weekly letter 31

Yaaa... Another week here in Queenstown/Sada. We finished off transfers and it was sad to see some of the Elders leaving. Change is always kind of hard at first but the new Elders that came in seem to be sweet. 

In other and more important news... We have received news that the Mcdonalds here in Queenstown that is being built will open next week Sunday! YO! That is probably the biggest news ever to hit this town... haha We even received authorization to go and buy Mcdonalds from our president.... Nah just kidding... That's breaking the commandments haha... but definitely next Monday we will be hitting that up.

Everyone has been going on about how South Africa is playing New Zealand in the semi finals for the world cup this week. Our fellowshippers have no problem updating us on all the rugby scores and what nots. I was day dreaming and I was picturing like what if... When New Zealand plays SA that SA Gets smashed and then in an uproar... all the polynesian looking elders have to go into hiding so that riots don't happen or something. right now in the email shop the workers were talking and they were getting kind of loud and they were speaking in Xhosa talking about rugby... I couldn't pick up everything but I know it was about New Zealand and SA and the game this week haha.... Might have to go into hiding depending on how the game goes on saturday... haha

So this week we hit a rabbit... I seriously promise that the rabbit hit us... it was off on the side and then it for some reason wanted to run in front of me... Our fellowshippers and my comp were going nuts because they were so excited about eating the meat... They were running around with their arms flailing everywhere, jumping up and down, doin jumping jacks, throwing in some acrobatic front handsprings double back flips.. It was funny to watch.

Update though... Ill update you all on Bro Jerry & his girlfriend Zolewe... as for the subject line... We taught them the Law of Chastity towards the beginning of the week and they excepted everything. They seriously are such champs. We then spoke about their baptisms... and just told them that the only thing holding them back is Jerrys smoking and that they live together... They are too awesome though. Zolewe told us that she wants to get baptized as soon as possible... What a beast... But then we come back later that week to teach.. They tell us that they are going to get married! They have talked to the parents and everything and they are going to get married! YO! They is to guuudddddd. So I am just excited out ma mind for these two.... Will maybe take a few months for the wedding but whatevs... Eternal Progression is all that matters! 

Something also that touched my heart this week happened yesterday. So one of my goals is that no matter what happens/circumstances that I am in... I have to do my best to grow the overall love in every area that I go to whether it be for other missionaries, members, and especially the gospel. I have noticed that in some areas with the African Culture... it is not all that frequently seen or even accepted when it comes to Brotherly Love. So we were with two Recent Converts, Likhona & Sibusiso. As Likhona was getting out of the car, Sibusiso goes... 

"Alright man love you"

Usually the response I hear is..

"Man thats gay", "Youre so lame" or "Yea whatever"

But this time it was a 

"Ahhh... Love you too man"

I even remember the first time I told Sibusiso when we were dropping him off when I first got to this area that I loved him like that and he was like.... WHATT... So it was super heart warming to see an increase of Love even with something as small as that happening. But I mean. 

"By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.... And by very small means The Lord doth..... bringeth about the salvation of many souls" 

(Alma 33:6-7)

But that is all for now... I am excited to see what The Lord has instore for me this week.... Yeeeeeee Love you all so much... 

The Church Is True!

1) Old District. Elders Rasmussen, Nyika, Richards, Radebe, Fonua, Johnson, Wall, & The Farnsworths

2) Elder Wall & I

3) Rabbit, Elder Nyika, Athi & Soso

weekly letter 30

What a week! This week was awesome. Sada is definitely on the rise compared to where it used to be... Everything just is going awesome and I am excited to continue to grow my love for this area. 

This past Monday was really nice because we had our Semi-annual wash and wax for our cars and that is always nice because the mission pays for everything... More importantly... the Food! Any missionary enjoys free food. It was nice getting together with our district and the senior couple just having a little bri get together. A little sad though because we received transfer news and we are having 3 elders leave from the district whom I love very much. Elder Wall the short little Elder is leaving to another area and its gonna be weird because I have been with him my whole mission. Also my zone leader is finishing his mission who also has been with me my whole mission. Crazy how fast time flies and it is sad to see some of my best missionary buds finishing their missions! Also Update on our mission... We got 1 new missionary this transfer... only 1... That means that in the past 4 transfers we have received 5 new missionaries into our mission... That stuffs is cray. 5 new missionaries in 6 months. Thats gonna be interesting further down the road haha.

Yesterday though was crazy... I do not know what was going on... but... we somehow ended up eating three different meals in less then 3 hours.... It was insane... There was even a possible 4rth meal that bishops wife offered up but there was no way... It was... man so the first meal was delicious and it was amazing and then we went to teach a lesson and then came back to another meal that was prepared for us and it was nice... but by the end of that one we were destroyed... Then we went to go teach a Recent Convert and right when we finished the lesson... she hurrys and grabs plates before we can even say anything... my companion and I just look at the ground and start half laughing half crying haha... We were with two of our Recent Converts also who were teaching with us and they were doing the same haha... I felt like throwing up... I still do it dough....

