baptized!

Our friend J* got baptized! We met him about 6 weeks ago. He speaks perfect english and we had the opportunity to bring him unto the fold of the Lord! I will send some pictures next week!

If you want to know what I did this week.

• We found Besnik's house and was able to talk to him and his family a little bit.
• We went to our homie, Kadri's house!
• Found a cool guy tracting who actually knows something about the Bible and we had a cool lesson from that!
• The baptisms! 
• I gave a talk at Church

Spiritual Thought:
We had a really good last lesson with our friend J* yesterday. He told us how he felt when he was baptized and how he felt the Spirit really strong and that he felt really happy! That whole lesson was just full of the Spirit! I felt so happy just knowing he was happy! I know that the Lord lives and loves us! He is always there with his hands outstretched ready to help us!

Meetings.. Meetings... Meetings!

There are so many street dogs here! We love them! We started to name them! haha

This week we had stacks and stacks and stacks of meetings!
-Zone training, Fier, Friday
-Stake Priesthood session, Tirane, Saturday.
-Adult session, watched it from Elbasan, Saturday.
-Stake conference, Durrës, Sunday.

It is absolutely amazing how many members of the church we have here in Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia! I am so grateful for all the people here!!

Spiritual Thought:
We have this one new friend who's name is Orlando, he is super cool! He stopped us before we were going into our apartment and told us how he wanted to meet! We met him the next day and it was super cool! he loves to pray! and he loved how the first vision began with a prayer!

I am so grateful for the opportunity that we have to be able to talk to our Father in Heaven and be able to ask the person who knows everything any question we have! I know that Christ lives and through prayer we can know all things!

I love you all! thanks for the letters!
Love Elder Michael Uestën

Clean the church

This week we had Zone Conference, we went to Tirana and it was great! Got to see a lot of my homies from the MTC!

I went on an exchange in Fier! We were going to Fier, accidentally took a couple of wrong turns and we knew we wouldn't get back in time, so we stayed in Lushnje for the night, slept on the couches there and got to see the Lushnje Elders. After we left and went back to Fier, and had a couple lessons there. Ate some classic Fier pizza! Had a lot of fun there.

We had a good activity where we cleaned the church and moved all the books and stuff for 3 hours which was a lot of fun!

To end it off we had 52 people in church!!

Spiritual though:
God sent us here so we could gain experience and so that we could learn and improve. We will never improve and learn, the way the Lord wants us to, if we are always in our comfort zone. Trials are hard, but when we overcome them we are stronger! I know that Christ is here to help us in our trials.


I love you all!
Elder Michael Ueston

Pedro the Watermelon

This week I got my new companion, Elder Mero, he is from Calgary Canada. Elder Eddings went back to America! This P-day we played this card game called Bang with the sisters and our friend Joe!

Pretty normal week. We bought a watermelon and drew a face onto it and called it Pedro! No worries, I well send you a picture. We have a cool new friend Joe! He knows English and he has meet the missionaries before! He's a super cool guy! We got a new missionary couple this week. Just have been doing normal missionary!

Spiritual thought:
In the pre-mortal life we volunteered for trials, that we have now, because God knew that we could take it. Don't ever think that God would give you a trial you can't overcome. If you are in the midst of a trial and don't think you can make it, remember that God gave you that trial because he knows that you can take it. I know that God loves us, and that though trials we are strengthened to reach our potential.


Love you all!!
Love Elder Michael Uestën

A watermelon named Pedro :)

This is a picture of a couple people in the branch, here in Elbasan

"I'm a specialist"

After weeks of searching and searching, we finally found V*'s house (aka Waldo shirt guy.) We found Waldo!! #Blessed We drew a map and made V* show us where he lived exactly!

We went to a lady to get my watch fixed, because I couldn't get the back-part of my watch back on. She tried but couldn't. She got the back-part and just started hitting it with a hammer! Then looks up at us and said "I'm a Specialist" She got it back on, she definitely was a specialist!!

