This week the Lord really answered my pleas for strength and energy and my companion and I were just so excited all day everyday! We contacted some celebrity singers this week and look forward to teaching them. We even taught one this week and it was a great lesson! We focused a lot on the Book of Mormon. We actually focused a lot on the BOM all this week because we haven't had Restoration pamphlets for awhile so we give other ones instead and people see the BOM on it and that allows for us to come and explain it and its amazing. ALSO it helped because I received 11 extra Book of Mormons in a package with all my loved ones' testimonies in the fronts! Thanks Sister Ujin haha!
We also found some amazing families this week. We've been focusing a lot on families and well-established people lately and the Lord has directed our paths and almost everyone we taught this week was a family! We even had a Zone Meeting on "teaching all men" this week in which we talked a lot about finding those good people. Scheduling this week was especially hard though because almost all of Chilobwe wanted us to visit them! We met the Milore Family and the Bulike Family this week who are amazing. We had some very spiritual meetings with them and they promised to come to Church and when we showed up for Church on Sunday they beat us there! Usually people don't really take it seriously when they promise to come but they are really seeing the truth and definitely felt the Spirit bearing witness to them! Both families are
young families by the way and are excited to be baptized into the true Church by the correct authority. And Church with them there was amazing! In Gospel Principles they were all contributing and sharing their thoughts which really allows for
everyone to learn and grow! It's also a good sign because people that contribute are showing they want to learn and that they will help the Church to grow because they're not afraid to open their mouths and share the gospel!
For the Soche Branch's sacrament meeting I got to sit next to a little girl named Thoko. She's maybe 7 and her and her sister come to church faithfully when they're both only in primary and their parents don't come nor are they members. She couldn't speak english but with my little bit of Chewa I was able to talk to her and we sang together and she followed my example in the prayers and would say amen and then towards the end started touching my hair because "it's different than
theirs". What an awesome little girl! We also got to teach an elder of another church on Sunday and it was intense. He wanted to bash so bad but we just held our tongues and stayed calm with smiles on our faces as he called us liars and such. It just makes me think of Jesus Christ's ministry in which He went through so much worse treatment. This work is beautiful and so is Malawi and so are the people of Malawi.
Rain season is coming! We had some crazy rain storms this week but now it's gone away and it's burning hot.. This is a super unusual year for rain here, but everyone is still saying it's coming but I'm not too sure... In one of our lessons with Bro Kachikondo it was pouring and you can't hear anything with the sheet metal roofs so we had to sit right next to him to teach and still raise our voices but it was still a great lesson. He's facing some more health problems so he hasn't been
able to come to church for 2 weeks, but we pray for him and I'm sure we will be seeing him healthy again soon.
Also, we have to be home at 6:00 instead of 7:00 now because of the holiday season and some unrest with people wanting money for the holidays and such I think..it's a bummer and makes our days seem pretty short but we just put that much more energy into each day because they're shorter!
Christmas here is going to be so awesome and one I'll remember for the rest of my life. Yes I'll miss my family but it's such a great experience to be doing the Lord's work during this time and sharing the Gift of Christ with them!
Chikondi,
Elder Grant Hiltbrand