This was a surprise honestly, when transfer calls came on Wednesday I assumed me, and Elder Kocherhans were staying the same and others would transfer around us. But apparently God wanted me to learn Swahili well right now ha-ha.
We taught Julienne and Byenigulu joined. We talked for a while about her reservations with coming to church. Her big thing right now is that she has responsibilities with her other church and that it feels wrong to take the sacrament with another church. At one-point Byenigulu goes "the missionaries are trying to say come and see, you don't have to take the sacrament or join us, but just come and see if what they teach is true and how we do things." She was saying how she believes us and that we come from God, so I said, "why not come?" Eventually she said she would come next week because she had something to do this week.
We taught Jules and he said he would come to church and is interested in knowing what our religion believes. We talked about baptism with him too and he said that he wants to come check out what we teach in our church and would be open to the idea of being baptized again if he finds that what we teach us true. That was so exciting for me because he was truly open!
On Friday we went by Philip and had a very long conversation about the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. He asked us if anyone has joined the church and become a missionary, so we called Elder Ballard and he had just the right things to say! He talked about how the missionaries were the first people to invite him to pray to God for truth and that his answer was the peace that comes from reading the book. He is actually interested in reading the Book of Mormon now, before it was just something interesting, he liked to discuss but now I think he understands what we're saying about it. Also, his wife is an inactive member because of unanswered questions in the past so we're going to go by again and talk about them.
On Thursday, we helped Landrye with some forms to bring her son to America. She has cancer and is receiving treatment. When discussing her future, she told me, "Bird, I'm not afraid of death, God knows my time here on earth. I'm want to meet Joseph Smith." I was really sad to hear that because she's only in her 50s but I know God takes care of his people and that she is right before God.
Can I just say that combining areas is hard work when you have a lot of people you're teaching. But it is nice to be busy.
Nzamwita is a man from West's area. He came to church for the second week in a row and in our lesson on Saturday he said he will be baptized if he receives a response that the Book of Mormon is true. So that was exciting! The lesson was all in Swahili and it was pretty good!
Last thing, on Sunday evening we knocked some people we haven't seen in a while and a kind Swahili mama gave us vitumbua which means snacks, ha-ha. They were tasty rice balls!
So there's my week, a lot more even happened! But I'm excited to continue learning in this transfer. I'm working to break some bad habits and I need some help. Please pray for me to have the strength to have the energy and willpower to grow. Thank you everyone and know I pray daily for you.
Elder Baird
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