On the Road Again!

Well, this week continues to hold more and more surprises for me!

On Tuesday, we had a really great Zone Conference. Lots of great
things were to be had in that meeting. For example Sister Stones (one
of the senior couple missionaries) shared a very POWERFUL family
history experience that she had. It really hypes me up to do my own
family history work when I finish my mission. Heck, even this indexing
thing that the church keeps talking about is starting to sound
interesting.

The Lilongwe Malawi Zone

 (Thanks to Sister Erickson for posting this photo on the mission blog...pretty sad when you have to resort to stealing photos....)

 One of the things talked about in Zone Conference was becoming
Full-Purpose missionaries. In the past, the end goal of missionary
work was to baptize those who were worthy into the church,  but now
the church really wants those who join this church to remain fully
active and to raise up active future generations of members in the
church as well. That means instead of having our investigators' eyes
set on baptism, the church wants to shift the focus on getting those
people to the temple for the saving ordinances that can be had there.
Basically, the church wants to make sure those who are baptized endure
to the end rather than have a strong two months of activity in the
church after baptism and then sputter out and go less-active for the
rest of their lives. On that same subject, we talked about improving
the experience we have on the Sabbath Day. We were showed some
leadership training videos meant for the leaders of the church on that
subject, and it was really inspiring and it actually led to myself
contemplating how I can make the Sabbath Day a more special day for
me.

At the end of our Zone Conference we got to FINALLY watch Meet the
Mormons. It was really awesome. The movie was nicely done. The part I
think I liked the most was the one where they got to talk with 'The
Candy Bomber'. Being somewhat of a history aficionado I took interest
into this story in particular because of the historical context and
what not. Hard to believe that guy is 90+ years old and he's STILL
flying. He's in good shape for somebody his age. Elder Bennett already
had a DVD copy of the movie that his family sent, so after Zone
Conference I checked out the behind the scenes stuff, and I actually
watched the Director's Commentary - you know, that one part of the DVD
that NOBODY ever watches?! And it was really good too. I got to learn
a couple more things about the people featured in that movie. It was
absolutely incredible.

As for the rest of the week, it was really good. Working with Elder
Bennett and Elder Shabalala was great. It was much busier than the
work I had in the Lilongwe Branch. We visited a lot of members in the
area. We came to this one home, and there was this skinned pelt of a
CAT nailed on one of the walls inside their home. It really took me
aback quite a bit!

We continued to prepare Vasco for his baptism on Sunday, and he was my
favourite person in that area. He was really outgoing and friendly
with us, and those are generally the ideal attributes that one wants
in an investigator. I personally think that Vasco will make a very
strong member of the church in the future.

Another great person in that area is Don. Don is a recent-convert. The
missionaries gave him a Book of Mormon to read, but his literacy in
English is very poor, so he could not read the scriptural language
that was in the Book of Mormon, so to compensate, the missionaries
gave him a Book of Mormon Stories Picturebook that the church
generally makes for children, and it has really helped Don to take
away important lessons from the gospel. He really comes away with a
lot from those stories and it helps him to understand what's going on
at the very basics. Hopefully he'll be able to read English better
someday so that he can read the FULL version.

During the week, I really had some great moments during personal
study. I've come to the part in the book of Alma where the most
doctrine in that book seems to be and it has helped me draw away much
knowledge from it. I was really pleased of myself when I connected a
scripture related to what a particular verse was saying, only to find
that it was already mentioned in the footnotes. There were ones though
that I found myself that I quite liked. For example, in one verse Alma
asks a rhetorical question saying that everybody is of the same value
to God, whether they were born before or during the time of Christ's
coming. I compared that to the Saviour's parable of the servants in
the Vineyard who were all paid a penny's wage at the end of the day,
no matter what time they started their labours.

Then on Friday, we got some unexpected news. We got transfer news! The
same day we got transfer news, me and Elder Shabalala reuturned to the
Lilongwe North area where I served with Elder Kampelya, while Elder
Bennett is now training a brand new missionary from Tanzania. Saturday
and Sunday, me and Elder Shabalala were already at work doing our best
to rebuild the teaching pool by tracting in Area 6. We've found a few
potential investigators, but we're not entirely certain how things
will shape up in the future.

