It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

Hey Everyone!

   This past week was exceedingly great! Again we were able to exceed the Mission Standards of Excellence as well as have a baptismal interview. We were still not able to find our missing investigators but we were blessed to find eight new investigators instead. Since we have been weak in this area for a couple of weeks, we decided we were going to try really hard to find some new investigators and we did. We met with all of the families of the children who come for English course. One family seems really promising considering they are Christian. They were not able to come to church this past week but we are praying that they can come this next week! And for the first time in my entire mission, we had success with a potential investigator contacting us through a pass along card. We were in a different city (my old area Lushnje!!) for Zone Training, and on the way home a woman got in and sat by me. I started talking with her and before she got out, I gave her a pass along card about Christ. I have given out hundreds and never have I had had someone give me a call, but she did!! The reason why this is so amazing is because she is from this little city named Kavaje and there is only one member (Dorina Dauti) who lives there. She is so amazing (I call her my sister) and has been praying for so long for someone from her city who wants to learn about the Gospel. We are really excited to start teaching her and invite her to be baptized this week! We were also blessed to be able to watch our investigator Ndue (he is the one who is the father of a recent convert family who has had a smoking problem for sixteen years!) receive a blessing for his smoking problem, stop smoking and prepare for his baptism. We are really excited for his baptism on Saturday. If you didn't catch that...HE'S GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!! The most important lesson I learned this week is that if you plan and have faith in something and then you act as if it will happen, that is when the Lord steps in and makes it happen. This is how he accomplishes miracles in our lives and in the lives of others.If you think you can't do it, follow the counsel of Paul and "...never weary in well doing." (2 Thes. 3:13).

 With Love,

 Motra Hawkins

 P.S. Here is a picture of all of the missionaries in my zone. :)