So ya not too much this week. Just keepin busy. We should have some baptisms coming up after I get done doing audits in Zambia. Then going to Bulawayo. Then also doing mission tour with the President for Zone conference. I'll be going back to Zambia and then to Malawi for that. And that's about the second week in March I think. We have to figure it all out that's why it's all crazy. But a lot of people are doing really well.
Also I wanted to share with everyone the most powerful shirt I've ever seen. I got it actually from one my best friends who's on mission right now In Richmond VA. A mister Elder Lowry. I still don't know how this kid draws these things. But I thought it was sweet. So that's what the pictures are. Oh and the gangsta ones are what happens when black people get a hold of you. The want to make you a baller or somethin. It was done by an Elder who was going home a couple of weeks ago. When they were in our house.
Also we found out this week that we finally found a replacement couple for the office. But they won't be here till the end of March so I'll still be doing financial stuff till then and be just as busy as all get out till then still.
But I'll take more pictures of some things here and show you what the country is like.
Bye for now.
~Elder Vanderlinden

Slashin Grass‏

So this morning for half our P day we went and did service. In the form of slashing grass. Lawnmowers are hard to come by here. But also they prefer slashin grass because it's cheaper and doesn't take petrol. But takes much longer. But there is a roundabout in front of our chapel and it had like 5 foot high grass and weeds and it was hard to see cars and things. So we decided to have an Elders Quorum service project and slash the grass. It took about 8 of us 3 hours to slash it. How you do it is basically with a sword with a bent end and you just whack at it for a while. Lots of blisters and sore chest/arms/hands/fingers. But it looks nice now.
So every Sunday we have an investigators class at the chapel. It was completely full this past week. We barely had any room to come in. There were like 20 people in there. We don't even have time to teach all the people that want to learn. They just keep coming. Our area is really just exploding. But the people we are teaching ish they are powerful! William Gondo is sweet. That dude is so intelligent. And it's nice we don't have to simplify our language we can just talk. But that dude just gets it. He works for the government. But we left him a BOM last time we met with him and we asked him if he was reading last night. And he's like ya, I'm in 1 Nephi......15 now. We were like whoa! And asked what he learns and he goes into Lehi's vision and goes into the part where Nephi explains it. His favorite verse was the one with the rod of iron being the word of god. And he said it really just jumped out at him. Many other cool things we talked about in that lesson but he was like referencing it to some parts in Revelations and stuff. Ah but he just gets it. He says so many cool things like "I feel as if I already knew this and I was just kinda remembering it." We're giving him a baptismal date here soon for sure. We're also teaching Amos. He stays with a member. He's a tenant there. And she is a powerful member. She gives us so many referrals and people just keep coming for lessons. She's going to fill up a whole bus with people to come to church on Sunday or something I swear. But Amos is cool. He came to help slash grass this morning with us. Dean is sweet he keeps telling us I want to learn it all. I want to learn fast and things like that. We're still working with Brother and Sister Maponga. He likes the TV Joshua too much. And we're still waiting for him to kinda calm down. We're teaching a few others but aren't too far along with them yet. We have way too many people to teach.
But other than that. Pretty much flyin solo in the office now. It's kinda ruff because there is alot of things I don't know how to do but have to just figure them out.
Also I decided that my companion is how I would imagine my brother in law Blaine would be on mission. I swear he acts just like him. And would have the same type of humor and so forth. It's not a bad thing or anything, I just think it's so funny.
But I think that's all for this week right now. I'll let you guys know how things are progressing.
Oh also. I found out that 4 of the people I was suppose to baptize in Lilanda got baptized last Sunday!!! I was so stoked when I heard. I was also sad I wasn't there for it. Because I worked with those people from the start. And I was suppose to baptize them if I wasn't emergency transferred early. But I'm gonna go visit them when I'm back up in Zambia in a couple of weeks. But that's 4 to my list of Baptisms already. That's kinda weird to think.
But I'll talk to you all next week.
See ya.
~Elder JV

The Mission Office‏

So My LDS Mail just changed over their system to google mail. POWERFUL! Because google is awesome. So it's sweet. But it gave me a new email address now. It's jordan.vander.linden@myldsmail.net Don't ask me why it's that. It chooses it for you. But it's sweet. I find it funny that the church even uses google apps. Some of you should be familiar with that. But that's what they use now. So you can now email me on that now.

The office is crazy! There's alot of things you don't think you'd ever do on a mission. You find you do alot of them. For me it's becoming the senior financial secretary for the mission and being in charge of all the money on the mission. People will ask what did you do on you mission and I can say I was an accountant for a while. Don't think I'll take that path but I've done it.

