Watch Your Mouth!

So this week was another interesting week. Things seem to keep happening and happening.

Elder Kampelya has been in the same area for area for upwards of ten months now, and when that happens you begin to get kind of loopy and start going a little crazy. Recently one of the things that he has been doing is that he has been tricking all the other missionaries and members into thinking that he was getting transferred. Many of them believed him, and I honestly didn't understand what was going on with him.

On Tuesday, the Zone Leaders came by our flat. They had some news for us. Turns out that they had transfer news for us! Elder Kampelya was transferred to Blantyre. My fate however is not too certain. The transfer was another Emergancy transfer because quite literally, somebody sneezed in Lusaka. A Zone Leader in Lusaka got very sick so they had to send him home, so President Erikson was forced to make transfers to fill in all the holes in mission leadership. With that, I won't know who my permament companion will be - let alone if I even STAY in my area. For the next couple of weeks I'll be with Elder Bennett and Elder Shabalala in Kauma. I've already spent a couple days there, and it's been really nice - if it hadn't been for me getting sick!

 

 Elder Massey with his district before transfers

(Able to find this photo via stellar blog stalking on the internet....I hope Sister Rasband doesn't mind!)

 

So the rest of the week was basically preparing for transfers, and I started getting sick on Thursday. Friday I came down with a bad cough and the next thing I know I'm leaking more muclear radiation than Chernobyl! So Friday, I could hardly work at all, notwithstanding that I had to pack for my own temporary move out of the flat.

It was slightly supplemented though by a very early birthday package that came in Thursday. Had transfers not happened, I would have left it unopened but knowing that there were some things in there for my companion and my fellow district members, I opened it for their sakes. Thankfully, the collateral damage from the premature opening of my birthday package (**Editors note:  Elder Massey had actually written Christmas instead of birthday which gives me insight into how it must feel to get a package from home!)  only involved a bag of Strawberry Marshmallows, a box of Smarties (by the way, clever new design for the box!), and whatever stray Ferrero Roche's I could find in there! The Ezra Taft Benson biography also made things much more tolerable, and as it is with books, I've already plowed half way through it. 

 

(**Editor's note:  Last year, Elder Massey birthday package took over 2 months to get to him using Canada Post.  Needless to say, it arrived well after his birthday on July 9.  So this year, I made sure to mail it early knowing he was in Malawi and it might sit at the mission home for a while waiting for someone to go there.  The fantastic United States Postal Service got his package there in less than 3 weeks and consequently this year's birthday package not only arrived early but sounds like it arrived at a time when he really needed a little extra love from home! Another tender mercy for a missionary mom!)

Since I've only been in my (temporary) new area for a couple days, there's not much to report save that we baptized a sister named Jessie yesterday, and we have somebody named Vasco who passed his baptismal interview for this coming Sunday. Looking forward to letting you know more about that area!

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Massey