The Last One :(((

 I cannot believe I leave Albania tomorrow! I feel sooo much gratitude. I have had so many unreal experiences I have learned so many things that have forever changed me. Grateful for all the people I have met who have changed my life forever. Seriously I am sooooo blessed. I cannot thank my heavenly father enough for giving me this opportunity. I love my savior and know that he loves each and everyone of us and to have gotten to represent him has been sooo incredible. The opportunity to teach others that they have a savior who loves them and will always be there for them! I know he will I have felt it in my life, I have felt the joy and comfort that comes from turning to and depending on Christ. This truly has been unreal and I will never forget it! I am forever changed! I am so happy to say that I know we have a heavenly father who loves and and watches over us, we have a savior who died for us and will always be there for us to support us! The savior really is the way to joy and happiness! I love you all see you soon! Mirupafshim

Love sister Butters 

BAPTISM

Heres to the last week in Kosovo! 

Sooo crazy I only have one week left, doesnt even feel real, where did the time go. 

This week Kirstina got baptized!! It was sooo amazing, aw I really love her so much, and look up to her in so many ways. She was so excited to be baptized and you could just see how happy she was. It really was contagious and made everyone there soo happy. She was a little nervous, because she is afraid of water, but didnt let that stop her from doing what is right. I look up to that so much, I have had many times where I know I need to do something because it's the right thing to do, but I get to nervous or afraid, and so I dont do it. It's really important that when we get a prompting to do something,maybe even something little like talking to someone, we do it, even if we are nervous. If it's the right thing to do, God will help us. 

Sooo also some good news is we were able to start church again!! Never realized how much of a privilege having church was, but we are soooo grateful. It was sooo funn!! I loved every second of it!

Love you guys, make this week the best 

Sister Butters 

Muslim for a week

Heyy friends, 

A pretty busy week, we met with a really cool girl who was referred to us! She grew up Muslim and has read the Kuraan 3 times, but does not believe it, so she has started looking for the truth. It was so cool to teach her, because she had been reading about our  church and had watched a documentary about Joseph Smith. While she was reading online, she read that we don't drink coffee so she said that she quit drinking coffee!! Over all she is very cool and very excited to learn more!

We met another girl at the park and she asked us if we could go to the mosque and pray with her, because the prayer call was going to start. So we walked over to the mosque with her and got to go in and then we got to watch them do their prayer routine. It was a really neat experience. Cool to see how most people, have that inner desire to have a relationship with God. God really is our father and he wants to hear from us, it was really interesting to see even though they were praying differently than we pray, God still is happy with their desire. We all can communicate with heavenly Father, he wants to hear from us! I am so grateful that I know he is there for us and he is always listening to us. 

Have the best week!! Love youu all tons 

 

Trip to Albania

Hii everyone! 

Sooo this week we went down to Albania, and had a few meetings and zone conference there! All of them were very uplifting and very fun. Got to see so many missionaries which is definitely the highlight of all of it!! Love everyone here, lots of good people! 

Also Kristina, the girl who is getting baptized happened to be visiting her family the exact same time we were there! Wow, God really knows what he is doing. We got to go over to her mom's house and teach all of them. Such an amazing experience to have Kristina there, bearing her testimony to her mom and sister, it was incredible! 

I love being a missionary so so much! I would for sure recommend the experience to anyone, not cause it's always fun, and happy, but because it's a life changing experience, and you get to feel happy, even in the crappy situations because you are focusing on the most important things in life! 

Love you all have an unreal week!!! 

Sister Butters 

Lumturi!!!

 Hey, so this week was a really good one!!! Most of them are, Haha! But first the really cool girl Kristina that we started teaching who was referred by the member, we went over to her house and first of all it's in the prettiest village ever up on top of a mountain, it is gorgeous up there. The second thing is she is amazing! She was talking about how grateful she was that she has found the truth and for how long she was searching for it. Then she said to us, "I have to share this with everyone, because so many people, are searching for this like I was." It was so incredible and reminded me what a blessing this knowledge is, I easily forget because I've grown up with it and never known what it is like without it. But the gospel is AMAZING, to know we have a savior who died for us individually, is so COMFORTING! this knowledge is truly HAPPINESS and I do want everyone to be able to learn and know that they have a savior who loves them! Ah I am really grateful to be here and for the examples around me! Guys, there are so many good people in the world, so many people trying to do good and I'm just grateful to be able to learn from so many of them! 

Hey, love you all hope your weeks are filled with happiness 

Love, sister Butters 

Shume, shume :)

Wow, lots of really good stuff this week!! 

On Tuesday we had to drive up to Tirana which is about 4 hours from here. We were planning on just dropping Sister Wilson off and then driving back, but our mission president said we could all have a sleepover! So it ended up being 11 sisters, in one house with about 4 beds. It was a slumber party for sure!! So much fun! 

