This week was a pretty adventurous week.

First of all… Sunday afternoon will probably go down in history lol. Somehow after church, we ended up with lunch/dinner appointments for the rest of the day!! I’ve never eaten so much in one day in my life. We went to 3 different houses, one right after the other, each with LOTS of NICE nice food AND dessert. YOH! I still don’t know how I made it the whole night without getting sick. I probably gained around 5 kg though haha.

On Saturday, we had just left the apartment to go to an appointment about a 30- 40 minute walk away, when it started to POUR rain! It was only a matter of seconds before there were huge orange rivers splashing down the sides of the roads! I was excited for the adventure and an adventure is was! We had walked through many ankle-high rivers and had dripping dresses and hair by the time we finally got out of it. It was a great adventure.

We finally got to see George again! He has been busy moving his family to Gweru and stuff. When we were with him, he was like hey do you want to talk to Dube? And he just called his uncle and we got to talk to Elder Dube! Haha pretty cool!

This week we found the Steven family! Brother Steven is a super spiritual man and was even kicked out of his house at the age of 17 for “following Jesus Christ.” He is pretty skeptical about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and was asking about scriptures from the bible about the coming forth of Joseph Smith, but at the same time he seems to have a very willing heart and open mind. We have been teaching about the Book of Mormon a lot and will continue to use it as our main tool to help him receive an answer to his  prayers! He is very interested tho and has lots of questions but wants to be sure for himself, through prayer, that our message is true. It might take some time, but I see the Steven family entering the waters of baptism!!

I love Alma 37:44-47 that talks about giving heed to the word of Christ. And if we do so, just like Lehi and his family followed the Liahona, we will be lead to wonderful places!!  All we have to do is look to God and live!! Let’s look to God and live through this new year and never get distracted because of the easiness of the path!

I love you all!! Happy New Year!!

Sister Burt

Pic: At the Govere’s house for lunch! The beginning of a long and endless food journey…

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! We had a GREAT day! My companion started it off sweet by making me breakfast in bed! It was delicious. Then we got to go to the orphanage with a family from our ward! It was so much fun to spend time with the kids and they even sang happy birthday for me 🙂 we also got to teach a big lesson with the older ones! It was so much fun!!

If I am here in Gweru for one reason only, that reason would be George. We found George near the police compounds while finding our way back home one day. I’m not sure exactly what his job is, but I think he is somewhere in the high ranks of the ZRP. He gave us directions and we invited him to church. He recognized the church because he knew his uncle was a leader in our church. His uncle is Elder Dube from the seventy, and from the way he talks about his uncle and their experiences he has shared, it is very evident that he has a very close relationship with him and he looks up to him a lot. He was asking us about the Book of Mormon as well and we made a return appointment. When we went back to visit him, we had a POWERFUL lesson. He had read the pamphlet we gave him and had a TON of questions about the church and different things. It was powerful as we were able to answer his questions and the way he understood and accepted the message was AMAZING. I felt and recognized the spirit working in many ways, more than I have in any other lesson I have ever had. After such a long time of seeing his uncles example and even the example of other family members, I really think George’s time has come. He is prepared for the gospel now. One of the last times he was with his uncle, he even told him that he wants to baptize George! And now he is finally starting to see why. The gospel is so amazing the blessings it brings are life-changing! I just love it so much!

I love you all and hope you have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Sister BurtThis week we WALKED a TON. I learned my lesson the hard way too that it’s safe to always carry an umbrella just in case the floods come haha.

My new companion is Sister Jones!! She is SO great! She is 25 and is from Arizona and her and her younger sister, who is serving in Soda Springs in the Pocatello Idaho mission!, are the only members in their family!

The apartment we are staying in is a bit rough, but we got it cleaned up a bit and they fixed the hot water this week, so we can now shower! And it has a really steep winding staircase to get to the bedrooms so it’s kind of cool haha. When President was in town, he came to look at our apartment and said that if we end up staying in this area, he wants to find us a different apartment.

