Monday, October 12, 2015

Oct 12 I'm Bussyyy!

I sound like the Zambian women do when we are tracting: "Im busyyy" ha!

First full week as a Zone Leader! I love it! We are super busy all the time and I love that. I never like down time on mission, so the busier we are the happier I am. And funny thing is, although we have so much to get done all the time, I have not experienced much stress. (But maybe that’s just because it was the first week so everything is still a bit of a daze? We’ll see!)

As a Zone Leader we have to take care of all the missionaries needs: if someone gets sick or hurt, we take them to the hospital; if they need more materials such as copies of the Book Of Mormon, we deliver them. We also have to deliver water to all the flats probably once a month. Also here in Lusaka we have extra duties with immigration. When missionaries in the Copperbelt area need to go to immigration the ZL’s up there send them down on a bus and we pick them up and they stay with us for a night and they go to immigration then we send them back up. So that took place this week and we have 2 elders with us and then this week we will have another 3 coming down. I actually enjoy those duties because I love interacting with missionaries and getting to know more people. Also we have to do baptismal interviews for people taught by District Leaders, and now that the Zone is baptizing a ton we have to do a lot of those! And we have to do exchanges with all the District Leaders and the Assistants once every transfer. So yep lots of things to be done!

As for the Ng’ombe area, I’ve gotten to know a few more members and investigators and it seems we have a lot to work with here. This is the first branch/ward I've worked in that members help us a ton with our work! One woman, Sis Jane is so amazing. She's like 4 feet tall. We went there and made chipatis (tortillas) with her and her husband and her neighbor even came in to watch me make them so she could learn how. Ha they're learning to make African food from an azungu (white foreigner)! Another family, the Zulu family are the best. The father was actually a Pentecostal pastor, but in 1995 he stepped down and joined Christ’s church with his family. Now he works at his home with his wife as tailors and everyone knows them in the community and he is always giving us referrals. I think with every customer that he gets he invites them to learn from us or come to church with him. If everyone was like the Zulu’s, the Church would grow exponentially faster.

Oh! Also in Matero, Sister Bwembya was finally baptized! Baptized by her husband even! Wish I could’ve been there to witness but just knowing that it took place makes me so happy.
Now we have 3 more coming soon in Ng’ombe!

I love this work.
Elder Grant Hiltbrand