Hey family this week was great so sit down it's gonna be a
long way till the end (catch the pun). So first of all, I'm super sweaty! We
spent the morning with the other two missionaries in our now four person
district watering a members garden. Translation drawing water from a well and
carrying it to the maize field and watering each individual stock. But it was
great! i like being able to do some physical labor.
A lot of miracles happened
this week. On Tuesday, we went to see a recent convert and we showed up to the
house and a man let us in and we were like, umm does our recent convert still live here?
Turns out she had moved but this man and his son are super interested in the
church and we are teaching them. Also in the last few weeks we have been uping
our game to network Kauma and contact everyone. We are at a point where we talk
to everyone and have established contacts everywhere. People know us in Kauma
and they all talk so we have more people than there is time in the week to see.
We currently have eight people on date for baptism in November.
On Friday, I
went on exchanges with Elder Tidwell, he is only six weeks older than me on his
mission and a fellow Utah state Aggie and the two of us kicked some butt. First,
we went to see a young man who has been struggling with the lessons so we
decided we need to make him comfortable and get to know him better. Once we had
built that relationship of trust we began reteaching the Plan of salvation we
took one out of Dad's old Family home evening when we were younger book and
broke out crayons and started having him draw it out. It was a blast and it
really drew him out of his shell. And most importantly, he finally saw why we
weere teaching him and committed to baptism! Teach people not lessons.
We also
met two great new investigators by talking about music. We had passed them
listening to some R&b and Elder Tidwell broke out singing along and we
started jamming with them in the street and began teaching them about the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. We even jumped rope with a bunch of little kids. All those
little things make a difference in showing people that we are not tourists,
charity worker, businessmen, students, or whatever else. Rather, we are here to invite
them to come unto Christ. We had a guy tell us that we needed to smoke a
joint....yea we didn't end up teaching him.
On Sunday though i had one of the
most profound spiritual experiences of my mission. So we had met a man a
little while ago who had been taught previously but there had been no record.
He is super smart and studies the scriptures very seriously. He was supposed to go
on a trip to the northern region but then he showed up to church on Sunday.
During Priesthood lesson, I was given a 2 minute heads up and randomly opened the manual
and taught a lesson on love and family commitment. Afterwards, he had
disappeared. As we were in the area, every one of our lessons and backup fell
through and we were just wandering along the road when he saw us and told us
he needed to talk. He began asking a lot of questions and then he said "my trip got cancelled and i don't know why because i wasn't planning on it being cancelled but i
went to church and the messages started hitting me hard in the heart like it
was God slamming my conscience and then i saw you on the road." It turns out he
had some past transgressions that where coming up and he really wants to repent
and follow Christ. I was pretty floored and looked him in the eye and told him that
there is no such thing as coincidence, his trip needed to be canceled, he
needed to be at church, the messages that were shared were because he needed
them, I needed to teach the lesson I did, our appointments needed to drop, and
we needed to be on the road at that time. Miracles still happen! I can testify
of that. I told him that this was God speaking to him and showing him the path
he needed to take to be forgiven. He is so humble and ready to do whatever it
takes to repent.
That was a big life changer for me.
God loves all his children
and is there to guide them back to him.
I love being a missionary here
in Lilongwe! It is the best thing I have ever done. There are so many miracles
and blessings (like when your comp makes enchiladas!) and it's the best. The
opportunity to wake up, study the words of Christ, wear his name on your chest
and walk around all day talking to everyone you meet about
Him.............priceless. I have also seen the members of the Church grow here as they learn
to accept the responsibilities that come in the church. It's coming slow but
they are faithful and learning. Our branch has several young men preparing their
mission papers now. Big love coming to you from yours truly here in the
warm heart of Africa
Elder Lusk
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