The Final Letter?

Well, we had an okay week this last week. We were able to see Paul and Haxley again, but despite our best efforts and their promises, they did not show to church. I at least have solace that I did all that I could on my part to help them to understand the importance of church attendance. This week I'll definitely be sending the very same message to them again, especially with more boldness, but I fear that at least for Paul this may be the end of the line for him. This has been going on for weeks now. We had an especially powerful lesson with him talking about the power of prayer and how God can hear them and help assist us in our lives. The idea was to get him to pray for a way to get him to come to church and he DID pray about it at the end of the lesson, but in the end he didn't act upon it. This week I think we will focus on the importance of covenants and all that.

Sunday I had the opportunity to speak at church. They assigned me to speak on Self-Reliance in general, so on Sunday I spoke about both spiritual and temporal self-reliance. I have noticed a very definite improvement in how I give talks. I used to rely on a prepared talk, but now I can speak without even using notes. I actually DID prepare something on paper to speak at for the talk, and I had it on hand when I was speaking, but not once did I need to refer to it. Instead, I was able to speak my own mind on the matter. I think the preparation just helped me to have what to say in mind and establish a direction to go for the talk. Even after preparing the talk, I realized that there were many other things I could speak on pertaining to the subject, like more scriptural examples. I wished I could have spoken more about these, but because of time and the fact that an interpreter needed to translate what I was saying to the congregation, I could only say so much. People came up to me afterwards thanking me for the talk. One of the members of the District Presidency came up and said that he wished I was staying for a couple more weeks so that they could have me speak at the district conference.

Such was last week. I also bore my final testimony in Zone Meeting and related my experiences as a missionary to the Zone. I wanted to really help encourage them to do right by the Lord. 

I'm not sure if I will have time to write to you next week. How my travel plans for Monday next week seem to make it so that I won't be able to afford time to write you about this week and so on. I think I will just take the time to share a few reflections about my Mission.

If I had been writing this about a year ago, I would have said that the theme of my mission - or rather the takeaway from my mission was obedience. Now I see a far bigger picture than that. It's not so much as obedience as it is about change. President Erickson once taught me about the importance of change as a missionary. He basically told about how all missionaries need to experience change to spiritually progress as children of God. It also reminded me of something that Elder Tad R. Callister said one time, that we aren't just trying to change our behaviour, but our nature as people. I would like to think that I have experienced in part a change of that nature, right down to the very simple things. Before I left on mission, I wouldn't have described one who either prayed or read scriptures with much intent. It had been many years that I had regularly prayed vocally, and I could never say that I "feasted upon the words of Christ". Imagine how all that can change when you go on a mission. My Heavenly Father has quite literally thrown a lot at my direction to encourage me to humble myself and change my habits as a person. Can I say that I'm absolutely perfect in these things? No, but I do now see the importance of scripture study and prayer. I especially have learned the importance of praying vocally. When you slow down and really take time to express your heart to the Lord, you really think things out more and there grows a much stronger connection between each other. And what can I say about scripture study? Well, it looks like a rainbow vomited all over my scriptures with markings and notes. I can say that I have a stronger love for the scriptures than ever before.

Of all the things I have learned on mission though, the most important thing I think I have learned is humility. I believe it is at the core of everything that we do, what makes or breaks our salvation. You have to be humble to have faith in Christ. You have to have humility to be able to obey the commandments. You need to have humility to repent. I've seen missionaries whose entire experiences weighed upon whether they humbled themselves or not. Those he changed for the better definitely humbled themselves and submitted themselves to the will of the Lord. Those who didn't went through the motions. They still had a great time, but they got nothing lasting out of it. I hope that I'm one of those missionaries that fall under the former category. Through my mission, my Heavenly Father has made it more than known that I have my own weaknesses and flaws, and I know now that I must be willing to submit to His will.

I am absolutely thankful for this experience. I think it has helped make me become a better man. I really hope the principles I have learned here will help me for the rest of my life.

I'll see you soon.

Elder Massey

The Work Goes On

This week went significantly better in terms of missionary work. We got to have several lessons this week.

We followed up on a new investigator during the week. His name is Haxley. He came to church the Sunday before partly because of two factors. Firstly, he's friends with Tonnex, a recent convert of Elder Slade's. Tonnex was sitting with him the Sunday he was there. Secondly, Haxley was at the wedding of Sister Khama and Moses, and was intrigued by our church and was interested to learn more. He came on his own accord that Sunday and Tonnex introduced us to him and we arranged for an appointment this last week.

The lesson with Haxley went rather well. Me and Elder Kapalanga are clicking together much better now. The teaching is certainly more unified. Better yet, Haxley understood English enough that we didn't need to interpret for him. We were already able to address some of his concerns during that first lesson. He was wondering why God only selects few people in history to be Prophets, and I used the illustration of a bus driver. There's one person that drives the bus and sets the direction of where to go. If there were many who were driving the same bus all at once, it certainly would be a total mess! With that analogy, he immediately saw why only one person could be a Prophet at any time. Elder Kapalanga did very well on his own part, testifying and expounding pretty well on his own. He even managed to speak for more than a couple minutes expounding on his own. That was really pleasing to me because he has not always been able to expound for a lengthy period time, if only for a few seconds.

We also laid down the law about commitments. Upon personal meditation, I realized that we hadn't necessarily established the importance of keeping commitments as we should have. As such, I made it a point this week to establish the importance of keeping those commitments, and making it clear that if those commitments aren't kept, there's really not much we can do for the people we teach. I really made this a focus of mine. I wanted to make sure they understood so that I wasn't under any condemnation of not doing enough on my own part.

I applied that same focus with visiting Moses this last week. I spoke really frank with him about how he needs to keep his word and strive to make it to church. He did relate that he had some serious issues he had to attend to, and he does stay a long distance from the church, but he has said of himself that he would come to church, and I made that a point that it was upon him to do all that he could to keep that commitment. Thinking back to it, I feel that we could've said that it wasn't for us that he was to keep all those commitments, but it was meant to be between him and God. That is something we will work on this week I think. Throughout the week, we worked on Moses and helped him with the Book of Mormon. In one lesson we followed up on, it was clear that he either hadn't read it or didn't understand it, so we read through what he claimed he read and then got him started by reading 1 Nephi 1 to set him on the right direction. I hope it does.

Sadly, neither were able to come to church this Sunday, though they committed and said they would. I try not to let it bog me down.

Other things that happened this week... let's see.

President Chiyumba was formally called to the Mission Presidency on Sunday. He had been the Blantyre District President, but now with this new calling he had to be released. In his stead President Mtale was called to take his place. It's amazing to see how a person in this part of the world can be trusted to such responsibilities in a church like ours. President Mtale has an average background for a Malawian - at least here in Blantyre that is. He lives in a modest home, has never really been in some high social position in life. He actually served in the mission a few years ago back when it was part of the Zimbabwe Mission, and he benefited greatly from that experience. Despite his humble background, President Mtale is a powerful member of the church and is truly converted to the gospel. He will do great things for the church. It just goes to show that you don't need to be rich and famous to have a place in the church.

Speaking of powerful members, Sister Banda was assigned to speak this last Sunday, and she gave a wonderful talk about the importance of General Conference. A fair number of the members here really take it for granted and don't come to watch the viewings of the conference sessions, or they only skim through the conference magazines published afterwards. Sister Banda spoke very boldly about why General Conference is important and why members needed to take it more seriously. It was an absolutely wonderful talk. President Erickson was attending our Sacrament Meeting and he actually got up and expressed thanks for that talk and his gratitude for what he learned from Sister Banda. She is really powerful and faithful. She says that it is her hope that someday she can go to General Conference someday and meet the Prophet there in person. I really hope that she gets that opportunity someday. She is one of the strongest members of the church here, and she rightly deserves it. The only thing is that for a Malawian she is quite old, though I will have you know that she is still very healthy and physically able! She may not have a long time left simply because of the quality of life society provides here.

One last tidbit: It was actually pretty cold for most of the week. We had a lot of cloud coverage for about three days of the week. It's unusual because it's supposed to be the opposite: clear, sunny, and VERY hot! Weather conditions did eventually turn around though.

I think that's all that I will say for this week. Can't wait to write you again next week!

Love, 

Elder Massey

Keeping Promises

This week we got to begin proselyting in a larger more combined area. Since Elder Chanza and Elder Chola have been transferred, we've had to take over their area until further arrangements can be made.

