Are You John the Baptist?, If I Can Just Get to Shore, Goats, She Gave it All In English, I Love My Mission, Over the River and Good Old Times

Hey family! Man, did we have a week full of miracles and tender mercies! It was the type of week I came on a mission for. As we have been praying and working hard to get our area back up to being productive,  i've seen so many prayers answered. We taught more lessons this week than i've ever taught in one week on my mission. We met more people in one week than I ever have. We had a baptism and two people interviewed for next week! Let me slow down a bit and take it from the beginning.
 First, we had a very powerful lesson with a man who has changed his life A LOT since we first met. The first time we met, he was supper drunk and thought I was John the Baptist.......yea fun times but now I see a humble man who's coming to church and changing his life to follow the Savior...priceless. And because of his example we are now teaching his neighbor. One miracle leads to another.
We had a big break through spiritually with a man  we had been seeing for a long, long time and now he's being baptized next week.
 We had a man tell us of the dream he had where he was drowning than saw a man holding the Book of Mormon on the shore and he thought if he can get to the book he will live...is our Heavenly Father cool or what?
. We had an investigator tell us how he had given his grocery money to a beggar because he felt thats what Jesus would do then come home to find his cousin from the village had come and brought a whole goat for dinner....Blessed are the kind for they shall receive unexpected blessings.
 Finally, the little girl we had been teaching was baptized and it was so sweet. She came out of the water just laughing and giggling and I saw this little daughter of God the way He see's her. Then she supersised me with a sweet gift: she stood up to bear her testimony and gave it all...in English! She hadn't spoken any English the whole time I taught her but her uncle told me she had been practicing for days so she can say her testimony so I could understand....man when I heard that i was almost brought to tears.
 Don't know if i've said this yet but I love my mission. It's great. Sure there are plenty of frustrations, dropped lessons, drunks calling me Mzungu everywhere I go, flies going crazy, and endless miles in my already worn thin shoes but I love every second of it....ok maybe not in the moment but it makes for good laughs later.
 So, funny story this week: we were going to the far end of our area and needed to cross a bridge (dad here's how engineering is this side of the world)  and due to all the rains this all wood bridge now over a high fast moving river is little more than some thin worn, bouncy, half missing boards. looks like something out of Indiana Jones cool eh? Wrong. When you realize...thats the only way to my next lesson. Elder Chawaguta spent like ten minutes trying to tell me to go on the bridge while im saying he's crazy, looking in vain for another way to cross, and considering dropping the appointments and getting laughed at by all the malawians sitting around enjoying the entertainment. Finally  he hit my pride with "hey I thought youre like this tough future American soldier captain america man"...yea good old pride and patriotism can get me pretty passionate so I hand him my bag and sprint across the bridge as fast as I can. it was bouncy and going side to side bending under my feet as i go all the while my comp calmly waltzes across shaking his head and laughing...good old times.

well as I said faith and action brings miracles

so take it easy back home and dont take things for granted

love Elder Lusk