6-14-2010

" This week, like the past few weeks, has flown by. It doesn't feel like its been a week and it's crazy to think that June is half way over. Where does the time go? The weather has been ridiculously hot here. I dont know if im just not use to it after the long cold rainy winter i had here or if it's because of the humidity that kicks my butt. They say in July and August it becomes even hotter. I will try to remember and use sun screen. I don't have any big stories for you this week. We had zone conference which went really well. There were a lot of good trainings and the mission as a whole has been struggling with new investigators so we talked a lot about new ways to contact people and get numbers. We will see in a few week what the results are. We found 1 kid this week called Destan and he is quiet the character. He is about 22 and comes from a Muslim family but he doesn't like it so he wants to learn about our church. I'm afraid he wants to talk with Americans more than learn about the church. He loves to talk and it's hard to keep him on topic. Actually that's the problem with all Albanians. You can't start a lesson until about 45 minutes of small talk. Destan is from down south and he i a boxer. I know he is a boxer because he mentions it about 10 times during each lesson, lol. And then he gets up and tries to show us moves and tries to arm wrestle in the middle of the lesson,lol. I wish i didnt have a bad shoulder so i could arm wrestle him but with my bad shoulder there is no way i could do it. So my French companion does it but unfortunately loses =(... Agron and Reni are still moving along towards baptism. Reni has a date from a month from today so we will keep praying for him and helping him through any concerns he has.... So i promised to tell you about that mosque picture last week. So the area im in is really hard to tract because it's so far from the church we cant just go tract for 1 hour before lessons or go tract in between lessons so we have to set entire mornings or nights apart for it. So one morning we had 4 hours to just go tract and we were knocking doors for about 2 hours and in that time there were about 15 doors that gave us the same story and excuse. Do you want to know what that excuse was?... So we begin a door approach with our little spill at the door with how are you? How have you been? It's a beautiful day today?.. you know just to break the ice.. then we introduce ourselves and usually tell them about the Book of Mormon or about prophets or one of a dozen other approaches we might take. And just about every door that opened looked at us with a blank look on their face and then would say...... "but there is a mosque right here." So after about 2 hours of hearing this i walked around a few buildings and low and behold there it was, the mosque!! And here i thought they were being ridiculous when in reality i guess we were the ones being ridiculous trying to share a message when this mosque was here in front of our eyes the whole time. So do you want to know why over 100 doors wouldn't listen to our message?? It was because a mosque was outside,lol. It was funny because we asked people if they went to the mosque and they would say "oh no we aren't Muslims" and then shut the door in our face, lol. I was beyond frustrated while tracting but that night i couldn't help but laugh at the situation and all the trouble this one mosque was causing us. So that picture of the Mosque is the famous one that is keeping people from talking to us. Im fearing it but we still have about 10 more big buildings to tract over there but i'm going with faith knowing that there is at least one person there that is in need and ready to hear our message. The mission president of Europe once asked the missionaries here how many people they thought were ready to here the gospel and many of the gunhow missionaries said every person will be baptized one day. But this more experienced President quickly brought down their hopes and said im sorry Elders and sisters but probably less than 1% is ready for this message....The Lord has prepared and continues to prepare people for the gospel there is no doubt about that, but it's up us to put in the work and find them. There has been and will continue to be great times of discouragement but if that's what it takes i'm happy to do it."