The area is a lot different than all the other areas I’ve ever served in since I’ve been here! We haven’t been able to go to all the part of our area though because we don’t know where they are and nobody else really does and there aren’t really any members who stay in all of them, so it’s hard. But they are huge areas with huge houses and huge lots with huge gates and empty streets!!! We aren’t in the ghetto anymore… haha. We really felt it on Thursday when we spent all day walking gate to gate, knocking on each of them and praying someone would come haha. Then it started POURING on us! Great missionary stories to tell 🙂 But the zone leaders have been great to help us while we are still trying to figure things out and learn our way around.

Friday we had the Christmas zone conference and we got to watch the first presidency Christmas devotional which was so great! Then each of the zones got to perform Christmas songs. Our zone was by far the best. We did cool versions of Away in a Manger and Far Far Away on Judeah’s Plains! I played the piano and there was some snapping and dancing and at the end of all the other performances, President made our zone go back up and perform the second song again hahaha. We had a nice lunch tho and a fun gift exchange andit was just a fun day.

Church was good and we get to attend in the nice chapel which will be nice! We ended up having some investigators there because some members brought some kids from the orphanage to church for the first time, so we are going to go visit them at the orphanage on Wednesday and I’m super excited to see how that goes!!!

Also the other night, I made chapatis for dinner and I was pretty dang proud of myself… the were so nice.

Anyways, I hope I covered most things… We are just trying are best to follow Aaron and his bretheren’s example in Alma 21:16 by teaching whoever will let us teach them and going wherever they will let us in! “And they went forth whithersoever they were led by the Spirit of the Lord, preaching the word of God in every synagogue of the Amalekites, or in every assembly of the Lamanites where they could be admitted.” We just can’t wait for the blessings to come when the people are brought to a knowledge of the truth like in verse 17! “And it came to pass that the Lord began to bless them, insomuch that they brought many to the knowledge of the truth; yea, they did convince many of their sins, and of the traditions of their fathers, which were not correct.”

I love you all so much. Thank you for everything! I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season 🙂

Love,

Sister Burt

Proselyting in the rain!!

Christmas devotional! with Anyango and Ngwenya

I burnt my fingers like crazy while making chapatis haha. It was worth it tho 😉

Me and Sister Jones 🙂

Well this week was pretty exciting!

Malvern was baptized which was so great! And I will now be serving in Gweru with Sister Jones! We are both new to the area so it might take a while to get used to things… but I am excited see new places and meet new people! Also LOVE the Light the World challenges for this year! What a great way to celebrate Christmas and remember the Savior!!

Don’t have much time today, but I love you all and hope you have a great week! 🙂

Sister Burt

In Gweru – “They have no money – but they have started using bond notes.”

Farewell to Sister Anyango in Gweru.

Malvern’s baptism!

Last Sunday in Mzilikazi branch

Am going to miss Sister Anyango SO much!!

Nothing too exciting happened this week, was still a crazy week tho haha. we had exchanges for 2 days with the sisters, which was fun, though we had to stay at their house and we didn’t sleep like at all for the 2 nights because iot is hotter than the sun in there lol I love our apartment. after exchanges on thursday, we had a thanksgiving feast… chapatis and soup! me fav.!! it was yummm.

We did service at sister Siwela’s by helping her take the labels and wrappers off old drink containers… basically i will never touch Maheu ever again.

The sisters had a baptism in Mpopoma on Saturday, which is where we will have to hold our baptisms from now on because of the water restrictions and the leaking font at our chapel. There was a better turn out than we thought because of the transportation, which was nice!

We had a fun experience with our cranky old lady neighbors haha. was pretty exciting. Though I though they were going to break down the door and come beat us!