Elder Shabalala is another great companion. Like some of my past
companions, he's a hard worker. He was also a former ZL. I think the
both of us are alike in that we just want to get to work and do our
best. I'm looking forward to the time we have ahead of us. Our area is
tough right now, but I know that we can really work hard together,
knowing that the both of us are still relatively fresh in the area and
have a positive outlook on the area.

Hoping everything is well at home, I miss you all!

Elder Massey

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

Working Hard

 Editor's note:  When Facebook hit it's popular phase with teens, I was very skeptical about my kids Facebook "friends" and connecting with people they didn't even know.  My words have come back to bless me....I had another missionary mom reach out to me with a picture of Mark and her son, Elder Brewerton.  It's the first picture we have had in several weeks!  Can't be a Facebook hater any longer!

 And now from Elder Massey:

Well, not much to say this week. Things kind a went a little crazy. We got some random transfers out of nowhere. Both our Zone Leaders got transferred to different areas, so we have new Zone Leaders. Elder Barton will be my new Zone Leader again, and I also have an Elder Cunningham as the other Zone Leader. Sadly, Elder Brewerton got affected in the transfers and he's gone to Lusaka now. It's a real bummer.

Because of transfers, we were kind of out of the loop a little bit. We tried our best to get things done in the area, but unfortunately things didn't shape up for us just because of the transfers and what not. On the lighter side though, Prisca passed her interview and she was baptized yesterday. Her boyfriend Peter was able to come up from Blantyre and perform the baptism himself! It was awesome to have him there for such a big moment in his girlfriend's life. It was looking like for the longest time that he might not be able to make it. It was the highlight of the week to have him there.

Last of all, we had an all day service activity at a member's field. His name is Ackras. He's finishing his maize harvest and needed us and the ZLs to help quicken the pace as people were stealing his crop, so he wanted to haul it all back to his place where the maize would be safe and sound. It was so funny too coming back the last trip. Some neighbors of his came to help as well, and we had to cram them all in the back of the truck, which was crammed halfway up with maize. I forgot to bring a camera, so I don't have a picture to show of it, but it was quite something.

Hopefully with everything settling down now we'll be able to do some good in the area. Now that we've finished with Prisca, we need another person to work on to get baptized, time to get back to finding!

 Elder Massey and Elder Brewerton (Lethbridge) harvesting maize

Reaching our Goals

Last week was a good week. We worked quite a bit and we've found some success here and there.

Obviously of note is Prisca. We continue to push to have her baptized this coming Sunday. We would have had her interviewed for baptism yesterday, but she wasn't available on that day so we set for this Wednesday. It was fortunate that we did though as we haven't yet taught all the things she needs to know prior to her interview. We taught her three times all of last week making sure she knows of the commandments she will need to be keeping. Prisca has been one of those investigators that you know are serious about their commitments. To my memory for all of these past few lessons she has kept the assignments that we given her. That is usually a good indicator for one's conversion.

This week we also did some tracting and we had some better results. We have a couple of return appointments set up, so our fingers are crossed. One of the contacts that we made was named Francis, and we were able to spend several minutes just standing at the gate with him teaching a condensed version about the Restoration. I even made mention about Joseph Smith which was really good as one of my weaknesses is that I'm not bold enough with teaching all of our doctrine at the start of a lesson, such as Joseph Smith and the first vision. I usually want to ease people into things so that there's some proper understanding on the investigator's end, but I've realized that when you go out there and really teach what makes our faith so unique, you don't beat around the bush anymore. The people who you talk to really know what you believe and what you escape, not some vague and blurry idea of what it really is.

