Sisters

                                                 My new companion

                                            Celebrating 1 year

Prayer Is The Passport To Peace

Happy Monday everyone!!!! Well its a holiday here and very festive I might add but here we are at the email shop updating our family and friends on the happenings :)

I hope everyone is doing well and had a wonderful week last week! Our week was a good week as well. I am just loving the new branch I am in, I can't lie. It is super awesome and I hope I stay here until I go home! The people are wonderful and great and we even have 4 baptisms scheduled and we have more we are planning to invite this week! Our area is definitely on fire!

So I feel like I should tell you that we have some of the greatest investigators. Good and bad haha but greatest! So here is an update just so you know who we are working with! There is one that we have named Brother Mwape who is a 32 year old man who is slightly obsessed with America and Me. He is very smart but LOVES to talk. This week we taught about the Plan of Salvation and we were trying to explain how the fall of Adam and Eve was part of Gods plan but he just couldnt accept it. We read in 2 Nephi and even in the bible but he is struggling to see it as a good thing. He is so funny. He cracks jokes alot and tells us that he is dating Bill Gates daughter. Any time he calls us he tells me to say hello to all the people in America so this is on his behalf. Ah. He is great. Hopefully we can help him progress! :)

Another one that we saw this week was a man named Domiciano Timbo. He is a man from Malawi that moved here for work. We found him one day becase he just came up to us and said he needed the word of God. So this week we went and visited with him outside of his work place and we sat and he told us that he wants to change and grow closer to God. He said that all of his family and friends don't think he can but he wants to show them. Honestly I felt it in my heart and happily enough he came to church on Sunday and he told me that ''Im part of you. I will come every single week.'' So that was exciting. I can see the potential in him!

So those are just a few but this week was great. Even Friday we had to chance to do District service and to help clean one of the members home! Hopefully you all see the picture! We had a great time and it was wonderful. Even Sunday was very great as we had our first fast and testimony meeting. It was honestly so powerful! I felt the spirit so strong and I learned so many things! I truly understand the importance of testimonies and how we need to be firmly rooted in the gospel and in our testimonies. I know that our testimonies will be our weapon in the fight against Satan. They truly are recorded in heaven and I even know that our testimonies are there to help even on the other side of the veil. When we share them, we grow. When we hide them they will eventually die. It was very powerful.

So for me this week was a very good one and even some thoughts that I have had I would  even like to share about doing the will of God. In Helaman chapter 10 we read about Nephi and how because of his strict obedience and even his unwearyingness that he was blessed with the power to accomplish anything that he commanded to happen. I love verse 4  and 5.  But especially verse 4 that states, '' Blessed are thou Nephi for those things thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word which I have given unto thee unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life but hast sought my will and to keep my commandments.'' Something that we learn is that Nephi did the will of God and he was blessed. Often time we think that WE know the best thing and we try to succeed and even justify the things that we do but we learn that when we seek the will of God we will be blessed like Nephi. God will also trust us. One thing I learned was that we should always seek the will of God first. Selfishness is our ''natural man'' and thinking of how this will affect us but we should always think how would  God react and seek for his will to be done. I know that when we do this, when we align our will with Gods we will find success. Satan will try us of course, but we will have more help and aid from our God when we do his will. I love you and I pray that you have a great week! This friday is my ONE YEAR MARK. I can't believe that I have been here for a year already but i'm so grateful for the things that I have learned and experienced because they are shaping me into the woman that God wants me to become. Be faithful and fearless.

Love 

Sister Scott

Ether 12:27

Mulibwanji !!!

Wowzer this week has come and gone! The days really do fly by when you're having fun! So this week was a very good one of course since we did what we do best, MISSIONARY WORK.  :)

But really I do love the area that i'm in and everything is going on as well. The branch that I am in Chainama is booming. There are about 5 people preparing for missions and so mst of our days are filled with working with them and giving them the whole missionary experience. Its pretty sweet. Since we are whitewashing we spend alot of time just tracting and contacting but we actually have been finding alot of new people and i'm pretty excited.

Nothing big happened this week but we did have interviews with the Mission President. It was very nice and I really enjoyed it alot. It makes me realize that I don't have that much longer on mission and I really just want to give it my all these last 6 months and how I want to really focus. So this week I actually had things that I was trying to decide and decisions I was contemplating and I took the opportunity to fast and pray. As I studied the scriptures and other things I came across chapter 12 in Ether that talks about faith and also our weakness. Lately I have been filling very insufficent and even sometimes comparing myself to other people especially missionaries. Ether 12:27 states, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." I know that all of us are weak in different things. God has given us weakness that we may remember him and that we may rely on him more fully and completely. Something that I have realized is that nothing is possible without God. Sometimes we try to do things on our own and its not what God has planned for us it will fail. But its not enough just to recognize our weakness but its also essential that we strive to strengthen ourselves in those areas that we are weak. That we seek after God. Throughout the scripture repeatedly it says "Ask and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." I know that God wants us to seek. To strive to become better people and better disiciples even in our weakness. We have to rely on God our father and also his atonement for that is the only thing that will lift us up. But its up to us because God will never force us. I know that God lives. I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and that he lives.No matter our weakness, our faults, or our mistakes he loves us perfectly and infinitely. I love you all and im so grateful for family and friends that are always there for me, you don't know how much it helps me!

