January 30, 2017 - In Our Humble Way

Uno :)

Hey everybody!!

How are you?? Hope the few of you got my topic reference above haha.

This week was pretty awesome! We had another powerful district meeting on Tuesday about the Atonement. I thought I'd share my favorite analogy from it: So to trap a monkey, you put a trap with bananas that has a hole just big enough for the monkey to put its hand in. The monkey will grab the banana, but then can't withdraw its hand. It will sit there until it's captured when all it has to do is let go. The moral? We all of our favorite sins or things that keep us from keeping all the commandments and finding true joy. The Atonement of Christ makes it possible for all of us to be free if we will only let go of what we think we want. We don't have to be trapped!! Isn't that awesome?

On Wednesday we taught Mai Mondwa about the Law of Chastity and she was already asking about how to improve her family. She's so amazing and it brings so much joy to teach her. We gave a blessing to a girl next door and it was cool to explain that to the family. We were able to teach some good lessons as well. 

Breathtaking Mountains of Mutare

Our week was then put on hold. We met in Harare and took a bus to Mutare for a special zone conference. The travel took like 4 hours and we played UNO the whole way haha. Mutare is so beautiful. Missionary work is super tough there but the mountains are breathtaking. It comforted me a lot. Long story short though, I ended up getting some sort of food poisoning the night before the meeting and throwing up. It was pretty miserable. However, the Lord permitted me to have the strength to attend the meeting the next day. Elder Stanley G. Ellis of the Seventy and his wife spoke to us on faith. He shared the story of Elijah and the Widow of Zarapheth and it was awesome. He has such a conviction of the Atonement as well and they pushed us to be obedient. I really enjoyed it a lot. The bus ride home was absolutely terrible. It took almost 2 hours to leave Mutare and the bus ride stunk. We got back late and I still wasn't feeling well, but we got out car!! The clutch is stiff but it's a car!! (don't get too excited) just wait.

Saturday was good. We searched for an investigator's house forever and we finally found it. Solomon is in his 40's and so powerful. He only can't be baptized because he's having some pretty serous marriage issues. It's sad so we will be praying for him. We then took a comby to Unit O and saw Tanaka and Takudzwa. We taught them a little and they agreed to be baptized in two weeks!! It's so awesome!! Then we had a dinner with the other elders at a member's house. They were so nice. The father is an RM and he was super funny. I really enjoy members like that.

Church was sweet!! We had 6 investigators at church!!! We were so pumped up. We talked about prayer and it was so powerful. Mai Mondwa told us after that she now understands that God answers our prayers through other people and that we were an answer to her prayers. It made me so happy. The branch president walked around with us after to show us some members. It was great!! The members that we have seen are so awesome.

We were walking and some ladies called us and said "Murungu!" and then ran and hid. We turned it into a teaching appointment and it was funny. Then something cool happened. They invited us to attend their church too, and I bore my testimony of this being the truth and I think they really felt it. It was so powerful.

Today we got to play basketball at the mission office!! It was so good to get some serious exercise and just have fun!! Overall this week has been good and I hope you all are doing well!!

Pictures from our trip to Mutare

Musari zvakanaka!

Elder Barlow

PS Y'all might be wondering a little about the picture of me covered in money last week. So Elder Barnett got all of his allotment in 2 dollar bond notes and he was joking about how they don't feel like money. So we had some fun with them haha.