June 2, 2014 Transfer News

Okay, well hello there everyone. 

So now just in case your wondering about transfers, nothing changed in Eldoret besides the fact that we received two new sisters in addition to one of the ones we already had, so that will be interesting because sisters, especially three sisters together has a high likelihood of problems arising. Now for the rest of the mission, there was a lot of transfers, it all got switched around pretty good. Mombasa area is entirely closed just for safety precautions, so I don’t know if we will ever get missionaries back there.

Now as for the week there hasn’t been a whole lot that happened, so this email will definitely be a lot shorter, but I will hightlight the main events.

As for Tuesday, it was a full teaching day, all of our teaching we held at the church, so it made things a lot easier for us. While waiting for our first appointment, I drew out the entire Plan of Salvation on the chalk board. I got really in detail with it and this drawing proved to be very helpful throughout the week. I wish I had gotten a picture of it, but the day I went to get a picture of it, it had all been erased. It was on the board from Tuesday till Saturday and throughout the week we would add more details to it and change it slightly to make it scripturally correct and such. Really kinda cool. We taught Jones about the Temples and Eternal marraige, he is really excited about the temple, but we explained that in order for him to be sealed in the temple, his wife must be a member also.  That wouldn’t be such a problem if she was in Kenya, but she has been in Zimbabwe for the past couple years. I’m not sure about the whole situation, but none the less Jones is happy as can be. Later we ended up teaching Andrew and Francis together, We taught both of them about the plan of salvation, focusing on why we are here. The map really helped them to see how the plan of our Heavenly Father is all layed out for our benefit and it is one eternal round, our mortal life is just a short part of it. Many questions were asked and it began leading to deeper doctrines, but we pulled it back to the central doctrines and the things that they need to know most. As we were teaching, Johnson, another one of our investigators also showed up, so it was crazy teaching three investigators at once, and Johnson only speaks kiswahili, so that added another twist.

Wednesday we had a last minute DDM, with transfers and such, no one was sure whether or not we would be having DDM and if our new missionaries would be coming in on that day. We just did some house keeping for DDM and discussed the recent zone conference we had and what we each learned from it. It turned out to be a nice meeting and we made some good goals as to how to align things with increased obedience so we can receive all the blessings promised. After the meeting we surprised Peter, a Recent Convert in the Sosiani Branch for his birthday with birthday hats and cake. He was super surprised. We took him out to lunch with us, and when we told him we were going to take him to lunch with us, the other members thought we meant them too, so they started coming along, but we had to explain we were taking him out for his birthday and they could come along if they paid for themselves, none of them came after we told them that. We had a good time at lunch, but then we had to hurry off and return back to Langas where we taught Lucy and Paris. We taught them the plan of salvation and had a really good lesson. We hadn’t fully taught the lesson prior to baptism, so we really needed to after. After our lesson we then returned back to the church and taught Johnson and a new investigator named Robin, he came to the church thinking it was a sacrificial church... so we toured him around and then explained the doctrines of the church.

Thursday was a day of Service and running to and fro handling the sisters. We began the day with the Senior couple coming over and drilling some hooks into the walls so that we could have clothes lines in our spare room, we then drove with them over to Sosiani, picked up the other elders and went out to Jerusalem where we did service for a member there. She is a school teacher and just started the school in a really run down wooden building, so we have been attempting to help her fix it up so it can look a bit nicer. Elder Harding and I worked at digging so that we could lay these stones and make a sort of hop scotch game.The ground just happened to be the rockiest part of the field, so we felt like archeologists scraping away the rocks. At around 2, the Senior couple went and picked up the sisters as we kept working, we then met them at the sisters flat, got things situated and jimmy rigged a third bed out of stacking 2 spring mattresses on each other. These are the only spring mattresses I have seen in Kenya. They needed some kitchen items, so us elders all ran to the store together and purchased the things, then returned back to learn flat to discover that plastic dinner ware is not suitable for sisters.. so we just gave them permission to buy what they need and give us the receipts. We then had to run back to the store and buy things for the Sosiani elders and do all of this before dark which is curfew now as a precaution for anything dangerous. It will definitely be interesting with the 3 sisters, all of them totally different personalities, so we just need to find the key to unify them.

