Sister Caroline Richards: Week 45: What a Time to Be Alive!

Hey Fam!

This week was SO GOOD. EVERYTHING IS SO GOOD. I have laughed more this past week than I have in my entire life. Eeee shamwari. The whole mission (including me) is wondering if mine and Sister Mpiyakhe's companionship is inspired because we have wayyy too much fun together. But better than that, the area is INCREDIBLE. It's just like Mabvuku meaning it's the best place in the world. We already have three investigators on date for baptism (!!!!!!!!) and hopefully will get 4 or 5 more this week. All we say all the time is "What a time to be alive!"

The area. Wow. So many miracles have happened this week! First off, as we were driving home from District Meeting on Tuesday, a tire on the car popped. At first we were like darn it seriously because we wanted to just get into the area. But no, it turned into such a tender mercy. A couple of people stopped by to help us change the wheel and one of them happened to be a ward missionary! What! So we immediately asked him to work with us the following day and he has been our saving grace! He was able to show us where so many members live, and even so many investigators and referrals.

Funny for the week. So Nthando, the ward missionary we found when the car broke down, happens to be the funniest person alive, mostly because he doesn't realize how funny he is. Well we took him contacting with us, and he was really shy at first, but finally worked up the nerve to contact a group of teenage girls. He walks up to them and asks them their names and then says, "Well my name is Jesus. The Christ." And I just lost it. WHAT ARE YOU DOING NTHANDO YOU ARE NOT JESUS. And this group of girls just like looked at him and for like 10 seconds no one said anything. It was so uncomfortable. And then Nthando says, "That was a joke, but we're missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." Oh. My. Gosh. Safe to say we weren't shocked when none of those girls showed up church. It's okay, we'll teach him a more effective way of contacting this week hahaha.

We've had a cool experience of teaching a referral named Ishmael who is a Muslim. Sister Mpiyakhe and I studied in Preach My Gospel about ways to teach those who do not have a christian background. He doesn't really have a knowledge of Jesus Christ, and Preach My Gospel just keeps encouraging us to bear testimony over and over again. More important than the words we say will be the feeling we bring into each lesson. We're really excited to see how things will go!

Also as a companionship, we've been studying the Christlike attributes during companion study. This week was Faith in Jesus Christ, which was really great, because this week I restarted the Book of Mormon. Nephi is such an amazing example of faith and I really was just astounded as I read those first few passages. Faith is the first principle of the gospel, so of course the Book of Mormon would start of with an amazing story of faith. Nephi had so much faith that he not only did the will of the Lord, but he never even complained about it. And when he felt like complaining, he prayed to have an understanding of things so he wouldn't want to complain. What! How amazing is he? We tried to follow Nephi's example this week and not complain. This week was a wreck in terms of moving from house to house and not having utensils and electricity and just crazy stuff, but we really felt so much happiness and cheerfulness when we didn't complain that soon enough we didn't even notice that things were a little tough. Nephi you are so cool!

I love missionary work. I love Kwekwe. I love the Mbizo ward. I love my companion. I JUST LOVE EVERYTHING. Have a great week everyone, and try not complaining and see how it will change your life!

Love, Sister Richards