Ponderizing scripture of the week: "verily verily I say unto you, if you desire a further witness, cast your mind upon teh night that you cried untio me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things. Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?" D&C 6:22-23
I picked this one because lately Sister Solomone and I have really been focusing on getting people to PRAY and to RECOGNIZE answers to their prayers. When we ask people if they have ever had their prayers answered... they always tell us that "of course.. one time I was sick and then I got better, or I did good on a test, or we found food when we didn't have money." many people don't realize that God can answer prayers of knowledge. And that's why i'm grateful for JAMES 1:5 because it talks about lacking WISDOM, and then asking God. and so prayer is something we are really emphasizing.
I know you don't care about this, but I'm trying to improve my teaching skills, and these are the things i'm working:
1. asking more questions. I need to talk less and have investigators talk more.
2. powerful and direct baptisms invitations.
3. Always read the BOM intro with investigators when introducing it.
4. Teach them HOW TO PRAY and most importanly how to recieve answers throught the Holy Ghost.
5. APPLy what i'm teaching to their lives.. "how can the gospel help their situation?"
6. Always state our purpose... We're not there to have bible discussions but to help people make covenants with Heavenly Father.
7. Give BOM chapters as commitments as often as possible!
none of our investigators came to church... which is the first time in a looooooooongggg time... so that was kinda frustrating. but the rains came down,and the floods came up, and I think that affected it. well i'm just telling myself that haha:)
okay now that I bored you to death I will get into our week.
Tenson: Tenson was confirmed yesterday!!! Which is great and he seemed very happy... we went and taught his family lesson one this past week, and only one daughter and his wife sat in on the lesson... which they have always done but we tried focusing on them. WE taught them the restoration and we're not sure if the wife understood because she doesn't speak english but she can hear it? yeah but we tried committing her to pray and hahahaha she would not give us an answer. We asked her maybe 5 times if she would pray about what we taught and she would just look at us, and we even asked it in chichewa so we knew that she understood. soooo that's fun.
Kabutu Banja: sooooo this is kinda a sad story. So this is the most wonderful family in the world... they were a referral and the 8 year old daughter comes to church almost every single sunday, and so we started teachign them. They live next to one of our recent converts.. but they stay in the guard house (rich people down here have gates, to gate their house in and they have guards...and normally there is a small house in the back for them to stay) but no one has been living in the main house... the owner has been waiting for someone to come and rent. (the owner is an azungu) anywho... so someone finally is renting the house, and we were there on Thursday and we were about to start our lesson (we teach them in the backyard on the porch) and the owner (a old white man) walked to the back and asked us what church we were from... Me, being super excited because I thought he was interested, told him "The church of jesus Christ of latter-day saints" and he just said... "you're not wanted on this property... you should leave." uhhh okay. so we just got up, said bye to the kids and left. And now I guess the owner doesn't want the family as the guard because there are too many kids... so sad. now they have no where to live:(
but any who... the take home of the story is: of course the first time that I get kicked off of someone's property is by an old white man... haha.
Lamilton: haha he is this 24 year old guy who is in medical school down here... REALLY smart guy. He is SDA and knows his Bible better than the back of his hand. Like i'm pretty sure he can quote the whole thing... we have taught him maybe 3 lessons and ask if we have even taught him anything. The whole lesson he just sits and quotes bible verses to us. The thing is... is he will come to church, and so we feel like we need to keep teaching him. and he hears stuff in gospel principles that he doesnt agree with and then we have to hear about it in lessons... like salvation (aka everyone being ressurected) But last night we taught him and he quoted bible verses for about 30 minutes until he said (so where do the people go who aren't free from sin, and don't have faith in jesus christ) and i just totally jumped in and wouldn't let him talk haha and whipped out my plan of salvation pamphlet and tried to explain the 3 degrees of glory. he didn't agree with it... but i tried my best. he's an interesting one.
Thanksgiving: ahhhh Elder and Sister Beal are the BEST. Well first of all we were teaching our recent convert Naledi right before Thanksgiving dinner... and all of a sudden she decides to feed us... and we can't say no to food. Especially becuase no one even knows what thanksgiving is so we couldn't explain it haha. So we ate dinner at her house, and then we went to thanksgiving dinner and had the BEST food. Sister Beal made mashed potatoes just for me, and stovetop stuffing, and pumpkin pie (her kids came to visit her a couple months ago and brought the ingredients... trust me they don't sell these things down here) and the best part of the night was the 2 African sisters didn't like pumpkin pie and so they gave their pieces to me and sister solomone:)
Electricty: so electicty goes out every day pretty much... and we found out that there is a set schedule of when it goes off and on.. but it changes every day. but the reason why is there isn't enough water in the dams to generate electricty... so the rainy season needs to come soon because cereal for dinner is getting a little old haha.
Well we are on week 6 of the transfer... Transfer news come this week and rumors are spreading that Sister Thueson is headed to Lusaka.... stay tuned.
also... everyone go look up "Safety for the Soul" by Holland... but you have to watch the video. I watch it maybe once a week and almost have it memorized haha.. it's the best.
I AM SO SORRY FOR THIS LONG EMAIL THAT NONE OF YOU WILL REALLY CARE ABOUT BESIDES MY PARENTS. if you read it, congrats:)
LOVE YOU ALL, LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. so grateful for every experience that i'm having down here.
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