76 - Hero Standing on a Hill

(This is the story of Zazu.)

It was dark, his skin, just like the strike of midnight, his eyes bright as two moons. He was leading the hunt, a common practice of the people of Zambia. He used to be a slave owner, but he was called noble for the release of his slaves. Now they hunted as equal men, him leading them as a like man.

They walked with their prized meat, heading toward the village. They scattered as a leopard suddenly pounced from the trees, falling upon the leader of their pack. They fought, the leopard gouging the man's legs with its claws, but the man being full of adrenaline caught the beast in a choke hold. The leopard struggled, but the man did not let go. It began to wheeze as it writhed. It's back heaved and heaved. It was getting weaker. This unrelenting man did not loosen his hold until he heard the last of the leopard's breath. It was dead. He was alone, wounded, and the village was still more than half an hours distance.

The hunting group arrived back, thinking their former master was now surely a former friend. There was no way he had survived. He was not the largest man, and leopards were fierce creatures. They consulted about what to do concerning the body, whether to return and see if there were any remains and when to do it.

As they counseled they heard a shout. They looked an saw a figure, a man carrying a beast. It was him who they called dead. He was the hero standing on a hill. 

That was his name ever since.

I woke from this dream. ...That is the translation of my name... That dream was an actual event of my grandfather's life!

I called my mother. As I told the story my mother began to thank me profusely through her tears, thanking me and God. Why was she acting this way?

"Thank you Lord! Yes Zazu, that is your grandfather's story! I was told never to speak of it to you, but that you would call one day having received a vision of it. Thank you God!"

So it was. I had received a vision. And that was not the only one.

Where this all started, was my grandfather. He married someone unique. Why did he do this, I do not know, but he married the witch doctor's daughter. It's a bad magic, and it is bread in their children and unlocked when the time is appropriate, and he knew this. These are my ancestors. I have been dealing with these issues since that time.

I am blessed with many siblings. two older brothers, two older sisters, and five younger sisters. from the time I was very young, I have had this spirit in me. It was only now revealed in my mind in a vision that this happened and confirmed by my mother. 

My sister was sick with a fungus on her toe. It was not getting better. I was only five, maybe younger. I took herbs, and rubbed them on her feet. That is all it took. She was better. I didn't even know what the herbs were. I just grabbed them and did the good dead. 

I was a bad kid in school, I always got a whoopen from my mother! It was good for me. She liked to use a long branch. Wpsh! Wpsh! I would be picked on and I would get angry. Before I knew it the kid would be on the ground with two black eyes. I wouldn't have a scratch on me. My mother would take care of that. Wpsh! Wpsh! This would always happen. This because I was schooled in the martial arts. I did work up to the black belt level. They wanted to exspell me from the school because this was always happen. But they were the ones who would always instigate me.

In tenth grade I had a friend. He was a bad kid. He wanted to work out one day during our lunch break of school. We were walking, him, and me, and another, the three of us. "This isn't the way to the gym," I said. "Yes it is, I have the weights in my bag."

We sat on this field. He pulled out of his bag this drug. I didn't know it was a drug. It was a type of weed. He rolled it up. It was long. We all took turns smoking it until it was gone. Everything was fine until we stood up. Everything was spinning. Nothing was right.

I went home, and my dad knew. He didn't say anything, but as he turned the paper it was like it was smacking me with the words, "you're high!" No... I'm not high.. "You're high!" He had some words for me that day.

When I went back to school, the one who had the weed in his back was not there. It was said by everyone that three went out to smoke, and the facts were clear that one of them ended up dead. My 'friend.' That could have been me... It scared me bad. From that point on I determined I would have nothing to do with drugs.

The other who was still with us ratted me out. We were exspelled. I was sent to a private bording school elsewhere in Africa where it was build in you to survive. My father sent me here to teach me how to be a man.

There was drama between the head boy and his girlfriend. They framed me and long story short sixteen boys came against me. All I knew is that when I thought something, it happened. If I thought about kicking two people at once, it happened. I was granted with the same strength as Samson. Every jaw was broken. I messed them all up. 

They put me in prison for awhile. But the charges were dropped when it was concluded as self defense. I was out. My father asked me where I wanted to go. I told him america. And that's how I came to the United States as a young adult.