Also on mission you learn there is so much to this gospel and this church and you will learn so much! So many things you think you know and then they can just change. And you realize you only knew a small portion of it. One example is the atonement. The atonement is just huge! Like really huge! There have been so many new things that I have learned and gained a great testimony of.

Also in a new area, Mbare. It's sweet. We're having to start from scratch though and build our teaching pool. So besides being in the office we are out teaching. And we are busy! There aren't enough hours in the day. But we have some investigators now.

The first is Noel Maponga and his wife. Noel actually just came to church on sunday. So we sat with him and helped him out and have seen him a couple of times. He kinda has a pentacostal attitude towards everything. Man that guy can talk ish. And the whole time when you are teaching every 2 seconds, this isn't a joke. "It's true..., it's true...., Exactly..." Just over and over. It's kinda a distraction. But he understands. We ask him a question to make sure he's getting what we're saying and he gets it. But he just eat everything up and just believes everything. Like I fear I could say something bad and he'd believe it. But I guess it's good we're teaching him. He knows and says there is something different about our church and that's what drew him to it.

Also we have Dean. Cool story about Dean. We had an appointment drop and we we're trying to see what we could do. So we decided to talk to this member in our area. Her name is Sister Macheke. Originally we were going to go somewhere else but my comp said we should go see her. So we went and saw her and she said that just today she was talking with a guy who's really good friends with her. And kinda like another son to her. And he was asking her about the church and was telling him that the missionaries could come see him. So we show up and she takes us to him. And we start teaching him. And he's real excited to learn. He keeps telling us I want to learn as fast as possible. But he asks good questions and has a real desire to change his life. It's powerful. So I'm excited. The people here just want to know the gospel!

But ya. Lots to do here and we don't have enough time. We're busy from 6 in the morning till 9 at night. But then again it's also transfer time so maybe it'll cool down next week. But I also have to go up to Zambia on the 21st to do some audits of a district and some branches. Weird.... But ya more on that in the weeks to come. But that's all for now.

~Elder JV

Emailing on saturday... Big news‏

So ya I'm not in Zambia anymore. I'm back in Harare. Which kinda sucks but is also really powerful. I got emergency transfered here on thursday. I got a call from Pres. Dube on Tuesday morning right after we woke up and he told me. The reason is because we have a couple here in the office that for medical reasons need to go back to the states. And they are the ones that pretty much run the office.
Because of that I have a new companion now. His name is Elder Baird. He's pretty sweet, he's from Idaho Falls. He's only got 3 months left on mission. But he's going to handle the front office and getting people here in the mission VISA's and TEP's. And as for me I've been called to be the financial secretary for the mission. So basically I've become an accountant. All the money that goes through the mission goes through me and I have to approve everything. Any money used in the mission I give out. And everything is done in cash. Lots of cash! It's crazy! But it's making me kinda nervous but it's also a big compliment because that is a HUGE responsibility. And it really shows the trust they have for me. And I've only been out in the field 4 1/2 weeks. They pulled me out of my first xfer to come do this.
We now stay in the transfer house. The transfer house is powerful, we stay there with the Harare North Zone leaders and the APs. The AP's are excited to finally have someone to share a p day with. Also the xfer house has a WASHING MACHINE!!!!! And hot water! Yay for washing machine and hot showers again!!!!!!! You don't know how powerful it is! But mission is really powerful! Oh Elder Baird also has a waffle maker! I'll take a picture next time and show you. It's amazing how small things like that become a big deal.
So we drive a Toyota Hilux now. It's actually really nice. It's kinda like a Tacoma if it was diesel, 4 door and slightly bigger. Oh and you're not a DB if you drive one. They have alot of them here. Today's my day to drive we just got it yesterday. So we'll see how I do on the wrong side....
So we are going to be dang busy. We're going to be in the office all day and then after 5 we will go out and teach. We'll be in an area called Mbare. We met with the Bishop last night and he is really excited to have us there. They haven't had dedicated missionaries in that area for like 6 years. Even when we went and saw him last night he gave us 6 referals of people who just showed up at church on sunday. So needless to say we are going to have no time. We'll be teaching lessons all night every night. That area is going to be powerful. I'm really excited. These next few months are going to be really hectic and really fun. Because mission is really powerful and is fun. You do alot of cool things.
I'm sad I had to leave Lilanda early. We had some baptisms on the 7th coming up that I'm going to miss but it'll be good. That area will be taken care of.
But ya we'll have to see what happens here in the next week. Oh ya, we think we're going to start a new hit TV series it's going to be called The Mission Office. It'll be just like The Office but like 50 times more spiritual and just as funny. Because we have so many characters here haha XD anyways we thought that was funny here. But that's all I have for now. I emailed on Monday so that's what's happened in 5 days. Talk to you all next week.
~Elder JV

Pictures Finally‏

PYTHON!



Chameleons are cool


That's alot of crocs!