This week was more or less introducing my companion to the area. I got to show him the members and other people we see in the area I used to serve in before I began training him. We had some wonderful visits. One was with Albert. We got to see his new baby daughter named Joy. He's quite proud of her. We spent the time talking with him about the church and such. I shared a scripture that I personally liked from 2 Timothy 2:20-21 and we had a very nice conversation about it for some many minutes.

We were able to see Paul again this week. We followed up on some things and he said that he prayed about what we taught and he said that he got an answer that the church is true. We invited him to be baptized on the 22nd (my last Sunday on mission) and he committed to it. After stressing the importance of the preparation he will need to make heading up to the baptism, we proceeded to teach him the Restoration of the Church, and we invited him to pray about it in his own time. That was the only time that we saw him last week. I was a bit excited because I had the chance to baptize at least one more person before I went home. Sadly, he failed to come to church this last Sunday, even though he promised he would come. That means that his baptism will have to be postponed, therefore I will not be able to baptize anybody before going home. It's sad, but I haven't let it weigh down. I'm not sure if Paul didn't come out of apathy or if it was just because of his situation (after all, he has to walk a very long distance), and though I hope he didn't come because of the latter but it's all a moot point now. The fact is I won't be baptizing now.

I've actually gotten used to people falling through on their promises. I've realized that there are people who spring up and receive the gospel with gladness but quickly wither away afterwards because they haven't taken root to it. I've met way too many people like this to count. The first couple of times really tugged me to the heart, but I've gotten used to it. It happens. It's taught me a valuable lesson though. You can certainly walk the walk and talk the talk, but if you really don't mean it deep down inside all of it is just vain. I think - and this is my personal opinion, not fact - that this is a problem that is found throughout all sects of Christianity, though not everyone is guilty of it. We tend to take the light and truth that we have as Christians for granted. We know what we believe in is true and everything, but we sometimes fail to use it to bless us in our lives. We can become content with sitting in the backseat and going wherever the road takes us and we don't exercise to take the wheel and set the direction we really want to go in life. We become believers in name only and not in deed and heart, and if so we profit as much in life (spiritually speaking) as those who don't believe in the gospel or have no knowledge in it. I realize that salvation really is personal and that you have to be accountable for yourself and not expect everything to be handed on a silver platter. It is true, the atonement of Jesus Christ has the power to save us all unconditionally, but I liken it to it being a Christmas gift. It's given to you without hesitation at all, but it's never going to do you any good if you leave it sitting under a tree and never open it. Living the gospel - or at least, MAKING the effort to - is ultimately what will either make us or break us in life. It is what will make that power of the atonement possible, otherwise we have no promise.

I know I've rambled a little bit, but that's just something I felt like writing. It's good therapy for me actually. It helps ease my frustrations at times.

On the lighter side, we got to go and see Sister Khama's and Moses' wedding to each other on Saturday. It was really wonderful to see. Sister Khama looked very happy. Moses is one that seldom shows emotion though. I'm sure he was happy, but he isn't one that really puts himself out there. I took many pictures of the wedding. There was a photographer there, but he had a camera just like mine and I'm pretty sure I was taking far better pictures than he was. It's great to see though the fruits of your labours.

We'll I've written a lot today. Can't wait to hear from you next week!

Elder Massey

The Last Conference

This week was a good week, we continued to teach Paul this week. We continued to teach him about the Restoration. We taught about Christ's ministry and how the Apostasy came about and helped him to understand that. Me and Elder Kapalanga have worked out a good dynamic of how to teach Paul. I would do my best to explain the concept as simple as possible, and Elder Kapalanga would explain it over again to cover the points that he may have not understood so well. Generally speaking, this has worked out well for us as at the end of it he could clearly understand the concept. However, I would prefer that Elder Kapalanga begins teaching in English, as he will need the practice and get familiar with teaching it in that way. Paul also told us something that really took me back. That Sunday he came to church, he WALKED all the way to church, which is a really far distance. It had to be close to 10km at least. It was that far. Sadly, he did not join us this last Sunday.

General Conference was AWESOME. I loved so many of the talks, such as Elder Durrant talking about 'ponderizing' the scriptures. I think that just focusing on understanding and memorizing one scripture every week is a great method, especially for me. I do not like memorizing as I feel rushed and pressured to memorize it in such a short time, but with 'ponderizing' the scriptures I have plenty of time to memorize a single passage of scripture. It's not something I will start doing right now, but something later when I come back home I think. I do hope that it will help me a lot spiritually. I also appreciated his more practical advice.

Also, I really enjoyed the testimonies borne by our new Apostles. Hearing them all bear the own testimonies allowed me to feel the spirit and know for myself that they were truly called of God to be his Apostles. I think each and every single one of them are powerful witnesses in their own way. I was sad though that they only got to bear their testimonies. I can't wait for next general conference now! I want to hear what they will speak about!

Some of our current apostles gave great talks as well. President Nelson's talk was very moving. It really shows that the church really draws strength from the women in the church. It's no wonder that these leaders of the church are who they are because of their wives.

I also liked Elder Bednar's talk. I thought it was a very moving tribute to all the leaders of the church that he has known that have since died. As he shared their (unknowingly) final testimonies, I could tell that the words they spoke were truly inspired, especially Elder L. Tom Perry's and Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin's talks. It is such a shame that we could not have such great leaders forever, but again I continue to find solace in the new apostles that we DO have.

President Monson's talk was heartbreaking to watch. He has gotten very old very fast, and I was very sad to see him begin to struggle to speak towards the end of his talk. I do hope that he will be blessed with improved health, but knowing the old age that he is at, I realize that he doesn't have much time left. I hope though that we will be blessed to hear from him a few more times though.

Elder Chola finished his mission yesterday. As I am writing this letter he is probably having his final interviews. Elder Chanza got transferred to a different area because of that, so me and Elder Kapalanga have ALL of Chilomoni to proselyte in, which will be great because it gives us much for flexibility to have people to visit and to teach. I'll be able to visit my old friend Albert again who stayed in Elder Chola's side of the area. His wife gave birth recently to a daughter and she's starting to settle down. Albert wants us to begin teaching his wife and hopefully baptize her. It would be great to set that in motion (at this point of my mission I won't be able to see any more baptisms for myself) and I would be more than happy to see Albert's family united by the restored gospel.

Hard to believe that it will be a very short time before I see you all again. I look forward to seeing you again in just a few more weeks!

 

Love,

Elder Massey

Small Miracles

Zone Conference

This week was a week of small miracles (and apparently small letters...). This week by far was one of my better weeks as of late.

The big miracle was that we finally found an investigator to teach. The week before we contacted a man named Paul who seemed really interested in learning from us. We followed up this last week and to our great pleasure he was very serious about learning from us. Right off the bat he expressed his desire to join our church. He even invited a friend named Amos to join in the lesson, and he wanted to join too so we invited them to be baptized, provided if they come to know the church is true. We explained the conditions of baptism so that they could understand the sacredness of it and know that it's not just an instant win at salvation. We had a wonderful lesson with them and we had another visit with Paul to begin teaching the Restoration to him. To top it all off, he came to church yesterday! 

Better yet, we've been receiving referrals from the missionaries in our District and we have yet to meet them in person, but I'm really hoping that they are good leads. We may be teaching several people by the end of this week!

During this week we also worked with the branch and visited members in a part of Blantyre called Mbeyani for their Mother's Day. They have Mother's Day at this time of the year, so this was the day where we spent time visiting the families there, sharing scriptures and singing together.

Hoping that things continue to shape up for us. Looking forward to writing you all again!

 

Love, 

Elder Massey

Having fun in Blantyre!

The Last Zone Conference

Well, this was a big week for me! This week I had my last ever Zone
Conference for my Mission. It was a very big one too. President
Erikson made some reflections on his time as Mission President, as
he's coming down the final leg of his mission as well. He told us of
the vision that he had for the mission. I'm probably not supposed to
mention what's going to happen, but safe to say we may be seeing big
things in the next couple of years for the Church in Malawi.

The big focus of the Zone Conference was finding not through tracting,
but by other means. He knows just as well as any other missionary that
tracting is the least productive thing to do in missionary work, and
he wants it to be a mission goal to have no tracting in November and
heading forward into the future. As such, the whole Zone Conference
was dedicated to using alternative finding efforts and getting the
members to be more involved in the work. The latter was an especially
big focus as members really are the best way to get people taught and
be baptized.

We were fed a wonderful lunch. They made us Sloppy Joes (which were
the BEST) and gave us cookies and ice cream as a treat. I took
advantage and make an ice-cream cookie sandwich out of mine!

