Great week here in Zimbabwe! Miracles are not ceasing in this land, and everything is going great. After hearing the news of the passing of Grandma Richards, I'm saddened and just in shock, really. I love that woman so much, and I'm humbled to be able to carry her legacy of missionary work on here in Africa.
This week we had 10 investigators at church, two of which attended for the first time and have incredible potential! First is Neville. The first time I met Neville I asked him if he has seen Harry Potter. He wasn't really amused. Anyways, he's 26 and just moved here in Mutare. He asked us about 1.4 million questions in the first 5 minutes of our contact about why there's so many churches and why can't we all just be nice to each other and all these things. So we taught him Restoration later that week, and it was probably one of my favorite lessons on mission. He got everything so well, and was pretty much teaching us. We extended baptism at the end, and he accepted! He came to church on Sunday, and really enjoyed it. We had a really powerful gospel principles class taught on sacrifice, and he was participating a ton and loving it! So definitely looking forward to his baptism at the end of this month.
Second is Nick, who is 20 years old. We met Nick while street contacting, and thought he was a total JOKER. We went and did a BRT (Building relationship and trust) with him and his friend Richard, and it was really awesome! He's super involved in the programs at Roman Catholic, but said he was willing to come and check out our church. Later in the week we had an appointment scheduled to teach the Restoration, but Richard has something unexpected come up, so we just taught Nick. Well I was totally bummed out by this because I thought Richard was the only one who had potential, but I was so wrong! Nick had just come from school and so he was wearing his backpack. We started the lesson and asked him if he had read the pamphlet we gave him, and he said yes. And i'm like uh huh sure I've heard that one before (I didn't actually say that outloud). Well we ask him to tell us about is and he explains in detail about the great apostasy and Jesus Christ establishing his church and the Book of Mormon and I was just like what. It was incredible! So we went over the whole restoration and it was so powerful! Well as we're wrapping up the lesson, I decide that I'm not going to extend baptism yet, but don't know if my companion is planning on it. Well she doesn't and so we're about to close and I'm saying "okay if there's no more question, we leave these things with you in the name of.." and he's like "wait I have one more question. Have you been baptized?" Whoa. So we say yes, and he says "Well I haven't been baptized before. At my church, they just pour a cup of water on you, and I've just never really felt good about that because that's not how Jesus Christ was baptized." DOUBLE WHOA. So we just went through everything and extended a baptismal date, and he accepted! He also participated a ton during our investigators class and kept saying how excited he is to keep taking the lessons. Miracles!
Well. Sister Park and I didn't play any pranks this week or hide cakes from anyone. There is a ton of political unrest happening right now in Zim. People and places being burned, police men getting stoned, and other really horrible things. Fortunately Mabvuku is about 30 ks away from towne so we won't see any of that, but no missionaries will be allowed in towne for awhile! Which normally would really make me sad because you can only find oreos in town, but the tender mercies of the Lord are upon me because I got a package today with OREOS IN IT. Thank you family!!!!
Well, my friends. Expect miracles in your lives, for they will come. Missionary work is the best!
Love, Sister Richards
see all those sticky notes? BAPTISMAL DATES.
since our washing machine died, we've been hand washing these days. I got these little blisters on my fingers, and didn't wait long enough to wash again and they popped! I'm sure you all wanted to hear this story.
the space to park the car is incredibly tight but i've gotten pretty darn good at backing into the gate as close as I can without hitting it. Also bethany I think right now is an appropriate time to tell you I once backed into your car but nothing happened to either of our cars so I didn't tell anyone. And i'm 8,000 miles away right now so if you want to get mad at I won't see it until next week. I hope everyone who reads my emails is getting a kick out of this right now
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