Reaching our Goals

Last week was a good week. We worked quite a bit and we've found some success here and there.

Obviously of note is Prisca. We continue to push to have her baptized this coming Sunday. We would have had her interviewed for baptism yesterday, but she wasn't available on that day so we set for this Wednesday. It was fortunate that we did though as we haven't yet taught all the things she needs to know prior to her interview. We taught her three times all of last week making sure she knows of the commandments she will need to be keeping. Prisca has been one of those investigators that you know are serious about their commitments. To my memory for all of these past few lessons she has kept the assignments that we given her. That is usually a good indicator for one's conversion.

This week we also did some tracting and we had some better results. We have a couple of return appointments set up, so our fingers are crossed. One of the contacts that we made was named Francis, and we were able to spend several minutes just standing at the gate with him teaching a condensed version about the Restoration. I even made mention about Joseph Smith which was really good as one of my weaknesses is that I'm not bold enough with teaching all of our doctrine at the start of a lesson, such as Joseph Smith and the first vision. I usually want to ease people into things so that there's some proper understanding on the investigator's end, but I've realized that when you go out there and really teach what makes our faith so unique, you don't beat around the bush anymore. The people who you talk to really know what you believe and what you escape, not some vague and blurry idea of what it really is.

This Saturday we finally were able to teach Richard. Richard is an investigator of ours, but he has been skittish so to speak about the appointments. Things always seem to happen that keep us from meeting with him. The Fisks (one of the senior couples here) are good friends with him though, and managed to set an appointment with him on Saturday, to which they had us come along. Our initial plan was to teach simply on the Book of Mormon, but when we turned the time over to the Fisks for their turn on teaching him, both of them really expounded much on the Restoration - and I will say, in an eloquent way too - that we eventually became obligated to teach them the whole Restoration. It was a really large contrast to see our teaching style compared to the Fisks, and I think that comes with age as well as years of experience and membership in the church. When me and my companion taught, it was really brief and straight to the point but the Fisks were ones who could really elaborate in detail effectively and weave a bigger and broader picture of what the Restoration was and what it really means, not just in generally but especially to themselves on a much more personal level. It was quite a task to adjust to their style of teaching, but all in all we taught a really good lesson.

Hoping that we will baptize Prisca this Sunday. It would be a great way to finish the month. If all goes well for our Zone, we as a zone may be baptizing 28 (!) people in a single month. That would blow away all of the other Zones' baptisms for this month.

Love you all always,

Elder Massey

Looking Up in Lilongwe

Things are still tough in our area, but we manage to keep pushing, and we are finding some success in the area. Even though we have few people to teach, the people that we do teach on a regular basis are progressing WONDERFULLY!

Prisca continues to progress towards her baptism on May 31st. We are really under pressure right now to make sure that she is prepared for her interview this coming Sunday. This last week we had to finish teaching both the Plan of Salvation and Gospel of Jesus Christ if we wanted any hopes of having her baptized on time. Thankfully, we made two appointments with her, and we taught some really wonderful lessons with her. She has been completing the assignments that we leave behind with her, and it helped us teaching her SO MUCH. Peter - our fellowshipper for Prisca - has left for Blantyre for an extended period of time, so we involved his sister Ruth in our discussions now. Ruth is a returned-missionary just like Peter, having served in the Kenya Nairobi Mission. She is a really good teacher and she could even expound some things better than we could. She has been a great deal of help to us, and we're excited to have Prisca interviewed this Sunday.

We also began teaching somebody named James. James is a referral from Peter and  was formerly taught by missionaries a long time ago and had attended church so often that he saw himself as a 'member' of the church. When he told us that he was a member, we were very confused because we were told that he wasn't baptized. After calling some of his friends who are members of the church, we figured out that he has yet to be baptized. We haven't taught him much though. His English isn't the best, so we are going to need an interpreter to teach him. That said, we've decided to commit him to be baptized on the last Sunday of June. It should give us more than enough time to get him ready.

Throughout the week we continued to do some tracting. We haven't had much success yet in that regard, but we do have maybe a couple of follow ups this week. We talked with someone yesterday for a few minutes explaining what we teach and what we do as missionaries. We bore testimony as well, and it was really nice. When we go tracting, we usually don't have experiences like this. Usually it goes for a minute where we briefly summarize something that we believe in, and then we leave a pamphlet and collect the necessary contact information - that is, if we do get to talk to somebody. Most of the time we just wind up speaking to the home owner's gardener or maid who know very little English. They usually go inside to check if the owner is home and they come back saying that he's either not home or busy.It's tough, but we keep trying.

On Sunday, we had some very unique visitors. There was a Sister missionary who served here named Sister Getts who has long since finished her mission. Well, yesterday she came back with a lot of friends from BYU. All of them are on some internship program where they spend the Summer here in Malawi. Apparently they will be here and attending our branch for the next three months! It will be interesting to see how it all works out. Yesterday after they realized no one plays the piano, one of them went up front and played the piano for all the hymns. I'm seeing that in the next few months the branch is going to be (too) reliant on these Sisters for running the branch. 