I apologize, but that's really all for this week. I promise I'll make
it up with a better letter next week.

Love

Elder Massey 

In Humility

It was another one of those slow weeks, but I'm getting by bit by bit.

Something big that happened this week was that a notable wife to one of the leaders of the church here in Blantyre had passed away. She was 30 years old, which is actually roughly the age where a lot of people can die here in Malawi. We were informed of it by Elder Beal while we were having District Meeting, and we were allowed to attend the funeral if we wished.

This was the first ever 'African' funeral that I've attended. I wouldn't say it was much of a funeral as much as it was a burial event. People from all over the community and many members gathered at the funeral. A rough estimation would put about 300 people at the funeral, women mostly. 

Everyone gathered at the home first. The casket was inside the house. There was obviously not enough space to fit 300 people in a tiny house that was roughly a little larger than an average classroom back home. There were many people sitting outside the house and had gathered by the road and houses that were alongside it.

Some of the women who were members sang a wide variety of Hymns. It was really whatever ones they wanted to sing, but they sang beautifully. All of us missionaries that were present were asked to join in the singing for a bit. I will be honest here and say that as I was singing with these wonderful members, I felt pretty sad that I'll be leaving all of them behind someday.

After some time just singing, the program for the burial began. All of it was spoken in Chichewa, so I didn't catch a single thing they said. It seemed to be mostly about logistics, but President Mtale of our District Presidency had the chance to speak, and he shared a scripture from the Book of Mormon which I felt was a wonderful missionary opportunity on his part.

There was a funeral procession to where the member was being buried. People piled on to trucks and in cars and drove together to the burial site. There wasn't enough space to fit everyone in vehicles, so many walked to the burial site including us. There they had close family members and friends lay flowers and wreaths on the grave. Even the Relief Society had a hand in it.

I continue to learn much from the challenges I'm experiencing on my mission. Something that I've learned looking back on it is humility. I've realized that I have many human weaknesses as a person, and they've been made strongly manifest in these current experiences that I've been having, and those weaknesses have been somewhat discouraging to me at times, even though I really want to do my best to serve the Lord.

I was doing a personal study of the Book of Mormon one day, and I came across Ether 12:27. It was one of those experiences you hear of where it seems like God is speaking right to you through the scriptures. It is Jesus Christ speaking in the verse and he says that he gives men weaknesses that they may be humble, and if they do realize their weaknesses and come unto him, he will make them be strong in those things that they are weak in. It was a really encouraging scripture to me. Things haven't magically improved right after that, but it's the little bits that eventually make a difference over time. That's kind of all that I have to say for today.

Hoping all is well with you all!

Elder Massey

 

(I''ve been asking for pictures of Mark and his companion....this was what he had to offer...of course they are eating!   Elder Kapalanga is the one on the right in the first picture!)

Lessons I've Learned this Week

Today, I just wanted to share a couple of things that I've learned this week. They were probably the more profound moments of the week.

First of all, I want to talk about faith and trust.

One of my big struggles with training Elder Kapalanga is that fact that he hasn't gone through the MTC yet, so I feel very obligated to myself to literally drill everything into his head as possible and be the one that is demonstrating how everything is done, and then letting him observe. I realized though that by doing so, I was negating any opportunity for him to lead and to be able to try it out himself, and that's really the only real way (in my personal opinion) that one can really learn to become a better missionary, so one of the things that I worked on more this week was letting my companion take the lead in certain things.

By now, I've probably cemented into all of your heads right now that we are in the middle of a very extensive finding process right now. Literally the only thing that we can do is find. I realized that one of the ways I can help train my companion better is that if I let him try it out himself and apply himself to what's at hand. In this case, the only thing that there is that we can do to have him do that is take the lead in finding. I'm not going to lie, I took a little bit of faith on my part. I knew that with him being as a brand-new missionary, he does not have the experience of finding and talking to people. Adding to that, he is probably not used to listening to the promptings of the spirit when finding, and I knew that it was likely that he was going to make some mistakes here and there, but I decided to let him spread his wings a little bit and learn from trial and error by letting him lead in the tracting. He was the one that decided which direction to go and who to talk to. It wasn't absolutely perfect, but it definitely went better than expected. We talked to a couple of people here and there, and we even sat down for a lesson (though it did not go smoothly at all). I realized now that he's more able than I realize, and I need to trust him more in many aspects of missionary work.

The other thing I want to talk about today is prayer. As I've said in the past, my prayers have become more sincere and genuine. This week I continued in my effort.

After praying all this time though, I realized one night that all I was praying about was me, me, and me and about things that I wanted from God, but I hadn't really offered much thanks for anything that he had given me, so that same night I knelt down in prayer and just offered a prayer of thanksgiving. I did NOT ask anything of my Heavenly Father at all, but rather express my thanks to him for all the things that he has done for me in my life - or at least, the things I could think of that he had done for me at that time. It was definitely a good experience. I'm just too used for asking God of things when I've forgotten to thank him for all the things that he has already given me up to that point. I forget if someone said it once, or if it is just something that came into my mind, but I've realized that one of the greatest sins that we can make in life is that of ingratitude. We sometimes do not slow down and think how much God has done for us in our lives, and then we eventually forget about all those things that God has done in our lives. 

You see it happen over and over again in the Book of Mormon: God spares his chosen people from destruction, the people praise and love him and are prospered by him only to forget all of that in the space of just a few short years. I've just finished reading 4 Nephi and am into Mormon right now, and it's sad to see how blessed those people are turn from righteousness to wickedness because they have forgotten The Lord's hand in all the things that have happened to them. What's even worse is that in Mormon, God spares them a couple more times, but this time they don't even notice that it was him that saved them all along. It's sad. I realize though that those examples are me at times. One of the things I've hoped that I've learned in my Mission is to be more grateful for the things that I've received in life. I've got a long way to go to really by grateful in all things on a daily basis, but at least this mission has begun to set me in the right direction.

Miss you all as always. I should say one of the things that I'm grateful for is having you wonderful people as my friends and family. I think that's one of the things that I am grateful for most. It's one of the things that I miss the most, but I thank my God that in a short time I'll be able to be in your company again. There's nothing in the world that I want to have more right now than being able to be together again this coming Christmas season. God bless you all, and have a great week!

 

Love,

Elder Massey

The Elder's New Clothes (and haircut...)

I honestly don't know what to write for this week. This week has been another rough one so to speak. We were juggling our own area with Elder Slade's for half of the week until he got his companion, so we hadn't had a full week in our area... again.

That said, we had a good lesson in Elder Slade's area. We were teaching this young brother of a member. His name is Chisomo. He's only about 9 years old. If I'm correct, most if not all of the family are members of the church, but they hadn't got him baptized when he turned 8, so it was Elder Slade's job now to teach him the missionary lessons so he can get baptized. It was a great lesson. It really put me to the test. I'm used to teaching adults all the time, but rarely have I ever had to teach younger children, and when you teach such children, you really have to simplify things but still make sure that what you are teaching to them is especially profound to them. In this case, we taught Chisomo about him being a child of God, how he loves him and how he has given commandments to make him happy in his life. It was a really good lesson, and Elder Slade said after the lesson that he felt the spirit very strongly in that lesson.

We've continued to give service to Sister Khama this week. This week she finally began burning her bricks. One of the things she had us do was to move timber over to where they were burning the bricks. We're not just talking about small sticks, we were talking about BIG, BIG logs! We had to all work together to move them. For example, there was this one log that was way too big for all of us, so Elder Chola devised this clever idea of moving it. We got two smaller logs and put them under the log horizontally on both ends. We lifted together on these smaller logs and we were able to get it over to where we were going. We also moved bricks again, but this time the bricks were much much larger, almost the size of a shoebox! Surprisingly, they actually felt pretty light in the hands.

A cool thing that happened this week was that I unexpectedly got something from Lusaka. A while back I saw Elder Allred had something sent from Lusaka from a member of one of the wards I used to serve in. The member's name is Sister Mooto, (pronounced almost like Moto in Motorcycle) and she is a very skilled tailor. Anyways, Elder Allred had her make a chitengi hoodie using some nice material from Nigeria. It was finished after he left Lusaka, so it was sent to him when he was in Blantyre. I got to see it myself and it looked sick. I'm not one that really cares about clothes, but when I saw Elder Allred's African Hoodie I was like, "Fetch, I need to get one of these for myself!" so I sent a letter and some money to her via a trusted friend. Just this Saturday, I was given a grocery bag addressed to me that had something inside. I opened it, and to my surprise it was my own completed Chitengi hoodie! It looks sick! The sleeves are just a tad short, but apart from that I've fallen in love with this thing. I've sent some pictures of it along with some of my new haircut.

