A Week In The Life....

Well this week went by super fast. 

On Tuesday we had zone conference in Gweru and it was awesome.   Pretty basic missionary stuff and cliché talks given by elders and sisters but then President Mkhabela spoke about the power of the Book of Mormon.  He completely broke down the apostasy and how the Bible has so many things lost from it.  But then showed how the Book of Mormon fills in those gaps and even adds more and is so clear and plain.  It was so powerful and really made me rethink the Book of Mormon haha.  After zone conference we took pictures of the 3 tallest elders in the mission, Elder Koch, Elder Conde, and then me.  Elder Chimtengo, our district leader, was calling us the 1^st presidency hahaha.  I’ll attach the pictures below.

And then on Friday, we spent a majority of the day getting the car fixed.  Frustrating but at least the Chev is fixed now. Still floats like a Cadillac haha. 

And then the other elders had a baptism on Saturday and then Church was on Sunday so this week was gone before we knew it.  

Although it was a short week it was still really good!  We continued to teach Innocent and his family and the other day when we came, Innocent was gone but we taught his sisters, Blessing and Sharon and they both happily accepted baptismal dates!  And the next time we see them, we will give innocent a date as well.  They are so powerful! I’m still amazed at how crazy it is that the Lord totally led them to us.  All of the family but Blessing (due to sickness) came to church again yesterday and it was awesome to see them!  They already have many friends at church and they fit in perfectly.  Honestly it feels like we didn’t do much.  We just showed up for the first appointment and ever since then the Lord has been working with them.  They were so prepared for us and they are growing in their testimonies each day. 

We also gave Hilton and Hillary baptismal dates for next month and they gladly accepted as well! 

The work is finally progressing in Masvingo! Haha

Last night we had dinner with the Chaduka family and one of the daughters is a returned missionary named Lyndell but she is obsessed with the color purple so she told us to call her “Purple”.  Purple always gives us fire about stupid things and its funny to give her fire too because she is a joker.  Anyways,  they prepared a sadza dish with this meat stuff called “ma chunks” and the family looked at us expecting us to be hesitant about eating but I already knew what it was and I love it so I told them  that and they were so disappointed hahaha Purple was like, “Ughhh you are too Zimbabwean!!! We can’t even surprise you!” haha it was dope. I’m totally Zimbo now.

Well sorry but that’s all I got for this week. We didn’t do too much contacting due to the events mentioned earlier and I was battling a minor sickness but I’m all good now and next week we’ll be able to make up for the lost time. 

Everything is still super bho over here.  Loving to work and living among my people.  Love you all so much. Thanks for all the emails and all the support. 

Stay happy

Stay Steady Grindin

Cheers,

Elder Anderson

After an elders quorum activity we chilled with some members at the church and have a fun time messing around with the children

 The First Presidency of the Zimbabwe Harare Mission hahahah

Miracle Families

Hey guys so this week was sick.  Super rewarding and I’m very excited for this month.

So last week I spoke of Innocent and Blessing. These guys are becoming more and more powerful my goodness.  We visited them again this week and met another sister in the family named Sharon.  We taught them the remainder of the Restoration lesson that day and no doubt, the spirit was there. They were so receptive and loved our message.  At the conclusion of the lesson, I asked, “So if you come to know that these things are true, what will you do?”  And they all said something along the lines of,  I’d have to join you guys and come to church and be baptized."  We were jaw dropped for a minute and then testified of the truthfulness of our message and committed them to come to church.  And yesterday, the whole family came! Innocent, Blessing with her two children, and Sharon.  And they told us they were definitely coming next week.  This family was seriously a miracle.  Innocent just walked up to us whilst we were standing outside the church and that’s how it all started.  We plan on giving all of them baptismal dates for the end of this month or early in August.  (Its already August what the heck.)  This family is amazing. Its pretty cool how Preach My Gospel teaches about how the Lord leads you to people or leads them to you.  I have now experienced him leading them to us hahaha so cool.

Another miracle was the Takawira family.  So on Sunday we met this guy visiting named Brother Charle or something like that.  And he is a branch president in a small town near Harare. And he told us he had two nephews who he wants us to teach. And then he told us he would come back to baptize them.  The two kids names are Hillary and Hilton and both of their parents died and they were members but they kids never got baptized and then they started living with this other family in our area.  So we found out where they stay and they two kids are powerful and very smart. Around 15 years old I think and they are already super chill with us.  We had the opportunity to teach the whole family and found out they were all interested!  And they were really understanding our small message we shared with them.  So we are super excited to continue working with these guys too!  So now this week we have had 6 new investigators!