Since then, I have been hearing this voice, speaking in the language of the king James Bible, more and more. "I am the light and the way. Heal this man." Say what? "Tell that man to buy flowers for his wife." Hey, buy flowers for your wife. God told me to tell you. So he goes. He obeys. He contacts me and says I have saved their marriage. No no! God saved your marriage! I have just been his tool.

There was one instance where I got connected with someone over the internet, someone in England. She was stricken with HIV. I felt for her. So grieved. Then I heard. "Heal her." I asked if she had faith she could be healed. "She loves money. She must repent to be healed." I warned her of what God said. She said ok. "Go to these three doctors. Take all three tests. You will be healed." She did. They all came back negative. She and I rejoiced.

But it was short in the living. She sued those doctors for false diagnoses. She wanted the money. She then contracted another incurable disease. I asked her why she did it, she was warned. She just loved money too much.

These voices and promptings began to be too much. I felt it was a demon that I could not escape. I went to different church leaders, wanting them to cast this demon OUT in the name of Jesus! But they all told me that I was blessed, that the Lord had given me a gift, not a demon, and sent me away. So many times this happened.

Demons I have found, do not possess me. But they work through the people I am close to. I have four children, all daughters, with three different women. My little Nala I have kept close to me. The others are with their mothers. Nala's mother, when Nala was just 18 months pointed a gun at my face. I knew it wasn't loaded, but she didn't. She pulled the trigger. 'click.' We seperated that night. I took Nala with me. 

When Nala was three she kidnapped her. I hired a lawyer. They could not do anything until her mother came back into the state. I fasted every day from sunrise to sunset so that she would return. I have never gained back my weight. I was working in the oil field at the time, on a fracing crew. I lost it, went blank. I could have killed someone. They knew what was going on with me. I know the only option was to have them let me go. I picked up a truck driving job. Five months after the kidnapping the voice spoke. "You will receive a call. Don't get angry." I received the call. I was fuming. But I was obedient. I did not show my anger. She came back for Nala's medical papers. I won Nala back, haven't seen the mother since.

This is my story. I long for a women who can be a mother to Nala. She is almost eight. She needs a mother in her life. I am looking for truth and right. I have made many mistakes and repentance is so unattainable it seems. Please sisters, send some prayers to God for me.

What a story Zazu has!

As far as this week goes, this is an update on what went on in the form of president's letter:

The Near Kids

Dear President,

With sickness always comes a lack of motivation and a struggling to get back on your feet. But we have been able to hobble this past week to teach seven lessons and we are now standing stronger again! So that is always good.

We have been very concerned about the people we have on date- Charity (24th) and Jaffar (17th). We weren't able to have a single lesson with either of them this week, and neither of them watched general conference even though they both had solid plans to! :( We didn't contact them Monday or Tuesday, but we had tried every day since Wednesday, and we reached Jaffar once and we were able to stop by Orlando and Charity's on Saturday before they had to leave somewhere so we at least got to check up in person. Charity's been staying strong with not smoking!!

Neither Jaffar nor Charity came to church because of work and sickness respectively, but Orlando came without Charity! Which is huge! He has done a great thing in proving his devotion to the Lord! Good thing though is we have appointments with both Orlando and Charity AND Jaffar lined up for this evening, both member presents. We pray that they follow through. Especially since Jaffar's date is in less than a week. It's still possible, we just need to meet with him nearly every day this week! But it will all work out the way it's supposed to.

But lots of people came to church this week, including three people who haven't attended before! One of them was a referral from the elders (he lives in our area) and we have an appointment with him on Wednesday. :)

Things are plugging along. We will do our best with Jaffar's baptism this week!

Also... Sister Lewis and I got our flight plans in the mail... ah! 

We take off from the Bismarck airport and about 11, then we have a layover in Minneapolis, then I fly into the Sky Harbor airport and land at 3:13pm! 

So that's crazy. 

Poor Sister Lewis has an additional layover in Huston, TX before she flies home to Louisiana. 


She's not getting home till after 6:00pm. 

I told her I'll be playing video games before she gets home. haha.

