February 26, 2007

Hello!

Ah, it is good here in Africa. Yesterday at church both Isaac and Sister Kabonso were confirmed. We had 96 contacts through the week and zero came to church again, but we'll keep trying. Maybe you remember a couple of weeks ago I said I was really excited about this guy, Saxson Sinyenza, because he finally came to church for the first time. Well, we met with him this past Wednesday and he kind of "confessed" to us that he really is higher up in his church than we originally thought. Apparently he is Lord Bishop and also District President of all of the Kitwe and all of the Luanshya branches of African National Church. Ish! And he has brought lots of family members into that church as well. So he says he feels like if he joins the Church that he will be leaving all his sheep behind. The killer thing is that he knows that his church is wrong! He knows that what we teach is true! He's even said it himself. He also said that he had to make arrangements far in advance to attend sacrament meeting that one time. We'll continue visiting him and try to get the branch president to visit him as well but I can tell we're in this one for the long haul. He really would be a powerful member of the branch.
Let's see, what else happened this week.... Oh yes, Friday was Elder Minch's Humpday! He has been on mission for just over a year now. So on Friday night we went to town and ate at a pizza place called Mona Lisa's. We were going to get chocolate shakes as well, but the shake machine was broken. The pizza wasn't spectacular, but I imagine it's probably the best available in Kitwe. It used quite a bit of our allotment, but a Hump day is only once in a lifetime, right? So that was a nice activity to kind of mix things up. Mission life easily gets into a routine, but doing special things like that is always fun.
I'm still playing the keyboard at church every Sunday. It's a lot of fun, but I get exactly zero time to practice. I can't even play prelude because people always need us to do things or greet people coming in, but I can still play a healthy variety of hymns. Prior to my coming here, the members only knew 4 or 5 hymns to sing, but because someone (me) is playing the keyboard they can now learn some more! That's something I'm proud of. (thanks mom!) Also I hope to be able to teach one or two other members the basics of how to play so that when I leave they can have someone play the keyboard, even if it probably is the Easy Hymns version.

Hope everyone is having a great week. Love you all lots!

Elder Moline

P.S. I'm planning on making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies today when we get home. Wish me luck. Hopefully they will be up to par with my premission efforts. (I hear yours are quite delicious, Saryn!) We have to convert fahrenheit to celsius and cups to mL, etc. I'll report on them next week.

P.P.S. Dad, try attaching a picture to an email to my myldsmail address and I'll see how it works next week. If not, you could send film paper here to the Lusaka address or the Harare one(no film paper in the pouch address).

P.P.P.S. Mom, did you send the pictures of Bro Kabonso's baptism yet? Please do that this week if you can. . .thanks!