August 20, 2007

Dear everyone,

Happy TWENTY-FOURTH anniversary Mom and Dad!

Zambia is great as always. We definitely had an interesting week though. We dropped two of our investigators with baptismal dates yesterday when they again missed church. So we're just going to wait for a few weeks before we see either of them. Both were just ok. We will actually take them seriously when they start being serious about keeping committments. That's probably the biggest setback we face in this area; people who just don't take the gospel/Book of Mormon seriously. It's quite a sad thing, because people are used to just being a part of a church where you can show up or not show up to anything and it doesn't really matter because "the church is in my heart" as most people like to say. People will make commitments to read and pray and come to church every single lesson, BUT you can really tell who is ready just by seeing if they KEEP that commitment. "I'm a very busy person," most everyone says after they fail, but really you already know that the person really just isn't committed. Sad, but true. So that is what we are dealing with on a daily basis as of now. We are finding new investigators like crazy, and then dropping them almost as crazily. Sifting, sifting, sifting. Being a missionary is such an interesting thing; it's the most depressing period of my life because you see great people give up and fail, but at the same time it's the most enjoyable because you see even greater people accept and receive blessings. It's quite stressful sometimes. Hard to explain I guess.

We have one investigator with a baptismal date: Mary Nyrongo (35) who is a single mother of 3 boys. She has come to church one time and missed church yesterday because she had to go to Malawi to bury her mother who died recently. She has potential to be a very very converted member; she just has to study the Book of Mormon daily.

Brother Bulawayo is still having some family difficulties but he's committed to keep seeking for answers from the Lord. We are really praying that he can find strength and realize he needs to be baptized. We found 13 new investigators this week, 3 families.

Wednesday I went on exchanges with Elder Poche, our new district leader. He is from Nairobi, Kenya, and he's awesome. We found 5 new investigators and taught 5 lessons, so quite a decent day. He's a great leader. Thursday we had a missionary district fast and although we haven't necessarily seen the fruits of it yet, I felt it was a good fast.

Last Saturday we had a district-wide (all seven branches) fireside with the theme: "IT'S TIME FOR ACTION!" where the speakers spoke about Lusaka becoming a full fledged STAKE. Basically there is a lot of work to be done, but it can be done in the next year we hope. There needs to be 1900 members and 5 units fit to be made into wards. . . I don't know realistically how close we are to that, but I do know that the Chainama branch isn't quite there yet; as of last year, there was ONE full tithe paying Melchizidek priesthood holder. CHABE! ("only!") Aye aye aye! So there is definitely a lot that needs to be done. Not just missionary work either. So that's basically the goal that the entire Lusaka zone is looking at: becoming a stake in Zion. When it happens there will be 3 stakes in the mission; only two more to qualify to be a temple district. . .

I know I say this every time, but thanks for everything! I love you all very very much. Feel free to send me mail! If you send to the Lusaka address, it will get here faster, but the pouch address is just fine as well.

This is the Lord's work. He is in control. I've just got to qualify for His blessings. I love it!

Elder Mckay Moline

P.S. The APs came up from Harare last week and they brought my CD player, speakers, and CDs! So I have been listening to those CDs that Maurie made for me for the first time! They are nice.

P.P.S. To answer your question from the Worst Case Scenario game, Tanner, no; it is rude to ask for food from people when you are a guest at their house. I don't have any idea where they got that from; maybe somewhere in the bush or something. And no, I was going to send a package a while ago when I was about to burn a picture CD, but because of the whole memory card fiasco, I never did it. I might do it sometime, but don't expect it anytime soon. And no, I haven't gotten your letter, yet.