Nov 2 Baptism

This week was hectic again, but great! There was missionaries going home on Monday so we had to pick up the ones in Lusaka and also pick up some that flew in from Malawi to take them to the mission office so we just emailed for 1hr and got on our way.. but that evening we had a small dinner party with some members and an investigator family we've been working with so that was great!

We also had tons of transfers on Tuesday that we had to take care of, so we had District meeting that morning then after that we were busy until 20hrs when we just got to go and do a baptismal interview for our candidate, Carol. Carol just got baptized yesterday actually! It was great. Her husband is a member and so her husband's family always supports her at church, but it was sad her husband couldn't make it for the baptism because of work or something...

Carol Mayeya and the in-laws (former branch president)

The rest of the week we had a few things here and there - trips to the hospital, doing interviews for District Leaders' baptismal candidates, mission office, etc etc, but we got to still work in the area and teach so it was great.

Rachel Zulu was also baptized yesterday. She came from the village recently and so when she got into the baptismal font she was terrified from all the water and was crying and so that was sad. She wanted to be baptized but just didn't want to go in the water. Eventually she did and was baptized but she is still a bit shaken up.

A miracle happened this week! We had another girl that was supposed to be baptized yesterday, Margaret, but she kinda went off the grid. About 2 weeks ago we heard from her that her mother said she can't be baptized until she's 25 (I dont know why 25?) so we met with the mother and the mother was still a bit disagreeable but said she'd allow her daughter to make the choice..well we hadn't heard from Margaret and hadn't seen her at church the past 2 weeks so we thought it may have been negative. Well we called up her mother and spoke to Margaret and she told us to come to the home and talk about it. We went to the home and the mother was happy to see us and Margaret has been permitted to be baptized! Also her sister wants to learn from us and the family will come support her at her baptism on the 15th November! So exciting.

We also had a few more people come up that have great potential to be baptized so we're very grateful. The Lord is good to us.

Oh yeah and mom I don't know why I just realized this but my shirts are really big on me, so they poof out of my pants a lot and so I took 2 of them to Brother Zulu to tailor and he measured me and tailored them and wow they're tight hahaha he even took some out of the sleeves so I look like a tool haha.  I had to wear one today because the rest were dirty haha but I'm just gonna give them to members or something...just thought you might get a laugh out of that..

Love

Elder Grant Hiltbrand

Oct 26 Craziness

Sorry for not writing last week and now once again this week I procrastinated writing my weekly report until the last thing and so now I have so little time woops.

Last week was very busy and very fast. We had more missionaries down from the Copperbelt Zone for immigration so we had them for 2 days and that's always difficult to get our teaching appointments in and such. I got to go to an appointment with one elder that is pretty new and it was a great visit but he also started crying in it not even from the Spirit but from homesickness since we were talking about families and the like. I feel bad for new missionaries when they're just adjusting and stuff  but I just hope everyone that serves here comes to love it as much as I have come to because mission is the best.

This week was a bit less busy actually so that was nice spending less time in the truck! On Tuesday we had Zone Meeting and we have been focusing a lot lately on being personable and not being robots (you know how missionaries can get sometimes).

 

The Lusaka Zone Conference

Also it was Independence Day this week so we had Zambian ties tailored and were really excited about it but it seems Zambians don't even have as much excitement about it as we did ha..

Oh on Monday we went to a crocodile/snake park with the zone and everyone enjoyed and sorry that's why I had no time.

 

 

We got to watch general conference this weekend. Great conference. I loved the talk about how the Spirit gives us personal advice and correction when we ask and also personal upliftment and encouragement.

We also had interviews with the mission president on Friday and mine was great, but Elder Barrett is upset because he asked for an extension until June but President wants him to go home on his original release date of January 5.  Now he realizes he has only 2 months and he's really sad that he has so little time left.

We will be having 2 baptisms on Sunday! Carol and Rachel. Carol is the wife to a Less Active member and is just super smart and it's so great to see the family going to be united in the gospel and I believe she will actually help him come back to church. Rachel is the grand daughter of the 1st counselor in our ward and so that's an easy convert haha. I think she moved here from the village or something recently. The family is the Zulu family. They are one of the greatest families I've met on mission and I've met so many amazing families haha. We're actually going there tonight for a dinner and FHE (Family Home Evening)  with them and another investigator family.

I love this work so much!  Time is flying by so fast..like how is it Monday again?

I'm so happy.

Love

Elder Grant Hiltbrand