March 6, 2018 - Highs and Lows (but mostly highs)

Hey everybody!!

March already?? Time really isn't slowing down in the Zimbabwe Harare Mission, but the Lord is still blessing us! However, the time moving quickly also applies to my email time today so I'll do my best to summarize everything that happened!

With the branch president's kids in Eastview

We had MLC again last week and it was awesome! The most memorable thing was President Mkhabela's instruction on discipline. A lot of zone leaders were concerned about missionaries in their zone being complacent, and President just took some time to teach us how discipline not only eliminates complacency, but how it brings honor and ability to achieve our goals. We can truly be anything if we are disciplined, and that applies to becoming like the Savior. It was awesome, and Elder Byrom and I have been applying his counsel and it has blessed us throughout the week!

Out in Arcturus during the rain

On Thursday and Friday we had a bit of a tough time. There were some pretty big problems with some missionaries in our zone that popped up out of nowhere, and the rain spoiled a lot of our plans find new investigators. On top of that, we came back from a baptismal interview in Friday and when I shifted gear, the clutch pedal broke. We had to wait for the car to get towed, which took the rest of the day. It kind of felt like the storm clouds were hovering right over us. Elder Byrom and I sat down and just talked about how we both felt, and we set a goal to lose ourselves in the work and lift each other up. 

Champion's baptism!

Saturday started with a baptism for Champion, an old man who speaks no English and stays up in Arcturus in the mountains. He was taught by the missionaries there before they were taken out last transfer. His house is definitely kumusha, the typical thatched roof huts that you would imagine making up his humble abode. He is such a sweet and humble man. We found time to go find him last week, and he initially was planning to go to his rural home at the beginning of the week. However, we taught him about the importance of baptism and invited him to pray about whether he should go or stay an extra week and be baptized. He prayed and decided to stay, and his baptism was awesome! After the baptism, we went right to work. For the whole weekend, we had a smaller car that couldn't handle the rough roads of Eastview, so we've been walking like crazy. We didn't waste any time and found a bunch of new investigators. Church was also really amazing on Sunday and almost all of our progressing investigators attended! We have two marriages scheduled for the coming weeks and we are so excited! The Lord really helped us get back on our feet after a few rough days and I know that He cares about even our smallest challenges!

The T-shirts that Elder Byrom and I made

The biggest highlight of the week was our zone conference with Elder Kevin S. Hamilton of the Seventy, the Africa Southeast Area president. He was so well spoken and he had a great sense of humor. He requested that we study a talk by Elder Bednar entitled "Converted unto the Lord" prior to the conference (if you've never read it, I would definitely recommend it) and he then instructed us on conversion and testimony. Testimony comes to the honest seeker of truth and is knowledge that comes by the power of the Holy Ghost, but conversion is being true to that testimony and offering our whole souls to God. He also taught us that as missionaries, we are agents of change/conversion for our investigators, not just bearers of information. That's just a tidbit of the many things that I learned from the meeting; it was definitely my favorite zone conference in memory. I was privileged to play the piano throughout the meeting as well, which was really cool.

I love you all!! Sorry that I don't have much time to include more thoughts, but I hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Barlow