Letter to Family Received 6/26/15

Dearest family,

I miss you all SOOO much!  Not a day goes by where I don’t think about each one of you!  Even you Allison!  Just last night I was thinking about having a “sister in law”.  I know it sounds funny but I just thought it was cool to have a sister in law.  So I wrote you all letters but I just wanted to still talk to you.  So I just thought writing everybody would be better.

So I guess I am sorry my spelling might be xing.  Enlish comes and goes these days but this day English goes bad.  So that is why! But really mom is the only one reading so just sorry Amyi!

So I just love my mission.  I am not going to lie but I am sure it is eaiser than most missions in some areas and harder in others.  For example I don’t work as long and I have many down times.  But the church is very new here and we have to show people how things are done.  we really only have about six or seven people doing their callings.  Six are returned missionaries.  we have four, almost six missionaries out now though which is like the best out of the whole mission.  One of our branches was WAY xing!  So that had to be cleaned up!  The branch president was stealing tithing money.  (Met him for the first time, drunk on the street, yesterday!  He “gave” sisters the priesthood and stuff like that.  So much work to do.

Well, a black pen now!  I got up to eat my chips (french fries) and salad (cut up tomatoes, avocados, cucumber and lime, salt/pepper and vinegar)  And now Black pen adrocoto (gone!) So back to blue.

Well, mission rocks!  Africa is the best place in the world!  I love it here!  The people are just wonderful!  Just the ohter day a man followed us and asked if he could go buy us stuff for lunch.  We gave him pongono money and he was back in about 2 minutes with 2 avocados and a lime.  I love people here!  Or my favorite, a man we contacted wanted to help us with our work so he ran around a bunch of houses and had people come out and listen to “the words of God.”  I totally felt like Jesus because we were sitting on a rock and people came out and we taught them!  Then he followed us most the afternoon and made sure everybody would come talk to us!  After all he asked for was a sweet! Ha Ha!  It was funny!  We bought him a couple!

People are wonderful!  Lately, I have been having a hard time with one thing though!  I hate having appointments at lunch time!  Too many people feed us!  I can’t go my whole mission eating 2-3 lunches a day!  I will be fat!  Some people are learning though!  They know the American has a weak stomach for fish and can’t eat kwambili (a bunch).  I LOVE Nsima though!  With rape or beans and chicken, also an egg boiled!

So life is treating me good!  The weather hates me though!  HOT, HOT, HOT, COLD, COLD!  We were joking about how confused God must be!  Malawians pray for rain until it comes and then pray for heat.  Then pray for rain again!

Well, not much to tell about funny stories!  Well here are some, just little things that I didn’t email about:

1.  A lady opens her gate with ONLY a see through shirt on…

2.  My comp stunk up the bathroom and the maid came in to clean and came right back out with a nasty face on!

3.  My comp and I play spiritual speed!  Loser has to contact!  Sister Griffus contacts a lot!

4.  Once this happened the circled people are publicly breast feeding!  This i in gospel principles!  It’s funny to see the Elders literally looking at the ceiling.  (She enclosed a diagram.)

5.  This Elder named Ngandebonka heard me whistling!  And he asked totally serious. (This guy is SHY! Never talks! He is from a country called Burundi.)  “What are you doing?”

“Whistling.”
“Stop it!  Don’t do that! Women don’t do that in my country.”

“Oh?”  I kept whistling.

“Iwe!” (you) “You do that at home?”

“Yeah.”

“In front of your abombo?”

“Yup!”

“Iwe!”

6.  We were going to our areas and my hair was on him and I didn’t see but finally he turns and “Iwe!  Your hair!  Shave it off!”

That kid!  HA!

KK Basi (stop) that be good!  Just so you know, I wrote that bad on purpose!  So, this is good!  I love you all! Be good!

Sister Neicia Marie Browning

PS.  I fall asleep so quick here now and I LOVE it!  Always so tired!  Never enough sleep!  (Except for when I was sick and slept for 3 days!)

