Missionary Work

Good evening fam,

So, power, water, football matches have all contributed to 45 minutes of emailing time, not long enough to email everyone properly, so i'll write to you all together, along with the blog, and try and highlight the highlights of this 'less-than-high' week:

TUESDAY- Had our district meeting in Lilanda, the first with Elder Essilfie. Was pretty good, talked a bit about self-reliance, communication in companionships, and using the scriptures in lessons. Went well, some good contributions and set us up nice for the week. We then spent the afternoon, after seeing Dorothy and Robbie Chikumbi, plowing Amadi's garden ready for the next batch of relish. Broke their hoe, reckon it's because I am just Mr. Zambia now...

WEDNESDAY- We planned for a District Service far in the bush on the outskirts of Lusaka, where one of our members owns a farm. He asked us to come and 'cultivate some maize', turned out to be the most tedious 8 hours of my life. Took us two hours to walk there, greeted by 4 huge stacks of harvested corn, our job was to un-shell each individual maize cob, which took ages. Good service though, got completely scorched by the sun, thought I was over that by now, but found some interesting looking corn... (1) 

We had then planed to be back in time for devotional, but as we were traveling back, the Bishop called us to say that 'Lilanda wasn't safe' and that we should cancel and go home immediately. Turned out a Copper had been shot and killed, the robber stole his AK and was on the loose. This is Africa, and so we heard later on that the witches had used Ju-Ju to find him and kill him. Believe.

THURSDAY- In the morning we had interviews with President, so we met him at the meeting house and were there until early afternoon. It went well, had some encouraging conversation about the district, mission, the work etc, nothing out of the ordinary, glad to see he is noticing our efforts though. The rest of the day we saw Boyd, G4S badman, Ruth, wife to Amadi,who was there along with Owen) and found some 'interesting' new investigators.

FRIDAY- Friday we busted our guts to make up for the lost time spent doing service on Tuesday and Wednesday. We saw TONNES of people including our miracle for the week. His name's Emile (already on to a winner...) and he's from Burundi. Turns out he'd heard about the church from his family who live in Burundi, friends in DRC, and other people in Zambia, referred himself to the Elders in Matero, met us, all culminating when he asked us which day he'll be baptised. Took us by surprise, dazed and starstruck we said Sunday 26th July, ended the lesson, and then woke up from the dream we thought we were in, as he didn't come to church this week. Not all hope is lost, but the guys turned his phone off...

SATURDAY- Tried to find some momentum but everyone we planned to see did the Zambian thing and leave right as we're arriving.
"'Im busy."

"With what?"

"Nothing."

"Can we teach you?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because i'm busy."

Common place in the land of milk and honey. Tried our best, met a pastor and taught him, said he would join the church if we changed the name of the Book of Mormon to the Book of Jesus Christ. Tried to sell us his 'Guide to understanding the NKJV of the Bible' and his gospel album, we politely refused until he gave them for free, so we had to take them, and then we left.

SUNDAY- Ended the week disappointed- didn't have power like every day this week, so had a cold bath, went to church with an un-ironed shirt, saw none of our investigators come, and got denied food thrice in quick succession.

It just wasn't our week, did our best but not every week is going to be stunning. Reported to the Zone Leaders in the dark and then slept.

TODAY- Played the re-match against Bethel. The less said the better, got humbled yet again, seems like every back-yard kid in Zambia is Drogba... We have an appointment with someone we contacted two weeks ago today called Aggie, and we hope that that is going to kick-start this next week off. (2)

Hope all of your weeks have been great, read all of your emails and i'm so happy to hear things are going well. Heard about Pearson getting the sack, finally the King is ousted, sounds like it was about some racist Thai brothel incident he was in that caused it? Hope they don't sign the Ginger ninja himself, Lennon, wouldn't be an upwards move...

Grateful for your time to email me, love you all and will speak better next week.

EF x