Still just looking for solid investigators who will start progressing as we build our teaching pool! We have a lot of new people to see this week, so hopefully we will find a few powerful ones 🙂 December should be a good month!

love you guys so much 🙂

This week was kind of crazy! We can just assume from now on that very week is haha. But things are a bit hard in the area and we are having fall-throughs like crazy!! We did have a good day on Friday though with nice appointments,, but come Sunday, nobody was at church. Finding new people and trying to build the teaching pool is pakayipa!!! Came across Alma 26:27 though which gave me so much hope. Success is just down the road.

I have been cooking a bit more and you should have seen me shopping the other day! I felt like a wife hahaha!! My companion has been teaching me to cook nicely 😉

We got pulled over twice this week, once they wanted me to pay $20 for an “offense”… I was barely past the first white line at the robot hahaha after a while we got out of it though lol we invited him to church and everything and told him we didn’t have money to pay because we were just missionaries and we go and preach the gospel every day. Then we gave him a Book of Mormon before we left. Now he will be baptized one day and have the most powerful conversion story. The other time was on the way back from cleaning Sister Joice’s house and they stopped us just to say hi and ask us if he had food or drinks for them hahaha when you see the cops so many times that you are just best buds and wave and smile as you pass. Zimbabwe haha.

It has been raining off and on which is the BEST!!  I love rainstorms. Today there was thunder and HARD rain. I LOVE it!!

Also rumor has it that bond notes are coming this week… but they have been saying that for who knows how long… so we’ll see! haha

Anyways, I love you guys and hope you have a great week!

Love, Sister Burt

Pictures:

zone conference

So we have been teaching Khulu John’s son, Willard, who has been visiting from SA for the past couple of months. He believes in God, but has his reasons as to why he doesn’t like coming to church. But the more we would go to teach, the more interested he got and he finally came to church and he wants to be baptized and everything! Only one problem now tho… he had to go back to SA the other week 😦 it was so sad to say goodbye. But he is excited to find the missionaries and church in SA 🙂

Brother Ngulube,  powerful member in the branch, passed away the other week. We visited him the day he passed away. It was hard being in that hospital and seeing him in the condition he was in, but we sang fro him his favorite hymn, “I’ll go where you want me to go.” We spent some time at the funeral though and our hearts and prayers go out to the Ngulube family.

Tinashe’s baptism was a couple Saturdays ago!! It was such a happy day!! He was so excited. And I’ve never seen him smile how he did while he was baring his testimony. It was just so amazing to see him finally enter that waters of baptism!! His time finally came! Tinashe is just so powerful.

Tinashe’s Baptism:

Richie’s Baptism:

We are now teaching Paul (10 years) and Shepard (9 years), Richie’s cousins, and they are going to be baptized on Saturday! Their dad was the first person to be baptized in this branch but he is late now. Their mother was baptized too but she now stays with her parents who go to another church and want her to go to the same church. but it is her and her husband’s wish that Paul and Shepard both get baptized and continue going to this church! They are the CUTEST boys and love coming to church and are SO excited to get baptized and I just love them to death.

Last Monday, all of us 4 Bulawayo sisters went to Harare and that night, we spent in the transfer house with 13 sisters! It was a party. Then the next day, since we were in town, President invited me and my companion to go to MLC. It was fun to sit in and listen and learn.

We finally got to see Khulu John last week for the first time in over a week! He was in the rurals checking on his cattle. It was good to see him… we missed our Khulu!! And it was great to see him walking up to church at 8:15 yesterday when we pulled up 🙂 So excited for his baptism on Saturday!!

This week I was reading in the book of Mosiah and I love chapter 24 how even though Alma and his people were being threatened and persecuted, the Lord still went to them in their afflictions and tells them to life up their heads and be of good comfort. They then even submitted cheerfully and with patience. It reminded me of one of my favorite talks given in this last  general conference by Elder Nelson. I love his statement “Saints can be happy under every circumstance. We can feel joy even while having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad year!” He later says “Joy is powerful, and focusing on joy brings God’s power into our lives.” Having joy is the most important thing in life! And we know exactly where and how to find that joy!

I love you all and hope you have a great week 🙂

Sister Burt