September 10, 2007

Dear everyone,

Today marks the beginning of another transfer period. This last one seemed pretty long to be honest. Mostly because I was with two different branch missionaries, which gets pretty stressful. Both of them were cool guys, but they're just helping out so they feel no accountability or stewardship for the area or a branch that is not their own, so it all falls on me. BUT, now I have a full-time missionary companion once again. The switch was made this morning. It turns out my hunch was wrong and I'm not training. My comp's name is Elder Tibagalika and he is from Gingertown, Uganda. He only has 4 1/2 months left on mission so this likely will be his dying area. He was actually serving in the branch right next to us (the same one Joseph was from) for 6 weeks, so it's kind of strange. It doesn't happen too often that an elder is transferred within the same zone. But now he's with me. He's not a very friendly person and not all the stories I've heard about him are good, so I'm a bit scared honestly. We'll see how it goes.

Last Monday, Elders Ulloa & Musgrave, and Joseph & myself, visited a place called Kalimba Reptile Park. It's sort of outside Lusaka in the bush so we took a taxi to get there. Since it was a Monday it was quite empty. They had tons of huge crocodiles and lots of small ones. I found a huge croc tooth on the ground that I kept. They also had a bunch of snakes, including the black mamba, the second most venomous snake in the world. The park itself wasn't really that big, but it was a lot of fun. They even had a ghetto minigolf course and a ping pong table. I was able to get back into my groove and beat E. Musgrave at ping pong. It was a fun trip.

So Elder Musgrave and Elder Ulloa are still companions living in our same flat. Last week, Musgrave bought a crock pot for $40 US and this whole week, we've been making stuff in it everyday. I had NO IDEA how cool and useful and delicious crock pots were until this week. We usually just throw in raw beans, raw mince (ground beef) or chicken, a lot veggies (potatos, corn, carrots, onions, tomatoes), and some soup mix and/or spices. Anyway, it is nice. I usually make Ugandan chipati to go with it. (mix flour, water, salt and a bit of sugar, and then roll out like a thick tortilla and fry it on the stove). YUM.

The work here is going alright. For the 4th week in a row, zero investigators at church. A bit depressing, but the work goes on. We have so many people in our teaching pool that are pretty good, but no one who is solid. We're trying to keep the sifting going, but there is so much pressure from our leaders to teach tons of lesson so sometimes we have opted to teach a lesson to get a number rather than to drop and try to find someone else. Obviously that's not a good thing. Our member present lessons still are struggling quite a bit, but we finally had a branch mission leader called just a week ago, so we're hoping that things start changing now. We will now have a weekly coordination meeting every saturday after institute at 11am. The branch mission leader, all branch missionaries, and any members who want to come will attend and we'll talk about our progressing investigators, less-actives, and set up specific times that the members can work with us. We're really hoping and praying that people will come. It will really help the work in the branch. Member present lessons = investigators at church = fellowship/learning/progression = baptism & confirmation = celestial kingdom! Well I guess it's not that simple, but you get the picture: we need to have more help from members.

Yesterday after church we taught this street contact named Joshua who was a bit slow of learning, but really eager to hear our message. We were sitting in his house along with his younger brother-in-law and mother. We taught them a 10 minute restoration lesson and just at the end as we were telling them how to pray to know the truth for themselves, Joshua's older brother busts in, straight from work. "Sharing the word of God, are you?"
"Yes."
"What's your doctrine?"
"Well, we don't just have one, but many so ----"
"---NO. WHAT'S YOUR DOCTRINE?"
". . . uh, well we share about how the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth in it's fulness through a prophet of God named Joseph Smith."
"Oh, so you're teaching the Smith truth are you?"
Yada yada and it went downhill from there.
Anyway, a perfectly fine lesson again was ruined because of misunderstanding, ignorance, and prejudice. The man had never heard of our church before and was judging our message from one sentence from my mouth. Then he accused us of trying leading his family to hell, saying that us whites only lead people astray, and that I only believe what I do because my parents taught it to me when I was young and I've been brainwashed. Then he proceeded to try to judge me because I haven't yet been saved. Probably the most extremely offensive lesson I've been a part of since I've been here.

Such is the life of a missionary!

Truly this is the Lord's gospel. I know it independent of anyone else and I love it.

I love you all!
Elder Mckay Moline

P.S. Haven't received the bday package or keyboard course yet.