15 December 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you for your emails you send me every week! I really enjoy reading them every week. Sounds like you had a fun filled week! It's a little different being a missionary for Christmas, but I love it a ton! This time of year, there are so many miracles and things happening that it's super exciting to be a missionary. We've been working really hard, and we've been really busy so it blew my mind that Christmas is already next week! Crazy! So our P-day is moving to Christmas Day next week, so I won't be emailing anyone on Monday. But I'll get to Skype with my family on Christmas, so that'll be exciting! I hope you had fun at the various Christmas parties you've gone to this past week. The Hobbit 3 is coming out this week?? Wow, you will have to not tell me too much about it, otherwise, I'll be thinking about it a bit too much. I'll get to see it soon enough. Wow, I can't believe the Sisters in your ward are getting transferred this close to Christmas! That must be rough! I couldn't imagine that. Our transfers fall on the week following Christmas, so that's kinda' nice.

This week was really awesome. We actually had the opportunity to go to a Stake Priesthood Meeting this last Saturday. It happened at the church here in Durrës, so that was super convenient! There were a ton of amazing talks! I don't know why, but for that meeting, I was a able to have really strong focus, so I was able to understand nearly everything that went on. It's still hard to understand when people give talks in church, but if I really put all my focus forward, I can get stuff out of it. However, if I'm not completely focused, I'll just zone out and I won't get anything out of it. So I was super happy with how much I was able to focus on Saturday. There were a TON of amazing talks. I really enjoyed it! Also that night, we were blessed to have a baptism! Two in fact! Two people named Anxhela and Ledion got baptized and confirmed this last weekend. It was super amazing! They were very excited and very happy about their decision! They will be amazing members of the Church! If everything goes well, we should be having another baptism before the end of the month. She has a really strong desire to be baptized! She's learned from the missionaries in the past, but she had stopped meeting with the missionaries for various reasons, but now she is excited and ready for baptism! It should be really awesome! We also had a couple people who we think would be ready for the 27th of December; however, they think it's a little fast. We want them to feel comfortable with the decision to get baptized, so we're not shooting for that day with them. However, I'm certain that they will get baptized before the end of January, and they'll be awesome members of the Church as well!

This week, and the past couple of weeks really, we've been experiencing a lot of miracles and blessings in our work! We've been working with He is the Gift a lot, and we've been seeing a lot of blessings from it. There have been a couple times where we've been able to invited people into the center from off the street to watch the "He is the Gift" film, and they have had sincere interest to learn more about the Church.

It's an amazing time of year to be a missionary, and I'm super glad that I have the chance to be a missionary here in Albania at this time. I can't think of any other place I'd rather be. I love the Gospel, and I love that I get to focus on the Gospel 24/7! I absolutely love missionary work, and I know that we get blessed greatly when we do missionary work. Rachel, I'm glad that you've been inviting tons of friends to come to church with you! That's super amazing! You're doing great missionary work already! I know that we truly are blessed abundantly when we obey the Lord's Commandments. I've seen many wonderful blessings come into my life from the Gospel and I know that the Gospel has the ability to bless the lives of everyone who accepts it!

Thank you so much for the love and support you give to me! Ju dua shumë! Javë të mbarë. Kaloni bukur! Gëzuar Krishtlindjen. Jam shumë i gëzuar për të folur me ju javën të ardhshme.

Me dashuri të madhe,

Elder Watson

Down by the coast there is a portion of the city decorated
with lights.  Pretty cool!!

Decorating the Christmas tree at Church.