Mirënjohje!

​​Mirëdita Secili!!!

Wow a lot happened this week and we have another fun upcoming week with Thanksgiving! I've been here at the MTC for 6 WEEKS now and I just have 3 MORE! I wanted to start off thanking you all for your examples and your support in my life! I truly am so grateful for every smile, kind word, advice, and support that you have given me. I love you truly!

So this week my zone and I had the opportunity to be hosts and welcome all the new missionaries coming into the MTC. We go to the entrance on the curb where families drop off their missionaries and help a missionary get to their residence and classes along with comforting them after leaving their family. I got to be a host to one of the international sisters from Canada and I just loved hearing about her excitement to serve and getting to know more about her home. In addition to hosting, we got new members to our zone. We welcomed 2 Dutch sisters.

So some fun new things about Shqip: First off the language is really coming along! We are now familiar with the grammar and sentence structure so we are just fine-tuning and really working toward progressing big time these final 3 weeks. One thing we learned this past week is that yes Shqip has the verb conjugations of simple past, imperfect past, present, future, and like 5 other tenses but in addition there is a "wishing tense" and a "wow tense". What that means is that if you're excited about something or shocked about something you use the "wow" tense. Wow, that must mean that I'd need to use it a lot ;) Then the wishing tense is when you desire or wish for something, then you completely conjugate the verb. Also in addition to many verb conjugations, there's about 7 different ways to say every noun (there are 5 cases). The language truly is beautiful and SO FUN.

Just some additional notes:

1. We had the opportunity to hear from Elder Gary E. Stevenson this past week at a devotional!

2. I've been having a lot of rehearsals this last week and one day I was late to class. Due to my delay, our teachers have us "tract" (basically missionaries doing door approaches to strangers) if we are late. We arrived to class and saw a chair in front of the door with a Book of Mormon and a note saying, "You're late! Don't forget to pray..." it took us about "3 doors" to be let in haha

3. I had the opportunity to speak in a Sacrament meeting yesterday for the workers here at the MTC. I was told to pick my own topic.....I of course had to speak about gratitude. I just wanted to share with you a little message from my talk.

Doctrine and Covenants 78:19 

And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.

Something that I've really learned is the importance of gratitude. Especially learning a language, it is easy to get discouraged, but as I look back and see the things I know now compared to what I know yesterday, that is something to be grateful for! I can be grateful for the little things, the positive things throughout the day and just know that these are blessings from my Father in Heaven. I have even thanked my Heavenly Father for trials because it is through them that I have learned and grown closer to my Savior. I invite you to note your blessings each day. Whether that be the person that smiles to you in the street or a friendly note from a friend. I also invite you to read President Uchtdorf's talk "Grateful in Any Circumstance" (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/grateful-in-any-circumstances?lang=eng). President Uchtdorf says, "We sometimes think that being grateful is what we do after our problems are solved, but how terribly shortsighted that is. How much of life do we miss by waiting to see the rainbow before thanking God that there is rain?

Being grateful in times of distress does not mean that we are pleased with our ​circumstances. It does mean that through the eyes of faith we look beyond our​ ​present-​day challenges.This is not a gratitude of the lips but of the soul. It is a gratitude that heals the​ ​heart and expands the mind.

​Gratitude heals. Be grateful in all things and through gratitude we can be comforted in our times of trial and recognize the Lord's hand in our lives. I love you all and I am so grateful for you! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week!

​Shqip Words of the Week:

1. Mirenjohje (meer-en-yo-hyay) means gratitude​

2. Darkë (dark) means dinner

3. Bekimet (beck-ee-met) means blessings

We of course had to welcome the new Dutch with tons of treats.

Hosting with some others missionaries!

Tracting....

The Sister I hosted from Canada!

Another sister I hosted.

My District! We have the Albanians and the Turkish speakers.

My beautiful companions!

All the sisters in our zone including the new Dutch! Shoutout to Zuster Barker from Kaysville in my zone! (She graduated with me)

My companions and I with President Bertosso (one of the MTC presidency) We've become really close to him as he's been comforting us in a lot of things. :)