This Saturday we finally were able to teach Richard. Richard is an investigator of ours, but he has been skittish so to speak about the appointments. Things always seem to happen that keep us from meeting with him. The Fisks (one of the senior couples here) are good friends with him though, and managed to set an appointment with him on Saturday, to which they had us come along. Our initial plan was to teach simply on the Book of Mormon, but when we turned the time over to the Fisks for their turn on teaching him, both of them really expounded much on the Restoration - and I will say, in an eloquent way too - that we eventually became obligated to teach them the whole Restoration. It was a really large contrast to see our teaching style compared to the Fisks, and I think that comes with age as well as years of experience and membership in the church. When me and my companion taught, it was really brief and straight to the point but the Fisks were ones who could really elaborate in detail effectively and weave a bigger and broader picture of what the Restoration was and what it really means, not just in generally but especially to themselves on a much more personal level. It was quite a task to adjust to their style of teaching, but all in all we taught a really good lesson.

Hoping that we will baptize Prisca this Sunday. It would be a great way to finish the month. If all goes well for our Zone, we as a zone may be baptizing 28 (!) people in a single month. That would blow away all of the other Zones' baptisms for this month.

Love you all always,

Elder Massey

Looking Up in Lilongwe

Things are still tough in our area, but we manage to keep pushing, and we are finding some success in the area. Even though we have few people to teach, the people that we do teach on a regular basis are progressing WONDERFULLY!

Prisca continues to progress towards her baptism on May 31st. We are really under pressure right now to make sure that she is prepared for her interview this coming Sunday. This last week we had to finish teaching both the Plan of Salvation and Gospel of Jesus Christ if we wanted any hopes of having her baptized on time. Thankfully, we made two appointments with her, and we taught some really wonderful lessons with her. She has been completing the assignments that we leave behind with her, and it helped us teaching her SO MUCH. Peter - our fellowshipper for Prisca - has left for Blantyre for an extended period of time, so we involved his sister Ruth in our discussions now. Ruth is a returned-missionary just like Peter, having served in the Kenya Nairobi Mission. She is a really good teacher and she could even expound some things better than we could. She has been a great deal of help to us, and we're excited to have Prisca interviewed this Sunday.

We also began teaching somebody named James. James is a referral from Peter and  was formerly taught by missionaries a long time ago and had attended church so often that he saw himself as a 'member' of the church. When he told us that he was a member, we were very confused because we were told that he wasn't baptized. After calling some of his friends who are members of the church, we figured out that he has yet to be baptized. We haven't taught him much though. His English isn't the best, so we are going to need an interpreter to teach him. That said, we've decided to commit him to be baptized on the last Sunday of June. It should give us more than enough time to get him ready.

Throughout the week we continued to do some tracting. We haven't had much success yet in that regard, but we do have maybe a couple of follow ups this week. We talked with someone yesterday for a few minutes explaining what we teach and what we do as missionaries. We bore testimony as well, and it was really nice. When we go tracting, we usually don't have experiences like this. Usually it goes for a minute where we briefly summarize something that we believe in, and then we leave a pamphlet and collect the necessary contact information - that is, if we do get to talk to somebody. Most of the time we just wind up speaking to the home owner's gardener or maid who know very little English. They usually go inside to check if the owner is home and they come back saying that he's either not home or busy.It's tough, but we keep trying.

On Sunday, we had some very unique visitors. There was a Sister missionary who served here named Sister Getts who has long since finished her mission. Well, yesterday she came back with a lot of friends from BYU. All of them are on some internship program where they spend the Summer here in Malawi. Apparently they will be here and attending our branch for the next three months! It will be interesting to see how it all works out. Yesterday after they realized no one plays the piano, one of them went up front and played the piano for all the hymns. I'm seeing that in the next few months the branch is going to be (too) reliant on these Sisters for running the branch. 

Well, great to hear from all of you guys again! Hope everything is well!

Elder Massey

Bikes and a Whole Bunch of Maize

It was another short week, but it was better than the last. We still did a lot of tracting through the week, but we got to have a couple lessons here and there.

