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!)