Chronicles from Albania

Hello all! I hope everyone is well! This week has been Awesome!! I also took notes, so I am not at a loss for what to say. I received lots of mail on Thursday when we went down to Tirana for Zone conference. Zone conference was very excellent, I did not think that those meetings would be so great. President Neil challenged us to do a 40 day fast, or consecration. We chose 5 things to stop doing, 3-5 things to start doing, and 5+ things to continue doing, to strengthen ourselves and kill the enemy with in us. There are a lot of excellent promises associated with this, and Elder Flack and I are very excited about it.

I have 2 stories this week.
The first happened the evening after Zone conference. We were headed over to the other area with Elder Suell and Elder Smedley to give a baptismal interview. Well, we got there and the husband said he didn't want to be baptised because he had had a dream where an old guy told him gezuar paskeut (happy Easter) and he took that to mean that he needed to remain Muslim and not get baptised (what the heck, right?) Well, I understood everything that was going on, since it is usually much easier to understand than to speak. The whole time I was praying for elder Suell and Elder Flack, that they would be able to teach with the Spirit and that the Spirit would speak to Shemci (that is his name). Well, the meeting ended without a baptismal interview, but I felt prompted to bear my testimony to him about the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Spirit was very strong then, and it had been powerfully present, at least for me, the whole time we were there. Even though right now he will not be baptised, I felt for sure that he inevitably would. It was an excellent experience.

Then another story.
We have an investigator who we are only able to meet with once a week, and he doesn't come to church often, but he reads the Book of Mormon tons and also the other material that we give him. He always has outstanding questions. This last meeting that we had with him was great, the Spirit was very present there as he bore testimony to us that he knew Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that the Book for Mormon was true. He said that it was either the Catholic church, or the Church of Jesus Christ that was right, and he told us he was certain that through prayer the Lord would give him an answer. Naturally we know that if he seeks with real intent, which it sounds that he will, he will find the truth out for himself. After the lesson I felt great, I always do after the Spirit is strongly present in a lesson. On that note, I will say that one of the things I've been trying to learn this past year is how to become more receptive to the Holy Ghost, and I have noticed that since I have been out in the Field that I have had tons more experiences with the spirit and feeling its guiding influence than I thought I would so early on. It is amazing to see the power of the Lord manifested though us his agents.

Oh!!! Lets end with some fantastic news. We have been teaching 2 girls, who are sisters of Gent, a recent convert (he was baptised the Sunday before I arrived) Gesjana (12) and Arjeta (21?), but we didn't start teaching them until about 2 weeks ago. They have been progressing well, and we always have good lessons with them were the spirit is present. Last night we taught the 3rd lesson and were going to give them the baptismal commitment. As we taught about Christ's baptism, Arjeta looked at us and said "well, when can we get baptised?" That was exactly what we had been hoping for for the past few lessons, was for them to bring it up just as an indicator of there desires to be baptised. So guess what? We have 2 baptisms scheduled for the 10th of May! That is super exciting! What's even better is that Gent, their brother, received the Aaronic priesthood on Sunday and will be able to baptise them!!!! He is a super solid member, and continues to surprise us with how he is progressing. They will be a strength to each other. It is so cool to see people progress along the path of repentance towards living by the standards of the true and living Gospel.

Dude, I don't even know how long I have been here, the days just fly by. I believe this is my 3rd Pday, but I'm not counting down the days, or weeks of my mission. I did give Jenni permission to tell me the monthly tally. The longer I am here in the country, the faster the days blink by. Crazy. Anyway, I hope everyone is well, I am healthy, I don't appear to be gaining or losing large quantities of weight (I hope...) and I am sleeping at nights. Everyone take care, I love you all!

God be with you
Elder Scadden