Halthom City Blues

Halthom City Blues:

For the greater part of this week we struggled with finding people to use a scriptural comparison: 

 "11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of [Africans]: 

12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the [Africans], and shall not find [them]."

-Amos 8:11-12

Despite the intermittent rain and (mercifully) cooler weather we grit our teeth and started knocking on every door we knew had Africans and every door around them. All down in a little place called Halthom City

It was a Friday and for the past 2 weeks we had found no one, we were desperately trying to find someone anyone we could teach, we met a lot of cool English speakers but not one African. We would teach a tree if it spoke French. 

We knocked on the door of a lady we had knocked about a thousand times like, I tried knocking on it my first day in the area but she wouldn't open the door. Her husband was less active but recently got into some trouble and landed himself back in Kinshasa. For the first time in 7 months the door opened and out came this lady. Could this be the miracle we had been waiting for? Would she be the one to teach? For countless hours we had prayed for someone to be ready to hear the message of the Restoration hope filled our eyes and hearts and then  before their eyes she told us to leave. 

We left a little disappointed that Heavenly Father hadn't answered our prayer. We knocked on one more door but no one answered. The sky was starting to drizzle and we were hungry and about ready to turn towards home. As we started though we saw a couple of African kids and decided to go knock in their general area. 

The first door we knocked on we were hurried in. The guys name was John inside was another older woman who turned out to be his sister. Her name was Zueni. Zueni made fun of us at first because she thought we were temoin jéhovah but after we explained our message and prayed tears welled up in her eyes. Zueni didn't speak French or English mostly Swahili sp we taught and then John would translate. We started and at first I was a little sp00ked because the house smelled like gas. I also thought they were going to kick us out because we implied the doctrine of the trinity was false (it's happened). But all those fears were soon put to rest though.  We spent a long time talking about the Atonement and it was super spiritual. We finished with the Restoration and it was just so amazing. They shared some super personal thoughts that I can't share here (sorry) but it was awesome. 

We invited them to church and they said they had plans this week but said they'd come next week for sure. John had a lot of controversial and tough questions but the Lord blessed our tongues and the Spirit confirmed in his heart our words were true.

Fast-forward to the end of Sacrament meeting ⏩

I turned around and all the way in the back we saw them. They said around 9:00 Zueni felt this unshakable feeling like she needed to come. In Sunday school she shared even more personal stuff about how her old church forgot about her when her son died and she got sick and how she thought we were a crazy cult but after we prayer in the name of Christ she felt good with something about us. 

It was awesome.

Je vous aime,

Elder Murdoch

1: "Hey sir with Yesu, let's snap a pic"

2: Mountain? Haha where?

3: me with dinner (IM KIDDING)

4: These kids were doing g some sick backflips right after we talked to them and their parents