13 New Missionaries

Alma Osmëni

13 new missionaries arrived after spending almost three months at the Provo MTC. Back l. to r: Elders Seevers, Buys, Thorpe, Vance, Klein, Dittmer, Griffith.
Front L. to R.: Elder Fredrickson, Sister Hiland, Elders Mugleston, Loose, Roney, and Skousen.

First day: Interviews with Marty, trip to the Embassy to register, a bit of street contacting with seasoned missionaries, and then dinner and bed.

Second day: Breakfast, a trip to the Monument to the Martyrs overlooking Tirana, an hour of training, pizza lunch, and assignments to areas and a new companion/trainer.

This trip to the monument was particularly tender and memorable. The autumn morning was sunny and beautiful as we arrived up the hill above Tirana. As we fanned out into the large open space in front of the Mother Albania statue, we noticed two people lying down on the concrete wall that overlooks the city, heads together and chatting. We moved away from them into the shade and passed out copies of the hymn and Elder Oak's 1993 prayer, dedicating the land and people of Albania for the preaching of the gospel. Elder McGlothin noticed the two young people sit up and exclaimed, "That's Alma Osmëni!" Alma is a member of the church who has just received her call letter from Salt Lake to go on a full time mission. She has not opened the letter yet, as she's speaking at District Conference Sunday and wants to open it then. Marty invited her to join our group. She explained that she had come to the monument with a copy of Elder Oak's dedicatory prayer translated into Albanian , unbidden by us and unaware of our intentions to be there, to read it aloud and ponder her upcoming mission. Marty invited her and her friend to join our ceremony and after a hymn and prayer, we took turns reading aloud the dedicatory prayer. Alma then read aloud the prayer in her language and took a moment to thank the new missionaries for their sacrifice and service, and challenge them to work hard and bring more of her people to Christ. We gave the missionaries five to ten minutes to be by themselves to ponder the dedicatory prayer and consecrate themselves to help fulfill the promises Elder Oak's prophesied.