September 18, 2007

Dear everybody,

Another week GONE! My companion, Elder Tibagalika is a cool guy. By the way, I lied last week when I said he was from Ginger, Uganda. The city is actually called Jinja. Because of his accent, I honestly thought he was saying ginger, haha. Anyway, he has been on mission for about 20 months now so he's pretty "seasoned" I guess you could say. His accent is still a bit difficult for me to understand: quite different and much more harsh than a Zambian accent. He's a good guy, but he's very much in a routine as far as teaching and contacting people; he says the same things in every single lesson, contacts in the same way, etc. He's the 3rd missionary in his family; his two older brothers have also served missions as well.

Sorry I'm a day later than usual; we had zone conference yesterday, so P-day was postponed until today. We had a pretty eventful week. On Thursday President Bester was here in Lusaka so we all had President's interviews with him. Man, I love Pres. Bester. Just 15-20 minutes in an interview with him made me so excited for missionary work and it just really made me feel like the work I'm doing actually has an impact even though a lot of the time it doesn't feel like it. He read Alma 37:35-37 with me: "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings." One of my favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon. So we have a great mission president. It's good to know that the Zimbabwe Harare mission is in the hands of such a good man. Thursday we also had two new missionaries arrive in the zone, one from Orange county, CA, and the other from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Both of them are quite cool. It's strange to think that somehow I've gotten past the stage of being a "greenie," because I feel just as green as I did when I first arrived in Zambia. Weird.

Friday I hit my 9 month mark which blows my mind.

Saturday we had another appointment with Bro Bulawayo, who we haven't taught for at least a month now. We taught him about the importance of baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was a good lesson and we challenged him to be baptized, but he said that he still is trying to stabilize himself as far as his job and family. He did say that he feels he has received an answer that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and he knows he needs to be baptized. This Saturday night we are going to teach him with Brother Wamunyima, a member of our branch. Our prayer is that when he sees and hears the joy the gospel brings to families in the Church, it will sort of give him a kick in the pants towards committing to baptism. He still has only come to church once.

Oh yes, and on Saturday we found out that one of the branch missionaries in our branch is a total drunkard and that the previous night he had come home smashed and attempted to beat his own mother. After he was chased from his own house by his father, he proceeded to go to the neighbor's houses and caused a huge ruckus among the neighbors. The sad part is that he works with missionaries in our branch one or two days every week, so now he has not only stained his family's name, but the Church's and the missionaries'. We also found out that this wasn't the first time he had done this either. Alcohol truly is ridiculous and evil.

On a better note though, Sunday was Lusaka district conference! All 7 branches in Lusaka met at the Libala chapel. It was excellent! William W. Parmley, president of the Africa Southeast Area and his wife were here and spoke to us. Also Pres. and Sis. Bester were there and they spoke as well as the district president, Pres Mulenga. The chapel was so full that people had to stand up! Afterwards, a member named Brother Cleverly gave myself and Elder Tibagalika a ride back to our flat. Bro Cleverly is a white American who works for the US embassy here. He's in one of the other branches and he was just called to be district Young Mens pres., so he wanted to find out where our meetinghouse was so he could know if he ever would have to go there.

Monday (yesterday) was zone conference! It has been 8 or 9 weeks since the last one so it was especially nice. Pres Parmley and his wife were there and they and the Besters all spoke. It's so cool to have general authorities visit. Pres. Parmley mainly just spoke about missionary work (surprise surprise) and how we as full-time missionaries need to be involved in conversion, retention, and activation. So he spoke with us on how to work specifically with dys/un-functional branches in re-activation efforts, etc. I learned a lot of really good stuff. Zone conference is wonderful. Last night, the Besters took Elder Ulloa, Elder Musgrave, Elder Tibagalika, and myself out to dinner. We ate at this incredible hotel called the Taj Pamodzi. I thought we were back in America for two hours. I had the Greek chicken: delicious.

Tomorrow is my 20th birthday! Today after emailing we are going to go bowling to celebrate!

Well, again I love you all. I love the Lord's work! Tiwonana futi!

Elder Mckay Moline