Dont worry about nothing, pray about everything

The title of my e-mail is the name of a song Sister Monnie and I have been jamming to this week in the mornings, and it just gets us so pumped up. We love it.

So, this week has been good! We had a lot of really good lessons and been really busy. We have 2 investigators with baptismal dates, and we're hoping to help them reach those. It's been kind of hard because they haven't been able to get out to church, so we have to keep moving them back. But, we're hopeful that things will continue to go well with them.

We've had a lot of lessons this week about prayer. The beautiful thing about prayer is that it is a two way communication with God. We are not just simply asking for things that we need or talking to a faceless being.. But rather we are offering up our desires and asking for the things that we need to help us in our daily lives and to remain close to our loving Heavenly Father.

Often when I talk to someone on the bus or on the street, I ask them about their belief in God and I ask if they believe they can have a relationship with him. I get varied answers,

We went the aquarium last week on our P-day.

but when I ask if they would want a relationship with God 99% of the time the answer is yes. We all want to have a relationship with God, but what we really have to ask ourselves is are we willing to do what it takes to obtain it. In Albanian, the word for relationship is "marrëdhënie". The word "marrë" is the past participle of 'to receive', 'to get' or 'to take'. "Dhënë" is the past participle of "to give". I love this!! Literally, if you were to translate the Albanian word into English it would be something along the lines of "give and take."

If we want to have a relationship with our Heavenly Father, or if we want to strengthen the one that we already have, we need to give more of ourselves to Him. That means, our hearts, minds, talents and even our time! I imagine that is one of the hardest things for our Heavenly Father. He has given us all that we have or ever will have, and so often we set the things that would bring us closer to Him at a lower priority or we don't make time for them. Things like prayer, scripture study and going to church each Sunday are the basic things that we have to do if we want to sustain our relationships with our Heavenly Father. Without those things, we become dulled to the Spirit and we drift away from Him and He can't bless us with all of the things that He has.

I know that in giving my time to serving the Lord and submitting myself to His will, I've been more blessed than in any other time of my life. I know that as I've given more of my devotion to Him, He has blessed me with His love and His support and I can't imagine having to go through life without His guidance and blessings. I know that the most important thing for any person on this Earth is to have a knowledge that we have a loving Heavenly Father who has provided a plan for us to return to Him. I love the knowledge that I have gained as I've had the opportunity to strengthen my relationship with Him and I know that knowledge is available to each and everyone of His children.

I miss you and love you all!

With love from Toronto,

Motra Vermunt