#96

Dear Family,

This past week I think was a great example of how the Lord generally works in our lives. It was going alright, but then, comeThursday, Friday, and Saturday, we didn't have much of anything going our way. However, as we continued knocking on doors, we were praying that the Lord would do His work in His time. On Sunday we were pleased to see 5 investigators in Sacrament (the most in quite a while). Sister Mimoza Pali (I don't know how much I have talked about her, but she is so wonderful, in 20 years or so when she is about 75, Shkoder has 2 stakes, and Albania has a mission, everyone is going to look back at her as being the momma of Shkodra. She is so wonderful and though maybe she really doesn't understand a ton about the Gospel yet -- she is a recent convert of only 9 months or so -- she's really doing wonderful things.) Gave a talk and taught the Sunday School lesson as well, and we were able to have a really good set of meetings.

The biggest thing, however, was after church. We sat down and talked to Tonini and Jona. They came in looking so good, cleaned up, and happy. We asked them how they had been doing on their commitments -- for Tonini to stop sports bets and Word of Wisdom stuff and for Jona to pray about if she should be baptized. Tonini said that he has been staying away from the betting, and though he has slipped on some word of wisdom stuff, he knows he needs to stuff now in order to be ready for his baptism on the 30th. He said with real conviction this time that he was going to stop. We are going to take him some hot chocolate this week so that he can do that instead of coffee. Jona, when we asked her (by the way, she finished reading the Book of Mormon early last week...crazy) if she had prayed for an answer told us that she indeed had, and that she feels like she needs to be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!!!!! It was so wonderful! She is willing to leave what has really been a lot of her life and change it, because it is right. She will be baptized with her father on the 30th! What an answer to our prayers.

We don't have a ton of time, so I am going to have to roll out of her, but I love you guys! One of the pictures is at a martyrs monument her in Shkoder and the other of us playing dominoes with some xhaxhis (old men).

Love,
Elder Ostergaard