 

 

Training Elder Kapalanga has been going okay. He's slowly picking up things as we go along the way, but one of the challenging things in our area is that we hardly have anybody to teach, so it is hard for Elder Kapalanga to really put the principles that he has learned into practice. Likewise, finding has also been a pain. So far we've had no dice. This is one of the reasons why I don't like finding. It is long, slow and hard without the members helping us.

It is safe to say that this is one of my most humbling times on my mission. It's one of those moments in my mission that Heavenly Father has leaned in and said that it's time for me to straighten up. I've probably said it before, when things go well, my prayers slowly grow less and less sincere and become more rushed. It is when I face the most challenging trials in my mission where I begin to humble myself and offer up more genuine and sincere prayers. Saturday night was one of those nights. I was probably on my knees for a while just asking help from God. I've realized though that perhaps God is withholding divine assistance for a time to see how I respond to the challenges before me. He wants to see how I react. I suppose it is much like the situation that Job had. Job hit a really rough spell in his life and things really turned south. Regardless of that, he was still faithful to God, but God still waited to see how Job would persist in his trials. It was only after a while that God saw that Job truly had humbled himself and poured out blessings to him. Perhaps it is the same with me. I'll be frank though, I've got a long ways to go before I'm like Job. God has really magnified my weaknesses and I've seen how helpless I can really be without him. I'm not always perfect at doing what I'm supposed to be doing on mission, but it is my desire to do that which is right, and I pray that that desire can overpower my human weaknesses and help me to overcome the challenges that I am facing.

Wishing you all well!

 

Elder Massey

 

The Long Run

Well, I had a bit of a God-send this last week. Elder Slade (a missionary in my district) was told that he was going to train, but his companion isn't coming until this coming Wednesday. Not only that, but his companion at the time Elder Ouma honorably finished his mission and went home on Wednesday last week, so he had nobody to work with, so the Zone Leaders came by and dropped him off and we've been together all this time. I wouldn't say that things have improved much though. Both of our areas are struggling lately, and having to proselyting in both our own area and Elder Slade's area can be a bit of a hassle, but we are getting by for now. I'm just glad I've got a missionary like Elder Slade to give me a leg up when it comes to training Elder Kapalanga. This last Thursday we spent probably upwards of three hours doing weekly planning with him and explaining how it is done. Hoo boy was that a long process. A leader of the church (and I've forgotten their name) once said that we should teach not for understanding, but to teach so that it's impossible to misunderstand, so I think that's the theme and the principle of how I train. 

Life at the flat has been good though. Since Elder Slade is my Bawo buddy, we've been playing each other when we've had free time available at the flat. So far he still beats me most of the time, but I still manage to get a few wins here and there. One game I literally starved him out until he literally had nothing else to move with! I even played a round with Elder Chanza, Elder Chola's Malawian companion. Since Elder Chanza is a Malawian, he knows the game inside and out. He whooped me pretty good the first game, but on the second game I beat him handily, though I would say it was probably because of pure luck! His jaw was on the floor as I took out his whole front row in one move!  

Elder Slade has also been taught by the other Elders how to play Draft, which is more or less an advanced version of Checkers. I knew how to play Draft, so I humored him with a few rounds! Fortunately, I'm "smarter than the average [Elder]" when it comes to Draft. We've played several rounds and he's won only once, and only because of a technicality issue. ;) 

Enough of fun and games though. Rest assured we are still working hard when we are in the area, but I will say that the games have been a helpful stress killer. It really is the small things that can really make a difference.

In the area these last few days we've been visiting a member named Sister Banda. She's an older fellow, but very intelligent. She teaches the equivalent of High School level Social Studies, so she is very very smart. However like a lot of other people here she's diabetic. It seems like they don't get proper treatment to maintain their diabetes, so from time to time when their blood pressure begins to fluctuate they get really sick and at the very worst get hospitalized. Whenever somebody has that, people simply say that that person had "BP". Anyways, we've been visiting to make sure she's doing OK, and thankfully she has recovered very fast. President Mukonda had it when I was in Chainama, and he was in a really bad spell that took months for him to recover from, so I'm grateful that such wasn't the case with Sister Banda.

The other highlight of the week is that I got my missionary journal back! I had a journal that I had all the missionaries and members sign and write letters in, but I left it in Lusaka for some missionaries and members to sign when I got transferred to Lilongwe - which was like APRIL - and I hadn't heard about it since, but when Elder Hinckley my new Zone Leader came by he had the journal with him! Glad I have that back. It had all the contacts of the missionaries and members I wanted to keep in touch with! Better yet, I can now have other people sign it now.

That's pretty much my week. It's been slow, but I'm continuing to hope that things will shape up! Love ya!

Elder Massey 

I Didn't Know I Was Expecting!

So, last Monday evening I got a surprise phone call. The Zone Leaders called and gave some transfer news. I wasn't moved out of the house, but I took over an area left behind some sisters who are leaving the area.

That's not all though. I was told that I would be training! My new companion is a Malawian visa waiter named Elder Kapalanga. He's supposed to go to Botswana, but he's having some visa issues right now. 

I took to training really well. I enjoy training a lot. If I could sit down in the flat and just train missionaries all day, I'd think I'd be down for it. Training has shown myself how much I've developed as a missionary. I'm certainly not the kind of missionary I was when I started. I've also developed the appreciation of the other trainers in this mission. It's no walk in the park, that's for certain! 

Elder Kapalanga is great. He's humble and willing to work, but has a lot to learn though. His English needs a little work and he actually hasn't gotten through the MTC yet, so I've got a lot on my shoulders to help him out with. Then again, I'm sure it's much of the same for all trainers wherever you go in the missions of the world. All that really matters to me though is that I want to be able to please the Lord and be an effective trainer, so I'm really doing all that I can to help Elder Kapalanga become a good missionary. I've made an effort to thoroughly teach him the doctrine of our lessons so that he can be able to expound and better apply some of the other principles of missionary work. In the end though, I just hope that I can be able to measure up to some of the great missionaries in this mission such as Elder Chola who is a great teacher and trainer. 

The biggest challenge of all though is the area itself. I won't go into great detail, but suffice to say the Sisters weren't able to work in our new area on a regular basis, so there's hardly anybody to teach at all. This means that we have a lot of finding to do, which is frankly the thing I like the least. If I had an area where we had people to teach, I think things would go fine, but I'm just frustrated by having this great responsibility and difficult challenge all lobbed together at the same time. It drops a whole whopper of stress on me. Ideally, we'd have some sort of teaching pool that would keep us busy. That's what I like being the most on mission, just running between appointments here and there.

I've had many other experiences on mission where I have been humbled greatly, but this is certainly the most humbling and trying time of my mission. It's certainly one of those moments of my mission where I have much testing to shape me more into the person that the Lord wants me to be. I will not hide the fact that I am very stressed right now. It's very overwhelming and I realize I won't be able to manage this all by myself. I have made many pleas to the Lord as of late that I will have strength to overcome these challenges. God has realized that I've been in a comfort zone for too long and I believe he has seen it fit to put me in this situation. I'm having a  hard time right now, so I would ask that you all keep me in your prayers this week that I can be able to persist through this moment of my mission. 

So again, I ask that you please pray for me,  I'm going to need all the help I can get, especially from our Heavenly Father. If I can get through these couple of weeks, I'd think that I'll be able to push on just fine.

Love,

Elder Massey

I Saw God Today

Going to rip off my bro Elder Massey 2.0 and do what he usually does when he writes home, which is use song titles and compares them to the experiences that he had that week.

Sometimes things get rough for us and we have trouble on seeing and recognizing the good things in life. We get so frustrated with our present situation that we begin to forget to try to make the most out of what little we have and we fail to notice the subtle things that help us to find a little joy in our lives. That's what the song "I Saw God Today" by George Strait talks about. In the song, there's a man that has just been through what can be easily described as a very intense moment in his life, and I would reckon it was overwhelming too. But as he stops to settle down a little bit, he mentions, that he "saw a flower growing in the middle of the sidewalk pushing up through the concrete like it was planted right there for me to see." On any normal day, he wouldn't have noticed it, but because of what he went through he had the impression it was not just happenstance that he saw that flower there and he remarks, "I've been to church, I've read the book, I know He's there but I don't look near as often as I should. His fingerprints are everywhere, I just look down and stop and stare, open my eyes and then I swear, I saw God today."

