(This is an old email not put on the blog until now.)
June 9, 2008

Dear everyone,

So Elder Woldemichael and I are now pretty settled in our new area/branch. We have some great members here, especially the branch missionaries. We have one named Mark Mbazima (18yrs) and he is the only member in his family. You wouldn't believe the kind of persecution he and other members go through here. He told us that soon after he was baptized last year his sister snuck into his room, stole his new scriptures and other church materials and burned them! A few weeks later she called her pastor at Bread of Life church to come and cast the demons out of him, which he attempted. Yikes! And believe me those aren't even the beginning of some of the crazy stories I've heard before. We have another member named Norbert Kalimbayi who just moved to Lusaka from DR Congo. He is experiencing similar problems with the people he stays with as well as neighbors. Luckily he stands up for what he knows to be true; in fact yesterday he told us that he had confounded them all with the Bible telling them to judge not unrighteously and to love thy neighbor as thyself, haha. It's so interesting to me that someone can preach that anyone who believes in Jesus Christ can be saved and yet turn against the ones who believe in Christ the most! Anyway, as I have said before, persecution and rumours are probably the biggest deterrant to the work here in Lusaka.

One of the members from Kitwe, Benson Kanyembo, came down to Lusaka this week to visit his brother, the only other Church member in their family. He came to church yesterday; it was great to see him again, though I learned a sad thing from him; he told me that he had made some mistakes in the past few months and would no longer be able to serve a mission. . . So sad. I know he would have been a great missionary.

Yesterday we had 7 investigators at sacrament meeting, which is good. One of them was a man who had recently moved to Lusaka from Angola, named Suy Jado. He speaks fluent Portugese and is learning a bit of Nyanja here. He has been to church 3 times now and has asked us if he can be baptized. Golden!

Saturday I conducted a baptismal interview in Lilanda branch for a man who used to be a Muslim (not something very common around here). In fact before I could interview him it had to be approved by the Africa Southeast Area Presidency because he used to be a part of some underground Muslim extremist group here in Lusaka (I had no idea there would be such a thing here) though he never actually did any terrorism of any kind. He was great and definitely ready for baptism. Later on Saturday we attended a training meeting for all the branch mission leaders in the district. We've noticed that most BMLs really don't know what their calling is and what it means. Typically branch presidents give the calling to young single adults so it doesn't really seem like a real 'leadership' position which it should be. Anyway I conducted most of the meeting with the help of the district presidency. It was very effective, I think.

That's all for the week I think. I know that this is the work of the Lord and however inadequate I am I hope I can help the work move forward here in Zambia in some small way.

love,
Elder Mckay Moline