Great week!!

Zoti in Albanian means "Lord."
Frikin mean "to be afraid"
"Frikin Zoti" is used in the scriptures!!! I laughed so hard when I saw that!!!! (I was really tired)

We had a great week!!

1. Besnik was baptized and confirmed! In Albanian besnik means: Loyal, and faithful, basically he is amazing! It was amazing to be able to see him go into the water and be cleansed! Then the next day he came to church, I tied a tie for him, and he received the gift of the Holy Ghost!!

2. We gave a blessing to our friend Klodi for work and his family. After the blessing he had the biggest smile! he is AMAZING!!!!

3. We also had a lot of lessons with some great people that we hope we will be able to help them more and more!!!!

Spiritual thought:
This week we had a lesson with a lot of members and this less active guy! The less active guy said that he left the church because he felt no one missed him when he wasn't there. He later received a message on Facebook from a member. He felt welcomed again and said he wants to come back to church!

As Alma explains Mosiah 18:9 "Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort... that ye may have eternal life—"

These are things that we should be doing if we are baptized and take upon us Christ's name! I hope you all will help someone who stands in need of comfort and help lighten others burdens that we all may have eternal life together! Everyone will have hard times and we can be the reason why those times are easier!

Love Elder Michael Uestën

#SamuelTheLamanite

Chess

This week we saw these 2 people in the street in front of their store. They asked us if we were good at Chess. Needless to say I started to play. This old guy killed me!! but, while I was playing my companion was talking to this other guy named Juxhin! He said he thinks our message is interesting and wants to meet with us!   Basically because we played chess, he now loves us! 

We meet one of our investigator's wife, and she is very interested too! funny story! We skipped 2nd and 3rd hour of church to meet them because their child was tired and didn't want to walk all the way, but it was great! We had an amazing lesson with them! I can't wait for him to get baptized! He is my best friend! He's so awesome!

Our friend Besnik will get baptized this next week! He is so cool! I will send pictures for sure next week! :) He is also my best friend! He is so funny!

Spiritual thought:

Today we went to the house of the Sadiku family. They have a child suffering from some mental problems. We gave him a blessing. It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life! Christ lives His children so much that when he came to the America's he gave all the children a special blessing and angels ministered to them. I could feel that love and that Spirit today when we gave this child a blessing. That feeling is undescribable!  I know Christ loves his children! 

Love Elder Michael Uestën

I CAN DRIVE! it's like turning 16 all over again!

Highlight: ;) (kinda) We saw our investigator who is leaving for Italy soon!  He was the one who kissed us on our cheeks! and yeah he kissed us some more. Nice guy!

Also I am still in Elbasan, I had a exchange for 24 hours in Fier!

I watched the video about driving this week and then I asked what else I have to do, and guess what? I can drive now!!!!!!!!! It is super fun! Only a little scary because not everyone follows the rules! I love it though! Everyone seems to know what they are doing!

Something cool that happened this week was that we were tracting, for one of the first times, and we meet this one family and they are super nice! We taught the Restoration and it was great! But the dad, who wasn't in the lesson, didn't like us... so we can't go back... but we planted a seed of truth into their hearts that someone will harvest later!

We also have this friend, Besnik(which means loyal), who was taught by other missionaries but stopped because someone from his family died. We found him again and we are hoping he will be ready to be baptized soon!

Spiritual Though:
One of my new favorite scriptures is Mosiah 24:15 "and now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord"

I know that God will not take away all of our trials, but he can lighten them if we are willing to be obedient to Him will.  If we submit to the will of the Lord cheerfully and with patience, our burdens will be made light and we will be strengthened! Now that's a promise! 

Love Elder Michael Ueston

old people are great!

Funny quote: We were having a lesson with this older guy, we were talking about the plan of salvation and we asked him,"What is eternal life for you?" He thought about it for a little bit and said "eternal life consists of 4 wood boards in the earth, and that's it."HAHA! He is very old!

I had my first exchange this week! I went to Fier! I learned a lot! Basically that place has some really good pizza, also the members are so funny there! It's just like a small little town! Its super cool!

We also had our first lunch at a members house!!! It was great! We ate food and we had a lot of members there too! It was great!  The president came for district meeting! We were able to talk to him, and we were able to get his advice about our investigators! He is such a smart guy!!!

One of our investigators, his name is Klodi, he is absolutely amazing! Our last lesson with him he told us how he felt the Spirit so strong when he prayed and read the Book of Mormon, that he felt like he was flying! He said that he knows the Book of Mormon is true! He is great!!! He should be baptized on June 18! I'm so excited!!! I can't explain how cool he is!


Spiritual Thought:
This week is all about how everything ALWAYS works out! We were planning on going to this family's home at 6pm (they live far away so we didn't plan anything after that), but they said that they couldn't that day. We prayed that we would be able still to do God's will. Later got a call, it was Klodi, he said he couldn't meet at the original time 7, but could meet at 6! We know that was God's will!

God will always makes sure everything works out! If you are trying to do your best, everything will always work out!

