July 2

Përshëndetje familja!

Another good week in Shkoder, not a whole ton of new stuff going on, but we have had a few awesome moments this week.

I'll start out with one of the best contacts I've had here in Albania. So we started walking to go contact and we had picked out a place that we were going to go, but when we got there we just kind of decided that we needed to be somewhere else. So we started walking and just no place really felt right, so we just kept walking. Eventually we had be walking for a little while and felt like the place we were was good enough so we started contacting. This was the day after zone conference so I was feeling extra excited to talk to people, and I said hi to this one guy and he stopped but didn't seem super interested, but we kept talking and I felt like I needed to find out more about this guy so we started talking about his life. Turns out he had lived in America for 27 years, he just got back a year ago, he had made some mistakes and spent some time in jail before getting sent back to Albania. But then we got on the topic of religion and said he was protestant and that while he was in jail that he had pleaded for forgiveness and he said he really felt Christ take away his pain and his sorrow. He loves studying the Bible and loves Christ with all his heart. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met and he said he'd love to meet again this week to talk more. As we were talking I felt the spirit so amazingly strong, just another amazing testimony that Christ lives.

We also had a great zone conference. We have some great leaders here who all did a great job giving us some new ideas and inspiration. It was sad with that being my last zone conference, but it was cool getting to have 4 of us from our MTC group there.

On Sunday we had a great fast and testimony meeting. The branch president's wife, daughter, and granddaughter (who is like 2 years old and is the cutest) all came (they're all non-members) and they had a great time. The members just love them so much and I think they could really feel that. His daughter even stayed for both hours. Then over in Lezhe Danjela and Denis both came to church again! It's super unique having a fast and testimony meeting where literally everyone in the congregation stands up to bear their testimonies. And they were all great testimonies!

In other fun news, the mighty Adriatic South Mission now covers 5 countries. President and the APs went to Greece today to start a mission tour and then they'll be off to Cyprus later on in the week.

Then for P-day today we learned how to make a traditional chicken and potatoes meal with one of the members, and it was great. I guess now is as good a time as any to learn to cook before going off to college!

That's about it for me today. I love you all and I'm sure going to make this last month count! Have a great week!

Elder Gardiner

Photos from Zone Conference