This week though has been awesome... I haven't told all of you yet about this beast Emmanuel. He is originally from Zimbabwe and he speaks like 7 different languages and he is an awesome guy. He is a math teacher and he loves his bible. We found him at a members house and at the members house they were having a little get together and mostly everyone was drunk and all that jazz celebration thing haha... Except for the member of course... And so Emmanuel comes up to us and he is a little tipsy talking about how he is saved cause he is a child of the light and what not... Then he says.. You two have something about yourselves and I want that something... Aye.... GOT EM! so we arrange an apt with him and teach him and it goes awesome he is too sick. So this week we have been teaching him at that members house where we found him and she is just a powerhouse member who lives in Joburg. She was just visiting the Son who lives down here with the Makulu n what not but the lessons this week were awesome. It was like a positive bible bash/discussion. Alot of biblical proof was needed in the claims/answers in which we were throwing out and it was SICK!! But yee the spirit was so strong that it got me like (Puppy Emoji)

Jerry is doing too sweet! So he told us that back in the day he would smoke 40 Cigs a day... YOOOO!!!! that is insane and so we saw him at church on sunday and he told us that the day before he had only smoked 4... Thats progresss dough.... He is so awesome and it is a blessing to watch him grow in the gospel.

But everything pretty much just seems to fall into place. President told me that I have 6 weeks left in the area and that I better make them memorable. I am excited for this next transfer... It gonna be bumpin.

But as for now that is all... I love all of you though and hope be boooopp bap pow!

Pic: These two were part of the 5 that were baptised a few weeks ago. 

Elder Nyika, Likhona & Asemahle

weekly letter 29

General Conference was too sweet! Man I do not know why but I always seem to love the Seventy talks more then the ones given by the Twelve. I have a lot of favorites from this General Conference. I haven't seen Sunday Nights session yet but we will see when we get to watch that one. My ward doesn't watch conf until they get the dvds which will probably be 3 weeks from now and so we went to the stake center to watch some of the sessions. 

This week was not all that exciting... And I am a bit lazy to write about it haha so this wont be long. 

But... This week my comp and I got in an accident... we got in a little car crash with this drunk guy... That was pretty stressful but we are almost done with getting everything figured out... 

Update though on Jerry! Yoooo... This dude... He is doing awesome. We gave him a gospel principles book and like all he does is just read that book and studies it. He complained to us that he wants The Pearl Of Great Price and The D&C so that he can study the scriptures the pamphlets and the book refer him to. He is so awesome! Yesterday he told us that he wants to quit smoking! That is HUGE! I can not wait to see what the Lord has in store for him... We will see how it goes... But mission is still going good. I have been a little stressed this week due to the crash, getting all those things figured out and also just because of the area and the language barrier/ward problems... but just as the spirit directed us to do in Conference... Just need to step back and not make things so complicated which is what I am doing now... but I know that everything will work out...Love you all hope everyone has a good week and implements what they learnt from Conf in their lives instead of just feeling them warm fuzzies!

weekly letter 28

What gucci yooo.... This week was definitely better than last week. It started off pretty slow but then picked up towards the ending and then yesterday, Sunday was awesome! Not much to report though about things that we do in Queenstown because... We do not do anything here haha prettty much our only plans for Mondays that we ever have is to clean, wash the car, and Email... Then we just kind of sit/play sport... and that is it... Update though! The McDonalds is almost done! We are all pretty excited for that. 

Oh yeeee... Thanks to Edran and dad as well. I am super surprised that the package got here so fast! It only took a little over a month and so that was pretty surprising. One of the Elders that I am with. Elder Richards... His girlfriend sent him a package around 7 and a 1/2 months ago and then she sends him a picture of the package and it took them 7 and a 1/2 months just to send it back to her haha... So yeeee Enkosi Kakulu

So an update on some of the investigators... Jerry (The one white guy in all of Sada) He came to church again today and this time he brought his girlie friend that he has been living with! It was so awesome being able to see them both at church. This is his 3rd Sunday in a row and he agreed to be baptized in the last week of October! We will see how he progresses though because we have not yet taught the Word of Wisdom or the Law of Chastity and so yeee..... will let yall know.

But yesterday... Man church was packed! It was super cool... We had the 5 baptees be confirmed and then we had a ton of less actives attend as well which is awesome... All about them reactivations... We also had one of Presidents Counselors come down to the ward and train them on "Hastening The Work Of Salvation" It was nice because its getting the ward leaders and my companion and I on the same page which will make the work accelerate that much faster! Our ward is not utilizing the tools that we have as much as they should and so this training really helped them and I am excited for same changes to happen in the ward....