Rawr!

Trampolines at the reptile park?




Lilanda Meeting house

Ward Missionaries




Me, my comp (Elder Chiona), Bro Mwila, Bro Geoffrey, Bro Daniel

Flooded road everywhere





Most snow Zambia will ever see

Floods and other things‏

Just a little note: the audio Jordan is talking about he sent in his previous letter, but since I am not the technical genious he is I cannot figure out how to upload it to this blog. I am still working on it, but if you really want to hear it leave a comment with your e-mail address and I will forward it to you...Camee.

So this week since it's the rainy season it's continued to rain and flood and it halts our work. I have a photo of the flooded road but the computer I'm on isn't recognizing my camera so we'll try later. But it's been fun here. So to start out here random stuff as usual. Scaffolding here is the most sketchy thing I've ever seen. Like the things they use when they are building buildings. It's made out of logs. And not straight ones. I'll try to get a photo. But also I can't use big words here. I'm still searching for my teaching voice where I have to talk real slow and use the most basic english you can think of. So hopefully you liked the audio I sent. You can see how I struggle to understand people. I can get most of what they're saying but alot of the time I can't and they can't understand me. But it's all good it'll come. But the work is getting better here. I'm starting to understand my area and am looking up when riding instead of looking right in front of me on my bike so I don't crash and die from the jacked up roads. But as for our investigators most are doing pretty well. Feb 7th is going to be a powerful day. One of our investigators, Lawrence, had some friends say some bad things about our church to him. And so he didn't come to church yesterday. Ugh that made me so mad. I'm gonna talk to him today and give him some inspiration. And give those friends of his a spiritual roundhouse kick to the face if not a real one for bringing someone down like that. He was doing so well and was super stoked. But I heard that's what happens on mission. So one other thing I want to share is about the Ensign. It's powerful, I've found myself reading those alot. This months is really powerful. Especially the talk by Jeffrey R Holland. If you haven't read it go do so! But I don't know really what else to talk about other than I think I got malaria yesterday I had all the symptoms but when I woke up today I was ok. Not much got done yesterday because of it though. Malaria sucks, and so does doxy. The side effects are terrible. So you have to choose. Malaria or Doxy. I'm not sure which is worse at this point. But for those who didn't know, yes I have a bed. The mattress is pretty much just a foam cube and that's about it. It's not comfortable btw XD But anyways we'll try pictures here in a little on another computer but that's it for now. Talk to you all next week. ~Elder JV

This week in Africa‏

So just a bunch of random stuff I was going to write last week but forgot... So I guess when you are on the other side of the world some things have to be backwards, like light switches. Down is on and up is off. When you sweat here it's gross you get sticky. And you sweat alot. The African's love japri's (jean capris) Sorry Adam... Yay Alex and regan /flex. I don't remember if I talked about bucket showers. But they suck. If we don't have water we have to get cold water we have stored in the bath tub and take a bucket and a your stuff and go do it using that. And it's cold and not very effective. Oh and women have mustaches and beards here. And chest hair. I seriously saw one with it. Oh and the people here like the asians don't pronounce their 'L's and use 'R's instead. Like herro. But there have been alot of things I've gained a testimony of while I've been here. Like dishwashers, running water, hot water (which we got for the first time this week woo! but only worked once so far :( ), and washing machines especially. I hate hand washing clothes. It takes forever and doesn't do nearly as good of a job. But that's what happens. So anyways now that I got that out of the way we'll get to the serious stuff. Prayer, I've learned more about praying and have gained a serious testimony of it and know it works! Before I came out here I sucked at praying. But now I ask for everything in there, because you can. And you should. Pray often, it helps. The next is patriarchal blessings. They are powerful. I've noticed 3 new things in mine this week that I didn't notice before or instead have a new meaning. So if you have yours reread it. If you don't have it, go get it. So I've found that I come to Africa and I still have to do what I did before I came out here. Which is computer repair. I've had several occassions on which I've had to use that. Our senior couple missionaries here needed their comp fixed and fed us for doing it. So it was worth it! :D And then the district comps out here need some fixing so they'll probably have me doing that as well. So this week we had Zone and District Conference and we had a general Authority with us. It was Elder Renlund. He spoke in this last General Conference when he was called to be a member of the 70. It was powerful. We heard alot from him this weekend. He talked alot from Section 84. One part I'll share is in verse 77. Where we are commanded to be a friend with God and Jesus. And If you are a real friend you would do anything for that friend. He did for you. So you should do it! And that's the short version of it. So investigators. We have 6 progressing investigators, and all of them came to conference. We have David Lengwe, he's powerful and does his commitments. We haven't been able to see him much recently because of his work and he's been traveling so we have to push his baptism back. We have Sis. Mercy. Her husband is a member but he's been less active. But we've been reactivating him and they've been at church since then. She finally got the desire to be baptized after we had this powerful lesson with them. But we can't baptize her yet because she's pregnant and is close. So we have to wait. Jacob and Christoph are 2 boys that just moved back. They were in another area and were being taught by the sister missionaries. And they have a friend named Lawrence who came with them and is really interested. And we have a bap date for them on the 7th! Then we have Sis Ennie. She's been coming to church for a while. She's almost 13 and has been coming with her sister, but never was baptized. So we're going to baptize her at the same time. So that's all the ones we have right now that are really progressing. So hopefully we'll have 4 baptisms on the 7th. It will be powerful! Well my camera is being a downy right now and is freaking out the computer. So if I can get it working I will upload pics but we'll see. But that's all for now. Talk to you all later!
~Elder JV