Okay, then coolest thing ever, it's honestly so cool I dont know if I can even explain it. So a member named Rexhep  called us to come over to his house,  because he had met a girl while he was leaving his sister's apartment. He sai that she wanted to get baptized, so we went over, and I cant explain how amazing she was. She explained to us how she has been searching for the true church, and how nothing ever felt right. Until that day when Rexhep started talking to her, explaining our beliefs about Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon and she said she instantly knew that this was the true church. It was soo unreal, I cant even describe it!! So two things out of the many things I learned from this, is, number one, God really is in this work 100%, number 2 we need to share the gospel with everyone, more openly, this girl has been searching and if it wasn’t for Rexhep who decide to share his testimony with a girl he had just met, she would still be searching and confused. She has been texting me a lot and the amount of times she says how happy she is now, is crazy! This gospel is happiness!! It's the sustaining happiness that doesn't vary depending on your situation it is simply always there and everyone deserves to have this happiness in there life! I am so grateful to be a missionary, it really is so incredible! I hope all of you can continue to share your testimony with those around you, you never know the impact it will have! I love you guys!! 

Love, sister Butters

Never FORGET

 Hi everyone!! Another week in very rainy Kosovo. This whole week was rainy which describes the mood, cause my comp sister Wilson leaves this week :(( so sad!!! On the brighter note at the beginning of the week we got put in a trio and it has been a party! I love the trio life. We have been making lots of food, made mini cheesecakes, cinnamon rolls, cookies, and some funeral potatoes in honor of sister Wilson leaving. 

I started messaging a girl on Facebook, and she invited us over to her house, which is such a miracle. I am grateful that was willing to meet with some random girl she started talking to on Facebook. She was really sweet and we were able to learn more about her religion, which is Muslim. It is so cool to see how many similarities we have, we were able to talk about how we both pray. It may be in different ways, but we all just want to grow closer to our Heavenly Father and show our love for him. 

I am so grateful for prayer and that we can pray to God anywhere and anytime and he always heres us. He is ready and willing to help us and we have someone to turn to through everything! Such an amazing gift he has given us. Never forget to pray!! God wants to hear from you, cause he loves you sooo sooo much! 

Have the best week! 

Love, sister Butters 

Cool Story

 Heyy everyone!! 

A cool story is while we were outside sitting at the park a girl came up to us and asked us why we were here. So we 

got her Facebook and met her the next day. She is really cool, shes an actress, very feminist and not religious. We taught her about the plan of salvation and she liked it a lot! her friend also came over and sat down to listen so that was amazing!! They are both really cool and we will definitely meet with them again! So cool to see God putting us where we need to be, because we cant go up to people and contact right now, but he put us in her path! He is so aware of all of us! 

This week we also taught lots of English! Which is good it's so funny though because we are not certified in any wag, but people always think its gonna be super serious. But we have met a lot of cool people teaching English! 

We also went to Macedonia today which was sooooo beautiful! I love Macedonia! We took a little boat ride and the water is beautiful, I wanted to swim sooo bad. It was fun to see the other missionaries because we are the only sisters in this country, so it's fun to see other sisters! 

I love all of you, be safe!!! 

Love, sister Butters 

Kristi ju do!!!

Hey guys!

So this week was good, we had to stop church again because there are too many cases here. That's okay though we are really good at having church online so it wasnt bad. Not as fun to not see everyone in person though.

Got invited to two birthday parties!! So that was lots of fun, but also means you have to eat lots of gross cake. It's just tons of frosting and the frosting isn't even good! Always fun to party though!!

We went to a coffee shop with a girl who is Christian. It's a miracle to find someone who believes in Christ here, becuase most everyone is Muslim and if you say Christ they immediately stop listening, so sad. So it was so unreal to talk to her, she is awesome. It made me think though, how sad it is that sooooo sooooo many people dont know they have a savior who died for them, someone who loves them so much and is always ready to support them, and help them. I am grateful for the hard times because it has helped me to see how Christ is in the details of our everyday lives. We never have to worry about being alone because he will never leave us and I love that sooooo soo much! I wish everyone knew, because it's the best feeling ever to know someone is always there for you. Never forget christ is always supporting you!! 

I love you guys!! 

Visitors in Kosovo

Heyy everyone!!

We got lots of visitors here in Kosovo this week. The first is our new mission president! Him and his sweet wife came here to Kosovo and we got to have interviews and go to dinner with them, they are from England and have cute little British accents.

The second visitor was Sister Wilson's dad and uncle, they drove all the way here just to see her. I don't have anyone driving here to see me, Haha guess he lives in Italy so it's a little closer than America. It was sweet and we went to lunch with them and showed them some cool stuff here.

That's all the visitors we had this week soo if anyone, feels a need for a vacation, Kosovo is the place. Here you can see the ugliest building in the world, a beautiful bill clinton statue, and you can come to church cause we could really use some more members here in the branch!

I'm really happy that I can be a visitor here for a few months, it's such a good place!