Group Email 4/20/2015

Yo people, what up!? So this week was eventful!!! It is like the rainy season wanted to start all over again!! Wednesday I had interviews with President and that was good! I like that man!! He is sweet! Hey it’s raining… again!!! Which brings us to Thursday!! I was glad to have a full day to keep myself from thinking about home!! So we started off our day going to our district service!! It was like a Hike! You be breathing all hard!! And we had to jump a couple rivers and what not!! Well 1,000,000,000 years later we got there and we were told to start picking up rocks!! So we did! We get rocks! They were building a wall! So we were going, going, going! 2 1/2 hours later we were told “Basi.” Stop! So we did! So we were done! We ate some bananas and then got ready to leave! We decide to pray before we went! So we did! Then during the prayer the sky opened up and it started to pour!! Well, we were on a mountain and there was no way we could get down without being swept away so we waited! and waited! Then waited more!! We missed our time to work with President! We were supposed to go out and work with him and Sister Erickson! That wasn’t going to happen!! So I called them and I was yelling to try to talk to her! We were under a thin metal roof so you can imagine how loud it was! Well finally they understood!! Anyways our two hour service project was more like 4 1/2 hours!
It has yet to stop raining! everyday it POURS! For a while!! Friday was hard!! We couldn’t teach much because all our people live on hills! And we might as well just lay into the dirt/clay because that is where we would end up if we tried to climb!!!
We got a really interesting text this week! Evidently, in South Africa all the foreigners are being killed and so all the southern countries want to kill all the foreign South Africans! So all the South Africans in the mission now have to lie and say they are from either Zambia or Malawi! And the rest of us are supposed to be really careful! We have a bunch of new rules again and will probably end up having to go in super early again or just not allowed to go out and work! Its crazy up here in Africa man! 🙂 I am safe though! Don’t worry mother! I know that you will now! But hey South Africa is cray-cray! That is why sisters aren’t allowed there!
(Literally, I can’t here the people next to me because it is raining so bad! It’s toooo loud!!!)
Let’s see! Ummm at one of my recent converts houses I looked out the window and saw death! Actually I looked into the eyes of death a couple time this week! This time though there were many eyes!! Didn’t need to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to see huge spiders because I was living it!! Like 100.000,000,000 spiders all above me! Right outside her window!! Some as big as the palm of my hand and then one the size of my whole hand!! It was freaky!
I also almost stepped on a little bird!! Just a little baby! I saved it! Actually, it probably died because I had to touch it but I would rather it die this way! The Malawians would’ve just eaten it! So yeah…
Ummmmm lets see.  Oh here is a story!
Once upon a time two lone missionaries were hiking this long steep hill to go email their precious families! Everything seemed very normal for these two diligent servants of the Lord! Better then normal, for the sky was clear! The trees were green and luscious and the local people were out and about! Life was good!
The sisters saw a small boy and waved, greeting him in his native tongue! He looked back at them and then they saw a face of horror strike him. Wondering what brought this on they looked away! The tall white one saw it first! A black mamba had just come onto the road.
This wasn’t normal for the sisters to see! The mambas have their colony and they have theirs! This one was a brave little guy!
By this time the other companion saw the on coming predator! It only took her about .3 seconds to take off running in the opposite direction. Guess the companion ship rule “stay within sight and sound” doesn’t apply when a mamba is involved! The white one couldn’t move! Mixed thoughts were running in her head! “I knew I should’ve bought the machete. Cool a mamba. I want to take a picture. FREAK MAN a mamba! Glad I apply the atonement daily. Where is my companion!?” These thoughts were all to much and so she just stood there! All of a sudden something happened. A loud clunk and the snake was dead! There was a rock on it now.
It was enough to snap the missionary out of her trance! She looked and the small boy child had taken a large rock and with amazing aim killed my snake. Then he just shook his head and left me. Finally the short black missionary made her way back to her companion, claiming to have found her courage and was planning on grabbing me and running away again! I believe her!

I hope you all liked that! It was nice right?

That was my week!
Sista Browning out!

Pictures January 19, 2015

So much washed away because of their mud mortar and uncooked mud bricks. They couldn’t hold up under so much water.

Grey skies are going to clear up. Put on a happy face.

Sister Griffus

Neicia asked me, “Does the news say how many are lost!? That is the one I feel really bad about!! Not knowing if they are alive or dead! It’s not like they have the means to find the family!!! It was like “The Impossible.” I am sure that’s how many people felt trying to find their family members!!! It all happened in the middle of the night too! All of the sudden they were just being swept away in a river! Most the people that died are children and old people!”  The latest stats I’ve been able to find are 176 dead, 155 missing, 200,000 displaced.

She said the phrase pangono pangono means little by little.  I thought of that phrase when I saw these pictures of recovery.

Group Email January 19, 2015

SO THIS WEEK STARTED OFF ROUGH!! LIKE VERY ROUGH!!! SO, REMEMBER HOW I SAID THERE WAS A STORM THAT WIPED OUT THE ELECTRICITY LAST WEEK? WELL IT DIDNT STOP RAINING! NOT FOR DAYS!!! IT WAS SO BAD THAT IT FLOODED AND DESTROYED EVERYTHING. HALF OF MY AREA HAS BEEN DESTROYED!! ALL THE HOUSES ARE GONE… THERE ARE 160 DEAD SO FAR, DONT KNOW HOW MANY MISSING AND 200,000 PEOPLE HAD TO MOVE DUE TO THEIR HOMES ARE GONE OR PARTLY GONE. IT IS ALL VERY SAD!!! LOTS OF PEOPLE IN MY WARD HAVE MOVED BUT LUCKLY NOBODY DIED! THEY HAD FAMILY MEMBERS DIE THOUGH AND THAT WAS VERY SAD!  SO WE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO HELP OUT! AND WE CALLED ALL OVER AND TRIED MAKING SURE PEOPLE WERE ALRIGHT!! I AM SO SURPRISED MORE PEOPLE DIDN’T DIE!! MANY ARE INJURED THOUGH AND IN THE HOSPITAL.  SO IT HAS STILL BEEN RAINING AND WE JUST PRAY THAT THE FLOOD DOESN’T COME AGAIN!!

