A walk in Faith : My adventures in the Adriatic South Mission: "ALL IS WELL, ....ALL IS WELL"

Ahhh

I'm just going to hop right into our cool experiences:)

"Mimika hunting"

So there is this less active member that Sister Bennett and I have been trying to track down for... about three months now (basically since I got here). We have tried calling her, we've tried going over to her house many many times, we've tried taking members with us and we've tried having members call her but nothing. She never answers her phone and she is never home. We have been so determined to find her. Last time we went to her house she wasn't there once again. We were about to leave and catch the bus but I had an idea pop into my head that we needed to walk and we would find her. It was a little late so it was starting to get darker and it was harder to see peoples faces from far away. I told Sister Bennett the feeling I had and we both had a feeling we needed to walk on a certain side of the road so we did. She looked on the other side of the road to make sure we didn't miss her and I looked straight ahead. I had no doubt that we were going to find her, we just didn't know when so we needed to be ready haha. Ten minutes into our walk guess who was walking right towards us on the same side of the road?! I think we kind of surprised her by the expression on her face but she said she wanted to meet. We knew that we needed to set up an appointment right then or she wouldn't answer her phone. We said we would come the next day at a specific time, she accepted and we were able to meet with her. It was so awesome to see the Lord just place her in our path or I guess he places US in her path, but I know it was the spirit that told me we needed to walk.

The Gift of Tongues

We had an exchange this week with our sister training leaders. I got the privilege of going back to my "hometown" Tirana fourth ward with Sister White. We had some really awesome lessons and it was fun to serve with her again in T4. That night we were leaving a lesson and heading to another when we passed this woman that we said Hi to. Sister White had a feeling we needed to go back and so we headed back. We were both a little nervous to talk to her again because we made an awkward turn around. (kind of like when you re at school and you realize you re headed the wrong way and have to make an awkward spin nonchalantly haha) We were headed straight towards her. We awkwardly said hello again and she luckily replied with a friendly smile. We had an awesome conversation with her about missionary work and our beliefs. Her sister in law came over after that and we were able to talk to her a little bit too. They didn't seem interested in lessons but they said that they would be in the same place the next couple of days and they would be interested in having a Book of Mormon. After that we were walking away when two older men stopped us and we had another awesome conversation with them. We left them with pass along cards. We left them and then all of a sudden a guy stopped us and started speaking to us in Italian. We asked him if he spoke English and by the look on his face when we said "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?" was enough to tell us he didn't. We basically communicated with him by playing charades, pointing, and talking really really slow. Surprisingly we were able to find out that he is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is a missionary for his church and he has been in Albania for 3 months. His name is Marcos, and he speaks Italian, Portuguese, and a little Spanish. We tried teaching him about the Book of Mormon by using the five works we knew in Spanish and English/Albanian. We told him we could get him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he gave us his contact information. I'm sure it was the funniest/ most interesting thing to watch but as we walked away we realized that a conversation just took place with someone who spoke no English or Albanian and two Americans who spoke no Portuguese and we were still able to spread the Gospel. It was a huge Gift of Tongues moment. Gods work will go forward no matter what! :)

Lets just go for it

After a lesson one night Sister Bennett had a feeling that we needed to go try to find our recent converts house. She hadn't answered our phone calls in two weeks. We didn't know what else to do because she had never wanted us to come over to her house so we didn't know where it was. As soon as she suggested the idea we both got chills and knew that it was Heavenly Father telling us that is what we needed to do. So we went without hesitation. The crazy part was that a map was written for her house but basically only told us the part of town she lived at, so we were basically going into this blind. We decided that we would go to that part of town and ask people if they knew her and where she lived like someone had suggested we do. We got to where the map lead us and we asked and asked and everyone just said "this town is huge, How am I supposed to know her?" but we still knew that this was where Heavenly Father wanted us. We prayed again for guidance and felt to walk a certain way on the road. We tried texting Sister Peters (my last companion) who had been to her house once and in the mean time, we prayed some more and we finally came to the conclusion that we needed to do some tracting. Standing on the side of the road asking wasn't getting us anywhere. We started tracting and then we got a phone call from Sister Peters who desperately tried to remember and explained to us where she lived. Finally we found what fit the description she was telling us. We were so excited we had found it and walked speedily up 7 flights of stairs. We got to her door and knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked and no answer. We went to all of her neighbors on her floor and still nothing. We called her and still no answer so we left a card so she would know that we had stopped by. Even though we weren't able to talk to her or find her we still both left knowing/feeling that we had done what Heavenly Father had wanted us to do.

As you can see it was an awesome week full of cool experiences by being led by the Spirit. Sometimes we saw the immediate effect of our efforts and sometimes we didn't and that's life, but I know that everything happens for a reason and that when we give it all we have, Heavenly Father will do the rest. He will lead us, he will guide us, and he will comfort us in all aspects of our lives. I'm thankful for His guidance and His spirit I felt so strongly this week. ALL IS WELL. ♥♥ Motra Cheshire

" My excitement when I got my birthday package!! :)"

"First of all...I LOVED MY PACKAGE!!! Seriously, I have the best parents in the world.
It was perfect and so CUTE! haha Sister Bennett was dying and I couldn't stop smiling. I had to
change into my pajamas right then and take a picture! :) I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! best
birthday present EVER!" Yay!! This makes ME (her Momma) happy! ♥

"I got to go serve in Tirana 4th ward for a day and see these cuties ♥♥
I have missed them tons. Good ol T4."

"We did service by cleaning up trash by a river that goes down through all of Tirana.
The river is known for having an extremely unpleasant odor and the hobos are always chilling there. haha
We also didn't have gloves, so it made it so much funner! ;) I was holding the garbage bag and
an Elder picks up this nasty garbage sack that had brown stuff all over it. I thought it was mud until
he gagged and put it in my bag and I got a whiff of it. I had to set the bag down and walk away because
I was dry heaving. haha I'm pretty sure it was hobo poop! So ya the
service project was a hoot and a half ;)"