April 29, 2013

Habari yako!

So an ok week this week.  A few cool things and experiences though.  So we have recently been teaching this woman. She was a referral we got from one of the members a few weeks ago. But she is such an awesome lady and has such a great desire to learn more! She is super humble, and might be one of the poorest people I've meet so far.  But she is awesome and has 2 kids under the age of 10.  So we have had a few discussions so far, and she is super interested and impressed with our church.  She has had some real negative experiences with other Christian churches. She doesn't like how other churches have paid ministers, how you have to pay your minister to pray for you, and how many other churches have a sort of "social classes" based on your income.  So she loves how our church is more focused on the Gospel, and not the Money! hahah. But she is also been having struggles lately.  She is a convert to Christianity, she was formerly a Muslim, and comes from a family of 33 CHILDREN!! (1 husband, 4 wives, 32 daughters, 1 son). So her family has not been really accepting of her.  But we were able to talk with her  and help her kind of figure out her situation, and she also allowed us to give her a priesthood blessing, which was a super cool experience.  She loves meeting with us and even calls us her best friends! haha. she has also shown a big desire to be baptized, so we hope that happens soon. The only concern that she had about our church, wasn't even about the church, but was about me.  So we asked her what the problem was.  She told us that some of her friends had told her some things about white people that kind of made here a little uneasy to meet with us.  She said that a lot of her friends said that white people come to Africa to come and take little black children away and EAT THEM! So she asked me do you do that??? And i was like NO NO NO NOOOO! hahahahah i told her that that is most definitely not true! WE come to share the gospel, not eat children! hahah it was a funny experience. but a lot of people here do have some weird ideas and beliefs about mzungu's (white guys).  But she is a great lady and we love her a lot.

This week i also was asked to teach the Gospel Principles class for the branch.  I was asked to talk about the final judgment! haha. I felt like the lesson went really well.  I really emphasized that this life time is for us to prepare to be judged in heaven. So we need to choose the right and be righteous here on earth so that we can receive the highest degree of heaven!!! so everyone remember that. haha. 

But glad to hear that Mexico was fun!! the pictures looked great!  haha hope everyone is doing well back home. love you all

Elder Thomas