May 14th

Përshëndetje familja!

This has been a great week here in Shkoder. It's always a bit weird changing companions, but things are going fantastic. Not a whole lot of time to write today, so I'll keep it short.

First off, Elder Perry is awesome. I'm loving serving with him. He's from Memphis Tennessee, he's half Japanese, and he's one of the nicest people I've ever met. He just finished being trained so he's still working on the language, but he's learning really fast and he's super bold so he'll get it in no time. He's super dedicated and has no fear, I've learned a ton from him so far. He's super smart too and we have a lot in common, so it's fun getting to talk to him all the time because of all the driving we do.

As for our investigators, Pali is doing great. He came to church again this week and we've gone through all the commandments now. Now we just have to make the final push to baptism. He's super awesome and the branch loves him, we just have to make sure he's ready. He seems like he wants to be baptized, sometimes he just seems a little unsure. But he is reading and praying every day now, so we've been praying a ton that the spirit will bring peace to him and his family. And he'll be such a big blessing to the Shkoder branch too! We should be meeting with him and a less active today together. He'll be an amazing minister as soon as he gets the priesthood!

We met with the Jakajs this week and had a great lesson with them. They still love reading and praying but haven't been able to come to church because of work. But they said they should be able to come sometime in the next couple weeks! We read 3 Nephi 17 and talked about the Saviors amazing ability to heal us physically and spiritually and the spirit was so strong!

In English course in Lezhe this week we started the spiritual thought and I decided to ask the students what they believed and one of them talked about the history of their family with religion and how they were forced to change religion a bunch of times and as she has thought about that she felt like she needed to find the truth for herself. So now she has a Book of Mormon, we taught her how to pray, and she promised to read and pray with real intent and report back next week. I know that if she actually does it she'll get an answer!

This Sunday was the last Sunday for the Sherberts here and it was a very emotional sacrament meeting. They're so amazing and as they gave their talks everyone started tearing up because the spirit was so strong and because of how much everyone is going to miss them here. I got to translate for Elder Sherberts talk and it was super powerful getting to do that, seeing the looks on everyones faces as we talked. I'm going to miss them a ton!

Today we went to the Shkoder castle and then played some chess. It was awesome! I took a ton of pictures which I will send next week!

Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Gardiner

Here's one picture for the week. Me and my comp at the castle. Don't get this in America!