November 24, 12008

Dear everyone,

Hello again. Another week gone. I swear I was here at this same computer yesterday.

Zambia is great. This week Elder Woldemichael and I taught a lot of lessons. We tracted a lot and found good people.

The highlight of the week was the baptism on Saturday of George Shanzi. I've told you about him before I believe. He is a 28yr old father of 3. His father is a member and he saw how the gospel changed his father so he began coming to church and told us he wanted to be taught and baptized. He is a very humble man. He asked Owen Kuseni to baptize him and yesterday Elder Woldemichael confirmed him. The baptismal service was pretty short and simple. His wife came, but unfortunately she was late and missed the actual baptism. One of our recent converts, Esnart Phiri, gave a talk on baptism. That was pretty cool to see. Sunday George bore a simple but very good testimony about the gospel and how it has changed him. Hopefully we can begin teaching the other people who he stays with.

Yesterday we taught a Zambian lady and her Indian husband. It was our second time to teach them. Cool family.

Sorry, I'm out of time. I love the true gospel of Christ and his Church today.

Love,
Elder Mckay Moline

November 17, 2008

Dear everyone,

This week was great. We found 11 new investigators to teach which is
pretty good for us. We spent a lot of time tracting again because of
the area split that happened last week. Our goal is to find people who
will be leaders in the church, i.e. fathers (potential priesthood
holders) with wives (R.S.) and children (YM/YW, Primary). The Church
in Zambia is still very small and needs people who will help branches
grow and progress, rather than be a burden. So we've spent time
tracting in "low-density" areas, which would mean working class
families who are a little more well to do.

We also spent some time looking for new housing for the elders in
Lilanda branch. Right now they are staying 6 in the house and it's
just too much so we've been looking for a new place. We found 3
perfect places for them, but all 3 times as soon as the landlord found
out which church we were from they told us to find another place and
they didn't want our people staying there. Ugh. Such is Lusaka. The
search goes on.

Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Hill (Provo, UT) in his area,
Libala 2. Remember after I was transferred from Kitwe I was Elder
Sisneros' companion in Libala 2 for about 3 days? Then I got emergency
transferred to Chainama with Elder Rasmussen. So this was my first
time back in that area since then. Nearly 18 months, wow. Anyway, we
had a great day. It was my first time riding a bike on my whole
mission. I now know why we don't use bikes normally. The only bikes
available for a reasonable price in Zambia are xing xong Chinese ones
that have no gears and parts fall off every other appointment you go
to. What a pain. The bikes we used are commonly called "charcoal
chariots" or "black horses" by missionaries because they are normally
used to by Zambians who sell charcoal on the streets. Libala is a
struggling area but we had 3 different members work with us during the
day and we taught 7 member present lessons, which is quite good.

Saturday one of our baptismal candidates was interviewed and passed.
His name is George Shanzi (28) and he will be baptized this Saturday
at 12:30. His father is a member though currently out of the country.
George has a wife and children but they all go to another church (UCZ,
United Church of Zambia).

We have two other candidates who should be baptized the day before I
leave, 13 Dec. They are Ernest Banda (32) and Gift Mumba (17).

The church is true!

love,
Elder Mckay Moline

Dear everyone,

This week was pretty busy but very good. This was the first week of my
last transfer period. Elder Mugwandia rightly named it "the transfer
of the fulness of times," haha. Quite scary to think that this is all
almost over. On Tuesday Elder Hill, our new district leader, gave a
great DDM lesson about having a personal vision for ourselves and our
missions, i.e. what attributes we want to have developed during our
two years in the mission field, who we want to become. I spent some
time this week pondering about that. I only have a few weeks left to
do it!

We picked up 6 new missionaries from the airport on Thursday. Two are
in our zone (Lusaka 2), two are in Lusaka 1, and two are now in the
Copperbelt (oh how I miss that place!). The two who went to CB didn't
leave until Fri morning so they spent the rest of Thurs afternoon
doing missionary work with us. Elder Robinson (Henderson, Nevada) and
I tracted for a while and taught the Restoration to one man. I love
being with new missionaries straight from the MTC. It's a lot of fun
because everything is still so different and new to them.

Our area has now been split. Elder Sisneros (from Syracuse, UT, going
home with me in Dec) and Elder Sweeten (Lindon, UT, just came from
MTC) are now in Matero 2. We gave them half of our area so now there
are 4 elders in Matero branch. They are whitewashing so they really
don't know their way around very well yet. We've helped them a little
bit. Because we have a car we took the further away areas and left the
near ones for them to work in. It has gone well though it has resulted
in a lot of tracting for the both of us. We found a few good people
who will remain in our teaching pool.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a unique day. Instead of having our regular
Sunday meetings we watched a recording of an Africa-wide stake
conference recorded in SLC with Pres Uchtdorf, Elder Jeffrey R.
Holland, Elder Glenn Pace, and Bro Merrill (General sunday school
pres). It was recorded just a couple of weeks ago, recorded to DVD,
and then sent to all the stakes and districts throughout Africa (48
stakes and 42 districts). It was specifically for the saints in Africa
so that made it very cool. They all talked about their experiences
with the Church in Africa and the people here. The church here has
grown by 240% in the past 10 years. Quite remarkable. All the speakers
were great. All 7 branches of Lusaka watched it together at the main
chapel so I got to see all the members and recent converts from the 3
other branches I served in before. It was so good to see all of them
again. I love having big gatherings of members. Sometimes our branch
attendance is pretty small so it's good to see that there is strength
in Lusaka.

