The Work Moves Forward in English... and Albanian!

This week has been good. Thanks for the English suggestions. The
course has been going well. A couple of the girls from our class are
learning from the Sisters right now. We will see how that goes. They
are really nice. We missed one of the classes this week and so the
Tooleys taught it. Apparently there were a couple of boys that don't
usually come, and Elder Tooley said they were nuts. For part of the
lesson this week I had the class translate part of the restoration
pamphlet. That challenged them. I was pretty impressed with how a few
of them did though. Elder Lesi learns with the students, but he helps
me keep them under control. They have been staying under control a lot
better now though. I think they respect what we do. We are their age,
but we just act more mature. We think the maturity might be rubbing
off. :)

The hunt for the Branch President continues. God knows what we need so
he is going to help us make it happen in one way or another. The man
that President Weidmann wants to be President is technically active but he
isn't active if you know what I mean. We hunted him down at work this
week and he told us very vaguely where he lives. After spending a
couple hours looking, we located his house. He hasn't made it easy for
people to work with him. We have talked and prayed about it a lot. We
are going to go to his house one night without an appointment and
explain to him how badly we need him to step up and keep his temple
covenants. We would like it if he would invite us to his house or
accept an appointment, but that hasn't happened yet. He is a super nice
guy with huge potential. Elder Lesi and I get along with him pretty
well so we are hoping to have a breakthrough.

Our appartment is looking good. It got cleaned this week! It isn't too
big. It has a main room, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a drying room. All
we do is study, eat, and sleep there so it isn't too bad.

This week we had two investigators come to church. It was a miracle.
We called a huge list of people on Saturday night, but didn't get any
solid commitments. We prayed really hard before leaving the house that
if God willed it we would have an investigator come to church. We met
one on the road, and one of the guys we called came to church. It was
great! That was a huge blessing.

The funny part of that story is that while I was translating Elder
Tooley's talk, the investigator who we met on the road went out into the
hall, and came in about 5 min later while I was still at the front. He
had gone in the bathroom and smoked a cigarette. That hallway was a
smokey mess. It looks like we can't skip the word of wisdom lesson
with him ;)

The two boys from the part member families are moving slowly. Neither
of them have been able to meet with us this week. They still have a
ton of potential though. They both have awesome families. There is
certainly potential there.

We had a great fireside after English Course with both of our courses,
the members, and some of their friends. It was terrific. Elder Tooley
had the idea to do a fireside once a month. We showed the "Because of Him" video, and Elder Lesi and a member shared their conversion
stories. We sang hymns, and it was awesome. We want so badly for some
of these young people to catch the vibe and get excited. I think the
members were impressed with the whole program. My personal favourite
was the closing prayer by one of my favourite members. She is 6, and
her prayers are the best. Everybody loved it.That prayer though. It
was great.

Elder Lesi is a funny guy, and he is doing very well. We are having a
good time together. He is really into working out in the mornings now.
It is half an hour so it really isn't much, but he says he hasn't
exercised for 3 years. I was like what?? He said.. "yeah I am skinny.
You don't have to excercise if you are skinny." I thought that was
funny.

Unfortunately, Sister Vermunt is super sick, and will be catching a
plane home on Friday. It is really too bad. She is super cool, and a
great missionary, and our District will take a hit for sure. She has been really sick
on and off for a couple of months. We all hope she gets well soon. She
really wants to finish out her mission when she gets better.

Well that was our week. Thanks for all of the prayers!

Take Buddy on walks.

Love, Elder Stewart

This is the man who has helped Parker many times with repairs on his clothing. We do not know the stories of why he has needed repairs so often... :)
Elder Stewart says he is the most amazing tailor EVER!