Elder Chipman's Adventures in Africa: Week 6 - Ngwane Park A

What is up to my people around the world?? It sounds like everyone had a great week full of hikes, vacays and snowcones. Quick shout outs; Happy Birthday to Heidi! Happy 1-year anniversary to Brody and Annie on Saturday! It is crazy how fast time has gone, it feels like last week we were all partying to Bell Biv Devoe's poison at the Capital on yall's wedding night hahah.

This week was a pretty good week to end a really great first transfer in Swazi and with Elder Souza. The news has already been sent out and we will be staying together in Ngwane Park A for a second transfer. Which I am pumped for cause Swazi is about to blow this transfer! And our zone is all really close and so it has and will continue on being a great time.

Highlights of the week; We had district conference this past week. President and Sister Koch were in Swaziland for the weekend with the AP's and the missionaries that were leaving. It worked out good cause I got to say one last goodbye to my dude Elder Openshaw who is dipping! For district conference we had Elder Khumbulani Mdletshe from the Seventy and his wife as well. It was great weekend full of great trainings, talks and experiences.

On Thursday, I went on a division with Elder Payne in his area and it was super fun to work with him. Elder Souza was able to hold his own in our area with Elder Baker. I swear that divisions bring miracles in missionary work. Elder Souza and Elder Baker were able to find and teach some great families. They taught the Tsabedze family and set a baptism date for them and their oldest daughter on the 20th of August. They also taught a woman that we found knocking doors, whose family is all members, and set a date with her as well for the 20th. It just happens that she is really good friends with our Branch President, Elders Quorum President and recent convert, Nkhosingiphile... so like the Lord is preparing people Also a tender mercy from yesterday a drunk guy giving us a 1 liter of coke cause we, in his words, "have the good word" haha deciding if we should contact him or not he disappeared into the darkness of Mobene Flats singing Gospel Music.

President Koch shared a story during the Saturday session of district conference that I would like to share really quick: So there once was a very rich master, that over many of years had earned a fortune. This master had a servant that had been faithful to him for over 30 years. One day the master turned to his servant and told that he wanted to build a mansion for his best friend. He told the servant to use all the money that he needed to buy the top class materials and top class workers. A little envious of this "best friend" of the master and him thinking, "Hey I have been faithful for 30+ years to this master why doesn’t he give me a mansion?" So the servant went out and instead of buying the top class materials he bought 2nd or 3rd class, that still looked good but would not last very long. And instead of hiring top class workers, he hired cheap workers that could make that house look nice but not be very good. Then after all the building was done and the mansion that looked good was finished, the servant returned to his master to give him the key. When the master was given the key he instantly gave it right back to the servant and said, "The mansion is yours, thank you for your faithful service and thank you for being a great friend."

I did my best to retell the story as well as President Koch but probably failed because he is incredible but I love the morale of the story and how it applies to the gospel and our lives. We are blessed by our Lord, our Master, with the work and service that we put in. If we do not do all that we can that the Lord has asked us to do, we cannot expect all the blessings that He has promised us. Just like Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino said, "Yeah you got some silverware, but really are you eating though? Are you eating though? Breakfast, lunch and dinner is for beginners, you ain’t even know." A weird parallel but it’s true, we have been blessed with all of our strengths, and all of the tools we need to bless our lives and more importantly the lives of others. Are we doing all that we can? And what is so great is that because of Jesus Christ we can change if we are not and start doing so.

I love all of you guys and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Chipman

ps. Just remember that Friskers don’t make noise when they start up tho... (Another reference to Gambino) haha