I can't believe how fast the weeks go. Like seriously. I swear I was just barely sitting in front of this computer sending an email home. I didn't think it was possible for weeks to go this fast. But, they do. Haha. It was another amazing week here with some good experiences, bad experiences, and a variety of inbetween. Well, not bad experiences, just hard experiences. But it was definitely a good week!
We've been sooo busy! That's because we have so many investigators, and it's busy to find time for them, while finding 35 new potential families a week as well. (President Kretly's goal for us). Yeah, President doesn't mess around. It's so sick! I love it.
We were able to give more of our investigators baptismal dates this week, so now we have about twelve or so. And that will be getting even bigger this week! So I'm excited for that. Hopefully I'll be around to see these amazing people get baptized though. I don't know how long I'll be here in Quelimane! But hopefully for a lot longer. Me and Elder Workman will have our first investigator here in Quelimane get baptized here this Saturday. So I'm really excited for that! His name is Raul. He's had a rough life including his baby dying, and his wife leaving him. Plus, he is actually extremely sick as well. So he excepted the gospel super fast. I'm really excited for him, and I'll be looking forward to it. We taught him every lesson, and we get to see him be baptized. And I guess a lot of missionaries don't get that chance cause Elder's are always coming in and out of areas. So that's really cool!
Some of our investigators are progressing so fast! Some people are so ready for the gospel, and it's just a matter of us finding them. For example, we are teaching this women now named Dominica. She is an unbelievable woman. Interesting story on how we found her. So one day, (about a month and a half ago) we were knocking doors. This lady let us in, and we shared a brief a brief message with her on God's plan for us here on the Earth. She was super active in her faith, but she had a friend that would be interested because she had recently lost her husband in a freak accident. So she gave us Dominica's number. We called her that day, and met a time and a place to meet. But she never showed up. So that was the end of that.
But then, we were at one one of our investigators house, Jazila. And there was a women who happened to show up there who was friends with Jazila. We introduced ourselves, and she said she had some Elder's number, but never called. Then when she gave us her name, we put it all together. So we made an appointment to go to her house, and we taught all the lessons except for the commandments all in one week. She will be getting baptized very soon, and she is so ready for the gospel. So it's amazing the "coincidence" of us running into people ready for the gospel. God is guiding us each day to find these people. It's so cool!
We also have other families that are progressing really well. So I'll keep you updated on them as we find out where they are going this week. But we did lose one family this week, that we thought had a lot of promise. Jaime and Jubete are a young couple with two young kids. We have been teaching them for a few weeks, and we thought they were progressing nicely. They even received an answer to prayers about the Restoration! So it was really hard this week, when they told us to not come back anymore. They know it's true, but they didn't understand the need for another baptism, or a second baptism after they've already been "baptized." We tried everything to help them understand. But it is their choice. It hurt to lose them. Quelimane needs a family like that in the church. And they needed the church so bad. But maybe one day, when other Elder's knock on their door, they'll invite them in again. I know that'll happen one day.
So that's just a little bit about the people we've been teaching. I'll try to talk about a few investigators each week and tell you about everyone we've been teaching.
Oh yeah, I gave a talk yesterday in church! It was the first talk I knew about in advance and could prepare for. Elder Osborn let me choose my own topic, and I choose to talk about sacrifice. I talked about how The Savior made the ultimate sacrifice, so it's easy for us to make some commitments and sacrifice our lives for him. I think it was important to share, because most of the people that come to church are investigators. So hopefully they'll start keeping more of their commitments! But I was so nervous. And I'm worried that people didn't understand me. But people said they understood, so that's good. But after the mission, I will be grateful to give talks in English, to members. Haha that's childs play compared to talking in a different language to people who already don't know the material. So it's a lot of pressure to give good talks here! Cause I know they truely do help these people.
So I actuallt had hot showers this week! WHOO! First time in like a month. So that was nice. You honestly have no idea. It was like Christmas. Haha so we'll see how long the hot showers will last. And oh, you won't believe the size of spider I saw last week. Unreal. It had a really small body, but the legs were ridiculously big. Each leg was like the size of my hand. Haha it was crazy! But that's the only one I've seen.
We do have a chance to teach at church a little bit. Whether it's gospel principles, or primary, or youth. I love helping out in primary. The kids honestly never get old. Haha I love them!
This past Saturday, was by far the busiest day since being out in the field. You won't believe how many lessons we taught. Me and Elder Workman taught 14 lessons in one day! We were so busy. That's the most he's had in one day in over 2 years now. That means we got to help 14 families come unto Christ in one day! And we taught 44 lessons to investigators during the week. Not including us teaching recent converts. So that shows how busy we are! My companion's time is coming to a close in about 3 weeks... But I'm glad he's not "trunky'' and he's still going hard. People would have no idea that he was going home so soon. That's the kind of missionary I want to be when my time is coming to a close. He's definitely a good example, and helps me a ton. He's definitely a good guy!
Well, sounds like everything back home was good this week. I love hearing from all of you and everything about what's going on. Sounds like a lot of things are changing! But definitely for the better. Good luck with school this week, and getting ready for preschool! Sounds like a busy week. Let me know how it goes! Have a good week and love you all!
Love,
Elder Williams