So as you can all imagine, Elder Koch and I are always being stared at by everyone hahaha especially children.  And we started messing with the kids by staring back at them. So when we are walking down the street and kids walk by that are staring at us, we just stop and stare back at them and watch them awkwardly look away and then look back and then look away again over and over again hahhahahahah. Its so funny. Honestly I almost fell over on the street because I was laughing so hard a couple times this week. 

So we were contacting one day and while walking down the street, two kids were like, “Hey can we have a book?” And I was like, “Why do you want a book?” And they were like, “So we can repent”  I was like…… ”Sure! Hahha but you have to take it home to your families and read it with them.”  We continued walking and talking to them and they were very smart and spoke amazing English and they knew about the church and said they would come on Sunday with their families.   We didn’t see them at church but hopefully that planted a seed to later be harvested.

I’m continuing to learn shona and its so cool to listen to people talk and kind of understand them haha.  I’m still clueless half the time but not as much as I used to be.

Funny story.  So we had an area seventy come and visit the branch on Sunday and in sacrament meeting he was introduced as a general authority and we kind of laughed.  And then it got better when the guy saying the invocation said, “We are so grateful for our…. Only… and Begotten….. general authority..” hahahhahhahhahaha I lost it during the prayer and me and my companion were laughing pretty hard. Obviously not loud enough to disturb the reverence but it was so funny. We were all expecting him to say something about Jesus Christ but then hhahahah man.  So then in Elders Quorum during the 3^rd hour, Elder Makazi (the area seventy) before his lesson, explained that he isn’t a general authority for like the first 5 minutes hahaha

Today we went to another game park and it was so cool! We saw giraffes, zebras, rhinos, hippos, wildebeasts. It was so cool. Just casually driving around exotic animals like its my day job.  I’ll attach some pictures. 

So today I like to add a thought of something that I have come to learn on my mission and something I will focus on for the rest of my life.  It comes from Alma 39:14.  It teaches us that we shouldn’t seek riches of the world for we cannot carry them with us.  Ever since I first read this verse, it has stuck with me and has always reminded me that the world shall pass away, but the spiritual strength, knowledge, and experience that we gain, will be with us even after we depart from this earth.  This idea constantly humbles me and has brought me much happiness.  I hope you all can find joy in this scripture as well. 

I know this church is true and this work is truly the work of the Lord.

Love you all and hope you have another good week.

Stay Steady Grindin

Cheers,

Elder Anderson

Found this black widow outside our bathroom a couple days ago.  Its no longer living.

 My companions parents sent him fake mustaches so we were messing around the other day. 

Bear With Patience Thine Afflictions

This week was super slow.  There were no afflictions but patience was the overall tone of the last 7 days hahaha. 

First off a little bit more about my companion.  So he served for a month in Denmark before he came here.  He is very into video games but likes to play basketball so thats dope.  And I still am not used to how tall he is.  I feel so small hahahaha love the guy though. He's a powerful teacher too and he's always joking with people. And the kids all love seeing two varungu walking round hahahaha its funny

So with Sister Ngwena's funeral, many members were away for Tuesday and it was hard to get any work done so that was fun.  We also had a hard time finding our investigators.  And then the rest of the week was just slow.  I'm sad I don't have much to write about because it was just super slow.  We have members who tell us they have referrals but then wont give them to us because they want to talk to them first.  Our contacting efforts always result in teaching people who aren't serious so we struggled to teach people this week.  We even have investigators that don't want to say no so they just lie to us and we can never find them.  For example, we will schedule and appointment for Wednesday morning, we will come for the appt. and they will tell us to come in the evening. So then we come in the evening and they are busy and want us to come the next morning, so we come and they aren't around but the family or neighbors will tell us to come back in the evening and then we show up again and they will be there but surprisingly wont have time for us.  And then they just say they will see us at church on Sunday. And then on Sunday we have 0 investigators come. hahahahahahaha same story with many investigators.  Patience amiright? 

