Well, in all honesty, for New Years week we did pretty darn spectacular! Last year at this time I had 2 lessons the whole week, this week we had 26! And better yet 5 people came to church! Powerful. Best week this area has had in over a year, all on a week that is commonly the worst of the year. It is quite easy to see the hand of the Lord at times life this.
This week was full of weird things happening. First off, how our investigator Bongani came to church. As Sacrament meeting is about to start, I pan around the room to again be let down by the sight of no investigators at church... but just as I was about to refocus on the front, I see a bright pink blur out of the corner of my eye. Bongani had walked in wearing a bright pink suit, with a white beater shirt, and a diamond cross chain. POWERFUL! It was all I could do to not get out of my seat and go congratulate him for being such a man. I'm very much considering getting such a suit for my home coming talk. In Priesthood meeting when talking about home teaching he raised his hand and said "we need to have a good approach to these people" then fluttered his suit haha. Anyways, church goes great. Kind of.
Old people here are... kinda out there. A member of the Stake Presidency was with us and every few minutes he "felt prompted to bear his testimony", but in all reality he was just trying to correct the false doctrines being spread by the elderly. Then at the end of the meeting our Branch president gets up and reminds everyone to close "in the name of Jesus" to which the stake man gets up and says "Sorry, but he means in the name of Jesus Christ" to which the Branch president gets up and says "Oh yes oh yes, I was just making a short cut." Seriously, sometimes church here turns into a bit of a comedy because they are so new to the church that they are still learning how to run it.
President Miamane (Branch President)
Everything I own is kind of in shambles. Yesterday morning the hemming on my suit pants came out. We were running late because my broken alarm did not go off, so I had to try and sew it in the car. I forgot a knife, so every time I would want to sew a new place I had to curl up into a ball and bite the thread. On the back of my pants though I couldn't do it, so very majestically I took the wheel, while my companion was trying to cut the thread with a pen. I believe he still controlled the gas, break, and clutch, but could not see the road. Going 120 kmph. It was awesome. Mission! Anyone who seeks to criticize me for being unsafe please save your time. We were still by far the safest drivers on the road that day. This is Africa after all.
Hmm, oh yeah. We got transfer news Saturday and Elder Silvester and I are staying for at least another 6 weeks. This is good and bad. At the very earliest the Branch will be back in 6 months to our area. So, basically, we are spending all our time on members. They took the Branch away because they did not know how to run it. So, we have to train them, and more importantly help convert them, so that the stake will allow us to meet in Temba again. So yeah, no baptism for a while haha, but this work is about building the kingdom, not making your mission look flashy.
It is so very hot here. I have an expression to use to describe it, but on second thought and at the warning of a fellow missionary I decided that y'all would probably just be offended by it. It is funny, what's just fine here is terrible there and vice versa. Weird how that works.
Anyways, I'm out of things to write.
Elder McClellan
I love this boy to pieces!
ReplyDelete