Definitely this week I can sympathize with the man in this song. I've had the knowledge of the Gospel and what not, but often I don't stop to see the subtle things in my life that God has done to help me out. This week was especially tough for us as we're heading into that point of missionary work where we are running out of people to teach and we are failing to find people to take their place and to continue our work. We even had a day where it was just fall-through after fall-through. It was really tough and I just had a lot of stress on my mind. Then one morning we were visiting this one recent convert named Hellen. It was shaping up to be another tough day. Hellen had gone to prepare something for us to eat and Elder Chola had gone outside to take a call. I was sitting in Hellen's living room trying to read my scriptures as I was thinking to myself how we were going to manage to get by this week. All of a sudden I heard laughter and squealing outside. I noticed that Elder Chola was playing with Hellen's kids and family members outside. They were playing a group version of monkey in the middle. At first I ignored it, but I felt prompted to go outside and play with them. Even then, I was still reluctant and I dragged my feet outside. Once I joined and began playing catch with them though I was having the time of my life. It was probably one of the happiest moments on my mission. I don't mean to speak ill of any of my past experiences on mission, but by far and hands down this was one of the few moments of my mission where it was just pure unadulterated joy, even if everything else around me wasn't necessarily going the way I'd want it to be. I realized shortly after that experience it was maybe God reaching out to me to help me feel a little better that day. I saw the fingerprints that day and opened my eyes for once and I was able to see the hand of God in my life for once.

Last Monday we visited President & Sister Mtale and had Family Home Evening with them. They invited a nonmember father to join us, and we had a good time. Sister Mtale shared a brief message, and we played some fun games. I learned a fun puzzle game called Cups. I'll have to teach you that one when I get home, because I love messing with people's minds!

We had service at Sister Khama's as always. We invited a couple other companionships to join us as there was a lot of work that day. For the most part, it was another normal day of service, but there was twist.

Elder Ouma loves messing with these things that come from a tree that I don't even know what it's called. The 'fruit' of that tree is yellow, shaped like a pea pod and is VERY fuzzy! It's very dangerous though as the fuzz on it can cause severe irritation and itching if it makes contact with any exposed skin. Worse, if you scratch there, it spreads to the part of the body that you made contact with the itching and so forth. I don't know why the fetch he does it, but Elder Ouma loves plucking these itchy itchy scratchy things from the tree and handling them with something to protect his hand. The way I see it, it as if he was toying around with a freaking grenade in his hand and that he was going to screw us all with it!

So we had finished this service, and we were all lining up to a bucket of clean water to wash our hands and arms. Elder Ouma was in front of me, and all of a sudden he turns around and I feel something brush my right index finger. Elder Ouma hadn't realized I was there, and in his (protected) hand was a itchy itchy scratchy that had just made contact with my own unprotected hand!  

An appropriate representation of my reaction to said itchy itchy scratchy touching me:

Fortunately I was able to be smart and not do anything that would get the irritation all over myself. After some herbal application and some sort of therapeutic oil that Elder Slade applied on it, it eventually recovered!

Last of all, early this morning some of us missionaries climbed a mountain to see the sun rise. There was cross on the top of that hill so there was a relatively easy trail that led us there. We had an absolutely OUTSTANDING view of all of Blanytre and the surrounding region, and despite some hiccups, we made it right on time for the sunrise! Elder Ssengooba had brought his Canon DSLR (A Rebel T3i) and he let me take some pictures with it! It was great to be able to get my hands on a really good camera! I miss my T4i back home. Thankfully, I still remember how to use such a camera, and I took some FANTASTIC pictures!

I almost forgot! I also got my hair cut today. I'll simply say that it's different but mission appropriate! You'll be surprised what I had done! Seeing as my family members are getting some pretty new haircuts that they've never had before, I'm getting in on the action too! I'll send a picture of mine next week. Just wanted to give Elder Doig a shoutout for the sick job that he did!

Take care everybody!

Elder Massey

Helter Skelter

We had a really great Zone Meeting this last week. One of the missionaries that taught this Zone Meeting was Elder Barrett. He was assigned to teach about consecration, which he did a very fine job of.

What I like about Elder Barrett is that he doesn't instruct in some sort of monotone way like an Economics Teacher would, but he is actively engaging and very enthusiastic about what he teaches, which I think helps the audience to be very attentive to what he's saying. I could certainly feel the spirit strongly as he taught that Zone Meeting.

One of the things that he did during Zone Meeting was give letters to us from a friend of his named 'Tommy'. Once we got our letters, we all saw that the letters that we got weren't just from some guy named Tommy, but from Thomas S. Monson... supposedly.

Anyways, Elder Barrett told us to open our letters, read them quietly and to ponder them afterwards. We did as he said and we all opened our letters and quietly read them. Mines went so and so saying (and I'm taking liberty here, what was written was much nicer than what I'm summarizing), "Elder Massey, the spirit of the Lord has spoken to me...  and has revealed to me that the Lord commands you that you shall never set foot into Canada again, and if you keep this commandment, you shall have eternal life."

It really made me think really hard. I may not seem like it outwardly, but inwardly I'm very patriotic of my country and Elder Barrett knew that as well, so that's why he included it in my letter that he wrote under the guise of the Prophet. Could I really give up the country that I love so dear for God?

I will be honest here, doing so would be a VERY hard thing for me to do. What Elder Barre- I'm sorry, The Prophet challenged the other missionaries to do was also very hard for them as well. Elder Barrett asked who would do as the letter said, and I saw some hands go up, but I knew that in reality it would be much less easier for them to do than say. Elder Barrett used this as a great visualization for consecration. He noted that while we may have not been asked to do this in real life, we have made promises to God as we became missionaries to put our lives on the altar so-to-speak and to give up what we care about most for two years. It was inspiring talk. He didn't lecture on what it means to be consecrated, but rather what it takes for us to be consecrated. It was definitely one of my most memorable Zone Meetings on mission.

One of our highlights this week was Vumu. Vumu is a less-active member that we've begun visiting. He's a great guy. He actually has a very strong testimony of the church, just not of how God can bless him by keeping the Sabbath day by not working and coming to church. He wants to be a missionary someday, which is really fantastic. These last couple of weeks we've been talking to him and convincing him to come to church. The week before he was able to convince his employer to have Sundays off, and yesterday he came to church, though only for sacrament meeting. It doesn't matter much though because he actually CAME unlike most of our investigators (Alex)! Moses was also confirmed at church yesterday, so that was another great moment!

This week we did service at Sister Khama's again, but we had a little bit of a twist. Instead of making bricks, we were digging the ground and turning over soil so that she could make MORE bricks. You see, they don't use concrete to make bricks, but they actually use the soil to do so, so for her to make bricks, she has to turn up some fresh soil and make it muddy so that they can be molded into bricks. All that we had to use to turn over the soil was some hoes, and this would have been all fine had the soil been soft. Rather, the soil was really hard and rocky, so when we thrust our hoes down into the soil to try to turn over dirt, a lot of the time they bounced back up yielding nothing at all. I got blisters on my left hand, and one of them popped as I was hoeing, so it wasn't necessarily a pleasant experience! Thankfully Elder Slade had some basic first aid stuff with him and he wrapped my hand nice and snugly that the pain was greatly reduced. What's even better news is that my hand has finally healed from all the blisters! I'd think I'd choose throwing bricks any day now!

Finally, Elder Slade taught me to play an African game called Bawo. I got a Bawo board for myself the week before, so I wanted him to teach me how to play it. 

I'll try to explain it as simply as possible. There's two players, and each controls a 2x8 grid of little cups engraved in a wooden or stone playing board. You have little marbles or seeds in there, and you want to capture all of your opponents' pieces that are in the front row of his playing area. To do this, you must have two or more pieces in your own cup that is opposite to his in the front row. It's a really fun game because it requires a lot of thinking and the balance of the game shifts VERY fast. Plus, it seems like the variable ways of winning the game are very high, probably much more than chess because the amount of moves you can make in a turn always change, they're not fixed at all.

Unfortunately for me, Elder Slade has already become a seasoned veteran at Bawo, having already beaten some Malawians at their own game. So the benefit for him teaching me was that he could mercilessly destroy me as much as he pleased! He goes for blood when he plays, he doesn't pull punches. So, whenever we were together this week and we had free time (ie. Waiting for others to come for co-ordination) we played each other at Bawo. Unfortunately, as much as a played it, the game was pretty one sided! However, the last time we played, after many turns and dramatic moves I WON!!! The student had finally beaten the master! It was such a great moment for me to actually WIN at that game. It's definitely something I want to play when I come home.

