Vomit and Eating, Tears and Fears, And The Bus and the Fighting spouses!

Well this week was pretty good if I do say so myself. The missionaries in one of our Districts got sick and they were all vomiting and had diarrhea and we made plans to get them medicine and see how we could help(they are a bit far), But then that night, I gave the closing prayer to our nightly planning and right after I said "amen" brughhrghr, hurhfgh I tossed my cookies. No worries I felt a bit off so I had gotten a container so it wasn't all over the floor. But then the very next day the Musekiwa family had cooked for us and it is kind of an offense to say no to food. Plus they had stayed back from work to prepare it for us and so we had to eat. But I guess my sickness was fading because I didn't experience any problems. So that was good. But it has been a while since I have thrown up. That was odd.

Then we were with one of our investigators and we were on exchanges and this investigator is smart, well spoken, and opinionated. If he doesn't agree he will definitely let you know and the missionary I was with wasn't prepared to meet so much resistance and got scared and almost started to cry. He was completely silenced, so I finished the lesson. Hahahahahaha that was kind of funny. He is actually one of my favorite investigators. Cool guy.

We work with the ward missionaries quite a bit and so they see us a lot and I guess I am getting famous for taking people's things from them. Like if I find someone smoking I will take it and stomp on it and then take the rest of their pack too. I take their alcohol and pour it out and their tea and coffee. I even take piercings from them and throw them away. The ward missionaries were afraid to such things. They said that I must be strong. But all it takes is some fast talking, a smile and confidence. I even got someone to give me a drink for free! That was fun. Taking their vices is fun.

Then remember when I said we had a plan to get our investigators to church? Well we did it and it didn't run very smooth because it was the first time. But next week it will go better. We hired a BUS!!!!! One of the members has a bus and volunteered for us so we can use it on Sundays to pick our investigators! Plus one of our recent converts is a bus driver and told said he would be our driver. So our recent convert has a responsibility and he was really excited and was saying that next week the bus would be full!!!!

So we went and collected our investigators. One family, the Phiri family were fighting. They both(husband and wife) really wanted to come to church but the Mother-in-law was coming and one of them had to stay. So they were arguing about who got to go. The husband won and he came to church. The wife said she let him go because she has been trying to get him to church for almost 10 years, and finally he wants to go to "the Latter-day Saints". Victory!!!!!! So they are doing very well and I can't wait for their baptism. Woot woot. I actually laughed at them when I found out they had argued about who should be the one to come to church! They are powerful.

ELDER GAY

"I feel like a prostitute....", "I am not at home....", and "The font isn't filled"

So peoples, this week was good and very interesting. Well to begin we had a lesson with Brother Ngwaru, the old man who has been a Catholic for 42 years. Well we were talking about prayer and the Word of Wisdom and out of no where he says, "I feel like a prostitute..." It took every ounce of self control I had not to burst out laughing. I think e was trying to relate the feeling of learning and wanting to go to another church.... maybe.... hahahaha That was really funny. He is still reading from the Book of Mormon. Which is powerful.

Then at Innocent and Enesia's house we get let in by the sister and we sit down and it is completely empty. So we call Innocent and no one answers and then we call Sis Enesia. She answers and we start talking to her but the funny thing was when she told us she was home, we heard it twice.... how you might ask? Well we heard it through the phone of course and we also heard it coming from the bedroom in the hallway..... That was a shocker and she told us we should come back the next day. That was not my most fun experience on mission. Actually that one really hurt. BUt we will see. We are suppose to go there tomorrow. So we will try to find the concern.

Then on Saturday we were suppose to have a combined baptism. But we get there and the font is NOT filled! The baptism was suppose to start in 10 minutes. There also isn't any electricity to activate the water pump so.... the water trickled in. So we spent the morning fixing that. We ended up going to a different chapel and all 8 people were baptized. So all is well. None for our ward, the baptisms were for other units.

But we have actually found three more families and have been teaching them we will have to work very hard to make sure they are all baptized. But it has been very good. The only problem is, our area is big and the meeting place is far. But we have a plan this week. We will have to see what happens. Sorry this is short we are in Bulawayo and my time is running out. Good bye!

ELDER GAY

Family, Funny, and FREEZING!