Rain, Hot, Roads and more‏

Ya I know the title is wacky but it's been a crazy week! It's rained probably everyday. And it's been feeling nice. I think it feels fantastic but everyone here thinks it's cold. On Saturday we were at a members house that was the furthest part of our area and we had to ride home close to dark and the roads....well....they're not roads anymore. Them be rivers. So it was an adventure to say the least. The roads here in Zambia are horrible. There are pot holes everywhere and most of them are half dirt or mostly dirt. And they are bumpy really bumpy...my butt has been taking a beating from it. That's one thing I wasn't prepared for. But also don't know if it was a good or bad thing that I wasn't.... ha! That's right I made a gay joke on my mission. I'll repent for that but anyways. You know those commercials you use to see on TV "For just $5 a month you could sponsor a child in Africa" Ya that's my area. That's me. You could support a missionary in Africa and send me some stuff haha! But either way. It's called compound. That's what the neighborhoods are. They're compound. Small little houses squished together. It is green here in some places. But people have small crops they grow. Our church house is a house that is enclosed in a brick wall. Places here that have nice things are enclosed in a brick wall. Our Flat has a brick wall with a big black metal gate. And an electric fence on top. Oh and at night the landlord lets out dogs. So we're pretty safe in our flat. But for those who have questions about it. It's decent. Has lots of bugs. We have a fridge. We mostly cook rice and meat on the stove for dinner. And it's cereal for breakfast. And a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. Our water only works in the morning and trickles out. Unless we turn on the pump. And if we do that we can't touch the shower knobs cuz it will shock us because it's wired weird :S don't ask...
So my Comp is Elder Chiona. He's from Zimbabwe. And he has Narcolepsy (spelt right?) Like not even joking. That's dead serious. If he's not doing something he will fall asleep. On our first comby ride I was scared we were going to miss our stop cuz he kept falling asleep in it. I don't know how it's bouncing every which way.
So last P day we played soccer at this park and it was so hot my feet were being burned through my shoes. Also not a joke...This P day we went to the reptile park for our Zone activity where they have snakes. Chameleons, crocodiles, tortises, and a trampoline. Ya I know it's random but it was awesome. It was a first for a bunch of the Africans. But they had some big Crocs there and we threw a stick and got one to chomp it. It was awesome.
So Zambia is not all fun. Zambia is hard and it sucks. The people here aren't as humble as they are in Zim. The work is much harder here. But yesterday was a powerful day. We taught this one lady a powerful leason where the spirit was so strong. Her husband is a member but was less active. But we'vebeen activating him. She's been struggling with baptism and finally got her to have a desire last night. That and contacting yesterday. I hate contacting. It's where you just stop people and invite them to church and share a short message. It's kinda like tracting. But we ran into these boys playing chess and just watched them for a little bit and contacted the people around them. Then we got them interested and taught them a little and set up an appointment. One of them said he had been searching for a church, and wanted to know if he could be an elder and go on mission and spread the gospel. It was powerful!
So there are 4 smells in Zambia. And none of them are pleasant. They are rotten food (because of trash heaps), poop, Chibuku (Which is nasty chunky alcohol, and they drink it like there is no tomorrow and there is cartons everywhere), and fire smoke. When it rains it enhances the rotten smell because there is trash everywhere. They burn their trash and cook with fire. And burning Trash is horrible. Poop, I don't know why. And Chibuku, it's in 1 liter milk cartons. All their beer is mostly. And it's nasty.
So culture shock. There is nothing that ruins the spirit more in a lesson than when you are teaching a lesson and the baby starts crying and the mom whips it out right there. They don't cover. And they do it in public. It's seriously eyes right on your book of mormon. That's the norm here. I don't agree with it, but that's what they do.
So I had all my things that I was going to talk about in my planner but I forgot that cuz we were rushing out this morning so I probably forgot some things. But I'll send more next week. But this ones getting long now anywaysso I'll send more next week.
Bye for now.
~Elder JV