Well, that was the week. As always, we try hard with Alex, but eesh it's tough! Pray for us that we can help him progress!

Yours truly,

Elder Massey

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!

(The theme this week is gifts...
The gift of baptism and the Holy Ghost
African Christmas gifts and
THE GIFT OF A RECENT PHOTO!
It's been a good day!)



The big highlight of this week was definitely the baptism which we had for Moses. This week mainly consisted of preparations for that day. I'd say we still did work in the area, but all of it was really overshadowed by Moses' baptism. He asked that President Cimonwe perform the ordinance. I was a really big highlight for Sister Khama certainly! With Moses baptized, she's excited for the next step that's coming, which is marriage. Now that he's baptized, she can finally put in motion their wedding plans. They are planning the wedding for some time in late September, so here's hoping that me and Elder Chola will still be around for that time. It would definitely be a special moment for us and the soon-to-be newlywed couple!

 

                 Here's a question for you...Can you spot the Canadian in this photo?  

                                  Elder Chola (L) Moses, President Cimonwe and Elder Massey

Some other highlights of this week: 

This week I was able to finish my Christmas shopping. Yeah, I'm betting you're giving strange looks right now. Even me, if I was in a normal situation, doing such a thing at this time of the year would be considered outrageous and maybe even sacrilegious. That said, this is AFRICA we're talking about, and my time here is drawing near to a close, so I got what I could so that if anything should happen - say an unexpected transfer for instance - I'd at least have all the stuff that I need to take home with me.

It was fun getting that stuff too. I won't go into much detail, but I had to get the Christmas gifts at a certain market, and you had to talk price before you could get the goods. Unfortunately, for a pasty white azungu like me, that made me a perfect target for somebody to rip me off. So, me and my companion came up with a clever plan to make sure I got my money's worth. I gave the money to Elder Chola, and we tag teamed that market. I pretended that I was helping him 'find' things that he would want, and he would talk price with the vendors. They would start at outrageous prices too, upwards of 10 000 kwacha which was frankly, WAY too much! However, Elder Chola was able to talk down the price way down lower to what it was better valued at. The first day that we went Christmas shopping, we got several items of significant size and quality for a total of 15 000 kwacha, which was definitely an impressive feat. Sadly, our following attempt did not yield such results. It was a Saturday, and all the tourists were buying on that day and the vendors were feeling very good of themselves selling things way beyond their normal price, so despite our bartering, we paid a notch more for the items we bought on that day. Still, we saved a lot of money in shopping. One senior couple got fleeced with a painting for 50 000, which was probably worth ten times - if not, much less than what they paid for.

The only other thing that I could add was that we had some other missionaries join us for the service at Sister Khama's. We stacked bricks as usual, but a lot of the Elders tried being macho men or showing how 'experienced' they were at throwing bricks and tried tossing them as fast AND hard as possible, which left for a lot of cut up hands. It will probably take time for my hands to heal from this last round!

Apart from that, that war really the week. We try our best with Alex and Lexa, but they can't get themselves to take that leap of faith, which is rather frankly depressing at times, but we are going to keep trying.

Missing you as always!

Elder Massey

Rapid Recap

It seems as if my letter from last week did not make it. I can't find it on my e-mail account.

You could say that last week was much of the same of the week before, so I'll keep it brief: These last couple of weeks our main focus has been Alex & Lexa, and Moses.

For Moses, we had given him a baptismal date for August 16th. So for these last couple of weeks we had be trucking hard to make sure that he was prepared for baptism, as we still had much to teach him. We had taught him most of the lessons, but we still had little time on our hands to teach him. He works construction and he is always on call, so even on days where we agree to meet, sometimes something comes up last minute and keeps us from teaching him. We are very grateful for the support of Sister Khama - his fiance - though. She's a member of the Relief Society Presidency and she is very educated in the gospel, and she was capable of teaching and expounding the missionary discussions herself. With her help, we were able to have the remaining ground covered and we had him interviewed yesterday, and he passed the interview for baptism.

Speaking of Sister Khama, we've started giving service stacking bricks at her home again. It was Elder Chola's first time doing it, and it was quite an experience for him as it was for me. My hands would be proof of that!

Sadly, we've hit a wall with Alex. Alex absolutely believes that the church is true, but at the same time he believes that salvation can come from any and all of the churches in the world. Even so, he feels that at this late point in his life, joining this church would jeopardize his salvation as he has been committed to it all his life, and that by joining us at the age of 78 it would be condemnation to him for disregarding all the good things that have happened because of his church. His parents and wife - of whom are all deceased for a long time now - belonged to that church and it seems he fears disdain from them for switching churches. He does however encourage us to baptize not only Lexa but all of his children, because he feels that they are still young and that by joining this church at a younger age they won't be doing anything that might compromise their salvation.

After he revealed this to us, I bore my whole soul out in testimony. It was one of the most defining moments of my mission. I am certain that the spirit was strongly manifest in that lesson. I felt like it was radiating from me. I testified of the ADDED blessings that would come, and how that it would bless him after life. It was really one of my strongest moments as a missionary.

That was two weeks ago, and we've been doing our best ever since to try to help him to have the faith to be baptized. It's crucial that we get him baptized with Lexa, as she is still very dependant on her father as well as the fact that the church is far away. If she goes to church on her own, it will be very lonely and challenging on her part. This last week we even brought the Beals (the only Blantyre Senior Couple) to teach Alex with us. Elder Beal really took control and spoke very bluntly to Alex in a respectful way, and he could resolve some of the issues we struggled going about with Alex. Even though he was a very great help to us, Elder Beal feels like he's done little to help Alex. We're trying our best though. Recently, I used the example of a member from my branch back home named Brother Lowrey and his conversion at a late point in his life as an illustration on how it is still possible for Alex to be baptized and saved at a late point in his life.

Reflecting on this experience though, I realize that it shows how the conversion process into the true church is not a whimsical process. One does not easily join it. In the times of the New Testament, the people who preached the gospel such as the Apostles did not come from what the world would consider 'dignified' positions in life. They were mere fishermen, tax collectors and such. Though he came from a priestly and noble heritage that would have brought much respect to him, John the Baptist basically lived out in the bush living a frugal life with no real luxuries at all. Even Jesus Christ was a carpenter, and many of the scribes of his day doubted him because of what must of been the mere circumstances that he came from.

A parallel appears in missionary work today. The missionaries from our church are not the kind of people that one would hold high esteem for - not that we're bad or mischievous, but there's that notion that we are young and lack experience and knowledge of the things of life. That in itself is true to a degree, but the gospel truly makes us young men something much more and better than the world can comprehend. People would readily believe on what was being taught if the people who were preaching the gospel were elderly people who had degrees in philosophy and theology, that held high positions in far more widely recognized churches and carried much distinction about themselves. Instead, God sends out young men (and women) as young as 18 - having not yet completed their college education, entered into their careers and begin raising their families - to preach the gospel. Because of that, it really takes a lot of faith on an investigator's part to listen seriously to our message and to regard us as serious preachers of the gospel, not schoolboys as some people actually mistake us to be! Many of the people that we meet or teach fall at this point, simply because they can't take us seriously on the account of being young and regarded as 'unlearned' compared to themselves. I've never talked to somebody who has joined this church, but it must certainly have been a humbling experience for them to listen to men and women much younger than they are and receive instruction (and correction) from them.

So, as to why I'm emailing a little later today: Well, these past couple of days, I've come down sick with the things that you least want to come down with (you know what I mean!). It started on Saturday, and it has continued on up to today. So this morning, I decided to check the medical guide to see - just in case - if it might be something more serious. The Mission gives us this medical guide for medical prevention and treatment, such as bleaching your fruits and vegetables to prevent contamination - which nobody does at all. 

Well, I looked through all the symptoms and diagnoses, I got a little scared. There was one illness that matched many of my symptoms. Headache? Check. Fever? Check. Diarrhea? Check.

What could all that point to?

M A L A R I A

One of the other symptoms for Malaria was thinking irrationally. In the days I've been sick, I hadn't experienced this, but after reading the booklet I began experience these symptoms too - not because of what I believed to be Malaria, but because of the pandemonium and fear that I HAD MALARIA!!!

