We had a good week.  2 baptized and 2 confirmed.  Always a good week
when that happens.  We are going to be redoing the boundaries of the
two areas in Lilongwe so that we can teach those who will attend our
branch and also be able to work with the members more.  Because right
now most of the people who are leaders in the branch are in the other
elders' area.  Elder Gonza had to go to Blantyre this weekend for a
leadership training.  I would have gone too but we had our baptism so
I had to stay.  Elder Gonza proposed to President Dube that we open up
a group in one of the compounds (village area we work in) called
Mtandire.  We will hopefully find out today if we can.  If we are able
to do that I really think that that area will catch on fire.  Because
most of our investigators are there and this way they don't have to
walk more than an hour to church.  Plus it will really help the
members too.  I really hope we get it approved.  We spent quite a
while discussing the reconfiguration af the areas and opening a group
with the other elders.  Richard and Moses are still progressing really
well.  Also one of the pastors named Chancellous Khosa (when he
spelled his name I thought he spelled it this way at first
"Chancewlous" so did Elder Gonza and we laughed a lot at it) came to
church, and accepted a baptism date.  We are now teaching a guy named
Felix Mpesi.  I met him during Edison's baptism interview he is his
neighbor.  He was very open to us about his past life, he also came to
church yesterday.  We got a referral from Robert the recent convert's
father Brother Kapopo (he was baptized in 2009) named Patricia, she
seems like she is really interested so we will see about her.  I
didn't mean to make it sound like Bro and Sis Malach were members
because they are investigators, sorry, but we never got to see them
this week so I don't know about them.  Right now these are the most
powerful investigators we have.

There was this crazy guy in the street on Friday that saw me and
thought that I am Asian (everybody in the compounds think that whites
and asians are the same.  especially little kids.) so he started
jumping around doing these ridiculous Kung Fu looking things making
sounds like "hie" and "waaa" it was quite possibly one of the best
things I've ever seen.  Then we had this other lady see us and she
started to point at us and said, "Jesus fire."  It is funny because in
Zambia they all think that we are Satanist and so they shout, "HOLY
GHOST FIRE" whenever missionaries pass.  But I've never heard of Jesus
fire before.

Well things seem to be changing quite a bit. I think when I get home
it will be a completely new ward.  Oh and Mom just some advice about
your ankle situation for the future.  Don't do that.  Just kidding I
hope it heals quickly.  Oh and since you like the words with a lot of
consonants try these on for size.  Elder Ngcobo, he is one of our ZLs
he was also my ZL in my first transfer.  Or how about Sister
Nhlengethwa she was in my Zone in Harare the whole time I was there.
No matter how hard you try you won't get these ones until I tell you
them.  I will give you a hint on Elder Ngcobo's:  It has a click in
it.  Most Chichewa words can be learned by saying them phonetically
(please excuse the spelling if it is incorrect.) but Elder Ngcobo is
Zulu and Sister Nhlengethwa is from Swaziland but I'm not sure what
the language is.  Dad that is really good to hear that you are ready
to start getting kids into the program.  That was the whole purpose
for all the hard work so things are beginning to pay off now.  Anyway
I love and pray for you always.

Much Love,

Elder Cecil

Muri Bwanji (how are you),

Yeah I finally learned how to spell that greeting this week.  Well I
enjoy Elder Gonza, he is kind of quiet but he does have a good sense
of humor which is good because if he didn't he would not like to be
around Elder Barlow and I. Yes I do still know the proper English for
that phrase.  I am pretty sure he hits his year mark this transfer.
Yeah President Dube will still be the mission president in Zim.  Our
new mission president in the Zambia, Lusaka Mission is named President
Padovich (I guessed on the spelling.)  He is from LA and was pretty
high up in Warner Bros. I think.  The split happens at the end of this
transfer.  Basically the AP's in Zambia are like ZL's right now.  When
a ward or branch missionary is working with a full-time missionary
they act as if they are full-time.  They get set-apart as a full-time
ward missionary, live and work with their companion, and receive
allotment.  They generally only do it for one transfer.

George is ready to be baptized this Saturday.  We also have this other
guy who Elder Shabangu taught before I came, named Edson, who will be
baptized as well.  He was about to be baptized and then went to
Blantyre on short notice, he doesn't have a phone and stayed there for
a long time.  So then he came to church yesterday and I actually
thought he was already a member the way he was answering questions and
things.  So yesterday we went to his house and reviewed the lessons
with him.  He knew it all and he bore his testimony to us.  It was
really powerful.  Richard and Moses came to church again yesterday, it
was just as I had suspected that it was because we didn't get to see
them.  We actually haven't seen Rafiki this week but we did start
teaching Moses' sister Maclina this week.  She seems really interested
and she speaks good english so that is a bonus.  We went tracting on
Tuesday and found a man and a woman, Brother and Sister Malach,
Brother Malach is a student in a technical college and he just didn't
go to school that day so we would have never found him had he not
decided to ditch school that day.  We also started teaching two
different pastors this week for the first time.  They couldn't come to
church this week because of some big huge pastors meeting this past
weekend.  That would be a powerful thing to convert a couple of
pastors.  They both were really interested in Joseph Smith and didn't
ever argue.  They just sat and listened and asked the occasional
question.  I hope that they don't get ahold of any anti-mormon
literature.  There is not much of it around but it sometimes comes up
with the extremely devoted people.  They tend to look up the church on
the internet and find some xing stuff.  There was this big thing about
the world ending on 21 May, 2011 and everybody was asking us about it.
 We would just tell them that no man knoweth except God and that we
would see them at church on 22 May.  Yesterday we came up with the
cheer, "I survived 21 May! Hip hip hooray!"  It was pretty powerful.

