April 23

this was another weird week.  everyone in our area is becoming unserious.  when we started the transfer it seemed like a few people were progressing but now most of them are stopping so we are going to find new people to teach.  i have never had so many fall through and so much time to fill in 2 weeks before.  also we had MLC on friday, and on saturday spent time at a district priesthood training and in meetings/driving president around (he didnt drive to blantyre this time, he flew so he couldnt drive himself). so we were out of our area a lot towards the end of the week which didnt really help us get our investigators to church on sunday.  

the district presidency for Blantyre District was reorganized so we have a new president and 2 good counselors. i am excited about them.  the last president had no counselors because one moved out of the country and the other went less active, so the president was doing everything on his own for a while.  now they will just have to call an elders quorum presidency (the last one was released a month ago) in our branch and everything will start to move forward really smoothly i think.  MLC was pretty good.  we mostly talked about the challenges in our zones and how to help missionaries.  right now our zone is great.  its probably the most obedient zone in our mission.  we have a lot of young missionaries who like the work so my companion and I dont have stress.  transfers are in 3 weeks.  im probably getting transferred.  it will also probably be a big transfer so i have no idea where i will go.  i hope to stay in malawi for a while, and i want to train a missionary some day but i kind of doubt that will happen.

our recent convert built a little truck out of wires and things and hooked it up to a battery so that it can drive around. its pretty cool.  i sent a video of it.  

oh ya last week we also helped a member harvest her maize so thats why you see us in a maize field in some pictures i sent.  it was fun service. yesterday we helped a member bag charcoal for 15 minutes. 

Elder Turner

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April 16

this week was moving along kinda normal, kinda slow until friday and then it really got worse.  pretty much everything from friday saturday and sunday was fall throughs and disappointments except one really great lesson on saturday.  we were supposed to baptize someone but he has work on the weekends now so he wont be as committed so he wants to wait til hes more stable in the future so he wont be getting baptized yet.  when we tried to see my favourite investigator we are teaching right now, she wasnt home and her mom (who we never met before) came out and told us she is moving to lilongwe and isnt interested in our lessons any more because our doctrines disagree with hers.  but that was just her mom saying that because she isnt interested in her daughter getting taught by us. the daughter is around 30 and is a mom herself and stays with her mom because she lost her job. so it was kind of a bummer of a week but thats missionary work.  im used to it happening and blessings always follow so im not really complaining just letting you know how the week was.  we will see who we can find this week.  i have been thinking about my area and the last one i was in.  almost all of the people baptized were contacted by us without any member help.  Using members is the best way to do it but in the areas I have been working in we have not had members to help.  so i guess we will use our recent converts and just keep looking on our own for new people along the way. i like to look back at the people who get baptized and see how we found them in the first place.  you never know when you contact someone how they are going to accept the message so its cool to see the whole process of contacting teaching and baptizing them.  

this week we are having MLC but only for malawi so i wont fly to zambia this time. president and the assistants are coming here and the leaders from lilongwe are coming down to blantyre.  should be a good meeting.

why cant lepers play hockey? theres too many face-offs on the ice.

Elder Turner

April 9

this week was kind of weird.  my companion had a really bad headache that wasnt going away so i took him to the hospital and he probably has a sinus infection so we stayed home friday saturday and sunday.  its starting to improve now.  so i missed all of the sessions of general conference and right now im trying to get them on a flash so that i can listen to them this week.  also im not 100 percent sure which investigators were able to go but i know a few of them did so i am just hoping they had a good time.

on monday i ate a real burrito made by people from bolivia.  this is my second time but i cant remember if i talked about that a few weeks ago but ill just mention it in case i forgot.  after i ate the burrito and we were leaving, a bat flew over my head kind of slowly and bomb dropped a guava it was carrying.  it hit me in the foot.  i dont know if it was trying to hit me with the guava or wanted to share it with me.  i cant really remember the weekdays before we had to stay at home because the second half of the week went by so slow that i forgot everything.  i got time to study a lot and also work on my journal entry for the tie/sunnies/journal package i need to send to connor.  

while my comp was sleeping all day i listened to a nice discussion this week led by an apostle about teaching by the Spirit.  i learned a few things about how to prepare to teach by the Spirit so that will be my focus these coming weeks so i can stop getting in the way of the real Teacher

Elder Turner

April 2

this week was great.  the highlight was that we went to teach an investigator who is awesome and his friend came over while we were teaching him. his friend’s name is Turner (its his first name), so we taught Turner and he came to church on sunday with his friend. maybe soon i will baptize someone with my name.  

the low point of the week was that there was no power when we got home from fast sunday proselyting yesterday so my dinner was just a can of beans that wasnt warm or cold, just room temperature.  it wasnt that bad but i was looking forward to chicken and stuff so it was a bit of a disappointment.  ill get over it some day

we didnt see conference but i have heard about a few of the changes.  they dont really affect malawi yet for the most part so i guess im used to the changes already. 

