What Makes You Beautiful

Singing "What Makes You Beautiful" at the rest home.  This picture was sent to me from a cute member in Elder Clawson's ward in Tirana.  Look at those smiles:)

March 23, 2015 email (sorry I'm a slug!)

Well Family,

Once again the work of the Lord was done this week and I am tired. This week we kept up with waking up at 6 every morning and I am running on fumes right now. I may collapse at the keyboard of pure exhaustion.

So lots of cool stuff happened this week, I just can't remember all of it. On Monday we went and met with the Nure family because they all needed some blessings. The mom, dad, son, and the daughter. They are the family who had the recent death of their grandfather last week so they were really sad. We gave blessings of health to the kids and to the dad and then for the mother we gave a blessing of comfort and counsel. After that we went out finding.

Tuesday we had our wonderful district meeting. After that we went out street contacting and talked with a bunch of people and we met these two boys named Klajdi and Ledion. They seemed pretty interested in what we had to say so they gave us their number and we told them that we would call them that night. After our contacting session we had our English Course! I really like our class. We've got like 8 kids in there that are all super fun to talk with and they all love hearing about the Gospel. We invited two of the boys to meet with us after the course but they said that they didn't have time so hopefully next time.

On Wednesday we went and sang a the old people's home again! It was fantastic! We started singing hymns in English and some in Albanian and then Sister Fuller and I decided to sing "What Makes You Beautiful" By One Direction for them. So we did. And even though they couldn't understand a single word of what we said, they loved it. When we finished it all up one of the old ladies grabbed me and told me that I looked just like her husband when he was young. I just told her "Thanks!" In my assumption, what she said was a compliment. After that we met with Klajdi and Ledion and taught them the Restoration. The lesson lasted FOREVER!! One because the member that we had invited for the lesson was a chatty kathy and two because Klajdi was all hung up on the fact that he was baptized when he was 3 and had no need for another baptism. And we explained super clearly the whole fact that WE have the authority and stuff. Ah well. We'll meet with him again soon.

Thursday I don't remember much about what happened besides the fact that I taught English Course, found for like 6 hours and found like 5 new investigators for the sisters.

Friday, we went out finding in the morning and then we weekly planned and then I got hit by something. I was instantly feeling like a train wreck and had a runny nose from heck. We met with the Lamaj Family that night and taught the Word of Wisdom and talked with the kids how to stand up against their friends if they did stuff like that. Good lesson.

Saturday we went finding in the morning but we had planned two lessons that didn't show up. But it was okay because we had five other lessons planned through out the rest of the day so we would be okay. Only one of them happened. That lesson was the highlight of my week. We met with Behar, who is the guy that we met with last week that said he is God. So we decided to meet with him one more time to give him a chance. We started the lesson and he wasn't showing any real growth but then we decided to read Alma 32 with him. We each read 5 verses until we had finished the whole chapter and then we asked him what he liked about the chapter and he just blew us away. He understood so much and was asking all kinds of questions and stuff and he was just eating it up. We loved it. SO we had asked him to pray and he hadn't accepted the invitation to do so yet, but this time we asked him if he would like to give it a try. He gave a great prayer! It was just like the the song "A CALL I HEAR"!! After that we left and went home. Victorious.

Yesterday, we picked up an investigator for church and sat with him during sacrament meeting. It was a sad, gray, and rainy morning so everyone's spirits were a little down and sacrament meeting was just a little dry but what ya gonna do. So our investigator, Alen, had some work to do after the meeting so he couldn't stay but the rest of the day went well. We had some lessons not show up but it was okay because I was still sick so we just went out and found and taught the Mission Prep class and then we went home because I was not feeling good at all. Also last night I got the zone numbers, for the last time! I may never have to get numbers again.

Today we had house inspections in the morning and then we had to run to the mission office to get some stuff and turn in some baptismal papers. After that we took a bus to Pellumbas which is on the way to Elbasan to go see a cave. But when we got there we realized that the next bus that could take us back to Tirana left at 6. SO we just hopped right back on the bus and came home. Not the best P-Day I've had but it's alright. Tonight I"m going to visit the Spalding family with their home teacher so that'll be fun.

Well, I want everyone to know that I love the Albanian people! I love the opportunity that I have to be their messenger of the Gospel! I love being a missionary and I love my life here!!

Have a good week everyone and be safe! LOVE YOU!!

Love, Jed

Dear Mother, 

Well I don't know what I have but I am a sick dog. Any suggestions in case this lasts any longer? I've basically been living off of ibuprofen and oatmeal lately so that might not be helping the situation. Sorry I don't have pics, the card didn't work so I couldn't get a new camera. I hope everything is going well at home. I love you all so much! Have fun boating and stuff!

Love, Jedediah