The gospel is true and President Monson is truly a prophet called of
God! I love teaching people about the truth.

Love,
Elder Mckay Moline

November 3, 2008

Dear everyone,

This week has been slightly crazy. Thursday was election day here. I never =
realized how involved and excited people can get about politics! All the =
buses had posters on them. Wednesday was a pretty crazy day. Lots of truc=
ks were driving around with posters all over, honking and shouting, doing=
anything to get attention. A lot of them were drunk as well. People were=
running in crowds on the streets shouting "Pabwato!!" for one party and=
"MMD!!" for the other. Thursday we had our district meeting and then sta=
yed inside the rest of the day to avoid and problems with riots and such.=
=20

We also found out transfers. I have come to find out that if you think some=
thing will happen at transfers, it almost never happens. So guess who my =
new companion is? Elder Woldemichael again! By the end of this 6 week per=
iod we will have been together just about 7 months. That's more than twic=
e as long as I have been with anyone else before. I have never heard of a=
companionship in this mission staying together for that long! So it is. =
Elder Woldemichael will be the one to "kill" me. We are very good friends=
and enjoy each other's company so it's not a big deal. If I had to choos=
e one companion to be with for this long, it would be him.=20

So Thursday afternoon we were told that a new elder would be arriving at th=
e airport at midnight that night coming all the way from England. All we =
knew was his name, Elder Kyambadde, and that he had been serving for 21 m=
onths in England and because his visa ran out there he would be finishing=
his mission here in Lusaka. That's something that doesn't happen everyda=
y. So Elder Woldemichael and I had to drive to the airport at midnight to=
get him. He is from Kampala, Uganda and he seems like a great elder. Tal=
k about a change though! Manchester to Lusaka.=20

Friday we stayed in all day because of the possibility of riots from the pr=
evious day's elections. After the results were counted, the army was post=
ed at different places in Lusaka to stop rioting so actually there was re=
latively little violence. We spent the day doing absolutely nothing at ho=
me; it wasn't very pleasant.

Well that's most everything. This week we'll be busy doing transfers so we =
gotta go now.

Love,
Elder Mckay Moline

10-27-08

Dear everyone,

Things in Zambia are great. The work is moving along well. This week
will be a bit strange because the Zambian presidential elections are
on Thursday. Because of the possible riots and such all the
missionaries will stay in on Friday and possibly on Saturday depending
on how things go.

Last Friday I did an exchange with Elder Shirley. He is from
Vancouver, WA and just came about a month ago. He said he met Brother
Hein in the Chicago airport on the way to South Africa, and then
talked to you, dad, on the phone for a minute or two. He's a great
elder, very prepared for mission and very enthusiastic about the work.
We tracted for about 4 hours of the day, something I haven't done for
the past 6 months or more. We're so busy with people to teach that we
don't normally tract for more than an hour or two at a time, but last
week we dropped several investigators who weren't really serious about
investigating. We taught 4 lessons tracting and found 5 new
investigators. Good day altogether.

Yesterday church was good. One funny thing that happened was a
non-member almost passed the sacrament! The young 13 yr old brother of
a member was mistakenly given an assignment to pass the sacrament and
almost did not knowing he wasn't supposed to. Haha. Luckily some
whispering to the presiding officer did the trick and it was stopped.

My time is getting shorter and shorter so there is a little more
urgency in my work now, which is a good thing. I know the Lord is
preparing people to listen to the gospel here; we just have to search
for them!
Love you all very much!
Elder Mckay Moline

10-21-08

Dear everyone,

Well, my companion came back from South Africa quite a bit earlier
than we thought he would. He arrived back in Lusaka last Tuesday
afternoon, so he was really only gone for 5 days or so. The doctor
gave him a bunch of drugs to take so he has been fine since he came
back. Hopefully it will stay that way. I'm way jealous of him because
he got to see a bunch of returned Zimbabwe Harare missionaries there
and he got to go to the temple. I'm most jealous because he got to see
and shake hands with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland! Elder Holland happened
to be there and speak at a multi stake fireside which Elder W/michael
was able to attend. I should get some headaches.

Saturday we had the baptism of one of our long-time investigators,
Jackson Mvula. I've talked a lot about him before but he is 73 years
old but very healthy and strong. He walks over an hour each way to get
to the church each Sunday. His wife doesn't speak much English but
loves having us over at the house. Brother Mvula was baptized by a
member named Francis Chilufya and then Sunday Brother Albert Banda
confirmed him. Br Mvula was so happy and excited for the baptism and
he said he felt "wonderful inside."

