Hey everybody!!
I'm going to apologize in advance, today is going to be another condensed email. Time seems to be a scarce commodity these days, but I hope you can still glean the details of the week!
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| Baptism! |
At the start of the week, we had plans to baptize 9 of our investigators. However, it seemed like all the powers of the adversary were bent on preventing that from happening. First, we got a call from Humphrey. He and his family were found by Elder Byrom and Elder Gunther before I came; he works in Gweru most of the time and has been meeting with the missionaries there while we've been teaching his family. Everything was lined up for their marriage and baptism this week, but when Humphrey came on the phone, he told us that his employer and not given him his salary, which meant that he didn't have the funds to make the 5 hour journey back to Harare this week. We still have great hope for them, and we are confident that they will be baptized in the very near future. Then Tuesday, Elder Byrom woke up sick, so we weren't able to do much. Then on Friday when we were doing baptismal interviews for the other 6 people who were getting baptized, one of them wasn't there, so we had to conduct his interview prior to the baptism. And the biggest obstacle of all: there was no power at the meetinghouse, so there was no way for the pump to fill the baptismal font. There seemed to be so many things going wrong, but the Prophet Joseph Smith once stated "No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing." We managed to get Tinashe interviewed before the baptism and Elder Byrom regained his strength throughout the week. And then on Saturday morning, Elder Byrom and I got up at 5:30 am, grabbed all the buckets from the house, and went to fill the font. We found a man named Andrew who stays a couple houses down from the meetinghouse, and we asked if we could use his well to fill the baptismal font. It was a miracle that he was up that early, and an even bigger miracle when he agreed to let us use the well and stayed to help us fill the font without our asking. We had to draw water by hand out of the well and then carry the heavy buckets of water down the street to fill the tub. Our bucket broke after about two loads, but Andrew the good Samaritan happened to be a bicycle repairman, so he patched our bucket and we were able to keep working. Eventually the DamoFalls elders joined us, and by 7:45 am we had the font nearly full. Then at 8, the second counselor arrived and got the generator to work so that the pump could finish the job. I testify that faith without works is dead, and I'm grateful that Heavenly Father provided means for our baptism to proceed. Misheck Mapuranga and his wife Whitney, Freedom, Angeline, Emilia, and Tinashe were all baptized on Saturday and it was incredible! We were blessed to teach them and it was a privilege to see them enter the waters of baptism! That was our week of mayhem and miracles here in Eastview! I love this work and I'm so grateful to be a part of it!
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