Many prayers were pled to The Lord this morning, a Priesthood blessing was requested, calls were made to the Mission President's wife, the Mission's Health Adviser and Zone Leaders, and there was a visit to the hospital! After a medical test and an intense wait of 15 minutes, the results came.

The results for Malaria came negative. For irrational fear though, full freaking positive!

I think the lesson learned here is to not to jump to any conclusions. I realize now that just because you start coughing, it doesn't necessarily mean you have terminal cancer and that no matter what, you are going to die. It was a big goof and overreaction on my part, and I'm betting my companion was shaking his head and thinking to himself that Elder Massey had gone nuts.

I'm still sick, but just to let you know, don't worry! I hope I won't cause any of you to lose any sleep. It was just a small incident that was blown over proportion by my naivety.

Well, this has been a long one. My companion is probably bothered by how long I've been writing now, so I'll wrap it up here!

See you Malaria free next week!

Elder Massey

Smashing Hard, as always

Hard to believe that the week is already over. Time just continues to fly on mission.

This week, me and my companion have just been smashing it hard in our area. Hands down we have been the highest performing companionship in our district - not that missionary work is a competition! 

As funny as it seems, there hasn't really been any 'Highlight Reel' lessons to really talk about, we're just going out there and teaching. Like Elder Etiang, Elder Chola just has that natural ability to talk with anybody about the gospel. We began teaching Albert's friends because of it. One day they were working out by his house, and Elder Chola just began talking to him about exercise (he's a big buffalo himself!) and that eventually led to us sitting down with them and teaching. Even yesterday, we were going to be visiting a Recent convert but she wasn't home, though a non-member sister to her was, and we began teaching her also.

Come to think of it though, we had fortune smile on us yesterday. We had two people come to church today that we had never even taught before. They came from Sigerege (an aside: I've been told it's a transliteration of a missionary who died in that area (not of our faith) named Saint Craig) and we had never taught them before. To our fortune though, they are friends with a member in the Branch, so we had him tag along with us for our first lesson, and we are planning to go see them at their home later this week.

Saturday was the best though. In the morning we continued to assist in cleaning the streets of Blantyre. A freelance journalist noticed us and started interviewing some of the members giving service, and we had one former missionary there named Frank who handled the interview really well. He used to be an assistant to the former mission president here, so he is very experienced with talking with people. The journalist did ask one question though that seemed to be slinging some mud at us, which was disappointing, but we're hoping for a fair representation of us. 

Then in the afternoon, we watched Meet the Mormons as a District. We tried inviting as many people as possible, but very few showed. HOWEVER, Alex and Lexa did come, and they really enjoyed the movie. It was great to have some members and investigators of the church come to see the movie and learn more about the church, it was a wonderful experience.

Love to write more, but I'm in a rush. Hopefully I'll make up for it next week. One last thing, we've committed Moses to be baptized on August 16th. Here's hoping he makes it!

Yours truly,

Elder Massey

Potato

I'm frustrated with having to come up with titles for my e-mails, so I decided to just go for the heck of it and put in something incredibly stupid and nonsensical instead. Hope you don't mind!

To follow up on the Birthday Lunch, it was absolutely wonderful. All the people I invited were able to make it. We went to Debonairs for pizza, and it was really nice! All the companionships looked at the Menu, and they all agreed that each should get a triple stack pizza. All of us got the Meaty Triple Stack pizzas save for Elder Kampelya and Elder Lemperle. They shared the chicken one instead. As I saw the total price for all the food ordered, I saw that I still had some money left, so I used the remainder of the money and bought every companionship some Cheesy Garlic Bread as well.

Can I just say - and this isn't meant to be blatant advertising - Debonairs' Garlic Bread is super delish. They melt like wads of white cheese (white cheddar or mozzeralla? Who knows!) in between the garlic bread and dang is it B-E-A-utiful! Debonairs is like one of the few chains here in Africa that I would kill for to come here to Canada. It's so nice!

Temporal matters aside, Elder Etiang left Tuesday afternoon, and Elder Chola wasn't going to come until late Wednesday night, so I was with the Blantyre East Elders again (Elder Slade and Elder Ouma) for the day. We saw more or less the exact same people when I went on exchanges last week.

Thankfully, there were no delays for Elder Chola, and he came on time Wednesday night, and we got to go back to our own flat for the night. Thursday was another goofy day, firstly because we needed to do our weekly planning and I needed to brief him on the area as well. Secondly, because me and Elder Etiang thought at first that he would be leaving the week before, we hadn't really bothered buying groceries. We more or less just ate a hefty lunch in the area, and we were more or less at the mercy of whether the people we visited wanted to feed us or not, so when Elder Chola came, there was probably more food in the Sinai Wilderness than there was in our kitchen and it was more than expedient for us to buy food so that we didn't starve and that took another big chunk out of our time to work that day. HOWEVER, we did have time to get Elder Chola introduced to some members and investigators on that day, but they were more or less formal introductions and not lessons.

Friday had something else divert us from work. The Zone was having their routine Pre-Zone Meeting meeting with the District Leaders, and since Elder Chola is a District Leader he had to attend that meeting for the whole morning. Fun fact: Did you know that the past four companions I've had have all been District Leaders? This has been so since the time I've been transferred out of Lusaka.

Back on track, we were able to have the whole afternoon to work. We wanted to visit Albert, but he was a little busy at first, so we wound up teaching his neighbor Chimwewe - which means Happy in Chichewa. It was funny to discover that, because in the White Elephant that we had last Christmas, I got these toy Nunchucks which I named Chimwewe not knowing what Chimwewe meant. It was a happy coincidence that I gave them such a funny name.

We also saw Sister Khama that same day, and she shared some really wonderful stories to us about her conversion. She told a lot about the opposition that she faced - especially from her family- and she told us how she prayed to God asking for some way to help her show to her friends and family that the church was good. At that time, she had a non-member nephew that was staying over, and that nephew had been beaten by this one person. This person who beat the nephew got thrown into jail, and the family was incensed and wanted to press charges on the fellow. Even Sister Khama was mad, but then she went to church that following Sunday to watch General Conference and heard President Monson speak on forgiveness. She knew then that she had to forgive the attacker. Since she was the legal guardian of the nephew at the time, she was the one who had the power to press charges or not, so when she went to the police post she forgave the attacker and had the police release him. It was quite shocking to the family and the nephew because they knew Sister Khama to be generally unforgiving, and they were upset because they thought the attacker got off scot free, but as Sister Khama explained her reasoning to them, they realize that Sister Khama made the right decision, and that the gospel had a huge role in that decision. Eventually her family came to accept her beliefs. She also told some great stories of how she was pressured to break the Word of Wisdom and withstood it, but I won't elaborate on that simply because of time.

Saturday, we began doing our Mormon Helping Hands service. The church is helping the city of Blantyre to keep the streets clean. Here in Malawi and Zambia, they don't have proper street cleaning equipment, so they typically use labourers (and very few at that) to do the work, which can be really tedious at times. With our force of members and missionaries though, we rolled over that assignment like nobody's business! We'll be back doing that again on the following Saturday.

Sunday was a bit of a bummer. None of our investigators came. :( Alex and Lexa need a little more nudging before they can be truly converted. Elder Chola used to be a member of the same church they went to, so he knows what they need to be taught to help them be converted.

I'm loving working with Elder Chola already. He's a very hard worker as it has been with everyone else, but he knows how to have fun too. We've been messing around with each other, and we've been having a really good time. They way I see it, things are going to be very good for us. We are both down to work hard and teach, and I think that's what will carry us forward.

Miss you all,

Elder Massey

Feet on the Mountain Tops

Well, this has been another hectic week. To spare any tension there may be, I can assure you that I have NOT been transferred for another consecutive week. I am here in Blantyre to stay.

Tuesday came and my bus was leaving early at 7 AM, so I had to get up early-ish so that I could make my ride. It was actually pretty cool that morning. It was about 17 degrees outside, but it wasn't bad for me. Winter is finally coming in and people are starting to get into their winter garb, but being a cold-blooded Canadian it was just another nice day for me. By mid day the temperature had gone up to 26 degrees.

On the bus to Blantyre I was sitting next to the only other mzungu on the bus. The ride from Lilongwe heading south to Blantyre took 5 hours. It was a pretty scenic ride too. It was foggy in the morning which was really nice because I like it when there's weather happening like rain, snow or even just a cloudy day. As we headed south the relatively flat prairies turned into rolling foothills and gradually turned into more and more hills that grew larger and larger. We also drove through several villages along the way, and I should say that when I mean villages, I don't mean those stereotypical African huts in the middle of the bush. It was just basically like the compounds I've served in such as Mtandire, Chazanga and what not except smaller. Back to the scenery: it was basically driving through Southwestern Alberta, and I grew tired that I eventually fell asleep. When I woke up, I saw that we were driving through an area that had a lot of small shops at either side of us. I thought we were driving through another village, but then we started coming through some very packed streets and large buildings, and I realized that we were in Blantyre.

