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