New Avenues

August 3, 2015

The district (minus Sister Mulunda)

Elder Nakale (left) and Elder Mwangi (right) going home tomorrow. 

Sister Owusu-Afriyie and I after exchanges. Don't mind my hair.

Darling Family,

Since the Elders in our ward are the office Elders and much of the time they are in the office, our zone leaders gave us permission to go into their area whenever they are in the office to support the women/families who are members and less actives. That made for a WONDERFUL week. Working with members and tracking down long-lost less actives is so satisfying. We got a ward list and we are ready to track down every last person on it. So many people just need to be reached out to and then they will come back solely from the love. 

We are working with one really great investigator called Nalishebo. She is a single mother and she seems to really love learning. This week as she closed our lesson with a prayer she said, "Please help me to understand so that one day I may join the Saints." So sweet. She promised to come to church and she didn't so we shall see what will happen with her.

I went on exchanges this week with Sister Owusu-Afriyie from Ghana. She's been in the mission field for just over a month and she is the most darling sister I've ever met. She is so excited about the work and ready to learn and improve. Instead of coming into the exchange with something I wanted to teach her, I invited her to bring into the exchange something she wanted to work on specifically. We both studied before hand and then discussed helping investigators receive answers to prayers. I told her the story of Weekly in Blantyre with Sister Dlamini and how after he prayed and didn't feel anything we discussed and had him pray again. That takes boldness and courage but sometimes, if the Spirit is right, that is exactly what people need. So we got the perfect opportunity to practice what we discussed when we taught this one lady called Florence from DRC. After inviting her to pray specifically about the Book of Mormon and about baptism she said the most general prayer with things like, "Cover them in the blood of Jesus as they leave." After the prayer I was tempted just to leave and be done but I invited Florence to pray again and to be more specific. The Spirit in her prayer was so different and though Florence may have felt a little strange it was mostly a sweet teaching moment for Sister Owusu-Afriyie. Missionary work isn't for passive aggressive teaching. You have to boldly teach the truth and invite people to act.

On our way back to exchange companions again I asked her where in the entire world she would like to travel to. She said, "The Promised Land, of course," (referring to America) and so I asked, "Where in America?" and she said, "Hmm...I think Idaho!" I about died. She is the cutest thing ever.

In Relief Society we talked about standing as a light. Whenever you talk about light there is always a deeper meaning to be found. Light can represent glory, wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge. As I thought further upon standing as a light, I realized that in this morally corrupt world of shifting standards we are going to have to stand for God's wisdom--light--rather than the wisdom of the world. We will have to stand as a pillar of godly wisdom when everyone is accepting the disintegration of morality. 

In other news:

-We've actually had electricity this week! It's a miracle!! I think it's because of the big holiday this weekend so we will see if it keeps up. We haven't had power for over 24 hours in over a month.

-I've started repenting of my lack of exercise and repentance hurts so good. Sister Falco and I run around our house a million times every morning. Dad, get ready for the tithing run in December.

-As we were about to start sacrament meeting we found a cat INSIDE the pulpit. What? No one knew how it even got in. It caused quite the commotion. 

-My friend, Elder Mwangi (Kenya), whom I've served 12 months of my mission with, is going home tomorrow. Time is running, my friends.

Love you all!

Sister Proctor