Well I'm out in the field now. I started working on Thursday. The ares that I'm in is called Seke (seck-a), it is in a city Chitungwiza (chee-tune-gweesta). It is about 20 minutes away from Harare. Most of the other missionaries from the MTC went to Zambie and Malawi. My companion's name is Elder Roberts, he's from South Sevier. He's been out for 22 months. I played baseball and football against him as a freshman and sophomore. He is really good at teaching the people. He's been a ZL and an AP. He's now the DL of the Chitungwiza District. We are whitewashing the area which means that neither of us has been in the area before, so it is difficult to find the house of our investigators. Our house is fairly nice. Sometimes we have power and sometimes we don't. The same goes for water. We have to take bucket baths and wash our clothes in a bucket as well. There is one other companionship in our house. Elder Smith from South Africa and Elder Mtetwa from here is Zimbabwe. Elder Mtetwa was in the MTC with me.
We just have cornflakes for breakfast and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. We've been fed by members every night since we've been here. One of them was the Branch President, President Uthamire. We had rice and beef. Two of the other nights we ate at the home of the Makuney's. They are recent converts and absolutely love the missionaries. The other time was with an investigator. The cornmeal that we read about is called sadsa. It doesn't have much of a taste so they always have something to dip it in or to eat it with. I will be eating it a lot.
President Dube is a wonderful man. He was at the airport to greet us, and he gave us an orientation at the church next to the mission offices. We then went to the mission home where Sister Dube had made dinner for us. After which we had a testimony meeting in the home. I had an interview with him and in the interview it came up that I'm related to Keith Edwards and he was excited to email him to tell him.
We are teaching a girl named Alice. Her mother is a recent convert but she hasn't been taught yet because she was at a boarding school. We only have about a month to teacher her before she has to go back to school but she is progressing quickly and we think that we can get her baptized before she leaves. We have several other investigators that we committed to baptism as well. The Moyo family (5) and the Jannas (2). We are teaching some others but we don't have baptism dates yet.
The first few days we were on foot because our bikes were in the shop getting fixed. But we now have our bikes back and it is almost like mountain biking because the roads have deteriorated so bad that it is like riding a trail with random rocks and bumps.
Yesterday while we were contacting we met this man who hated white people because he said that we crucified Jesus. We tried to tell him that they were not white and that they were Jews because technically it is an ethnicity and that Jesus himself was a Jew. But he wouldn't listen to us because we later learned that he believed that Jesus was black. It was an interesting conversation. The people are extremely nice and almost everyone we see waves at us and greets us in Shona. I am starting to pick up how to respond and greet them but it is hard to pronounce the words.
We had our fast and testimony meeting yesterday. We meet under a large tent next to our house. They set up chairs and a little sound system for those speaking. They are quite unorganized so they have a lot of branch business. Since 3 of us were new to the area they asked us to bear our testimony, it is so much easier to do it here than at home.
We got rained on, on Friday. I have never seen rain like that before. It rained so hard and for so long that all of the streets were flooded. That rain jacket from Mr. Mac isn't very good. It will only hold out light rain. When it started raining hard my shirt got completely soaked, along with my planner and a Book of Mormon. They have these transport vehicles that are called convies. They are basically just vans that act like a bus, but they have these guys that stand with the sliding door open, yelling out where they are going. They pack in like 15 people in these vans, it's crazy. They drive terrible here. I feel scared just walking around. I don't think that most of the people here have licenses because it is expensive to get one here, but in Chitungwiza I have yet to see a police man. It's weird because most things are dirt cheap here but they just have random things that are extremely expensive. Like Elder Mtetwa told me that it is $180 for a license. Milk is also expensive, it costs about as much for one liter as it does for one gallon in America.
It is tough and I'm not used to sadsa yet but I am loving every minute of it. I enjoy meeting new people and getting to teach some of them. Sometimes while we are contacting we see big groups of rasta guys smoking marijuana. We also see a lot of drunks as well because they love their beer here. I have already grown so much as a missionary and I have only been here for a few days.
Our mission is going to split in July. I will be in just Zimbabwe or in Zambia and Malawi. It will be interesting to see where I end up. But wherever I go I know that it is where the Lord wants me to be.
That is great that you got approved in Milford, Dad. I hope that you can get it going soon. How is announcing for basketball games? I hope you haven't said anything too embarrassing yet. I can't believe that Boise St. lost, that is crazy. I had heard about the BYU/Utah game in the MTC. Do they have the bowl games set yet or is it coming out next week?
I love you guys. Talk to you later.
Elder Cecil
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