If I remember right Collin is planning on going on a mission but he is
delaying  because he wants to get into West Point.  But I could be
wrong so don't quote me on that or anything.  I think that I am going
to send a few letters to some of those guys and have you be the
delivery boys for me because I don't know their PO Boxes.  I decided
that it is weird to think that school is basically already out because
I still feel like I graduated just yesterday.  But it has now been a
year.  Anyway talk to you next week.

Much love,

Elder Cecil

Well I am still in Lilongwe like I thought but I am not training like
I thought.  There were only 4 new missionaries in the mission and all
of them are still in Zimbabwe.  My new companion is named Elder Gonza.
 He is from Bulowayo in Zimbabwe.  So har he seems powerful.  He was
serving in Zambia before.  Elder Maxfield went to Bulowayo so Elder
Mahachi's new companion is Elder Barlow.  He is crazy, like really
funny kind of crazy, not the psycho kind.  You should hear people here
try to say his name, it is hilarious.  There was a lot of changes this
transfer to get ready for the split.  We now have two sets of AP's.
One in Zim and one in Zam.  Elder Clark my baboon buddy is now an AP
in Zim.  My old area in Chitown, Seke, doesn't even have missionaries
right now.  I think that it will again soon but there is just a lot of
people working with branch and ward missionaries, like Elder Sefatsa
for example who is now in his 5th transfer in glenview (He has been
there since I came on mission.) is working with a ward missionary.
Ruth was baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday.  I was really
happy for her because I know how difficult it was for her to even be
allowed to be baptized let alone to be ready to be baptized. This week
has been really hectic with all of the transfers and other things so
we really haven't even had much of a chance to go out and work.  Which
I'm sure contributed to us not having any investigators at church.
But we do have like 4 powerful investigators right now.  One is named
George, he is a referral from a recent convert named Robert (I really
like Robert a lot, every time that we see him my day just gets a lot
better.) he was a church last week but since we never got to see him
this week he wasn't at church.  There are three other guys that are
all friends.  Richard, Moses, and Rafiki (the spelling is probably
wrong here but it is pronounced like the baboon on the Lion King.).
They were at church last week as well but again we didn't get a chance
to see them this week.  Brave had to go to a funeral last week so that
is why he wasn't there.  But he was there again yesterday.  His
brother, Bright, wasn't there again but I didn't get a chance to ask
Brave about him because I had to leave early to go pick up the other
elders at the airport with Elder Mahachi.  I shouldn't have said
bigger city but more industrialized and it has more branches.  It is
actually a district now.  We are still under the mission here in
Lilongwe.

That is cool that Chase was able to get the record finally, I'm sure
that he was happy about that.  Tell him congratulations for me.  I
figured that the track team would probably win region, that is normal.
 I hope they do well at state.  I will say that the baseball team did
a lot better than I expected them to this year.  But man Enterprise
won the State Championship, things must have been hard everwhere in
the state.  I'm glad to hear that the Braves are doing well and that
Chipper is playing.  I just had this thought that it must be weird to
not have Bobby Cox on the bench.  It is also nice to see that the Red
Sox swept the Yankees.  That always brightens my day. Anyway that was
my week.  I love you all.

Love,

Elder Cecil

So I really enjoyed the phone call yesterday, I was really looking
forward to it.  Brother Collins told me that if you call using Skype
it is only like 3 cents per minute.  He said that that is how is
parents call him.  I didn't think of them for the bishopric either but
I agree I think they will do a really good job especially with the
youth.  I am kind of surprised that so few of my class has gone too.
But I did find out that Matt Lister is in the MTC going to the
Phillipines.  I am glad to hear that the baseball team has improved a
lot over the season.  Also Nic I am really jealous about you going to
see the Braves play.  Oh and I was wondering if Chipper is playing
this season or not.

Well Brave wasn't at church yesterday but he was supposed to teach in
priesthood so we think that something must have happened but we don't
know yet.  There are a quite a few of our investigators which are new
but seem really powerful but we just aren't sure yet.  with some
people you can just tell, like when we taught Justice, the referral
from the Gondokondo's.  We knew with him after the first lesson but
most it takes a few lessons.  My favorite is when you can see the
change in them one day to the next and you just know that they
received an answer.  That is what happened to Taurai.  Those are the
ones that you really remember.  There are some people that will get
baptized no matter what.  They just needed to be taught the lessons
about the commandments and they are ready.  Dad Blantyre is actually a
much bigger city than Lilongwe, Lilongwe is just the capital.  We gave
a blessing to Ruth's younger brother on Friday.  He had Malaria and
couldn't even sit up straight, by the end of the blessing his
breathing slowed down and he stopped wrenching in pain.  A few minutes
later he was able to get up and go take a bath.  Then on Saturday he
was able to go to where his father lives to get some money for school
fees.  I am so grateful that we have the Priesthood and that we were
given the opportunity to see the power of God work through it.

