27 September 2010

This week has been powerful. We have right now 8 baptism dates ready to go and on the 10th of October we have two that have been interviewed. We hope by the 31^st(October) to have 15-20 baptisms,  looks like we need to work harder.

This week taught a man named Emmanuel. In telling us his religious experiences in life and the life he used to have, he described almost all the lessons to us.  We hope he'll get baptized. In fact he trusts us so much he's done two things. Asked for names for his baby that will be born soon and he holds my hand which is a sign of great trust and friendship. This so very exciting. Also we taught four families which consisted of 30 people. They all begged for the Book of Mormon and have a great desire to be baptized. We'll see what happens as time goes on. . The gospel is well received in the poor parts (compounds) but drinking is a HUGE problem here. You can get wasted for just a dollar drinking shake shake. Just one more thing for the people to overcome. We have 10 investigators or so but we teach quite a few people. Most go through all the lessons or just the first. When we teach Word of Wisdom most say they'll stop and the do for awhile but it is an ongoing challenge. It reminds me of the parable of the sower. There are lots of rocks here but also lots of soil. We just need the branch to do home teaching. We are trying to start two classes here. Music/Book of Mormon and member missionary training. We think that'll strengthen the branch and help it grow.

I've gotten sick from this heat every day of this last week and even before. It’s ok. We get over it very quickly. Water and a blessing fix everything. Stomach and other digestive tract issues are common especially as we get into the hottest month of the year, October.  So far 45C has been the hottest we've recorded on my watch. ( more than 100F.) Crazy hot here.

We usually eat chicken, nshima, rice, pasta, beef, and veggies for dinner (not all at once) but we change it up as often as we can. Nshima (shima) is a mash potato texture maize mill and you use it to eat instead of a fork. Don't worry about the food. I cook very well and people love what I cook. I made a fruit salad yesterday with 1 peach can drained 1 fruit cocktail undrained and 1 pineapple well cut undrained and added a bunch of yogurt and custard powder and it was great. Sister Rose loved it (she's like our mom feeds us every Sunday even though she's very poor). We also just recently bought a peppercorn grinder. We are very proud of it. Have a great week!