Love

Love Elder Michael Uestën

Fire Station

We visited the Fire Station this week! That was awesome!

We visited the amazing family again! They are still amazing! I love them so much! They said that they want to be baptized but they have a lot of work on Sundays so they wouldn't be able to come to church! I hope that changes!

We meet this guy who is amazing! Missionaries taught him before and they had tried to contact him before but his phone didn't work! We are now teaching him again! He is one of the smartest people I know and is one of those guys that if he says he will do something he will do it! What a blessing!!!!!

Last Tuesday we were walking Edison and his brother (2 members) home after we had a lesson with them. (I don't know why we were walking them home. We just felt like we should.) As we were walking we run into this friend of theres. This friend said "I know someone who wants to meet with you." We got his number and we meet with him. He is a type of guy who is just trying to do the right thing in life and he wants to be baptized! He came to all 3 hours of church and LOVED IT! And he wants to meet with us again!!!! HE IS SO COOL!!! And he says he will get baptized and he said "If I tell someone I will do something I will do it"

I don't know how we could get anymore blessed!!!

Spiritual Thought: One of the best things that me and my companion have been trying to do this week, has been being charitable! We truly have been loving the people! It plays a big part! I know that it has been blessing me and our investigators! We are bold because we want them to feel our love and we want them to be able to have the blessings that we have because of the Gospel! The Church has so many blessings for us!
I love Albanian!
I love these people and I am glad I have the opportunity to be able to serve them!


LOVE YOU ALL!

Love Elder Michael Uestën

They made cheese cake

They visited a fire station

Elder Weston at the top.

Not sure what this is??

"magic door"

This week we were definitely BLESSED!

1. We had 3 hours of lessons cancel on us, so we went street contacting. As we were praying where to go, I felt like we should go down this alley (kinda sketchy.) After this, we saw 1 door, it also was kinda sketchy.. BUT we felt like that was the door we were suppose to knock on.  We went up and knocked on it and we were able to testify of the truth. It seemed like she was interested! It was absolutely amazing how the Lord was able to speak to us so clearly though The Spirit!  We now call it "magic door"

2. I told you last week about the kid who told us all about MMA fighting. We had a lesson with his family! What a great experience! Moral of the story is to always listen to people, even if they tell you about MMA fighting! This kid absolutely loves us! He is so awesome! It was great we could meet with his family and testify of things that we know are true! 

3. This one was my favorite! 

We get a call from someone and he said, he and his family wanted to meet with us. We don't know who he was or anything about him, but we set up a lesson. We drive over to Peqin (about 30 mins away.) Not knowing what to expect. THIS FAMILY IS PREPARED BY GOD!  We start teaching them and turns out the dad has a Book Of Mormon already, and he said, "sorry I should have read more but I read it all the way though once!!!" The daughter told us about how she loves reading the Bible and how she feels good when she reads it, the Spirit! They all have the strongest faith I have ever heard! They own a store next to the road and they closed it to meet with us because they said, "This is more important." We had an amazing lesson. At the end we asked the girl to pray and she thanked God for answering her prayers though us! ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! 

PRAYER IS AMAZING! 

Spiritual thought: (if that wasn't spiritual enough)

There are a lot of times in our life when we are going through trials and don't think we can't make it. We want to give up the fight. We don't think we can hold on any longer. 

While Christ was suffering for the sins of this world, and many others, he asked the father "If it be thy will, can you let this cup pass from me" 

Even the Lord of Lord. The King of Kings asked if there was another way. 

Life isn't always easy, but I am grateful for the fact that we have someone who knows exactly what we are going through, someone who loves us more then we can imagine. Someone who loves us so much he is willing to suffer for us through the Atonement, an amazing act of Charity.

I know that Christ is my Savior and I am grateful that I can share this message of peace and happiness with the people of Albania, so they can feel of his love as I have! 

Love Elder Michael Uestën

Nona Farrëc "cool beans"

Nona Farrë: The English equivalent to "cool beans"

Temple touching!  In Albania they like to do this thing where (if you are guys and if you are really good friends with someone) you touch temples! and if you are a girl you kiss each others cheeks! It is so classy! You always do both temples (Or both cheeks.)

Also everyone wears jackets during the summer. I don't understand how they aren't dying! but ska gja (It's nothing)

This week was a fun week!
This kid came up to us, he was 12, and said that he meet with the missionaries before. He told us about MMA fighting, this is where it gets good, and how John Cena is such a good fighter. For about 5 mins after that he punched the air and showed us all of his moves! It was so funny!! And then on Sunday he came to church! It was great!!

Skyp'n the Fam was awesome! Love them!

We had branch conference and we had 53 people at church!! That's 24 more people then last week (Only 5 were from the stake)! We had 5 investigators at church and that was the coolest thing ever!!

Spiritual thought:
The Book of Mormon is Amazing!
The Book of Mormon is evidence that This Church is true, that Joseph Smith a true prophet from God, and that Christ is our Savior!
I know that the Book of Mormon is true!

I hope everyone is reading it everyday!

Love Elder Michael Uestën