But we did have something really cool happen on Saturday. Whilst standing outside the chapel after helping the elders quorum clean the building, a guy just walked in the gate and approached us and said he wanted to join the church.  And we thought he was joking because he was a little intoxicated so we gave him a pamphlet and invited him to come to church the next morning.  To our surprise, when we got to church, he was actualy there, sitting and waiting for the meeting to start. The guy got there before us hahaha. And he joined us for investigators class and then priesthood and then we scheduled an appointment with him in the evening. By the way this guys names is Innocent haha. Anyways, later that day we went to his place and his family told us he wasn't there.  Crushing blow to our excitement with this guy.  And then we decided to drive back to another investigator and on the way we found Innocent walking along the street and waved at him and stopped and he ran over to talk to us.  Turns out he thought we wanted to meet him at the church at 4 lol. So then we drove him back to his house and taught him and his sister about the restoration and they both loved the message and even the sister had so many questions answered with the lesson.  It was such a cool experience! After a week of "hapana", we finally found someone.  Patience lol.  Koch and I are excited about teaching these guys.  

We also have a new investigator named Simba who is powerful. Hasn't come to church yet but nonetheless, powerful.  So thats cool. 

So happy freaking 4th of July!!!  You already know I celebrated! Elder Parco in my district is from Minnesota and we partied on Tuesday and had a huge bon fire at the house and took nice pictures!  Love Zimbabwe but low key still proud to be an American. 

Well thats all I got for this week.  I can tell the Lord has wanted me to learn two things. Humility and patience.  From getting called "murungu" everywhere I go, to having frustrating companions, to joking investigators, to realizing I still have a lot of work to do here on my mission; all has helped me develop these two Christ-like attributes.  I can remember back before my mission, I wasn't too humble and not patient.  But I'm glad I have been able to strengthen these two weaknesses.  Despite all the tests of my patience, I absolutely love serving here.  I have so many reasons to be happy so why should I be sad or let things get to me? haha I love this gospel and being a servant in the vineyard.  I know our message to be true. Without a doubt and it has blessed me so much.  I love you all and am so grateful for all the prayers and support.  I'm grateful for all the wonderful examples I had around me as I was growing up. All of you have helped me so much.  Stay happy over there. God speed. 

Stay Steady Grindin'

Cheers,

-Elder Anderson

Pictures: 

When I said bye to Fili. Sad day lol

Forgot to send this a while ago. We did a tie for our district item and wore it to zone conference haha

4th of July!! We had to wear red white and blue so I stole our DLs shirt which was super small on me hahaha 

 "Oh say, can you see" hahahaha

Still no pictures of the baptism last week. Will send them next week hopefully. 

Elder Koch and me. I was mean muggin thinking he'd do the same hahaha oh well. 

Twin Towers

First things first. Transfers happened. And I'm sad to say that Elder Fili got transferred to Mutare so we had to say goodbye today. Gonna miss that guy. 

Anyways I picked up my new companion today and his name is Elder Koch.  He's from Denmark and is freaking 6'10" hahahahaha so now in this small African town of Masvingo there are two tall white guys. Thus the title, Twin Towers.  It will be nice though, we've been in the same zone before so I already knew him pretty well.  I'll attach pictures next week. 

So anyways, this week was kind of slow. We spent a couple mornings at the hospital visiting a member, Sister Ngwena who has been super sick and last night we got the news that she passed away.  She was the wife to the 1st counselor in the branch presidency so everyone new her.  Sad loss. It was so quick too.  She started feeling sick a week ago. Crazy.  Sorrow for death but rejoice in our father's plan.   Blessed that we have the knowledge of the plan of salvation.  

Found a powerful new investigator, but..... So we were door contacting and found this woman named Pressure and she invited us in and let us share a small message with her.  She invited us to come again and when we did, we taught her about the faith, repentance, baptism, and the holy ghost. And when we got to baptism she genuinely asked, "So if I die without getting baptized, what will happen to me?" I testified of the plan of salvation and promised her we would answer her the next time.  And then she told us she is going to Mutare for a month.... hahaha so now we can't teach her. Crazy tho that Fili just got transferred there so he might be able to teach her. Hopefully. She is super powerful and has so many questions about the gospel that we can and will answer.  This gospel is so true hahaha I love how we are able to answer so many questions people have and help them understand the plan.  

We had a baptism this week. Memory! She asked me to do the ordinance so as always that was cool. She bore her testimony after the ordinance and it was crazy. She's only 15 too! And then the next day I also got to confirm her a member of the church so that was also super cool.  She reads the Book of Mormon every day and loves reading about Joseph Smith and the restoration.  Really wish I was like that when I was younger hahah. 