We had a great baptism with A*. Right after, we had a fireside with the branch and it went really well. This is the last week I will be with companion before he goes to America!! Shumë Çaj! I am glad he was able to baptize A* before he left!

I will be in Elbasan for the next 6 weeks, with a Canadian, Elder Mero! That will be 24 weeks here in Elbasan. It's good that I love Elbasan! !

This P-day we made waffles with the sisters and we played the game called Bang and also a game similar to Skum, Mulan. It was a good last P-day for my dead companion..


Spiritual Thought:
The ultimate way that we can know that God loves us is through His Son's Atonement. Though His Atonement we should never have to feel alone. Christ suffered the justice of God that we can receive mercy though Him. I know that God loves us all. He sent his Son to die for us and we are blessed to know that though him we are never alone!

I love you all!

Love Elder Michael Ueston

Some sweet statutes in Korçe!

K* baptism

Selfie with random statutes. 

A* baptism

A pizza

Funny story: I met this one guy who started speaking to me in English. He said he learned all his English from movies and listening to Eminem songs!! Killed it. 

Our friend Arjan will be getting baptized on the 13th and he has a super cool story:

This member felt a prompting to buy a pizza and to give it to someone. She didn't know who. She went walking around and found this really old guy (Arjan's dad) and talked to him and gave him the pizza. That next week he came to Church. We talked to him and went to his house the following week (he lives about 30 mins away). We met his family and his son Arjan. Arjan loves coming to church, reading, meeting with us, and wanted to be a member. We told him he had to stop smoking if he wanted to be a member. 

We have been teaching him for about 7 weeks now, he has stopped smoking and is ready for baptism. He now is helping us and has brought 2 of his friends to church which is awesome! I am so grateful that member felt and listened to the prompting of the Spirit. Because of that God is welcoming one more soul into his kingdom!

This week seemed very good! We started english course and it is awesome!!  I bought a sweet watch this week. It's been raining a lot, and we had a Zone Conference in Fier. Just a normal week.

Spiritual thought:

This week we went "area book contacting" and we called this one person who really seemed interested in meeting us. We met them the next day and turns out they live about 1 hour away and don't have a lot of money for a bus to come to Elbasan, but they were here for a funeral. It was amazing how the day that we went area book contacting was the perfect time for us to call them, we were definitely blessed by the spirit. Also she said that her and her family had meet with the missionaries 3 years ago but couldn't be baptized because they lived so far away and couldn't come to church, but she had been reading the Book of Mormon for 2 and a half years, and with in the last 6 months stopped, and said she had waited for us to call them again. We definitely were blessed too be able to meet them and were inspired to call them.

I am grateful that we have the gift of the Holy Ghost to guide us and to help others. I know that God lives and this is his church! 

Love you all!!

Love Elder Michael Ueston

Albania hospital

This week was really interesting. I was with the mini missionary for 5 days. He had to do a lot of passport stuff and go to the "hospital." and stuff like that. 

We went to this one hospital and imagine a high school chemistry lab, all the chemicals out on a table, on a metal table, and with medical tools all over, then to top it off, the walls were kinda falling apart. It really made me grateful for American hospitals! **don't worry mom there are other hospitals that are good**

Church was only 1 hour this week because we went to an Albanian funeral for a sister. Funny story, we were going to visit her but we didn't know where she lived. Looks like we don't need to know anymore. ;) but serious if you feel a prompting to visit someone you should!! 

On Sunday night we found this guy who had met with missionaries before, his name is Kujtim, he is awesome, he lives really far away but we hope that we will be able to meet with him because he is so awesome! He said he knew the Church was true and remembers some Elders from a while ago! 

Spiritual thought:

This week I really liked what Alma said in this scripture:

Alma 34:9 "for it is expedient that an Atonement should be made; for according to the great plan of the Eternal God there must be an Atonement made."

Not many people understand how amazing the gift of the Atonement is! Since the beginning of the earth, God had a plan to have Christ Atone for us so that we all can live with him again. 

I know that God lives and through the Atonement we can be ceased of sin and be able to have endless happiness with our Savior and best friend.

Love Elder Michael Uestën