Families Can Be Forever

Hello my family and friends!

I hope that everyone is not too cold. I hear that the US has been practically frozen lately but don't worry i'm soaking up plenty of sun here! Ah! Well, what can I say about this week. It was pretty amazing! Even though we don't have a huge teaching pool yet since we are whitewashing we are definitely doing a good amount of finding and teaching! Hopefully all of the finding will pay off soon. One of the best things I guess I can say is that Thursday was our Zone Conference and so the mission president and his wife came and we had a day long conference where we had instruction and guidance on how to better do our missionary work. One of the biggest emphasis right now in Africa is family history. The church is definitely becoming more adaptable in a way that helps us in our missionary work. Since alot of the people here don't have internet or even know how to use the internet to be able to do family history the church has now provided us with family history booklets that people can record their family history by hand and then give it to other members who can get those names ready for them and take them to the temple. This is something that I definitely thought was amazing! One thing that I think alot of people miss about the gospel is that the family is central to God's plan and central to the gospel. We all lived with God before we came to earth. We were all connected. Being born on the earth has sort of seperated us from God and by being in families and by sealing our families together we are all connecting our families back together again and eventually sealing us all back together to God. That is the purpose of the gospel and it is what our Heavenly Father wants. So many people don't recognize that, and they don't recognize that Satan knows this is what God wants and so he attacks families. He wants us to be angry and fight with one another. He wants us to break apart because he knows that ultimately we will suffer and not truly be happy. That's why it is so important for us to build our families on the gospel. It is the only rock that cant break and the only thing that will keep our families together. I know that it is true and so I have definitely gained a greater appreciation from my family and I know how important it is to our Heavenly Father. So that was a wonderful day and I learned alot of things that have definitely changed my life.

This week has also been a very great one as I have been able to better feel and recognize the importance of the spirit and living in a way that we can feel the spirit. This week we had a relief society activity and it went a little longer than we thought and we only had like an hour to go teaching so we were trying to decided whether we should go out to the area that we planned to work in or should we just stay close to home and do contacting. So we decided, why not! Lets just go ahead and go out to the area we planned, we wouldn't have much time but we would have some. So one of the recent converts lives in this area and so we decide we will go and visit him. So we go to his house and we find that he is out of town. We were a little sad but then we met his sister and we started talking to her. A little while later her husband comes in and actually asks us to share with them our message. As we teach i'm I can tell that he is being totally defensive. Everything we say about the church, or Joseph Smith he tries to pose an objection. It came to a point where I was just answering all of these questions and I had no idea how but the words... they just came to me. That was a truly wonderful moment as I knew that Heavenly Father was speaking through me because I couldn't even remember what I said but I can see in his eyes that his heart was softened and even afterwards he offered to walk us to the kombi (African bus). It was really a great experience and I know that the spirit had touched his heart through me and that we were lead to go there and meet this family and I have such great hopes for them and what will happen. I know that God places people in our lives for a reason and that sometimes he touches their lives through us. I have a strong testimony of the gospel and I know that all of it is true. I hope that one day everyone will able to experience the joy that the gospel brings. It truly is good news!

Agh, I love you all!!!!!!!

Love

Sister Scott

Priesthood Blessings

Hello my dear family and friends

So man what a crazy week this has been. I really don't even know were to start! So this week was pretty much  uneventful as far as missionary work goes for a few reasons but the biggest I would have to say: Sicknesses. So the past few weeks I have feeling pretty sick. I don't know if its change of climate or the food or what but almost everyday I just have been feeling so bad! But the thing is, all the missionaries have been feeling a little down so we all thought we would just get better. So Tuesday I woke up feeling the worst. I honestly couldn't even go out so me and my companion stayed in and I just rested and I started feeling better later in the afternoon. However when I woke up then my companion was feeling worse! She was having a headache, chills and just feeling bad so we decided to just stay in and she even took her temperature and it was over 100 so we knew we needed to stay in. So we both were pretty much in bad shape for the rest of the day.

So the next day my companion was feeling even worse so we went ahead and went to the hospital. They did the tests and all and lo and behold the doctor told her she had 4+ Malaria which is the most severe Malaria so she had to stay in the hospital until she got better. Man we were both scared but we knew it had to be done. So we were in the hospital and I felt so bad for her. Man Malaria is the worst for anyone who doesn't know and Malawi has like the highest rate for it so it was pretty crazy. But luckily she got a priesthood blessing and the next day her Malaria was gone. The doctors were all in awe and they were saying that never happens and it was a miracle and it was so amazing to see. Its amazing to see how the power of God, the priesthood can really work miracles. We knew that it was only God. So my week was spent just kind of caring for her and all which I think definitely made us grow closer lol. She finally got to come home on Saturday and so now we are just kind of taking it slow for the next few days until she can regain her strength. So unfortunately I don't have any huge moments that happened but It has definitely built my testimony of the priesthood power. I know that if we have the faith, that we can be healed and I know that this church is true. We have the power, the priesthood, and it is truly the power of God and I can't deny it and the miracles I have seen. I pray that all those who have the priesthood live worthy of this amazing privledge and responsibility so that you can bless the lives of God's children. I love you all and I'm so glad to be here serving the Lord. I know that it is only for a short time and I hope that I can share this message of the Restored gospel with the whole world.

Love

Sister Scott

6 MONTHS

Mulibwanji!!!!!

