August 13, 2007

Dear friends and family,

Seven more days gone! I was with Brother Rabson all week and then today he was released and my new companion is Joseph Piyolo also a regular member from Munali branch here in Lusaka. So he will probably be my companion for the next 4 weeks or so, until the next transfer starts. I had thought there would be a missionary kicked out of Zimbabwe by now, but I was told that all the fulltime missionaries currently in Zimbabwe have TEPs or are Zimbabwean citizens, so we don't anticipate anyone being booted anytime soon after all.

We found this sweet restaurant in our area where we can eat nshima and relish for 5pin (That's the nickname for "thousand") or K5,000, which is about $1.25. You can get fried chicken (called inkoko), beef (nyama), fried fresh fish, or trotters (the lower part of a pig's leg), all with nshima and a cooked vegetable called rape. It's actually all very good, except for the trotters. . .I tried them the other day and the pig skin is still on it and everything. It tasted like just fat and rough skin; not too appetizing. But anyway, the restaurant is really good. Before, we would just eat some biscuits and a soda for lunch, but eating a full lunch and smaller dinner is healthier I think.

The work continues as always. It was a fun two weeks with Brother Rabson. He's a small, quiet guy, and we got along just fine. Lusaka is great. We found NINETEEN new investigators. 17 came from setting appointments with street contacts and 2 came from tracting (we don't tract very often, only in the evenings or saturdays). Two families: the Simbeyes and the Munsanjes. So we did quite well in that regard. One of the hard things about missionary work is continually finding, teaching, and then dropping/progressing. You always have to be doing all three or the teaching pool becomes stale I guess. One of our new investigators is actually a Muslim; kinda crazy, huh? Most Muslims I've met around here are just sick of Christianity in general. He is a cool guy who was really interested in our message. We finally found a referral we had been looking for for some time. His name is Arthur Phiri and because we couldn't find him, we taught his mother and father who we gave the Book of Mormon. When we finally met him on Saturday, he had read through (and UNDERSTOOD) the pamphlet we left as well as read a good amount of the chapters of the Book of Mormon. We committed him to baptism there and then, and he accepted and was excited. We're not sure why he didn't show up at church the next day, but I think there was probably a legitimate reason.

As always, Zambia is GREAT. Being a missionary is excellent.

I love you all lots,

Elder Mckay Moline


P.S.Yep, President Bester is back to the grind again. Full health and everything.