Well it's been another great week here in Dures. We've had a lot of change and a lot of great experiences.
First off, the new Easter initiative is out! The video is called the Prince of Peace, or Princ i Paqes in Albanian. It's such an amazing powerful video and I really like it. There's also a website that goes along with it that talks about how we can get more peace through the Savior. I love it so much because it applies so much to everyone. People here constantly complain about Albania and the problems that it has, but I love that everyone can find peace if the turn to the Lord and allow him to give us his peace. So I would definitely reccomend you all to go and watch that if you haven't yet, and also to share it on Facebook or however else you can because you really do have the ability to make an impact through small acts of faith like that!
So then other than that we had interviews with President Weidmann again this week and that was great. Then on Thursday we were having a lesson with Collin, he's a missionary with the Church of Christ of Durres who we've been meeting with, and the lesson was going super well. He's super awesome and has so much faith and desire to follow Christ and he's willing to read the Book of Mormon and sincerely pray about it. And then right in the middle of the lesson the door of the center opened and President Weidmann came in and helped us teach the rest of the lesson. That was a crazy experience, but the spirit was so strong there as that happened. That was our second lesson with him and we feel like he really has promise and that he will sincerely ask if the Book of Mormon is true. At the end of the lesson he said he would pray about the Book of Mormon with real intent to act if the book is true, but he also made us do the same which of course we agreed to.
Also, we got to watch about half an hour of conference on Saturday. Usually how it has worked is that they translate it and show it a week later, but this time they tried to do it live, but because of technical difficulties it did not work well enough, so we will do that next week. We saw part of President Eyering's talk on Saturday morning and what we saw was awesome! So I have downloaded the English sessions and we'll listen to those throughout the week and then see it in Albanian on Saturday and Sunday!
So for the people we're teaching, we're still teaching Fation. We don't teach him a ton and we're doing pretty easy lessons because of the doctor but he is continuing to do great and wants to be baptized super bad! He's awesome and still loves to meet with us and we're trying really hard to teach his family too. Then we were also teaching someone named Xhuli this week. We were teaching her whole family but none of them want to progress so now we just teach her. She loves the Book of Mormon and reads a ton, but now we'll have to give her to the sisters. But then yesterday we had an amazing experience. We went to have a lesson with Xhuli but then felt like we shouldn't go, so we decided that since we were in the area we would look for a guy we had met who lived by them. Usually it's hard to find people like this because Albania has no address system. So we asked someone if they knew him and he showed us the direction of where he lived, then we ran into his cousin who showed us more exactly where he lived and then said he was willing to meet with us another day. So we went over where he said and called out for someone to see if we were in the right area, and then a lady came out and showed us his house, then we started talking with her and she started asking us basically all the questions Joseph Smith had when he was young. She talked about how she had gone to a bunch of different churches and read the Bible to find out which church is true(something that I have never heard of in Albania where people think all churches are true or all are false) but that she couldn't find the answer. So we went in and taught her and her family the Restoration and the Spirit was so powerful. She was so interested in the idea of the apostasy and is super willing to read and pray to see for herself if it's true. So we gave them some Book of Mormons and invited them to conference next week and said we'd call them to see if they had gotten an answer yet. So that was such an amazing experience, I hope they all read and pray because I know if they do they'll get an answer!
Then in other fun news, Kristi, the girl Elder Lords and I were teaching in Vlorë, got baptized this weekend! Apparently she's doing great and is actually going to be called as a relief society teacher, so that's awesome! Elder Bowen sent me pictures from that so I'll send those on to you too.
Today was awesome too, Elder Wilson and I worked together and did some family history. I feel like I'm finally understanding it now and when you actually get started on it it gets so exciting so all of you should try that out too!
So that's about it for us. We're having a great time here and I still love serving with Elder Wilson, he's a great missionary and a ton of fun!
I love you all, have a great week!
Mirupafshim!
Elder Gardiner
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