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
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