Will We Keep Pace?

Feb. 16, 2016

My beautiful, rainy area.

My sweet zone before transfers.

Ndirande district. Sister Mntungwa is going back to her other district, Elder Barnard is being transferred to Oakley, Idaho, and Elder Kapande is going to the blessed Lilongwe zone. They will be missed!

Our joint birthday "party" for Sister Dlamini and I and the seminary students. These kids are the greatest.

Darling Family,

To start out, President emailed us and announced that Elder Bednar officially approved a new DISTRICT in Lilongwe. I am the happiest child. My birthplace is growing and it makes me so happy. Lilongwe is a special place, indeed. Sister Stones, one of the senior sisters that lived across from me in Lilongwe, called me last night to ask about a girl in my old branch and she just let me know that Sister Orr and I are somewhat of legends in the Kalambo Branch. I miss those people so much. What a blessing it was to serve there.

This week has been a week of low lows and high highs. I suppose I will start with the lows and end with the highs.

Like I said last week, I got a good chastening from the Lord and with that a great endowment of hope but when something great like that happens, Satan often follows to take you down. This week I had a lot of feelings of indadequacy. It seems like I have been doing everything right and trying to do my best on all sides but I always fall short. It was extremely hot this week and on the day when Satan hit me the hardest I also got attacked by a bunch of ants during a lesson. Ha! The Spirit was definitely not there. I found myself on my knees just pleading witht the Lord to know what to do. Ultimately, these two scriptures have helped me:

"He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform" (Romans 4:20-21).

"Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed" (Doctrine and Covenants 123: 17)

Now to the high highs:

Zone meeting was just great. We were reminded that though we have all suddenly been hit with a wall of opposition and pretty much all of us are finding very little success that the Lord has covenanted with our mission that if we do His work in His way that we will accomplish our goal of 750 baptisms. The question is, will we keep pace? I am not perfectly spiritually in shape and to be honest I cannot keep pace on my own. The Lord is hastening His work and at the same time He is doing a great hastening in me. I am doing my best. Now I need to stand still and see the salvation of God. All will be well.

We are teaching this Ba-hai guy called Amos and we had a great lesson with him on the nature of God. He sort of has this idea this God is the all-knowing, all-powerful being that is far away and has no personal interest in us. Each of us studied the nature of God before the lesson and then we asked for the Spirit to help us know exactly what we needed to see. We testified that God is truly our loving Heavenly Father and that He knows us. We even have the potential to be like Him. Even if Amos didn't completely feel it, I did. I know that God loves us and knows us personally. He is our Father and we are His children. What a hopeful and beautiful knowledge to have.

We taught these two 12-year-olds, Clifford and Dave, about the Aaronic Priesthood. They both come from semi-less-active families but it was the cutest thing ever. They were both so excited about the priesthood and they both came to church on Sunday in their fresh white shirts. It's the little things.

Transfers came and Heavenly Father answered my prayer: I get to stay in Blantyre! Yay! A new baby sister is coming to our flat from America. I'm excited to see her freshness--new Americans are so funny when they come to Africa. I know I was. Sister Dlamini and I are excted to continue working through this opposition together and find investigators that are prepared. We are still struggling with our teaching pool but all is well.

On Saturday night as we planned for Sunday we literally had no one to see. We called like 20 possible investigators and they all said they would "let us know" aka no. We said a prayer and my mind was opened as if I was walking through the area to a house that we needed to go to. We had contacted it before but the Spirit guided me to see that was where we needed to go. Yesterday we went there and had a sweet first lesson with a girl who had been taught before by missionaries. She has a lot of great questions and has a desire to learn. We were truly guided by the Spirit not knowing beforehand the things which we should do.

I feel like this email was slightly jumbled and poorly written but I hope you got the general sense that though this mission thing is hard I am continuing forward with faith and I love it with all my heart.

Love,

Sister Proctor