I hope you all have a great week! Love you!!!

Missionary Life

Sister Alert!!

Mulibwanji!

My dearest family and friends how are you doing? Wow its only been a week but I feel like its been years already! Yes so much has happened I dont even know where to start. So yeah I was transferred across the border lines and so now im writing you from Lusaka Zambia! 

I arrived on Tuesday in Lusaka and my new companion hadn't come yet so me and Sister Mbele stayed and just hung around for a few days. My companion came on Wednesday night and she is just great! Her name is Sister Makunye and she is 29 from South Africa as well. She is super tall and cute. She is also super sweet, like the nicest person that you could ever meet! So yeah she came and so we all hung around together and then Thursday morning Sister Mbele left and headed to the Copperbelt in northern Zambia. Honestly can I tell you that I felt like a mother at that moment. There were definitely tears shed. I will miss her so much. Honestly I know that I would not have made it through the past 4 months without her and I would not have learned as much as I did if I hadnt been with her. I love her like way too much its not even real! 

So she left and then Thursday and Friday we just spent the time in our new area getting to know it and also looking around. So my new area is called Chainama Branch. It is a sweet area. It is nice suburbs and also a little bit of compounds, so the poorer areas. It is super great and sweet. We are whitewashing and also we are the first sisters there in like 7 or more years so we are pretty much the first ones. I'm super excited for that. Saturday we got to attend YSA with the younger ones so that was great! and then Sunday we attended for the first time and man it reminds me so much of Monarch, my first area on mission back in Botswana so im super excited!!!! And boy our branch can SANG! I wont even say sing because its too great, they can SANG. I felt like I was a part of a Kirt Franklin choir yesterday. It was sweet. The branch is great and wonderful. I even met one member whos sons went to school in Fayetville, Arkansas. What are the odds of that? Its pretty sweet. 

So since we are brand new we pretty much have to hit the streets everyday looking for people to teach but im excited for these last 7 months of working hard! So far we have one investigator Brother Nkhata who is an older gentleman around 50 or 60. He is super great and prepared and we will be extending a baptism date today so he will be getting baptized soon! I know that this is Heavenly Fathers work and that things are slowly falling into place. Im super excited to see what happens and even to see the Lords hand in our work and in our area. I am so grateful for this time that I have to be refined and to show Heavenly Father my love for him. We didnt teach anyone this week but I know that next week will be great!!!!! Anyway I love you all and I thank you for all that you do! 

 Thanks everyone who writes me, it really encourages me and helps me alot. I cant believe in a few weeks I will turn one year! Im super excited to see what the Lord has in store for me! Love you all and have a great week!

Love 

Sister Scott

Reply,

Sister Alert!!

Third Times The Charm

Mulibwanji

My dear family and friends!

How are you? I hope that your week was well . Well guess what??? Its that time again. Transfer time. So we just found out Thursday that we are both getting transferred me and Sister Mbele. So we are flying out tommorow and I am going to serve in Lusaka, Zambia and I will be opening an area for sisters (going to area that has never has sisters) and I will be with my new companion Sister Makunye who I have yet to go and meet. My companion is going to Zambia too but she will be going to Kitwe in the Copperbelt in Zambia and she will be companions with one of my old companions Sister Two. So the time has come and the hour is at hand. So we are flying out tommorow morning at 7am bright and early.

This past week though was actually a fairly great one for me. We did not teach a ton of people but we did have good lessons this week. This week we learned alot about the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion and teaching. One thing that I realize is that missionary work and even teaching in any aspect of the church requires our heed to the spirit and our desire to be led in all things. As a missionary we need to listen to the spirit to be able to teach the investigators but also in order to find and even teach. In the D&C its says that if we do not teach by the spirit then we are not teaching by God so it is by some other way. So one thing I have been working on is teaching by the spirit and even recognizing the spirit on my life. It has definitely help me alot and I can feel it in the work.

One of the lessons we taught this week was definitely a powerful one. One of our investigators Mkagula is an older guy about 71 who is a widower. He comes to church and he knows that it is true but he has really been struggling with accepting to get baptized. So this week we decided to start teaching him the gospel of Jesus Christ so we can emphasize baptism. We started with faith and repentance and it was so great! We went into repentance and I felt the spirit teaching him in a way that I hadn't felt before. As we taught him alot of things came up that he didn't know and had never realized about repentance. I realized then that sometimes as we follow the spirit then it will ultimately help us. If he hadn't really learned about repentance or really understood he would not have been ready to take the next step but because we listened to the spirit we addressed a need of his. The spirit is key!

This week was great and we got to say goodbye to our branch and I am oh so grateful to have had this time to serve here in Malawi. I can honestly say that I will never forget it. Honestly I have went through a trail of my faith being here and I can say that I have not been defeated but I have definitely learned things that I know will be able to help me someday in my life. I know that the things we learn on mission will bless our lives.

I love you all and miss you all and will keep you updated next week! Well have a good week!!! This week is my 11 months!!! :))

Love

Sister Scott