Thanksgiving

Where do I even start?

Robby Mugabe is no longer our president so thats crazy.  Tuesday afternoon we heard he stepped down and man... the neighborhood lit up haha big sadza mamas screaming and jumping and everyone outside cheering.  Throughout the rest of the day, we would just hear cheering every couple minutes. It was pretty cool to see that.  So now the acting president before elections next year is a dude named Munangagwa.  Everybody is happy about it but literally anything would be better than the previous president.

T'was a stellar way to start off the week and it only got better from there. 

We met with the crazy family (the Ndlovu's) again this week and played games and stuff. Then we found out that half the kids haven't been baptized and they want to be. So that was cool. Gave them all dates and started teaching them the lessons. I love teaching children because when we teach it simply it makes even more sense haha and they even understand it.

We also met a relative of this family we teach and her name is Memory and she was also very interested and the next day we put her and her sister on baptismal date as well! That brought us to a total of 11 people on baptismal date.  They are all for December so hopefully they will all come thru.  A few are starting to not be serious but most of them are very powerful!

We met with the rapper Afroman again this week and he introduced us to his whole rap group and they call themselves, "One Time For The Streets".  Dope right?  So we taught all of them the restoration and then they all committed to come to church.  At the time we weren't sure if they were serious but one of them actually came!!! The guys name is Stanley and he's the group manager and when we saw him, he was holding a triple combination hahah we were like dude where did you get that and he told us he had met with missionaries a long time ago but never came to church. Finally did tho and he was powerful. Participated in the classes and was making friends with members.  Awesome.

We had a total of 10 investigators at church. New record.  Nqo and Mduduzi came again and they enjoyed.  In our tiny Pumula group, we had 8! and then at the Nkulumane ward, the Thandile's came again! Got a lot of powerful people out here. It feel so good to have people come to church. 

Did exchanges with the zone leaders on Wednesday. Pretty cool. 

Celebrated Thanksgiving also!  Zimbabwe doesn't know what it is so we got a couple other companionships together at our place and had a bonfire and made chicken tacos.  Not the same as back home but still sick.

Had the dumbest "lesson" of my mission this week. Started when we went to the Ndlovu's (the above mentioned family) one of the times this week. We got there and started talking with the kids and then out of nowhere these three babas walk in. One of them was old and the other were like 40s but they come in and sit down and introduce themselves to us and we asked if they were friends of the family, and then the oldest guy is like, "no we are the preachers of the family." (In my head, I called bull ish on him because the last time, we learned that the dad and mom and kids all go to different churches) And then this guys like, "So... what....do YOU believe in?" And from there, Elder McDougal and I just blasted these guys with doctrine, quoting scripture, using common sense and other things to just destroy these guys with everything they tried to throw at us. (important sidenote, during the discussion, all the children slowly left the room and went and hid in the parents bedroom) The dumbest part was that we could tell the only reason they came was to bash with us and even when we would confound them they would try to twist our words and try to confuse us and even try to ask another question and it was so funny.   I've experienced a lot of persecution but this was next level haha.  The cool thing was that the whole time McDougal and I were on the same page and had the same confidence that nothing they could say would confound us and it was awesome. We finally got out of there because we were late to another appointment.  They want to meet with us again so we set an appointment.  But as we left we poke our heads in the parents bedroom and all the kids whisper to us, "Get in and shut the door!" haha so we did and then the oldest kid, Jess was like, "I'm so sorry these guys come sometimes but none of us like them. They go to my dads church.  I'm scared of those men." and then the younger one was like, "Yeah they talk too much!" hahaha and then they gave us all a hug and we set another appointment and got the h out of there.  Dumbest thing ever.  Those guys were nonsense, they said all sorts of stuff like, that we were only a religion and weren't the gospel and that we didn't understand the scriptures and all sorts of stuff.  McDougal and I were on fire tho just blasting these guys it felt so good hahaha the frustrating part is that they kept going in circles and finally we told them to stop asking us all these questions and to just ask God. And they refused..... nonsense. I'm excited to go back and level them one more time and then we aren't going to see them anymore. On Sunday when we visited the children again, they told us that the preachers told them we weren't smart and that we had devils...... loser.

The whole thing was surprisingly a huge testimony builder for me.  I saw how the promise that we wont be confouded before men is so true because we teach the truth. Kind of like trying to prove to someone that 1 plus 1 doesn't equal 2. You're just gonna get roasted. And the spirit that was in that home completely left when those guys came in. The children were all afraid too haha.  I love being representatives of the true church. Makes everything so much easier haha.

The investigators I talked about last week are still progressing well and our recent converts are still powerful and are helping us find others to teach! That's helped us have a lot of success is working with members and always asking for referrals.  No clue why I haven't been doing this more for the past year but glad I finally figured it out. 

I learned how to say, "I like to eat sadza and chicken" in Ndebele. it goes, "ngiyathanda ukudla istchwala le nyama".   Nice haha

Sorry for this mess of an email.  Kind of hard to remember what order things happened. I just typed the first things that came to my head.  But yeah we had a great week and our indicators were super good!  Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving and are grateful for everything God has given you. Definitely something that has humbled me is how humble the people are here even tho they have so little.  Love you guys.

Stay Steady Grindin'

Cordially,

Elder Anderson

 

Thanksgiving gathering and bonfire!

One Time For the Streets hahaha 

Gotta rep that MoveOverMSA shirt

Me and Elder Huffaker. Love this guy haha

There was this face to face broadcast this week for the stake and out of nowhere, this guy walks in! Name's Craig and we worked with him all the time in my first area but he recently moved to one of the neighboring areas here! So sick.

two of our recent converts were playing with a ton of their friends when we came to teach them so we sat them all down and taught them how to pray hahahaha

This was during interviews with President. Chilled with Fili the whole time while we waited for our interviews haha. Man I miss being this guys companion haha 

The Ndlovu's