Much love,

Elder Cecil

I have enjoyed this last week.  On Tuesday we went on exchanges.  I
worked with Elder Mahachi(the one from Zimbabwe) for the day.  I
enjoyed working with him we only had one investigator lesson because
all the rest of them bounced us but we saw a couple of less-actives
and recent converts instead.  It was interesting because while we were
contacting Elder Mahachi met this woman and started to speak to her in
Chichewa and she could see him struggling a little bit(he can almost
speak it already) and she recognized his name as a Shona name.  So she
started to speak Shona to him.  It turns out that she is a member in
Highfields(the area that is right next to Glenview) and she actually
recognized me from the church there.  She was visiting her daughter
who stays in my area.  Her daughter has been in-active since 2002
because when she moved here she couldn't find the Church and so she
started to attend a different church.  We went and visited her and we
retaught her about the Restoration and she was able to feel the Spirit
again.  But she was really confused about what to do because she had
promised the people in her church that she would never leave them.  So
we told her that she needs to get on her knees and ask Heavenly Father
what she should do.  She went to Zambia for a few days at the end of
the week so between us being in Blantyre and her in Zambia we haven't
seen her since then but we hope that she will be back soon.  Zone
Conference was really good we left around 1 on Wednesday and man I
wish that they had freeways here.  The whole drive is on this really
narrow highway that has potholes all over it so you had to really pay
attention.  The scenery is amazing the whole drive but since I had to
drive for have of it I missed some on the way there.  I was able to
see it on the way back though.  We ate dinner at Elder and Sister
Bullock's house, they are the couple in Blantyre.  They're from
Alberta Canada and they are on there second mission here.  Except that
the first one they were in Zimbabwe as Humanitarian Missionaries.  I
have decided that Elder Pearson will be an Apostle someday.  Man that
guy is powerful.  He talked for 3 hours straight and it was like it
was the easiest thing in the world for him.  He talked about how the
very most important thing that we teach is that God is our loving
Heavenly Father(found in lesson one of chapter three in Preach My
Gospel).  He helped us to understand that everything else that we
teach will have more impact if they understand that one principle.  It
made me think about a less-active guy who we have been teaching named
Brave.  He has had some tough things happen to him in the past year
and we think that he thinks that his old church has cursed him for
leaving them.  By the way don't freak out about this but that stuff is
actually real.  Black magic and witchcraft and it happens a lot here
in Malawi.  But I'm not worried I've got a good protection.  But
anyway I thought about how teaching that principle in more depth could
really help Brave with his problem.  We saw him on Saturday and we did
that.  He came to church yesterday for the first time in a long time
and he brought his brother who is not a member and wants to be taught.
 Anyway I really enjoyed the instruction from Elder Pearson and his
wife.  We came back on Friday and didn't get back until late in the
afternoon.  So we only prosylited for two full days on Tuesday and
Saturday and part day yesterday.  We have found a few new people to
teach so we will see how things work out with them.

Yesterday at Church that couple from Canada(funnily enough they know
the Bullocks very well) was at Church again and brought a guy from the
hotel they were in to church, he was really interested, the only
problem is that he stays in the other Elder's area, but it is still
really good though.  They also gave us another referral as well so we
will still get to teach someone.  They were here for a humanitarian
thing and are on their way home today.  They took a picture with me
and my companion on their phone and they are going to send it to you.
They actually will be going to Utah and they said that they are going
to call you.  The brother's name is Les Harper.  We had the baptism
for Godknows and Fortune on Saturday so that was good.  Ruth has now
been cleared my her father to be baptized so that made me really happy
and she evern brought a friend to church as well.  So we will begin
teaching her this week.

Lilongwe was actually opened up about 10 years ago but missionaries
were taken out for about 5 years and then it was reopened about 3
years ago.  And I was wrong about the branch president he has been
serving for almost 6 years now.  But I have learned to just laugh
about some of the things he does that way I don't stress myself out.
Also I think that the law about publicly passing gas is bogus.
Everybody does it here plus they really don't have much of a police
force so that would be impossible to enforce.  I can"t say that it is
more humid than Omaha because right now it is the dry season but it is
still ridiculosly hot>  BYT THE WAY MY COMPUTER IS freaking out right
nowso please ignore the random caps and > as periods.  Oh it just
stopped freaking out.  That is great that you are getting really close
to opening out in Milford.  I still don't know anything about calling
if we find anything out I will be able to come just to send you the
information so I would keep checking.  Anyway I love and pray for you
always.  Talk to you later.

Love,

Elder Cecil