Friday was another pretty busy day, it was filled with teaching after weekly planning. We went and taught Lucy and Paris again, then tried to visit some less actives, but didn’t find them, so we went and taught Jones at the church. We ran through the Plan of Salvation with him, with the help of the mapped out version, we were explaining everything in increased detail, then Johnson showed up unexpectedly and Francis too.  It was a good lesson as we discussed the “where we are going” part of the Plan of Salvation. Francis is really converted to the gospel, and he expressed that by being able to learn all of this about the Plan of Salvation, he has learned more about God’s plan than what he learned at Theology school. Here is a description of Francis I sent this to my mission president, "Brother Francis is really an amazing man. He is incredibly well versed in the Bible having gone to Theology school and everything probably with the previous intent to be a pastor, but things in his life didn’t lead that way, so he went and studied many other things to increase his chances of a good job. We have been teaching him for about 6 weeks now. He has really progressed a lot and is so thankful for the teachings and doctrines of the church, because he is learning things that even Theology school was unable to teach him. We just finished the Plan of Salvation this last week and he said it was one of the most eye opening things he has learned. It just makes God and his plan make sense. We have challenged him to baptism thrice now, but he says that he still desires to learn more. He says this is his church and he is truly converted, but the principle of being baptized again doesn’t fully make sense to him, so we will be teaching him about the Priesthood and Baptism by the proper authority, again this week." I love our lessons with Francis because we all are able to learn so much and we can really see how the spirit testifies of truth to him and how is coming to know that which we teach is true.

Saturday  was initially supposed to be a lock down situation because Raila a popular political candidate would be returning back to Kenya after a two month stay in America. I guess the people were told to demonstrate, so it caused a lock down for us missionaries to keep us safe. Friday night we were informed that the lock down would only be for Nairobi, so we could again proselyte on Saturday. This was good news, but the only problem was that we had no plans made, so we just went about the day entirely led by the spirit. We went and visited some less actives and it was really cool because one of our visits was an answer to the members prayers. She really just needed some one to talk to and was really losing hope and faith in the everything, so it was really good to be there and help her to sort out her problems. Her sons have gone less active and are causing a great deal of problems and stress for her, as we were about to depart, Her sons actually arrived and we were able to talk to them briefly so that was good. Afterwards we went and had lunch at a hotel and then as we were walking, it started pouring, so we did a full on sprint back to our flat totally drenched. It was really funny, something you could totally see in a missionary movie or something.

Sunday was an interesting day, we received a call from the District Leader in the morning that the sisters were having some problems getting along and it was really causing significant problems. So we called the sisters, assessed the situation, then arranged with the District Leader to have him and his companion go over there and settle things out after church. During church, it gave us time to really think about the problems and how to settle them. I can’t fully disclose the issues because they should be kept confidential, but it just goes to show that sisters have their differences and it’s so easy for it to clash. At church, Lucy and Paris were confirmed. It was really a good time at church, Daniel came back to church after having gone through some difficulties in the past few weeks. After church we tried to call the sisters and once again assess the situation, the situation was still the same and there was no improvement, so we sent the District leader over and he really did a great job working things out. During church I really thought of a lot of scriptures and assignments for them to help them, so those and what the DL thought of gave them something to work off of . Things were improved big time, but Elder Harding said it was just like a major explosion of girl fury in the room everyone blasting one another. After church we also did last minute splits with some members and taught three lessons with members present. It was overall a good day.

So there was the week for you, sorry it may not be so interesting, I have been really feeling odd, so I hope things improve soon.
Well, I love you all,  Elder Rushton Jay Hiltbrand