One of them was with a new investigator named Lindiwe. She studies in Russia during the school year, but now she's on break until classes start. We had tracted to her home the week before and we set a return appointment with her, so this week we were able to get our first lesson with her. Usually in our first lessons we just do a brief introduction and talk about how the our message can help our investigators, state our purpose and generally help our investigators feel comfortable with us. As we taught Lindiwe we told her how the atonement can give her a peace of mind in her life despite the mistakes that we make in life. Lindiwe then opened up a lot and asked us A LOT of questions about how the atonement works, and we got to explain that a little more with her. She has a lot of questions, and she seems to have the desire to progress.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Tembo family. We restated our purpose and explained about how in the end we invite people to be baptized. Brother Tembo frankly told us that they weren't interested in baptism and that they weren't interested in joining the church, but we could certainly come by to strengthen them spiritually. It is a source of frustration for me when we have people like that. A lot of people here think that we are here just to have Bible Study and help them have their 'Daily Bread' of the gospel. While it is good to teach and encourage others about the gospel, it concerns me how some people are overly dependent on others to help them with the spiritual needs. Personally speaking, I see missionaries like us as providers of the information and resources necessary for one's personal salvation, but the responsibility of one's spirituality relies heavily on the individual him/herself. We can teach everything that we've got in the book that can help somebody to find salvation, but if they don't act for themselves, it won't do them any good! Salvation comes from doing, not listening! It's just like the old saying, "Give a man a fish and he'll be full for a day, but teach a man how to fish and he'll be full for life." Truly teaching others about the gospel is an important duty, but the teachings will have little impact if the people receiving the message only nods their head and say amen. 

Ranting aside, we still had some good lessons. We are progressing with Prisca, a friend to Peter the returned missionary in our branch. We have almost finished teaching her about the Plan of Salvation, and then we need to keep going until her baptismal date on May 31st. It looks like things will shape up with her, but we might be going a little tight heading closer to the end of the line.

This week we also got to do some more service. Peter asked us and the Zone Leaders to help him transport some harvested corn back to his home. We took the Zone Leader's truck and put all the corn in the back. We made two whole runs with the tailgate full to the brim. It was hard and heavy loading them, but it was certainly fun UNloading them! 

There was a day where my companion wanted to ride bikes in our area. On our porch of our flat there's two bikes that are chained up. They aren't good bikes at all. They're one speed bikes, and they are in desperate need for maintenance. I made the mistake of riding one of the bikes which had problems gaining speed, so even when we were going downhill I was pedaling hard! I thought at first that I was way out of shape, but I soon realized it was the bike that was the problem, not me! Me and my companion switched bikes and things went much better. That said, I hated the fact that the bikes are one-speed, meaning I can't go into an easier gear when climbing hills. Even small ones really work your legs. I don't think I plan on riding those bikes again, but at least I can say I rode a bike during my mission like other missionaries.

Thanks for all the support, and I'm looking forward to hear what's new from home! I miss you all very much and hope everything goes well for you!

Love, 

Elder Massey

Keep on Buidling....

Well, if last week was a tough week, this week was even harder. Boy this was really a tough one. It's just one of those weeks that you have so much planned for, but it just all falls apart on you even when you do your best in the area.

It was just a week full of fall throughs. We had appointments set, but for the most part people didn't keep their commitments and we got our whole week messed up because of that. 

We came up with a new method of tracting though. When we tract, we usually introduced ourselves and explained what we did and try setting an appointment. Now, we decided to briefly teach about the Restoration and invite to share more about it in a future appointment. We haven't had much success from it, but I get a better peace of mind doing it that way because the people we come into contact with actually know WHAT we believe in.

We did though get the chance to teach one new investigator this last week. We were tracting on Saturday in Area 47, and a lady who we contacted actually invited us in to share more, and she was very enthusiastic too! Her name is Moire, and potentially we will be seeing her again this week. It is really exciting because she was really receptive to us and was really grateful that we were doing missionary work like this. She even gave us a referral. We may just progress with her, but time will tell. That said, it really is great to see fruits from your labours. That's the catch about finding ideal investigators sometimes: You have to invest a lot of work, time and effort just to get a small taster of success. Really, it's going to take a lot to really get things going well for us, but at least that experience gave us a glimmer of hope!

Best of wishes everybody!

Elder Massey

 

 Elder Massey's Zone

(when he doesn't send pictures....I have to resort to "borrowing" them from others!)