I hope that you see the Lord's hand even more in your and others' lives this week.

Saimir's baptism:

A massive rip that I got in my pants while we were waiting for the bus to Apolonia:

(we ran home and were told by President Bott that we could wear jeans for the activity as it would be more active. It was pretty exciting wearing jeans with a white shirt and tie.)

Caves at Apolonia with Elder Baldwin in front of me. You can see his laser on the cave walls and a bat flying above.

Some of the ruins at Apolonia:

The plan was to go to Apolonia for a branch activity if it didn't rain on Thursday. The plan was to start at 9. At 7:30 it was raining so we decided to call it off, however there was rebuttal from the branch when it started to clear up at 8:15 or so, so we put it back on. We went out on a bus (there were 46 of us)

and when we got there for about 2 and a half hours we played some futboll, some monkey-in-the-middle-ish kinda game and explored some tunnels there, including having bats flying all around us which was crazy. Then it started to pour. We all got back on the bus and went back. It was really good though.


Love,
Elder Ostergaard