This is a fitting tribute to Sister Lewis! :-)










And I just can't get 
enough of those kittens!

"Why do I put up with this?
"Oh yeah, that's why...prrrr."

75 - Miracle of General Conference

General Conference weekend. You know what that means if you are a missionary. INVITE EVERYONE! Prophets! All day every day!

It was great inviting everyone to conference! We made up little flyers with all the times on it to pass out to everyone. Sister Lewis has been sick with a cold though, and it's been getting worse throughout the week it seems, so I went on splits with Kristen's daughter to hand them all out. Very successful! And we sent out mass text reminders as well! We don't know how many people watched it. We can only do so much reminding and inviting. Not as many people showed up to the church to watch it as we hoped, but oh well I suppose. We still had people come.

There was a dumb thing that happened in passing out one invitation though. We hadn't seen this investigator in awhile, just because of life. She's an investigator that Sister Barrett and Sister Schoenfeld tracted into in a trailer park by the church.

Well, instead of the investigator coming out, her friend came out, and... yeah. When we asked about our investigator she dodged the question, and she told us 'she' was her christian friend and that she's never going to convert and that we don't need to come back and not all Mormons are Christians and blah blah blah. It was just one of those interactions that made your stomach sick.

We were really angry. Because that whole thing was really dumb. SO we went and played with kittens at Kristen's house!

And we ARE going back to that investigators house. We aren't taking just the words of her friend.

We've taught Jaffar a few times this week. It was so funny. We were going to his place to have a lesson, and both Jaffar and Brother Witt were stuck in the lobby. (They just started locking the doors of the 'African apartments' as we like to call them, which is really lame.) We walked in and wondered if it was planned - Brother Witt doesn't live there after all!

"Brother Witt! Are you here visiting Jaffar?"

They looked at each other and it finally clicked that they knew each other from church from Brother Witt giving Elias the priesthood! Super funny. Brother Witt was actually going to visit the Azonto's. Everyone thinks that Brother Witt is the bishop because our bishop has been out of town so much and seriously hasn't been on the stand for a month now.

Jaffar is still on for getting baptized on the 17th.

Someone else that is on for getting baptized: We thought it would be Zazu, but plot twist! It's Charity! We met with Orlando and Charity at the beginning of this week and she had been thinking a lot about it and she wants to be baptized before I leave! And Saturday was the day they picked to quit smoking and do the whole grapefruit juice and cinnamon mouthwash thing of the stop smoking program!

I told her that that's great that she wants to be baptized and that she wants me to be there, but that she NEEDS to stay active in the church! She says she understands. I want her to be baptized... but they need so show that they will be faithful at attending church and take their own personal initiative, not wait for the other to step up. And Satan knows it.

We were totally going to watch the afternoon session with them on Saturday, but they texted that a friend had an emergency that they needed to help out with and we tried to set up watching it with them on Sunday, but they never answered their calls or texts... But Orlando's father gave them both a blessing still on Saturday for strength so they can quit smoking. They are so up and down...

A story that I failed to mention, there's a Mexican investigator that we'd only been able to teach once because we just never managed to set up a return appointment that worked out because his work was so crazy. We were trying to meet him on Friday nights. Often he would text us that they were still working, but we kept trying.

Well. Friday came around. And we forgot to write down to try and see this Mexican investigator. When we got back to the apartment, we read a heart breaking text.

"Hi miss sanderson how u doin i hope u did have a good day today i got back 20 till 8:pm at tha house today n i was waitin 4 u! :'( "

We were crushed! But it's ok, because we were able to set up an appointment with him for the next evening! And it actually worked out, and it was a great lesson! And then he could know Sister Lewis and not just me! Or so we hoped.

We hoped he would stop texting 'miss sanderson,' but he never did. There were just too many red flags through his texts that he was too attracted to me instead of the gospel. I hate it when that happens! So. We referred him to the Spanish elders.

Elias didn't get a job, but he did get moved in with his one other roommate to a little house. Our relief society president is a saint and she was able to donate some dishes and sheets and towels to them. They were super grateful.

Elias has been frustrating us though. We wanted him to come to both sessions on Sunday, but he wasn't ready in time for the first one and he made his ride come back for him and he still wasn't ready. So he made her miss much of that session. He was ready for the last session. But it was still lame. But it's ok. The atonement is real.

