What a week!
So I'll just jump right into it!
On Tuesday
we had district meeting where I got to teach and it was a great experience! It
was a really powerful meeting because of all the other missionaries's
contributions and testimonies, dang I love my district! Too bad transfers are
in a week and we're probably losing Sister Komiha since she's been here for
almost a year. In the same area. That's the trend here in Malawi.
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| My District |
So Wednesday was quite a day. We had a
district service project helping a man mold bricks. They just put mud
into a mold of a brick shape and then let them dry in the sun and use those to
build houses. So we got to get knee deep in mud and dang it was fun! I think I finally
got all the dirt off myself.
On Friday though.. the sisters in our district
weren’t feeling well so the ZLs (Zone Leaders) drove them home, so my companion
and I had to walk home. I didn’t want to get my shoes muddy so I borrowed Elder
Parker's sandals (which were sandals made out of a car tire and some simple
straps) and we started walking to the bus stop (they’re called stages here).
Well we were late to an appt. already and had to get home and shower then bus
up to Chilobwe, so we decided to run. About a km into the run I realized
the sandals I was running in were rubbing against my toes pretty bad and I had just
raw flesh by that point but the adrenaline of running made me to not realize
originally. So I took the sandals off and just walked barefoot...That day was
HOT. So by the time we reached the stage my feet were dead. I can't
believe how tough Africans' feet are! So yep now I experienced the culture of
not wearing shoes first hand.. And don’t worry mom I put antibiotic cream on
after I got home. Oh and that was one of the best showers I’ve ever taken
getting all that mud off!
So I figured
out how to get rid of the drunkards that attack me lately. I speak to them in German.
They attack me because they want to show they can speak English, so if I
don’t speak English to them they usually go away..or they want to hear the word
of God and in that case its hard to pry their hands off..
Lately we
have been teaching a lot of boys around the age of 18 which is awesome because
that means some day they will be missionaries too! I love this
guy named Michael who we’ve been working with. Hopefully I'll be
writing home after the 26th Oct about him being baptized! That’s when
his date is!
So on
Saturday we ran out of water in the morning...luckily I had already cooked, but
I hadn’t showered so I went without. But when we came home there was no
water still.. so we couldn’t cook or flush toilets or anything. The ZL's next
door fed us a hose over the fence and gave us some water so we could cook and
such and then they also ran out of water right after we got all their water
haha..so the next day was Sunday so I had to take a bath with just a bucket of water
and a towel... but luckily it was Fast Sunday (The first Sunday of the month when we go without food for 2 meals and
donate the money from those meals to the church to help those in need.) so
we didn’t need water to cook or drink..BUT when we got home there was still no
water! So we went to the couple's flat and filled up all the emergency water jugs
that we had previously depleted and we used that for everything that night.
Luckily the water was back this morning though, so life is goooddd again!
Chilobwe has tons of water problems though so the people that live there have
these struggles all the time yet we were complaining for 2 days.. I'm really
being humbled and learning to be grateful! During all
of this I really just learned to be grateful in any circumstances. I love the
talk President Uchtdorf gave about that last General Conference titled "Grateful in Any Circumstances"! (Click on the bolded links to read about who President Uchtdorf is and to read the talk he gave.)
This week
was a great one and I love being a missionary, even though
obviously we
have some hard days and it's not always perfect, but hey
this is
Africa!
The Church
is True!
Thank you
all for the love and support!
Elder Grant
Alan Hiltbrand