Well, great to hear from all of you guys again! Hope everything is well!

Elder Massey

Bikes and a Whole Bunch of Maize

It was another short week, but it was better than the last. We still did a lot of tracting through the week, but we got to have a couple lessons here and there.

One of them was with a new investigator named Lindiwe. She studies in Russia during the school year, but now she's on break until classes start. We had tracted to her home the week before and we set a return appointment with her, so this week we were able to get our first lesson with her. Usually in our first lessons we just do a brief introduction and talk about how the our message can help our investigators, state our purpose and generally help our investigators feel comfortable with us. As we taught Lindiwe we told her how the atonement can give her a peace of mind in her life despite the mistakes that we make in life. Lindiwe then opened up a lot and asked us A LOT of questions about how the atonement works, and we got to explain that a little more with her. She has a lot of questions, and she seems to have the desire to progress.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Tembo family. We restated our purpose and explained about how in the end we invite people to be baptized. Brother Tembo frankly told us that they weren't interested in baptism and that they weren't interested in joining the church, but we could certainly come by to strengthen them spiritually. It is a source of frustration for me when we have people like that. A lot of people here think that we are here just to have Bible Study and help them have their 'Daily Bread' of the gospel. While it is good to teach and encourage others about the gospel, it concerns me how some people are overly dependent on others to help them with the spiritual needs. Personally speaking, I see missionaries like us as providers of the information and resources necessary for one's personal salvation, but the responsibility of one's spirituality relies heavily on the individual him/herself. We can teach everything that we've got in the book that can help somebody to find salvation, but if they don't act for themselves, it won't do them any good! Salvation comes from doing, not listening! It's just like the old saying, "Give a man a fish and he'll be full for a day, but teach a man how to fish and he'll be full for life." Truly teaching others about the gospel is an important duty, but the teachings will have little impact if the people receiving the message only nods their head and say amen. 

Ranting aside, we still had some good lessons. We are progressing with Prisca, a friend to Peter the returned missionary in our branch. We have almost finished teaching her about the Plan of Salvation, and then we need to keep going until her baptismal date on May 31st. It looks like things will shape up with her, but we might be going a little tight heading closer to the end of the line.

This week we also got to do some more service. Peter asked us and the Zone Leaders to help him transport some harvested corn back to his home. We took the Zone Leader's truck and put all the corn in the back. We made two whole runs with the tailgate full to the brim. It was hard and heavy loading them, but it was certainly fun UNloading them! 

There was a day where my companion wanted to ride bikes in our area. On our porch of our flat there's two bikes that are chained up. They aren't good bikes at all. They're one speed bikes, and they are in desperate need for maintenance. I made the mistake of riding one of the bikes which had problems gaining speed, so even when we were going downhill I was pedaling hard! I thought at first that I was way out of shape, but I soon realized it was the bike that was the problem, not me! Me and my companion switched bikes and things went much better. That said, I hated the fact that the bikes are one-speed, meaning I can't go into an easier gear when climbing hills. Even small ones really work your legs. I don't think I plan on riding those bikes again, but at least I can say I rode a bike during my mission like other missionaries.

Thanks for all the support, and I'm looking forward to hear what's new from home! I miss you all very much and hope everything goes well for you!

Love, 

Elder Massey

Keep on Buidling....

Well, if last week was a tough week, this week was even harder. Boy this was really a tough one. It's just one of those weeks that you have so much planned for, but it just all falls apart on you even when you do your best in the area.

It was just a week full of fall throughs. We had appointments set, but for the most part people didn't keep their commitments and we got our whole week messed up because of that. 

We came up with a new method of tracting though. When we tract, we usually introduced ourselves and explained what we did and try setting an appointment. Now, we decided to briefly teach about the Restoration and invite to share more about it in a future appointment. We haven't had much success from it, but I get a better peace of mind doing it that way because the people we come into contact with actually know WHAT we believe in.

We did though get the chance to teach one new investigator this last week. We were tracting on Saturday in Area 47, and a lady who we contacted actually invited us in to share more, and she was very enthusiastic too! Her name is Moire, and potentially we will be seeing her again this week. It is really exciting because she was really receptive to us and was really grateful that we were doing missionary work like this. She even gave us a referral. We may just progress with her, but time will tell. That said, it really is great to see fruits from your labours. That's the catch about finding ideal investigators sometimes: You have to invest a lot of work, time and effort just to get a small taster of success. Really, it's going to take a lot to really get things going well for us, but at least that experience gave us a glimmer of hope!

Best of wishes everybody!

Elder Massey

 

 Elder Massey's Zone

(when he doesn't send pictures....I have to resort to "borrowing" them from others!)