You know what's super cool? President and Sister Hess coming through Williston and taking us all to lunch and Applebee's!!!

SO Awesome! And we all got to talk to President Hess about our areas and what they need and what we could use and it was awesome! Elder Reynolds put in the suggestion of having a set of sisters open and area in Ray, and have them cover the three small cities of Ray, Crosby, and Noonan. That would be GREAT! And then we were able to express that we have two much work for just one set in first ward, so we could totally use two sets of missionaries, AND that we NEED sisters!

And when we went to the church to take a picture, President and Sister Hess met our relief society president, Sister Clean, who had tears in her eyes talking about how much she appreciates having us sisters and how she will be so sad if she doesn't have her sisters to work with. President Hess told her we would be getting a set of sisters back. How cool is that! And, Sister Hess and our relief society president know a lot of the same people! 

Now to talk about general conference.

When the new apostles were called, we were sitting on the edge of our seats! Elder Rasband! Elder Stevenson! And Elder......... RENLUND! 

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! WHAT!? OH MY GOODNESS!!!! WHAAAAATT!!! AAAAHHHH!!! SO COOL!!! IS THIS EVEN REAL LIFE!!!??? OH MAAAN!!!"

I met an apostle just a month before he got called! And had a personal interview with him! What!? I am so so humbled! And the story that he gave in his testimony (Elder Runland's Testimony), he totally told that story to us in the meeting. AND the mother of that story is actually Sister Halliday, who works in the North Dakota Bismarck mission office! How insane is that! SO crazy!

I loved the emphasis this conference on mothers, and on new and old prophets, and on the holy ghost and striving to 'use' that gift of the spirit that we all receive after baptism. I LOVE CONFERENCE!!!

We are ponderizing 1 Nephi 15:11 this week. What scripture are you ponderizing?

Until next week!

74 - Signs of the Good Times

Sister Lewis's hair change!!!

Two weeks in one! Let's jump right into it.

From full poof, to halfway straightened, to straight, to cut, to the request of having it halfway braided by Tanya Azonto. 

She can now feel the breeze on her scalp for the first time in a long while!

While she was getting her hair done, I basically the whole time bottle feed the baby that Tanya was watching while he sat in his car seat.

 And she was watching the cutest little not-even-two-year-old girl! She loved to dance to the music on the T.V.!

Tanya was watching a lot of kids. As per usual. She hasn't been coming to church lately... I hope she gains a testimony soon and stops listening everyone else who isn't a member of the church.

And Bruce, he doesn't have a job anymore. His job pouring concrete has ended, as it's only a seasonal job, and he's right back to his unreasonable expectations of the church giving him a job. Oh no, he's not going to revert back to this without me setting him boldly straight. But he still doesn't understand, no matter how clear and bold you are. So there's that. All we can really do is pray that things will work out.

So, updates on the people that we have already been working with.

We saw Charity and Orlando last week a couple times. They are really in a position where we are relying lots on the Holy Ghost to let us know what to teach them. Every time we've brought something up about the need to stop smoking they agree that it's something they want and they talk about quitting, but it never actually happens. 

As I was thinking, I realized we hadn't talked about family in awhile, and that's something they really gravitate towards. So we read The Family Proclamation together. It was a good lesson, but something still seemed a little off with them, especially at the end, a little bit of unintentional contention between them dampened the spirit. We committed them to if they haven't already, start reading from the Book of Mormon.

We thought about the next lesson we would share. Sister Lewis came up having a lesson on the ten virgins. She even had a clay little lamp with a string wick that we could use as a visual. 

When we got to the lesson, Orlando and Charity were just coming home from spending the evening together by the Missouri river, their feet all muddy, especially Charity's and with collected driftwood in the back of their jeep. Good night of just fun we figured.

We ride up the elevator together and we start the lesson, and they expressed to us that the reason they were actually down at the river was for the intent of reading their scriptures! They wanted to made it an event, combining it with one of their favorite things - nature - so that it wouldn't feel like a chore or assignment as scripture reading often can. And Charity remembered that I loved the book of Alma, which was flattering, so she opened up to Alma and found Chapter Five, one of the greatest chapters ever, and thought it was beautiful!

