Elder Hald's Mission to Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo

Below is the letter Elder Hald wrote on his last p-day at the Provo West MTC. He will leave the MTC to go to Albania at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, September 3rd, exactly two months after he entered the MTC on July 3rd.

Please send all LETTERS to the mission office until Elder Hald can notify us of his first assignment in the mission field:

Elder Jonathan Hald
Adriatic South Mission
PO Box 2984
Rr. Qemal Stafa, Vila 1
Perballe Postes Nr. 22
Tirana
Albania

Week 9 at the Provo West MTC

Dear family and friends

This is crazy. I leave for Albania on Tuesday!!! I am so excited. We received our travel plans last week. We just ended our consecration week today. For consecration week we set goals of things we wanted to do for the Lord and we could only speak in Albanian. It was really hard, but very rewarding. I feel I have grown so much in the language. I also feel a lot closer to the Lord.

So then last week has been wonderful. We got to hear elder Neil L Anderson speak for our last Tuesday devotional. It was a wonderful talk about love and sacrifice. I sang in the MTC choir again. I do not remember if I have written this before, but I have been singing with the choir each Tuesday here in the MTC, except for the first one. IT has been a wonderful experience to sing with so many missionaries. I find it quite funny that there are more missionaries in the choir than not. Also my sickness that I talked about last email in healing. My voice is back and my energy is at normal again. I am so very grateful for all the support from my family and friends. It is really weird for me, but I am having a hard time talking about anything else than the gospel. The MTC really changes you. It has been a wonderful blessing to look over my stay at the MTC and see the change I have gone through. I cannot stop thinking about how I can help the person next to me or the one I am teaching draw closer to Christ. I find myself searching the scriptures like never before. My prayers have turned from being asking prayers to being gratitude prayers. It is often overwhelming at the end of the day when I reflect over my day and ponder over what Heavenly Father has blessed me with that day. I often think of so many things that If I were to include them all in my nightly prayers I would not be sleeping that night. It has been really interesting for me to see what the Lord has made of me so far. Everything that I do that is good is from my Father in Heaven. Everything I am that is good is because of Him. I rejoice in Him and in Him will I rejoice in forever. May we never forget the great love of our Father in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ. May we always remember the infinite sacrifice our Savior did for us. If you ever have any doubts or question about the book of Mormon, I have two words of action for you, "Read it".

Sincerely

Elder Jonathan Hald