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!)
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