But seriously. I love the MTC.

 

Çkemi familja ime!

Si jeni? Unë e shpresoj që ju jeni i mirë!! (How are you all? I hope that you are good.)

What is new with the Kokols? I have a cool thing to tell you about my name. So, here, everyone calls me Motra Gogol, because Gogol sounds like Kokol, and a gogol is Albania's version of The Boogy Man. So. There's that. Another thing about my first name: Ari with the accent on the "i" in Albanian means Bear. I'm serious. I really am a bear in Albanian. I think God thinks he's funny. And he's right. I told everyone that that was my nickname at home! So my whole district is convinced I'm already Albanian. (Also... Ari with the accent on the A, means Gold. So. Yay. I'm a golden, Boogy bear.)

I might have already told you that, but I'm not totally sure. My bad.

 

Mom. I'm really sorry to say this, but I can't call home on Mother's Day. We will be able to call when we are in the Airport and also when we get to the Mission Home. (I think.) Sowwy! But I'm writing you a splendorid letter, so don't you fret! Also. I got the package. THANK. YOU. I am so happy with all of the things! I'm sorry if you couldn't find my old flat iron... thank you for getting me a new one! It vibrates, so I feel pretty high tech when I use it. :)

I'm so happy Nat dear-eldered me! It was such a surprise I just laughed, even though it wasn't funny. I'm a little bit in hysterics a lot of the time... so ... maybe i'm just turning into a freak, don't mind me.

 

Never thought I'd say this one, but I"m PUMPED to be obedient. Every time I wake up at 6:30 instead of 6:32, my day is 4.289 times better. It's still taking adjusting, but there is truth in dedication. I'm still happy to be here.

This past week was a little difficult because my companion got really sick! I felt so bad for her. She was in bed for like 3 days coughing and sniffling. She missed some days of class, so she may be feeling a little behind. Though, she seems to have a new resolve to dedicate her mind to studying! I know she'll get it. She is the most positive person I've ever been around.

 

Here's a cool story. So, in the MTC, we role play as if we're teaching an investigator. The investigators are our teachers who take on the role of someone they've already taught in the field. We have an investigator who had asked to be baptised and that threw me off guard. So we met with him the next day and I was feeling extremely inadequate. I just kept thinking over and over that I wasn't a good teacher, that I couldn't ask the right questions, or that I was not sayinig the right things because I'm don't feel like the most spiritual of people. The more and more I thought about how terrible I was, the more the Spirit was driven away and wouldn't teach. My fear of being the pushy missionary drove me to being  a pushy missionary. Finally my teacher just stopped the lesson and asked me what was different from when he was feeling the Spirit so much that he wanted to be baptized, to the lesson at the moment where he felt pushed and confused. I don't even know what came over me, but I just felt like running out of the room. He understood that my companion was ill and so we were both a little off, and that I had been very distracted the last day or so. But had me think about what was different. He told us we would try again the next day. My companion and I went back to the classroom and I just could not stop crying. Silently of course. But it got so bad, I finally just went to the bathroom to pull myself together. Is this getting a little too personal? I'm sorry. I'll rush through it...

But I think I had been holding all of my frustrations and fears about this whole thing for a month, and it all came out when I felt like I was all alone with my companion being sick. ROUGH. Anyway, I contintued to feel like I was a terrible missionary for a long time. I asked myself if it were best if I just went home. Finally, at night, for personal study, I started focusing on my investigator in who he was and what he needed. I started to read all about baptism and what it was, what was required. In doing that, I found a little piece of goodness just for me, the missionary messenger. I was reading in 1st John 3. And in verse 7 it says, "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous."  I just stopped. Because of course I'm rightous! I'm on a mission! I'm not perfect. I'm not supposed to be. In fact, I'm not even a teacher! The Spirit is. But I was so focused on myself being inadequate that I wasn't focused on the Spirit or the investigator. I had turned inward instead of out. Satan does that to me all the time! He tempts me with self hatred and seclusion. That is so like him- he wants his followers (which is us at some point) to turn inward. He wants us to close in on ourselves and he stands there laughing because he thoroughly enjoys our unproductive suffering.

I think we all can do that sometimes. We get so focused on what we're doing wrong rather than what God is doing right. It was a weird lesson in humility. I was prideful in that I had turned my attention away from my savior and on to myself. How productive is that? We can't progress or invest in anything when we're stuck in ourselves, good or bad. He that loseth himself shall find himself.

Christ is different. He wants us to reach out, to reach up. He wants us to reach up toward Him, where he will take your hand and hold it, guide it, caress it, or lift us up by it. He knows that we suffer, but with Him, there is a purpose in suffering. We suffer in order to grow. But we can only grow if we let him nurture us.

I love that this mission is all about people. It isn't about religious crusades, or bible bashing, or people- judging. It's just about Heavenly Father's children. It's about them and their relationship with Him. And that's all there is to it. We simply focus on the Savior, and He will lead us to life and salvation, IN THIS LIFE and the next. Happiness is possible with Him, right now. Pain isn't for naught, it's for cultivation. When we make Him our gardener, we can become the tree of Life.

 

I have one more thing to say about that. Sister Iftiu, one of my teachers told us about a talk she read on her Mission in England. I can't remember what it's called, but it's by Barbara Workman. In it, she talks about Joy. She says that Joy is an emotion of the Spirit. Joy is not a stranger to Pain. Our capacity to feel joy is increased as our hearts are stretched and harrowed by pain. Joy is making friends with Mortality. It is about changing lives one at a time. We, as missionaries are trusted with teaching the Plan of Happiness. And Joy is only found in Jesus Christ. She talks about how Christ went from the deepest pain on earth in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross, to the fullest Joy when He is in the Americas in 3 Nephi. He says in 28 v. 1,"And for this cause ye shall have fulness of joy; and ye shall sit down in the kingdom of my Father; yea, your joy shall be full, even as the Father hath given me fulness of joy; and ye shall be even as I am, and I am even as the Father; and the Father and I are one." He has the fullness of Joy because he has room for it by being harrowed up. If we can look at our pain and suffering and trials like that, how full of joy could we be!? It would turn limitless. As we turn to Christ, He shows us the way, He shows us how to do that. He truly turns our weaknesses into strengths.

 

I love My Savior. I'm so grateful to be a part of His work at this time in the world. I'm so grateful for the people here on earth who chose Him once and can't wait to be reminded. I'm so humbled to be a missionary. The humility lessons never end, and I hope they never will. Because I am full of true and everlasting joy that grows every day.

 

I love you, family.

I know we will be together forever and that makes me the most joyous of all.

You are mine:)

 

Thanks for your love and prayers! I can feel them.

 

Until next Thursday!

 

Me i Dashuri,

Motra Kokol