Rainy Season is Upon Us

Dec. 15, 2014

This is the year anniversary of Michaela's double jaw surgery. At last the swelling has gone down!

On Alinafe's baptism day.

Alinafe is so happy to be baptized.

Michaela wears her great grandmother's necklace every time she has a baptism.

Darling Family,

Well, first of all I want to say that tomorrow marks a year since I got jaw surgery which is insane. The time has gone fast. I am including some pictures to commemorate the fact that my jaw works and my face is no longer cartoonish (hopefully...). I can now eat all things. I don't have to blend my cinnamon rolls anymore! The human body is a miracle. A year ago I had a broken jaw and now it's completely normal.

This week I began learning how to drive the vehicle I will be assigned to drive once it is fixed. We drive giant, diesel Izuzu trucks here to get through all the crazy dirt roads. I have to say I am sort of at a disadvantage because 1. I've never driven stick 2. we drive on the left instead of the right here 3. the driver's side is on the right instead of the left and 4. I have never driven a truck or a car near this large before. And to add upon that African drivers are INSANE. So keep me in your prayers. Elder Reynolds (senior couple) says I am learning fast. He said I must have been a good driver before my mission. I give all the credit to my darling father for teaching me. Dad, do you remember telling me that an LA driver is born every 8 minutes? Well I think an African driver was born every 2 minutes. Just saying.

We faced a lot of rejection this week so we did a lot of laughing to make up for the potential tears that could have come. President has re-emphasized teaching ALL men and not just the poor ones that are easy to find so we went knocking gates in the richer part of our area. These people have big houses and cars and travel a lot and are for the most part pretty hard-hearted. BUT we saw a white guy walking his dog and I decided to get the courage to talk to him (white people are so scary, guys) and he ended up being from Germany! It was so cool to tell him how my Dad served his mission there and now I am here proclaiming the gospel. We had a long, deep conversation with him and gave him the Book of Mormon. It seems like he feels a bit purposeless so hopefully he acts on the promise I gave him and reads the book. How cool would it be to baptize a white guy in Malawi?

Rainy season has slowly come and it is the best. When it is deathly hot then the rain comes and cools everything off. It is so nice. With the change of season comes a change in life.

We are rededicating ourselves to helping this branch get more established. This week we took the Relief Society president and counselor to visit some less-active sisters and those sisters came to church! It was so exciting. Any time a less-active comes to church you do a small victory dance. We are also really praying and searching for prepared families that can help establish the church. Young single adults are great but they won't establish the church until they are bit older and get married. We need to teach people that are prepared to be branch presidents and relief society president tomorrow. One day we were just walking and then I had a feeling we needed to turn. We turned and there was a family sitting on their porch. Perfect orchestration. We sat down and taught them a lesson all together. It was the coolest thing ever. Miracles happen. I can't wait to follow up with them. 

We had MLC (mission leadership council) this week over skype and I got to see my darling Sister Orr. Today she flies to Lusaka and tomorrow she goes home. I can't believe my dear friend and trainer is going home. This morning I realized that we had a referral for my old area in Lilongwe so I had a perfect excuse to call her. I miss her so much. She's a gem.

We also had a zone meeting. My zone leaders are so powerful--Elder Mwangi and Elder Barnard. Elder Mwangi is from Kenya and we are good buddies. He was my ZL in Lilongwe too and he was transferred down here with me. So he's been with me my whole mission. Elder Barnard is from Idaho--classic farmer. The theme of our meeting was, "We invite, they commit, we follow up." Elder Barnard compared the way we commit people as missionaries as how Christ prepared us for our time on earth. He invited us to follow His plan, we committed to come to earth and follow the plan He had for us, and one day He will do a grand follow up. How will we feel on that follow up day? Think deeply on that one.

The happiest part of the week was our baptism of Alinafe aka Moroni. He was just glowing the whole time. After he was baptized he bore his testimony about how he's been taught by three sets of sisters and how he truly salutes our faith. He said how much he knew that the Book of Mormon was true and the church was true. It wasn't like your standard recitation but was sincere and so sweet. I am so happy for him.

Love you all! Have a great week!

Sister Michaela Proctor