Heavenly Father is always there.

22 years together.. That's awesome Mum..

It's been an eventful week for me too.  I barely have any time or energy to write, its been full on and we've been working hard and playing hard too. Today we went to Apollonia, I'll send more photos next week, so I can focus on writing you.  My email is pretty full, people are so nice and love writing me haha. Bless their souls - I can't find the time to write them back! 

The photos of the ruins were taken at a place called Apollonia, A place where Paul, according to the Bible, preached the Gospel. Pretty cool huh!

Tahei is going! Oh man thats awesome. Give her a big hug for me, she's going to be an awesome missionary, once more :D 

That's crazy cool about Jordi and Kyla coming to visit too - she sent some photos as well, Thats really cool mum! She said she whipped you in 5 crowns..

Our investigators are good mum! Kastriot (one of our investigators) is getting baptized this week, it should be good, expect photos! Also our family is set for 13 of June. It's awesome seeing people act on their faith and make changes.. One highlight of my week was after one of our shorter lessons (25ish minutes) I asked if they liked the lesson and they were like "Yeah.... but it was a bit short", HA! I was surprised, I was like wait... you want longer lessons? They were like yeah we want longer we want longer! Hahaha it just shows how much they love feeling the spirit, it was beautiful. A beautiful moment.

But perhaps the most beautiful experience that I had this week was my (unprepared) talk at church. This week was a difficult week. Our branch has been struggling and its been affecting the work.. So when we got to church I started playing the Piano as usual, setting things up, doing this doing that and 5 minutes before sacrament another missionary comes up and says "Hey, you're speaking in sacrament today, you'll be the first speaker". Haha this guy! I totally thought he was joking and I kinda kept on playing the piano, thinking "nahhh, surely he's not serious" . Surely enough, I went and checked with him, got off the piano and inquired. He was dead serious. I was dead scurred! As the assigned speakers had not shown, Branch President Gjika had asked us 3 missionaries to speak. Immediately I quivered with fear, and doubt and worry quickly filled my thoughts. Who am I? I am not prepared! I barely speak Albanian! This isn't fair! .... Soon after my instantaneous and immature reaction, came a still calming thought "Fear not.. Only believe". Never before had these words of my Savior came to me with more force and appeal than now. In that moment my fears had ceased, truly just vanished. For a moment I felt so spiritually at peace and enlightened, so comforted, as if everything was going to be alright. And then the nerves came back, but deep down I knew it would be alright. Even until I was walking up to the pulpit to deliver my talk, I didn't really know what I would say.. But I bore my testimony of the Savior and what I knew to be true. From there everything seemed to flow and I ended up talking about Charity and how we need to develop it in the ward, shared a few scriptures and ended up talking for around 15 minutes or so. (Dad, I am an Albanian minute-man! :D )

Mum, I've never felt like a mouthpiece of the Lord more in my whole life. Looking back I was preaching some pretty strong repentance to the whole branch, it's such an interesting thing, as I gave the talk I was completely comfortable, even in Albanian. I have no doubt that the spirit of the Lord was upon me, I found myself in a position where all I had to rely on was the Lord and of course, he delivered me. The promise recorded in D&C 82:85 is true, the spirit filled my voice with Gods word and I was given utterance. 

God fulfills all of his promises to His Children. I know this is true, I have seen it, I have lived it. He provides a way for us to complete every commandment we gives him. Whom the Lord calls, He qualifies.

I have been fortunate to see the Hand of the Lord in the work and, even though at times it was ridiculously difficult, and I often fell, the Lord has always been there, and always accepting of us no matter what we have done. Every night I laid in bed before I slept, I reflected on my day and I am touched so deeply by the apparent mercy of the Lord in my life. My heart pangs, that the Lord can have so much love for me, in all my weakness and inadequacies, even though I can sway and dwindle from his path, and at the end of the Day he still loves and blesses me. He is always there.