She also had a profound experience. Her head was really hurting on the way down to the river. A debilitating migraine was coming on. She asked Orlando to pray over her, that she had faith that he could stop the pain. He put his hands on the sides of her head and began to pray and her pain in her head subsided. She truly had an experience of the healing power of the priesthood, we pointed out to them. (Orlando is a member and is ordained a Priest. He just hasn't been active in church in his young adult years.)

Our lesson on the ten virgins went well. There wasn't contention this time. And Sister Lewis even felt inspired to give them the lamp that she had as a reminder to continue to fill their lamps with oil. I was so touched and proud of them for making it a point the read their scriptures that as I expressed my pride in them, Charity said, "aw, you have tears in your eyes." And indeed I did.

When I hugged Charity at the end of the lesson, the tears flowed, "I'm just so proud of you!"

"Aw, you're going to make me cry!"

It was a great moment. They promised they would be at church. But. They weren't. Charity wants to progress. But Orlando... we feel he's afraid. He knows that he needs to step up to the plate and get his act together and he's just afraid to do it. That's why it's so up and down with them. One day, he'll come to his full senses and humble himself and start being fully active again.

Vaasa! Our Russian investigator. There is a member who I will call Brother Brown. The browns are the members who live in Lukenbill who had all the Africans over for dinner and are ward missionaries (Brother Brown is the assistant ward mission leader) and Brother Brown is African and Sister Brown is White, so their kids are brown! Hence the name I give them.

Anyway, Brother Brown can speak Russian! So cool! So he has been a great fellowshipper. And we finally recived the Russian Book of Mormon from the mission office, so we gave that to Vaasa and he has read the first twenty chapters! We had a lesson with Vaasa that we asked him all the baptismal questions. He was doin good, though showed a little hesitation when we explained about no tea and coffee, but when we asked the last question, 'are you ready to make the commitment to be baptized, his concerns gushed out of him, that he felt like it was all about baptism and that we have so many rules and he doesn't understand why this is the only true church. Sister Lewis opened her mouth and everything that she said was full of the Holy Ghost. It was full of comfort and love and neither of us knew how she did it, but the room was just filled with love as opposed to the concern that filled it before. Sister Lewis doesn't cry often, and she was moved to tears as we drove home. It was really something.

I haven't talked about this investigator yet, but we have worked with her before. 

I will call her Kristen, because she has a lot of crosses in her house. 

She collects them. 

She is the mother of a recent convert of a little over a year who is super active and awesome and comes out with us all the time. 

And has a guinea pig.

We just haven't really known how to help Kristen, so we've been doing service for her, cleaning her house... and playing with the cute kittens. It's been good for her.

We saw Michelle again in Grenora, and her two step sons! Love those kids. Taught them the plan of salvation and they loved it.

We went and saw Korwa, who is now back from her week and a half trip to Utah with her husband, and we hadn't had dinner yet when we saw her and neither had she, so we all cooked dinner together!

And I got pictures of all her gorgeous Cambodian pictures on the wall which I've been wanting the excuse to capture for a long time!

Speaking of meals...

I forgot to mention last week that we ate with Brother Jolly again!

Doesn't that steak and red snapper on top of dirty rice look like it belongs in a cook book?

Grizzly shaved lol so he's not as grizzlyish anymore, but that's ok. He has been helping out Elias a lot with finding a job! But Grizzly is also super paranoid about whether Elias is legal or not. So silly. And it more seems like Elias is his 'project.' But, yeah. And Grizzly's fed us a lot lately, gluten free hamburgers and pizza! But he's also gotten super defensive since we had the Law of Chasity lesson. He is justifying porn as 'self medication' because of his past. Which is not cool. And just yeah. He's justifying a lot. But now he's off in Dickinson going to trucking school. Hope he does well.

Elias has been frustrating too. Awesome, but frustrating. We couldn't get a hold of him for the longest time! And then, miracles happened and we were able to see bishop for a brief second and know what time he is free and then we finally saw Elias and he was free too and we were like, "Ok! You are having your worthiness interview for the priesthood in an hour!" And on Sunday he received the priesthood from Brother Witt! Yay! He's been awesome coming to lessons with us. But he's also been really unreasonably needy with rides and blah blah blah and that's been frustrating.