If there's one word that I could describe Blantyre's city centre to compare with Lilongwe's, it would be condensed. While everything in Lilongwe is spaced out a bit, Blantyre is all packed in together. The city centre is all gathered together and it is much tighter. There's lots more traffic too. It seems as if the city centre of Blantyre is much larger than that of Lilongwe's.

The Zone Leaders picked me up, and they took me to my new flat. I'm back to living in a big flat like Chainama again. The flat I stay in is quite large. It used to have four elders living in there, but now it's just me and my companion Elder Etiang. Elder Etiang is a really cool guy. He was friends with Elder Owor and they lived together before they both went on missions, so he has generally the same personality as Elder Owor. He's really chill but hardworking. One thing that I admire about him already is that he can just talk to anybody naturally. The bus system here isn't as good, so we often have to hitchhike to get where we want to go, and Elder Etiang can naturally start a conversation with anybody, so we often have people who we can follow up with or refer to the other missionaries. It's something that I admire because my communication skills aren't anywhere near as good as Elder Etiang's is.

Anyways, back to Tuesday. Get to the flat, and I basically unpack for the afternoon. Transfers in this mission really take a beating on your energy, and I was dead tired. I slept for much of the afternoon.

Wednesday I was finally able to get back to teaching. Here are some of the people that we have in our area.

Albert and Grisham:

Albert and Grisham are brothers. Albert is an investigator that we just baptized yesterday, while Grisham just came down recently to visit some people for a short while before going out of Blantyre. Grisham is a Seventh-Day Adventist, and he took interest in learning about our church a little bit. He doesn't seem interested in joining the church, but rather he just wants to know what we believe in. We brought the Jospeh Smith movie to watch with both Albert and Grisham, and I feel like Grisham took real interest in the movie. I bore really powerful testimony of Joseph Smith. It was really good.

Moment:

Moment is an investigator that we hope to baptize next month. He's a really good tailor and he made his own suit to wear to church this Sunday. He looked really sharp. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation this week and we tried comitting him to baptism, but he wants to be really sure that he has a confirmation that this chruch is true before he can commit. Of all the investigators we have, I think he is the one closest to baptism.

Alex and Lexa:

Alex is the father to Lexa. He's been a Presbyterian for over 70 years, but he recieves our message very well. He has a real interest in it. Lexa also participates in the lessons, and they both asked some real in-depth questions. Nothing wrong with that at all. Our challenge is to get Alex to be able to be willing to leave his former church if he commits to baptism. He knows our message that is true, but he has that strong bond to the church that has helped define him who he is all these years.

We have some really good members in the area as well. The area we work in is called Chilimoni, and it is much more rugged than any of the other areas I've served in. We have lots of climbing to do in our area, and it is exhausting at times. That said, when the night comes and you are on a good look-out point of the valley below us, you get a really beautiful night view of the city. It's even more beautiful with the stars out.

The Blantyre 1st Branch is fantastic as well! We got some really solid members in the branch, and we actually have our own building. It's basically a Stake Centre, so it has all the cool bells and whistles of any church building, so it felt like home when I first went to church on Sunday.

Given how much I've written though today, I'm certain I've worn your brains out, but simply put, I'm LOVIN IT in Blantyre. I'm so thankful to work in such a wonderful place. Still miss you all though!

Love you all!

Elder Massey

Climb Every Mountain

Again, this week was a pretty crazy week. Lots of work was to be had, and lots of things happened as well.

So this week was effectively a 'back to work' in my own area. Lilongwe North had really dried up in the time that me and Elder Kampelya were together, and it was more than expedient that me and Elder Shabalala gave it our all to rebuild the area. For me, I really wanted to go out there and take charge in leading the effort for getting the job done. The only thing was that as much as I wanted to get things right, I was really discouraged by what would needed to be done to achieve that. Effectively, we had almost absolutely nothing to work with in finding new investigators save for tracting. For myself, there's nothing more that I would enjoy than having a magical 'new investigator button' where every time you pressed it, you would get a brand spanking new investigator that is serious and really interested in what you had to share. 

Likewise, I really would have loved it if members here actually gave us referrals to people who would be interested. I guess it's due justice though that we lack such people. Before I left on my mission, I always remembered that whenever missionaries asked me for referrals I was always like, "But guys... talking to my friends about the church is haaaaaaaaaaaaaaard! I don't want to do that!" So I'm guessing the powers that be are having a really good chuckle about my woes.

Back to the point: If we had any hope of rebuilding our teaching pool, we would have to tract - and tracting is hard for me. I'm generally one who is pretty introverted so to speak, and talking to strangers is like in my top 5 of 'Things that Mark Massey does not like'.  Adding to that, I was pretty confident that several hours of tracting in a single day was going to kill my motivation, because all that had amounted from tracting was some Garden Boy or Maid covering their boss saying that they were away, bathing, sleeping and any other barely valid excuse. So, the idea of having to do that for several hours straight - not just for a couple of hours - was really unfun to me.

It had been the subject of some of my prayers where I asked God if he could give me strength to be able to simply do the work that needed to be done in this area. I guess that I had expected that strength would come out of nowhere and that the following morning I would wake up out of bed, chest puffed and full of fire saying to my companion, "LETS GO COMPANION! IT'S 6:30 AM AND WE ONLY HAVE TWELVE HOURS TO FIND PEOPLE! WE MUST GO NOW!"  

What really happened though was that in the mornings as I was about to head out, I was thinking to myself how this was going to be a rough day and wondering how I would be able to pull through. Somehow though I was able to get myself out the door and into the area and knock all those mean-looking gates, even if nobody wanted to listen to the message we had to share. Even when we were turned down, it didn't bother me that much and I just shrugged it off more or less and moved on to the next gate. I hadn't really thought much about it, but looking back at it now, I realize that the Lord must HAVE given me strength to get out there, it was just subtle and sufficient enough for getting me out the door into the area.

Tracting actually yielded some success this last week. We had some initial success in Area 15 and had a couple of lessons here and there, but the people that we taught for the most part did not honor their commitments and did not make themselves available for the return appointments we made for them. On Saturday though, we had some considerable success in finding in Area 18, the area furthest from the chapel. We found a number of people there who were willing to sit down for a few minutes and listen to the message we had. None of the people we found came to church yesterday, but at least I felt like we actually got something done this week. I think we actually taught the most lessons ever since I came to this area.

After labouring so hard in this area, our Zone Leaders came by Thursday with some news: Elder Shabalala was going to get a new companion and I was going to Blantyre! I thought that I would be serving in Lilongwe for the rest of my mission, but I'm certainly glad to be able to serve in a THIRD zone on my mission. I can safely say now that I've served in more than half of the Zones in my mission! I'll be leaving for Blantyre tomorrow, and my new companion will be a Ugandan (again) name Elder Etiang. I've heard very good things about both Blantyre and Elder Etiang, so I'm super stoked to go there. I hear that Blantyre is a very beautiful part of Malawi as well. You are surrounded by mountains there. Having grown up just a hop away from the Rockies, I'm looking forward to being somewhere where you can actually see mountains. The only catch is that I'll have a lot of climbing to do. Blantyre is supposedly rugged and hilly, so I'll have more than my fair share of exercise. A lot of missionaries have lost a lot of weight there, and seeing as I am a very weight 140 pounds, I stand to shave off a few pounds!

One last thing: So it became apparent to me that I needed a haircut, so this week I went to a barbershop to get it cut down. Now usually, I'm indifferent about how my hair is. I usually just get it sheared short like a sheep and grow it out before repeating the process. However, I've seen a lot of my fellow mzungu Elders rocking some haircut where the sides are shorter than the top, and it looked pretty nice, so I was like , "Why not?". Anyways, I got it cut that way, but I'll have you know that it isn't extreme like Macklemore's. The sides are only a length shorter than the top, so the difference is very subtle. Nevertheless, it looks very sharp and if I were to send a picture of me with that cut wearing my aviators, I'm pretty confident that I would get a lot of letters from 'potential investigators', but to spare my e-mail inbox of hundreds of love letters I won't show it off to you! ;)

Well, this has been quite a long one. Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Massey