Hey family and friends! How are you all doing? I hope things are great for you all! Well my apologies ahead of time for having a scattered email but this week had been pretty crazy I can say! Well it started off kind of rough because I wasn't feeling the best. I woke up with a sore throat one day and ten it just got progressively worse and then it started to spread to my ear and my ear sounded like it was underwater so that was not fun at all. So my week started somewhat slow and hard. So my area that I am working in is the 2nd largest area that missionaries have and it is quite difficult. I guess you can say that it is the richer area. Most of the houses are like mansions and they all have huge gates and it wouldn't be so hard to teach people if every house didn't have a gate! Its so different from Botswana! People here are way richer than in Botswana. An average person has like a huge house: a guard, a maid, a gardener, a cook and a driver! Yes people here have drivers and so it is very overwhelming because we cant even get past peoples guards to get to their houses. So this week was a struggle. We have been trying to be creative and find ways to get to the people but we still haven't been very lucky.

However I think this week I have also been just trying to refocus my mind and focus my energy. I just felt like I need to just have a self reflection and just trust in God and so that is what we did. So this week I had a pretty amazing experience. So we were tracting in one of our areas and we were having not a lot of luck. We were walking for hours and we still hadn't really found anyone. So we got to this street and I just said a prayer in my heart and I asked Heavenly Father to just lead us to someone who would be prepared for the gospel. So we are walking down the street and I see and house with two really nice cars and a nice house and I tell my companion we should go there. I just kind of felt good but i also was sort of scared. So we go up and knock on the door. A man answers the door and he doesn't even have a shirt on and so we think oh man lets go! But then he tells us to come in and runs off to put a shirt on. So we go in and sit down. We immediately see how nice this house is and all. To make along story short we were definitely lead right there. He ended up being a great guy. He is well educated and has 2 masters and is working on the third. He is into engineering and has like 7 cars and travels the world. He was super interested in our message and just super excited! He insisted that we come back and I knew that God was leading us that day and It was that moment that I realized that he wanted me to know that he is still there and he still cares.

I feel like things have been hard but this week I just really realized that God is the one in control. Ive been really sick and just struggling but at the end of the day everyday is a testimony that God is there and he cares. He works in each of our lives everyday even if we don't realize it. He loves us all and he gives up challenges so we can grown closer to him. Trials drive us closer to the Lord and humble us and i'm definitely feeling that! This week was also great as I hit my 6 month mark! <3 I have 1/3 of the way down and so I have one year left to do all I can and to truly make a difference. I pray that God will continue to strengthen me and mold me into the missionary that he wants me to be.

I love you all! and miss you lots!!! Hope you all stay well!

Love,
Sister Scott

Sister Scotts last day in Botswana and Arrival to Malawi and the church in Malawi

The Garden of Eden

Hello everyone!

 

I hope all is well on that side of the globe! Life is continuing on here and the missionary work as well! For all who dont know, I arrived in my area of Blantyre, Malawi last Tuesday after a long flight and bus ride. Man is this different than Botswana. Blantyre is nicknamed "The Garden of Eden" because it is so green. There are mountains, hills, and tons of maize fields everywhere. Its very pretty ad very HILLY! Man, if I didnt know how to climb before I sure am learning. We have to climb a hill just to leave our flat. We dont have a car as well so we have to walk most places that we go and we have a huge area as well. Our area is probably like Sherwood, North Little Rock and Little Rock combined. Just me and my companion cover that area and its pretty crazy. It takes us about 30-40 minutes to walk to our appointments so we walk alot each day. It isnt too bad but it is definitely hard just because of the hills. I am now serving in the Blantyre 2nd branch and we actually have a chapel now which is pretty gorgeous. Its so nice. The only thing about Zambia is that the church has been here for a while and it is more esablished than Botswana which means tons of less actvies. On Sunday we had about 30 people there and there are about 250 in the branch so yeah, we have alot of work to do.

Since we are whitewashing we pretty much are starting from ground zero me  and Sister Rawlins Because we both are new to the area , we don't have any investigators really and we dont know any members and so we are really working hard. We pretty much spend most of the day walking and just talking to people and trying to build up our teaching pool. Our goal is to try to find people that can help establish the church. People that can read enlgish and write and can use computers. Alot of people can't and those are the ones who are willing to hear us teach but then they get baptized and they can''t really lead the church and so our goal as a mission is to build it up with strong people who can be leaders. It is really a great opportunity and although I'm slightly overwhlemed I also have high hopes for what we can accomplish.

 

This week though was probably on of the hardest. I have been really struggling with switching my mission. As a missionary you can just feel it in your heart when you get yo your mission that you are where you need to be. That you have been called by a prophet and that it where you should be and that is something that I am struggling with being sent to another mission to wait to be able to go back to my mission. I can honestly say this is probably the hardest thing I have ever done and it has really been a trial. I really do hope things get better though. I really hope that I also can one day go back to Botswana. As a missionary your love for the people just grows so much and I honestly feel like I left a piece of my heart in Botswana but I pray that things will get better and that I will get stronger as well. Anyways I love you all and I miss you all as well. I would love letters and emails but unfortunately mail takes almost 2 months to get here but emails are definitely great! Stay strong and stay great!

 

Love

Sister Scott

krystal.scott@myldsmail.net
New Address:Sister Krystal Janel Scott
Zambia LusakaMission
14038 Katima Mulilo Road
Lusaka Zambia 10101