New investigator time!

We have five new investigators as of this past two weeks! Wow! That's the most we've found ever since Sister Lewis and I became companions! Heavenly Father is really blessing us. Four of them are African, Three are specifically from Liberia. 

The one who's not from Liberia I will call Zazu.

One of the Liberians is super prepared because he was going to the church and meeting with the missionaries in Australia, but didn't have the chance to get baptized before he came here, so we will surely see him baptized before we leave the mission field! He has crazy facial hair, so I will call him Jaffar. He actually lived in Phoenix, Arizona for two years before he moved here!

The other two Liberians are both named Precious and they both live on the same floor, and we met them both at the Azonto's, who also live on the same floor! 

And the other investigator is deaf! I will call her Memory, because she has distant memories of a babysitter singing her a melody about the ocean and her mom having a conversation with the neighbor outside as she cried before she went completely deaf at age 3 due to contracting meningitis. Memory is the mother of a less active who lives in Grenora, who we actually first met right before we went a few weeks ago the second time we went to Grenora. I will call this less active family the Far family. We met her briefly before our lesson with Michelle, but we had our lesson with Michelle in like, five minutes from us knocking on the door! I was so bummed, I wanted to talk with her more--she was deaf! I felt such a connection to her and was so sad she lived all the way in Grenora.

Well. Something SUPER COOL. There are two less active families who know the church is true and they both lived in Grenora so it was hard to make it to church. One family is Memory's daughter's family and the other family just moved here to Williston! I will call them the Far family and the Near family respectively. Both of the families have kids that are baptism age or almost to age eight and they both wanted to have their kids take the lessons, and the Far family is willing to drive down on the weekends to receive the lessons! And being as I know sign language, they bring Memory down too! Sister Lewis teaches the many kids while I interpret for Memory! We had our first lesson and dinner last Saturday and we are going to teach all the lessons over the span of all the Saturdays till the end of the transfer! It's an amazing experience! 

And we've talked to people in the ward, and we can have the resources available (people who know a little and have degrees in deaf communications and people who have a desire to learn from scratch) an interpreter or two trained to translate church for her for when I'm gone! Heavenly Father loves all of His children so much!

And last thing to talk about because it's all I have time for. This Sunday was AWESOME! We gave our final testimonies in sacrament meeting, seeing as for both of us it's our last fast Sunday as missionaries. Zazu also bore his testimony (first time at church)! 

And a less active family came, a family who we've taught a couple times and they've fed us once and Sister Nelson, I'll call her, would tell us outright that they had no excuse for not coming to church. We call them to repentance to no avail. They never came to church though they said all the time they would. We knew it had to be from the members that they would start coming to church again. We sent her visiting teacher on a mission. It worked.

The Nelson kids for some reason just adore us, the sisters, or well, me since I'm the only one they know. I'm excited to see two of the young boys were getting up (I think because they saw us get up partly). One of them just talked about pumpkins and how they had fun and the pumpkin patch and how he is thankful that God let him have fun. And then! Sister Nelson got up and bore her testimony, saying that it was her second time ever bearing her testimony in church and that Heavenly Father has placed all the members of the ward in her life this past week and it was an undeniable sign to her and they will make an increased effort to be much better at coming to church! YAY! It was amazing!

And when Zazu was in gospel principles sitting next to us, he made a comment, "It feels like there is a bubbling volcano inside of me. I leaned over and explained, "that burning feeling is the spirit. Hymn number two. The spirit of God like a fire is burning." "Yes. Thank you God." He was amazed at church. He has been to many churches, but never has felt the spirit like this.

As for how I am personally, I'm definitely mentally preparing to go home for better or worse. I'm trying to still stay consecrated, but I do find myself singing per say, the opening line to Lion king when I see the sun looking cool when I resisted the urge before. It's just little things like that. So I know it's not 'good' but I don't think it's bad, idk. That's where I'm at. I'm glad that we are companions for our last transfer of our missions to support each other. 

So that's all for this entry! Until next week!