So the other day after we received transfer news, we went to a member's house (Brother Mugota) and had a braai and cooked sooooo much meat. Pork, fish, chicken, beef and sadza man I was enjoying.  We did NOT eat meat sparingly hahaha.  but it was nice. Celebrating Elder Fili's time in Masvingo hahah it was a nice night. 

Well sorry but I'm pretty short on time this week. We now have to go attend the funeral service for Sister Ngwena.  Love you all and I know our Father in Heaven has a plan for us to return to him.  He loves each of us and wants us to know true joy in this life and in the eternities.  God Speed. 

Stay Steady Grindin'

Cheers,

-Elder Anderson

Lebron James

As cliche and repetitive as it has been said, it truly was another week in paradise.  Let me explain. 

 Lemme start with something funny. We met this guy named Shadreck.  We were walking by his house and he yelled to us, "Hey boys are you winning?" hahahaha so we stopped and talked with him and he was okay with us coming back to teach him. So on Friday we go there and this guy was something else.  We just wanted to teach him a simple lesson about the Godhead but before we were even done with talking about God, he asks us if we take off our shoes for church.  After we answered him "no" he said, "Well Moses was told by God Himself, to take of his shoes when he was on holy ground. Is not your church a holy place? So aren't you sinning by wearing your shoes there?" lol I looked at Elder Fili and then back to Shadreck and said, "Okay so at this time, Moses was on a mountain and speaking face to face with the Lord... So if I was in the same scenario, I would gladly take off my shoes but each Sunday, we don't speak to the Lord face to face and he isn't commanding us to take off our shoes."  lol and then he went on about how Jesus came from a mouse with two guys and some other nonsense.  And then we slowly wrapped up the lesson and set another appointment.  

We meet so many people like this.  Tests us on how much we know the scriptures though.  So thats good. But it gives us a good laugh and motivates us to continue clearing the confusion that is "deceiving even the very elect".

Also, sidenote, the only two guys I have ever met in my entire life with the name Shadreck have been crazy. 

Memory is still progressing very well and she will be baptized this Saturday along with another investigator of ours named Shaolin.  Both are very powerful and come to church each week.  Super excited for these two. 

We found two new investigators named Elizabeth and Precious.  And neither of them speak English that well but they both are interested in learning from us.  And the other day we taught them the first few principles form the Restoration lesson and before the lesson, Elder Fili prayed that they would understand us.  And thru the lesson we asked several times what the understood or what they learned and they were giving powerful answers each time and we could tell they definitely were understanding. It was crazy now that I think about it, because the first time we spoke to them, they were struggling to keep a simple conversation with us in English. The gift of interpretation of tongues.  Nice. 

So the YSA's in the branch had and activity and were playing basketball at the church so we totally attended.  And man it was nice.  A lot of non-members came and enjoyed!  This group of kids that are part of a basketball club heard that we were playing and came too! My team was stacked so it was legit.  It was so nice to play a sport I know.  And I was making people look silly it was so much fun.  This member that was there is really good and he was on my team and we killed it together.  We were throwing the craziest passes to each other hahahaha I was just laughing at how good it was.  One of the basketball club kids started calling me Lebron at one point hahahaha it was so funny. Sadly, right after the games, the ball popped and we went back to soccer.... and it came to pass that I was humbled yet again.  

We started today off by going to Great Zimbabwe! Which is like a monument of an ancient Zimbabwean village and is super famous.  We enjoyed. The place is so cool and I'll attach some pictures.  

Anyways all is well over here.  Just trying to find serious investigators.  We think people are serious but then it turns out they just want to talk to a murungu or they think we are a house to house Bible study thing.  So we do our best to let them know that we come to cry repentance and baptize converts.  The confusion is funny but sad.  It is my hope and prayer that we will continue to find those who are prepared for us and who are ready to receive the "one faith" and "one baptism" spoken of by Paul.  That guy's epistles are amazing.  

Stay happy.  You're all in my prayers and I hope sunshine is in your souls. hahaha

Stay Steady Grindin'

Cheers

Forgot to mention, Fili and I made a nice fire the other day at our house.

All the stones in the whole monument were laid without cement or anything in between the stones.  All just stacked on each other.  Crazy. 

This monkey was chilling right by our car when we got back haha

Cordially,

-Elder Anderson