BUT, KEEP ALL THIS IN MIND!! HOMES DESTROYED, PEOPLE MISSING OR DEAD, AND THEN, LISTEN TO THIS:  THE AFRICANS ARE HAPPY. I CAN’T EXPLAIN IT. IT IS SO AMAZING TO ME. THE DAY IT ALL HAPPENED I DIDN’T SEE ANYBODY CRYING. SOME WERE LAUGHING EVEN. PLAYING IN THE WATER. IT’S NOT LIKE THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME, THEY JUST ARE SO MUCH MORE HUMBLE. THEY KNOW THAT THEY’RE LOVED ONES ARE WITH GOD AND IN A BETTER PLACE THAN THEY WERE ON EARTH! THEY ARE JUST HAPPY AND LOVING. THEY WERE JUST TO THANKFUL THAT THEY’RE ALIVE, EVEN THOUGH SOME LITERALLY JUST HAVE THE CLOTHES ON THEIR BACKS WE WERE ALL JOKING THAT GOD WAS CONFUSED. FIRST ALL THE MALAWIANS WERE PRAYING FOR RAIN AND WHEN HE GAVE IT TO THEM THEY PRAYED FOR IT TO STOP. PEOPLE HERE ARE FUNNY! I LEARN FROM THEM EVERYDAY BUT I REALLY LEARNED FROM THEM THIS WEEK. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE.

SO I MADE FUN OF THE ELDERS FOR KEEPING BUCKETS OUTSIDE TO COLLECT RAIN WATER RECENTLY BUT I HAVE FOUND THAT IT IS KIND OF A SURVIVAL THING RIGHT NOW. SO NOBODY HAS HAD WATER FOR DAYS EXCEPT FOR MY APARTMENT. WEIRD. LOTS OF MISSIONARIES ARE THERE EVERY NIGHT FILLING UP WATER JUGS. THE ONLY THING KEEPING PEOPLE FROM DEHYDRATION IS THE RAIN WATER. SAD THAT ALL OF BLANTYRE HAS NO WATER. CHURCH WAS CANCELLED THIS WEEK BESIDES SACRAMENT BECAUSE OF IT ALL!!

SO NOW FOR A LIGHTER MOOD:

I WAS ASKED OUT BY A 1/2 WHITE 1/2 INDIAN MAN THIS WEEK. WEIRD THING IS HE ASKED MY COMP OUT TOO!! WANTED TO TAKE US OUT TO EAT AND THEN SALSA DANCE. HE ASKED IF WE WERE ALLOWED TO GET MARRIED! HAHA THAT MAN! OH, HE IS ALSO MY LAND LORD!!! I DON’T KNOW HIS NAME! FLIRTATIOUS LITTLE INDIAN MAN! HAHA!

I GOT TO STUDY MY CANDLELIGHT!! THAT WAS FUN!!! I FELT LIKE JOSEPH SMITH!! I DON’T KNOW WHY BUT I DID!!!

WE GOT LOCKED OUT OF OUR APARTMENT BECAUSE I LEFT THE KEYS IN THE BEALS CAR AND IT WAS RAINING BUT WE HAD FUN! EVEN THOUGH IT WAS PITCH BLACK AND RAINING WE JUST DANCED!! SAW A NASTY BIG SPIDER CHASING US AND WE RAN FOR IT! OUR GUARD WAS JUST LIKE “AMERICANS.” OH, THEN THE BEALS CAME HOME AND THE KEYS WEREN’T THERE! SO I CHECKED MY BAG AND REALIZED I HAD THEM ALL ALONG!! BUT HEY WE HAD FUN! 🙂

SO I CANT REALLY THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE!! IT WAS A SLOW, SAD WEEK BUT ALSO HAPPY!! HARD TO BE SAD WHEN EVERYBODY IS HAPPY! I AM SAFE THOUGH AND FEEL SO BLESSED.

ANYWAYS I LOVE YOU ALL!! COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, YOU HAVE MANY!!!

LOVE SISTER BROWNING!

P.S.  I TAUGHT A MALAWIAN WOMAN HOW TO MAKE AMERICAN SALAD THIS WEEK! SHE WAS JUST LIKE “WOOOOW.”