ELDER GRANT HILTBRAND : April 25 Who would've thought?

Well, this week I had my last transfer! I will serve the rest of my mission in the Matero Ward with Elder Ssengooba as my companion. I am very content with that!

Who would've thought we would be driving together the same roads we walked together one year ago?!

On Wednesday, as a Zone Leader, I drove all the transferred missionaries to the airport along with Elder Sagers driving another truck with some missionaries (including himself). Then at the airport Elder Sagers handed me the keys to the Assistants' truck and I was 'officially' an assistant haha! I came to the airport as a Zone Leader and I left as an Assistant! We then took all my stuff from Libala to the AP Flat while waiting for the Lilongwe flight to come in so we could then hand over the keys to Elder Ford. It was kinda nice not having to finish the transfers haha..

Since then things didn't slow down for the rest of the week. We had a lot going on like meetings with President, a wedding, and lots of teaching appointments.

I had an interview with President Erickson on Friday - my last official quarterly interview that is. He said it was "my departing interview with President Erickson'"since he won't be here when I go home. It was so nice. He spoke of making a plan for when I go home and he was just really down to earth. I liked how he talked about how you can't expect to do the same things you've done on mission when you go home. Things like 2 hours of gospel study and fifteen prayers a day won't be a part of my post-mission life. We also talked about my progression through my mission which was really cool to hear from his perspective haha and he doesn't really sugar coat things so it was great to hear an honest review!

On Saturday we attended the wedding of Gerard Ngendabanka and Jessica Banda, a sister in the ward. Does the name Ngendabanka sound familiar? Just go look at a blog post from Jan-Apr 2015 if you don't recall. Yes, I attended the wedding of one of my previous companions...whilst I am still on mission. "To cut the story short...he came into my home as a missionary and he left as a son-in-law!" - Bro Banda.

Sunday was a wonderful day. I got a glimpse of what it will be like in the Celestial kingdom when we reunite with old friends and family as I reunited with all the members of Matero Ward! It's so good to see Erick Matapo still very active. He even participated in ordaining another recent convert to have the priesthood on Sunday.
One of the recent converts, Beatrice, was called and sustained as a librarian in church and after church she wanted to get right to work fulfilling her calling so she asked us to help her clean and organize the Library. It was filthy but afterwards it was quite the sight that's for sure.

It was a wonderful week as you can see! and to make it even better, I heard from Elder Malinga that they had twelve investigators at church on Sunday in Libala even after our 8 baptisms last week! The rest of the Mweemba family is all jumping on board now along with some others I left!

Love

Elder Grant Hiltbrand