Dear Peoples,

We have some really great families in our teaching pool at the moment. Sanyamandwe Family(Innocent and Enesia), Musekiwa family, and the Mandima family. They are doing really great and they love the Gospel. Bu they are united in the fact that they struggle to come to church. We have been working with them and we have been trying to help them. So that is the current struggle right now. I have even studied about families and I was surprised by how many scriptures came to mind from memory about the importance of family. The family is really important to the Lord and I fell I have a deeper understanding of that now. I love teaching families.

We had taken Bro. Mbewe with us to a lesson with Innocent and it was a really great lesson. In fact that was one of the best lessons I have ever had on mission and I have had a few of them. It was absolutely perfect. I can't put it into words but it was jurst perfect!

Funny-----------------------------------

*I read Matt 16:18 and asked how we can follow Christ. To which they said, 'we should build churches!' hahahahaha We clarified don't worry.

*A drunk told me, after I had poured out his beer, that if I had the chance, I would drink, do drugs, and fornicate. I told him I would die first! He didn't believe me.

*A guy said because he didn't know which church was true, he would just stay at home! hahahaha So I asked him, if you didn't where your keys were, would you just sit in one room? Or would you search the whole house?

*This guy looked at us and said I have been a Catholic for 42 years, you know what I mean? I need time. The look on his face was priceless, "You know what I mean???" Hahahaha

*One of our investigators had met the missionaries before and had given them the Book of Mormon back and told them, "Take your book back, it is misleading me!" I asked what their expressions were, she just smiled hahahaha(she now understands the Book of Mormon and loves it because we read with her)

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And now to the freezing! Gweru is cold! To illustrate let me tell you a story. At church, I was wearing a sweater, a suit jacket over that and then a hoodie over it all and I was still cold! Who knew that Africa could get so cold????? Even right now I am wearing my jacket. And my toes haven't been warm for weeks. This place is C-O-L-D ! ! ! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Did you know that there are 6604 verses in the Book of Mormon? Isn't that cool? Woot!

Sincerely, Elder Steven Gay

Bible School?, Cake!, and Zone Leader Council

So the investigators who came to church last week invited us to teach them at their place. The only thing is they live at a Bible College.... plus it is forever away and I was sure we were lost but I just kept going.... finally we found it and they said they had invited more people and that we were going to meet in the Conference Center. In my head I saw us preaching to a whole mass of people is some coliseum, but it turns out that their "Conference Center" was just a courtyard type thing and we sat on some stone benches with some 8 bible students and then taught the Restoration and basically told them that their chosen career is a product of Apostasy. :D They took it amazingly well. Actually I don't think they really understood what our message meant to them in their personal life even though we were asking very good questions.

Something funny is they didn't even know simple things. Like when we asked them, "Who is God?" They just went quiet and looked at each other. It was really quite comedic. I almost laughed except for the fact that they were about to teach others about God and they have no idea who He is! What a sad world in which we live. The world is drowning in Spiritual Blackness. WE NEED MORE MISSIONARIES! GO ON MISSION!!!!

I will get off the soap box now. But for my birthday last week some members made us cake. Okay so one bought it and the other had someone else make it but the thought is what counts. We still have some of the cake at our house!(it was a big cake). Yummy though.

We also had Zone Leader Council which was really great except we didn't reach our goal on baptisms and so we received some fire for that. But I think the same inflicted fire was worse than any they gave. But this coming month seems to be very promising and we have had a really good week this last one so July here we come!!!! Baptize them!!!!

We had this one investigator named Bela and she wasn't coming to church. We tried and tried and she never came. She was facing opposition from the family. We had what we thought was going to be our last lesson with her because the family had told us not to come at the house so we were kind of sad. But then yesterday after church we saw her standing outside the gate! She had been standing out there for 2 hours. She said she was sick but she had promised that she would come. We were so happy! That was powerful. It was awesome to see her there. Bro. Innocent hasn't been around for a while we only saw him once last week. He still needs your prayers!! But we feel we are making progress. We will keep forging ahead! We currently have 110 investigators in our Zone with baptism dates! So we have a lot of work to do getting them baptized. Especially because only 30 of them came to church yesterday. The work to do is here for us! Sorry I ruined the rhyme but now it applies.

Thank you for all that you do!!!! Go on mission! :D

Love, Elder Gay