Something, that I take for granted is the gift of the holy ghost it is always with us no matter where we are and will comfort us and guide us and help us in everything. I am so grateful that I have the Holy Ghost I could not be here with out the Holy Ghost! Such an amazing gift we each can have!

I love you all so much, stay safe and covid free.

Proud to be an American in Kosovo

Hey everyone!! 

Happy happy 4th!! I am soo proud to be an American!! Woohoo wasnt a very normal 4th, but we celebrate today and the branch went all out! A fact about Kosovo is they LOVE America, more than Americans love America and that's hard to beat! So we really celebrated the land of the free, home of the brave!! Ate burger that I wouldn't actually call burgers because the meat is just a mixture of meats, eww not good. But we danced lots and played lots of fun games so it turned out really great!

I have been outside of America for a year now! How crazy is that? Some things that I have learned is we take for granted all the little things that happen without us even noticing. Like there are so many wild dogs here, and so much trash flying around, and many buildings that haven't been finished. I dont think we realize how blessed we are to live in such a beautiful and well kept country! It has been very fun to be apart of a different culture though and learn so many amazing things from the people here, that I never thought of before! Love you all, have an unreal week.

Love, sister Butters!!

Waterfalls

Hi everyone! 

So middle of the week we got a call and my Albanian comp has been transferred to Macedonia, so that was sad, but I am still with Sister Wilson so I am really happy about that!

One of the little girls in the branch turned 11 invited us to her birthday party. It was sooo cute! While all the kids played and danced, we got to go with the moms and they straight up had a tea party. I don't know if they realized, but it was soo fun!

We went to some really cool waterfalls today, it was so pretty. It was a hike and kept opening up to different waterfalls, I really wanted to swim. At the end when we were going home we were just stranded on the side of the road waiting for a bus, for like an hour!! there was a really nice man though, and so it made it a good time!

Something I learned this week, is that Christ will never let us down!! No matter what he will always be there for us, we just have to choose to go to him! I love that because I know I am never alone, when it gets hard, I can always turn to him and depend on him to help me! I love my savior and so so happy to be here! Love all of you, be safe!


Love, sister Butters

 

Fathers!!!

Hello guys!!! 

Update is on monday night I got a call from my mission president that I would be training an Albanian missionary! So on Tuesday we drove back to Albabia and picked her up! Her name is sister Hysa and she is sooo cute. Her English is pretty good, but we mostly speak in Albanian. Which is really good for me! I am learning lots.

I found the coolest girl on Facebook! Such a miracle because we arent allowed to street contact right now because of the virus, so all contact has to be done online. This girl is so interested and keeps asking me to tell her more about what we believe. I taught her about how God has a plan for us, and it made me realize how blessed I am to know this stuff. So many people around the world have no idea that God has a perfect plan and is in the details of our everyday lives!! I am grateful for my father in heaven and that he is always there to help me! In honor of Father's Day, we can think of him a little more and all that he has done for us and all that he continues to do for us so that we can be blessed!! He loves us each individually and perfectly. Also very grateful for my dad's example of kindness and love! He is also the best everr!!

I love you alll, have an amazing week !!!

Love,
Sister Butters

Kosovo

Week number one in Kosovo! So here are some facts, about Kosovo:
-There are so many mosques, like its comparable to the amount of churches you see in Utah. Everyone is Muslim!!

-They love Bill and Hillary Clinton, they have a statue of him and a store for her. So, basically Kosovo had a huge war that ended in 2011, don't know all the history but I guess Bill Clinton helped them. So they love him.

-The food is different here than Albania it has more options so that is a plus! But miss the classic Albanian food. They have biscoff spread, here though and wow!!!!

- They still speak Albanian luckily, but the dialect is different so its hard to understand, but not as bad as I thought is was gonna be.

-They use euro here, so money is different from Albanian lek.

I think those are all the main differences! I like it a lot. The branch is really small here, but the members are all really cool and soooo loving!


We had zone conference and I learned that I need to love more and forgive more and say thank you more!! The world just needs all of these things right now, and it can start with us!! I love all of you and I am grateful for each of you and the impact you have on me! Have a really fun week, go swimming for me.

Love, sister Butters

 

Bye Albania

Update!! I am now in a different country, only been here 2 days, but I like it a lot. We almost didn't make it through the border because of coronavirus, but after a little convincing they let us through.

Spent my last week in Pogradec with my ladies and I miss them a lot already and love them! Some things we did this week, were, we played soccer with the members, walks on the beach, cleaned a ladies house as she yelled at us, had a few really good lessons and got fed lots of food, bumper carting, dancing, lots of singing, and of course laughing. The trio life was really good.

I just want to testify of the power of the Book of Mormon, the longer I'm here the more I realize it. The book of mormon without fail always says exactly what I need to hear, it's crazy! I know that its through the power of the holy ghost that this can happen, but I promise if you have any questions or are sad or stressed or anything read the book of mormon and it will give you the exact thing you need individually for your life! I love you all, keep being you!!

Love, sister Butters