About 50% of the numbers we were given were not correct or the people did not live in Lusaka. But of the rest of those who were contacted, between 20-30% were interested and are being taught by the missionaries. It was a lot of work for our missionaries both during the mall time and in the follow-up time, but it looks like it will be successful in getting the name of the church out there and in finding investigators to teach. It's a bit early to see if there are any baptisms from it, but we are hoping!
Elder Alexander (above)Elder Ssengooba and Elder Olsen (below) at the Mall. One evening we were working late at the office (just like most evenings) and here comes President and Sister Kupu and the Assistants, Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders to sing us Christmas carols. It was so nice!
Elder Alexander, Sister Newey and Sister Kinikini. Right before Christmas we got a box for Elder Bennett who had been home since early November. Those of us in the office enjoyed the snacks sent by his mom. That happened several times. Elder Sagers (who went home in July) got a very nice family favorite scripture book from his mom that was for 2015! Oh well,..
The Primary children did the nativity again for Primary as well as for the Christmas program. This year Mary was played by Anastasia and Joseph was Marcus.
And three wisemen were even there soon afterward. Wisemen are Joseph, Helen and Mary.
On December 24 (Alan's birthday) we had a big stake baptism at the mission office and the baptisms were conducted in the mission swimming pool. The missionaries formed a choir and, under the direction of Elder Ssengooba, all the sisters had matching dresses and the elders had a matching tie. He is quite the event organizer and, in fact, did that for his job before the mission. He doesn't do ANYTHING small. I think his philosophy is "If it's not worth doing BIG, then it's not worth doing!"
This is me with Olivia, one of my piano students. She also got baptized that day. Her dad is President Blessings Mushala, the man who so capably serves as a counselor in the stake presidency as well as our agent with immigration. It's a great family. And here's the missionary choir!
We had a really great turn out. We planned on about 200 and had rented that many chairs. When they were delivered, Elder Ssengooba added another 50 chairs to the order and we still ran out of chairs and people had to stand. So we think there were probably close to 300 people there. We definitely did not have enough cookies for everyone to have more than one. Many people really wanted to try one of each kind and were not particularly happy when we had to limit it to one.
So, here are the ones being baptized. Those watching were lined up on both balconies upstairs and pretty much filled the parking area of the office.
So here are the missionaries, those who were baptized and some of the priesthoood holders in the stake. It really turned out very nice. Again, a lot of work, but definitely worth it. Alan was taking pictures (no surprise there) so was not in any of them!
Sisters Groesbeck, Kinikini, Marriott, Ntwe, Rice, Motseko, Newey and Salmon.
The next few rows are those who were baptized.
Elders Ssengooba, Alexander, Olsen, Gova, Merrill, Maele, Lesu, Mani, Kennedy, Day, Salyards and Salmon.
We did have a birthday party with cake and ice cream for him with the missionaries after the baptism. We didn't get any pictures of that though!
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