Yesterday was zone conference yet again. We were supposed to have it
next week but the presidential elections are then so it was moved to
avoid any conflict. As always zone conference was wonderful and
spiritually uplifting. Our zone song was #240 Know This, That Every
Soul is Free. One of the assistants Elder Patterson is going home in
a couple weeks so they brought along his replacement, the new AP,
Elder Baird from Idaho Falls. This was a surprise to the whole mission
because Elder Baird has only been on mission for just under 6 months
now and has only been a district leaders for about 4 weeks and has
never even been a zone leader before! So that is pretty crazy, but it
shows that the spirit of revelation is used in giving leadership
assignments.

For the first time in 22 months the threesome from the MTC was
reunited! Elder Bitter, Elder Vilakazi, and myself. It was funny being
together again. We're all different but really the same as well.

This is the Lord's church and gospel and I know it.

Love you,
Elder Mckay Moline

October 13, 2008

Dear everyone,

Good week. Thursday my companion Elder Woldemichael flew to Johannesburg, South Africa to see a doctor about his headaches that he has been having for the past few months. Hopefully he'll be back in the course of this week. But it's been known to take longer when missionaries go to South so we will see. My temporary companion is Bowers Kanyembo, a branch missionary. He is 24 and a great person to be around.

We currently have 6 investigators with baptismal dates.

Jackson Mvula(73) -- This week he has recovered completely from his illness (thank heavens) so he will be baptized this Saturday!

Charles Chibamba (50) -- He is still sorting out his former marriage complications; after that he'll be baptized.

Kenneth and Charity Tembo (35)-- We just found out that the husband drank alcohol over the weekend so their date has been pushed to 22 November. We're working closely to help him overcome that and keep the word of wisdom.

George Shanzi (28) -- His father is a member but is out of the country working. He has great desire to learn the gospel.

Gift Mumba (17) -- She has been coming to church for several months and her father gave us permission to baptize her and she is doing very well.

Susan Kampengele doesn't currently have a baptism date because she has missed the past few appointments as well as church the past two weeks. After two weeks of not seeing her we finally met her on Thursday. She told us she has been experiencing a lot of persecution and discouragement from her older sister who took her Book of Mormon to the pastor of her pentecostal church. She told us her sister and others have tried to stop her from coming to church and in general being very negative to her. Luckily Susan has a healthy stubborness to her and she bore her testimony to us and said that she knows that this is God's church and she must be baptized. She kept talking about all the feelings the Spirit brings when she reads the Book of Mormon and when she attends church. Cool!

Well, we've gotta go now. We're having a zone activity today. Playing football and having lunch together.

Love you all,
Elder Mckay Moline

9-22-08

Dear everyone,

Well transfers didn't work out the way I expected (do they ever?). I'm still with Elder Woldemichael for the next 6 weeks. At the end of that, we'll have been together for just under 6 months. The longest I've ever been with a companion before is 3 months. That's alright though; we are doing well together and he is a great companion. Elder Kalenga (from DR Congo) will be a district leader in our zone. Elder Spelman is going to Malawi to be a zone leader with Elder Musgrave. He has only been out for 5 months now! Crazy. Elder McMullen is going to Copperbelt and Elder Vilakazi is coming here to be with Elder Lawrance.

This week was alright. We've had a few strange things happen. On Wednesday, Elder Woldemichael's headache attacked him around lunch time and we had to go home for the rest of the day. That was the last straw and Sister Sanford says she is going to send him to South Africa to get him "fixed up." That will probably happen next week after she can get him a South African visa.

Saturday we had a Mormon Helping Hands service project. I think it was done in all the Church in Africa, maybe even in the world. Our branch combined with Lilanda branch and did some service at a local clinic. We "hoed" the ground in this enormous garden. It was very hard work because the ground was so hard but we finished well and were very very tired. My arms are still aching a bit.

Three baptismal candidates were meant to be interviewed on Saturday. Unfortunately as we reviewed the baptismal interview questions with them, we found out that one of them (Charles) had been previously involved in polygamy. So Pres Sanford said to postpone the interview until he can ask president bester about it. So Bro Ben Mulenga was interviewed by Elder Spelman and passed. His baptism will be on Saturday at our meetinghouse. He is sooooo happy about the whole thing. The wife doesn't speak very good English but wants to come to church now as well. The interview for Jackson (the 73 yr old) will happen tomorrow or Wednesday. He should also be baptized on Saturday. Charles we'll have to wait and see what Pres Bester says. . .

This week is transfer week so we'll be very busy shuttling elders all over the place.

Alright, we've gotta go now. Have a wonderful week. This is the only and true gospel of Jesus Christ.

love,
Elder Mckay Moline

P.S. The weather is becoming hotter and hotter nowadays. . .