 

i learned something cool when i was studying.  in Helaman 6:6 Nephi goes to the land northward to preach the gospel and in the next chapter he comes back having been rejected by all the people there.  what i noticed this time as i read was the dates of his journey.  he leaves in year 63 of the reign of the judges and comes back in year 69 so he was gone for 6 years.  that means he just got rejected for 6 years and just kept staying there and preaching until the Lord commanded him to go home.  thats pretty intense.  what i also noticed was prior to that he and his brother Lehi went about preaching and as a result of their efforts 8000 people were baptized.  so he went from a super successful area in his mission to a super unsuccessful area where he stayed for 6 years and didnt get fazed by it.  thats pretty impressive. its one of those stories you have to read between the lines cuz it barely mentions it in the verses so i just though it was cool

Easter was good.  no easter bunny here but all the churches around were doing something special for easter so people still celebrated it.   

oh and another highlight of the week was that i found a restaurant run by a family from bolivia so i had a real burrito this week and it was fantastic.  definitely worth the 4 thousand kwacha (its like $5 or 6 US)

Elder Turner

March 26

we are doing well.  our investigator got baptized and confirmed and got the priesthood.  he loves the church.  we may have a few weeks until we have more baptisms but we have some planned for april so we are still looking forward for our missionary work.  zone conference is tomorrow.  we have to give a 10 minute presentation about planning and preparing to teach which i guess will lead into a presentation from Sister Kupu.  

this week was kind of crazy with a lot of random things coming up for us like baptismal interviews and stuff.  the mission hired a lady to rent and release and find new flats for the missionaries to stay in and we had to help her know the flats since we are the ZLs and move the furniture out of one of the flats that is closing so we just have a had a lot of stuff going on and less teaching than usual.  hopefully that changes.  

the family of recent converts that i always talk about got a guinea pig and named it Elder Fuller in remembrance of my last last companion.  i hope they get one to remember me too.  

transfers are next week.  maybe i will find out transfer news while president Kupu is here this week.  i am really hoping to stay here.  i love Blantyre the most out of my mission so far.

have a nice week

Elder Turner

March 19

It was another great week.  the work has been rolling along nicely in our area for the past little while and it is continuing.  it seems like our teaching pool has a lot of humble people.  this week we are going to baptize a 24 year old guy who has been so easy to teach.  he just asked good questions and has accepted everything and has been coming to church for 3 or 4 weeks now.  he is also super excited to get baptized.  the next transfers are in 2 weeks and i am hoping to stay because we are also teaching his brothers now and i want to see how they progress and find more people from him and his family.

we found a big dead bat outside his house this week.  ill send a picture of it.

the family we baptized a few weeks back wants to sing a hymn in sacrament meeting so we are preparing for that.  singing with/teaching enthusiastic people that dont know how the hymns are supposed to sound is a funny job for my companion and i.  

also the father to that family received the melchezidek priesthood yesterday which was a bit surprising because it happened so fast but not super surprising because I know how powerful he is.  i am really excited for this family.  now they need to prepare for the temple 1 year from now.

Elder Turner

March 12

i cant really remember what happened this week but this morning we had a flat tire.  we had a baptism after church yesterday.  it was a nice service.  some investigators came to church that we didnt really expect so thats a great sign.  we have this one guy who is going to get baptized in april that we didnt really expect to progress much because his english isnt great (its good enough for us to teach him though) and he walks kinda far to church.  but he has come a few weeks in a row now so were happy for him.  some people are serious and some are not.  

this guy from south africa came for some meetings in blantyre and he announced that they are going to start a 3 year program to translate the Book of Mormon and a few other basic materials into Chichewa and Nianga.  they will just be for use in the home though not for church meetings but it will be nice for people at home to be able to understand the stories and doctrines better for now as the church continues to build an english foundation.  to be honest im really glad i came here at this time to help build the foundation and look for the self reliant educated people.  it would be cool to learn the language and be able to teach anyone and maybe it would mean baptizing more people as well, but i really enjoy being part of building a strong foundation.  right now the Lord is bringing in strong converts who are going to have a huge role to play in establishing the church here and we get to be a part of that if we choose to look for them. if i can find and teach just a few of these special people they will have a big impact on malawi and provide support to the foundation of the church.  i guess i enjoy it so much because I have a vision for the branch im in and for the church in malawi.  i want to come back in a few years and see how the church has grown and how the recent converts are helping.  

Elder Turner