April 20th letter

This week has been busy and not busy at the same time. Any way we've been preparing some people for baptism, Edith just barely passed her interview on Sunday and will be baptized next Sunday. We had some service projects on Thursday where I peeled maize. My thumbs are a tad sore. But we were talking to some non members who seem interested about the church. Then they fed us and they made us eat every last scrap. That is common here, you need to eat everything offered or you will just offend them. So I got very full.

On Friday I went on exchanges with another Elder in his area. We had a very good day, teaching people who seemed very excited about learning, and we worked together well. The lessons just flowed really well. Apparently the investigators could notice, because we were teaching an investigator about the Book of Mormon(I love teaching about this book), anyway towards the end of the lesson she told us that the Lord had sent us to her that day. Because she was going to be at school but decided to stay home to study. Then she said, she just loved having us there, and that we were "shining with the Holy Ghost!" Guess what everyone, I shine now :) That lesson was so sweet though!

Anyway as we were walking to another lesson, a lady called out and I replied in Shona(the local language), her jaw dropped like i had insulted her heritage. "You speaking shona?!" she yelled. So we went over and I greeted them all in shona and they were very impressed apparently because they just went off in Shona. I had to tell them I only spoke a little. We were talking a little about the church and what we do, when one lady comes out and starts telling us about the Nebuchadnezzar's(sp?) dream. When her sister looked at her in shock and said, "You are sharing with them? We want them to share with us!" Oh man I started laughing so hard so we told them where the church is and set up a time for us to visit. I enjoyed those exchanges.

But Sunday was Independence Day. Where the Zimbabweans won their freedom from England aka the whites. So all weekend they were celebrating and feeling kind of anti white feelings which was fun. Nothing happened but the members warned us that we might want to go home before it got dark.

And this last week the primary kids got locked in their room because there still weren't any handles. I had to pull out the leatherman again.

Yesterday was Zone Conference. Yay Zone conference! Anyway I really learned a lot and especially from a mssionary who is leaving at the end of this transfer. He bore his testimony and I was almost floored by the power of it. Oh man, all I could think was, this is what a real missionary is. I was amazed and still am, I just hope I can have part of the impact he has had on those he has taught and interacted with. Wow is all I can say.

We sang our Zone Song, 284 If you could hie to Kolob, it actually went pretty well considering that we didn't know we were supposed to sing something. This morning we had a borrowed a car to take chairs from the stake center to a Sister's house where she teaches Seminary. There were no chairs and they have been sitting on the concrete floor of an unfinished section of her house for all of their lessons. So we thought we would try to help out, she was very grateful and it reminded me just how many advantages we had back home, like chairs.

Thank you for all the love and support!

Love,

Elder Gay