The BIG Picture... :)

This week has been awesome. So it turns out the big picture is pretty
big. As of two days ago five people who we worked with very closely in
Elbasan are baptized. J and K, and their friend H all got
baptized on Saturday! I am so happy for them. I guess they finally
realized it was time. It is cool to think that Elder Austin and I were
the ones who started teaching J and K! Also I already told
you that F got baptized, but R V also got baptized. He has
been on and off with missionaries for a long time, but his mom and him
had a big talk and the huge mid-20s R was left crying and saying he
needed to get baptized. Apparently he got baptized a couple of weeks
ago.

I met up with M the other day. She came back from Italy for a
little bit. She will be going back to Italy and living there,  but she
found the church in Italy. She used the addresses that we gave her for
meeting houses. She met the missionaries. She got an Italian Book of
Mormon. She was on a baptismal date when I saw her, and she was so
excited. I probably won't see her again.. maybe ever here on this
earth because I have no way of contacting her, but I think it is
pretty cool that she actually found the church!

So anyways the moral of the story is God has a plan! I hope that a lot
of our investigators stories end well!

This week we had three investigators in church! K is back!! I am
so happy! He came to a ward activity, and to church. He wants to be
baptized, but he is going to Italy on the 20th for 5 years for school.
We can't baptize him here apparently. This time I think we are going
to put in a formal referral because we have a lot more information. I
hope we can get him to church in Italy. I think everything should go
through. we fasted today just because past events have made us realize
just how powerless we are and how powerful the man upstairs is. K
is awesome though. Honestly i think we would have been great friends.
We are right now anyways.

This week we have also been working with J. He came to church, and
was very well fellowshipped. He has unreal potential, and as far as we
know he isn't going to Italy or Greece :)

Astriti is still doing great. It has been pretty crazy to work with
the Ward. Everyone has the best intentions, unfortunately so many good
intentions make it impossible for him to progress. we are meeting with
him tonight. Hopefully everything will come together for him to be
baptized.

We are also working with a cool couple we met street contacting. The
first lesson they just wanted to play us in Dominoes and tell us about
their life, and their child in America. We cooperated and had a
spiritual thought and got a return appointment. The second time it was
just the man (Avdul). We taught the restoration and he was pretty
interested. The third lesson we had both of them. He had read the
Restoration pamphlet and had lots of questions. They committed to read
the Book of Mormon. Now they are looking to have great potential.

This week we also had Zone conference. 3 out of my 4 companions were
there. That was very cool! Also this week I went on an exchange with
Elder Foster. We had a pretty fun time.

Everything is going great out here. We are being kept very busy with everything!

Have a great week! Thanks for the emails!

Take Buddy on some walks!

Elder Stewart

Some fruit purchases on the street - melon season!

Homemade peach cobbler!! (Matt wants to know where he got the Cars plate???)

On P Day they found a cool music store. This electric drum kit looks exactly like the one we have at home and that he practiced on for all his years of percussion in the GPMS band! Good memories he said!!

Melon season is on now in Albania and there are trucks full of them to sell.