Merry Christmas BANJA LANGA

December 21, 2015

hey hey hey. It's Christmas time!!! Except it's really hot/or pouring rain so it doesn't really feel like Christmas or anything.. BUT we get to celebrate the greatest birth in the histroy of the world. Time to celebrate!

We have been focusing on Christmas with our member visits this week and we invite them all to choose one thing to give back to Christ this christmas... whether it's reading your scriptures every day... or forgiving someone... or fufilling your church calling more fully. Christ doesn't expect a wrapped gift from us... but all he wants is for us to become more like him.. so that's my challenge to all of you:)

I'LL BE SKYPING HOME AT 16:30 ZAMBIA TIME = 8:30 AM UTAH TIME. SUPER STOKED.Can't wait to see all your beautiful faces. tell the kids i say sorry if it ruins present opening. 

Okay good good week. I only got lost a couple times this week and we were able to meet with some more people. We're learning the area which means we are teaching more people and more lessons which means we're happier and more productive missionaries:)

Big news first and then on to the people.

Zone Conference/Christmas party:

So friday/saturday was zone conference/a  christmas party for all the Zambian missionaries.. so the copperbelt missionaries drove/bussed down to Lusaka which means I GOT TO SEE SISTER BINGHAM. happy day. and my whole mtc group was together... They've all been serving in Zambia.. but I was off in Malawi so this was the first time we have all be reunited and they have all become such wonderful missionaries. hey so proud of all of them.

Then... THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE THAT THE NAME OF OUR NEW MISSION PRESIDENT IS PRESIDENT AND SISTER KUPU FROM TONGA. They will arrive July 1st and hey my poly companion is STOKED. haha poly power. It's gonna be a weird adjustment because I love the Ericksons.. but it will be good.

Zone Conference changed my life like always. We focused on repentance and really studied the parable of the prodigal son. ahhh REPENTANCE IS AMAZING. and over the Christmas season.. it was just powerful. We discussed how sometimes as missionaries we help our investigators gain faith... and then we get so excited that we just baptize them without teaching proper repentance... So we're really gonna focus on it now.

then we had a super fun Christmas party where we had dinner and a white elephant exchange and we watched Christmas Carol! cool stuff.. ya know watching a real life movie.

okay back to real life missionary stuff.

RAINY SEASON HAS STARTED.

"satanist": so every single person in Lusaka thinks of our church as "the satanist church" and that we crucify people... or they think of it as the muzungu (white person) church... and so there is MAJOR OPPOSITION here for many of the members and investigators... it takes a lot of courage for these people here to join the church. 

kabaso family: Wonderful family with 3 kids. They are so sweet, adn they were taught by the elders and malala recieved a priesthood blessing from them and she was healed and so it totally changed their attitude towards their churhc... but now we are just working on getting them to come to church. But we're putting them on date for January 17th.

Grace Mpimpa: SHE IS POWERFUL MAN. she is on date for the 17th as well. But she is facing major opposition from her landlords about investigating the church. but she has read both brigham youngs and john taylors books and she will read anything in teh book of mormon. She is a complete book worm, adn she wants answers to everything haha.. but she is really loving the church and she is finally accepting that she doesn't need the answers to everything.

Sakala Family: we are having FHE with them tonight, and they are less-active but their son is POWERFUL and leaves for his mission next month. But the father came to church on sunday!!!!!!! Emmanual (their son) has really asked us to work hard on activating his family while he is gone... and we're gonna do it:)

I'm really starting to love the people here. They are all wonderful people, and we are recieving referrals and it's just a happy time to be a missionary. 

So much more happened this week but I can't think of anything right now. but hopefully when we skype i'll remember stuff to talk about:)

sign language: so this guy found us in the distribution center today and told us he wants us to learn sign language so we can translate for him at church... and then he wants to be baptized... uhhhh well that is a big task. But I learned some things and we're gonna try it out... I dunno wish us luck!

funny stories:
1. so we were teaching this recent convert Emmanual (stake presidents nephew) and we showed him pictures of our family and he was like "wow... having a big family would be so nice because then when one of you dies it doesn't really make that big of difference... and there will for sure be people at your funeral" hahah whaaattt? Sister Solomone and i were just dying (fact: almost everyone from down here has had a sibling or parent pass away to some disease) 

NO BETTER WAY TO SPEND CHRISTMAS THAN BY TESTIFYING OF CHRIST. I miss my family of course.. but this is my only Christmas as a missionary so I shouldn't spend it by being trunky.

LOVE YOU ALL KWAM BIRI. talk to you soon:)