So this week I finally got to go on an exchange with my awesome missionary buddy Elder Wall in his area Mlungisi... We have been serving closely together for my whole mission. He even picked me up from the airport with my trainer. He is the super short guy from bountiful haha... And so a bunch of appointments dropped and so we had some extra time... So we were sitting there and we were like okay lets go tract what are we going to be looking for.... First thing that comes to my mind is the color Green.... So we decide that we are going to look for a Potential Priesthood holder wearing a green shirt and that we are going to place a restoration pamphlet for him.... So we start walking and it is pretty funny because im sure it looks pretty strange with these two white guys (In South Africa... if you are not black you are white no matter what race) walking down the street one being super tall and big while the other one is this little 5 foot 4 guy haha... so we are walking and we see a few green shirts but there are just a bunch of kids... Then down the road we see a guy wearing a green shirt... Elder Wall and I are like... YO... Thats our guy and so we start speed walking down to him but he is walking away from us... So we end up losing him... and we are like dang... We lost him... We keep walking and then we see another Guy wearing a green shirt... Again... Ok... THATS our guy hah so we speed walk over to him and we lose that guy... Jokingly with enthusiasm... We say oh... these are angles whom are leading us haha we are just being led to the guy that we are supposed to find... So we are walking and we see this guy in the next street over sitting down in his back yard... We are like hmm... Is that green I see? We agree that this guy is totally him and so we kind of struggle to find how to get to his house through the shack township intermediate leveled maze and so we turn this corner and Elder Wall goes... Yo hes walking out towards us... And so we meet perfectly at the gate of his house and talk to him... Long story short he says to us... "I want that book" We give him the pamphlet and he just gets this big smile on his face. He says "This is exactly what I need and what I have been praying for" 

YOOO So Elder Wall sets an apt with him and yeee... I truly believe that we were led to find him and who knows maybe he had been praying and pleading for Heavenly Father to give him a sign... Angels are constantly preparing the hearts of the children of men (Alma 13: 22-24). We just have to go out and find them and ask the Father to led us to them. 

But hey... Love you all and miss yous like crazy! 

The Church Is True, Jesus Is The Christ

weekly letter 27

Hey everyone! This week it started out super good! But then slowly turned into drop nation which always suck but it gucci doughhh... Again there is pretty much nothing to do here in Queenstown so so the most exciting thing to report besides things that happen in the area.... is that we helped the other Elders move into their flat... Pretty exciting haha. I wore my tie and not to brag or anything... But everyone is always super suprised that I knitted it myself. They think that it is so nice even though I messed up a bunch but luckily it is a dark color and so it is harder to see the places where I messed up haha. But I didnt take picture though so... yea.... but someday you all will see it haha. But now for the area... We had our baptisms this week and I am super glad that they went well... Baptisms always stress me out because I do not want anything to go wrong. They all went sweet though and I was super happy because one of our good fellow shippers whom has been a recent convert for about 6 months now... He baptized his first person! We were so pumped when they chose him to baptize them. He was so excited when we told him haha. So that was super cool. The beauty of these baptisms though is that they are all member referrals and so I know that the ward is going to take good care of them. With all these baptisms though comes the task of retaining all of them and so my companion and I are really going to focus on the people whom are already members. Ex. Members, Less Actives & Recent Converts. We had 5 Less Actives come to church and so we are super stoked about that! I love seeing Less Actives become active again. Its awesome.

And an update on Bro Elvis (The Less Active) And Brother Jerry (The investigator whom Bro EIvis brought to church! The atmosphere of his house totally changed... It was super cool to feel the change between him and his girlfriend whom he lives with... Which could possibly bring a problem in the future. But he came to church again and he walked quite a distance to get to church as well! During the baptism he looked like a little kid trying to look over everyone since our font is outside and... yea... haha It was cool to see him like that... Will update on his response to the baptism next week! But hey I am too lazy to write the rest of this week as well and so if you have questions just email me... haha kkk but love you all and miss you!

As for the picture, Left To Right:

Mama Ngangafa, Fellowshipper Sbusiso, Odwa Mgodi, Liyabona Ngangafa, Likhona Stephans, Asemahle Xozumthi & My comp Elder Nyika

weekly letter 26

Man this week was tooo awesome! The love for my area and the missionaries that I am serving with just continues to grow. My companion is still super dope and we be killin it. This morning we scaled this mountain and man.. My body is killin right now... It was cool though so I guess it was worth it. This week I also finished my first tie... I will have to take a picture in it next week and send it to all of you. This week was awesome though. We had Zone Conf and also Stake Conf this week and so it was a week full of awesome spiritual food. Also we just got a new missionary in our mission and he is in our Zone. I do not know his first name but his name is Elder Blight. He is from American Fork and so yea he is a cool guy if any of you know him. 

Just a little update as well... So apparently there was a terrorist threat from South Africa on the U.S Embassey... So now all American/patriotic clothing of any kind has been restricted... All the Elders are talking about how crazy it would be if we had to be evacuated and switch missions... That would be nutsss haha but yea we will see what happens haha

This week though we had awesome amount of things happen. We are preparing some investigators for their baptism this week and so we have been busy getting them ready. Also so there are these two awesome investigators... One by the name of Jerry and the other ones name is Sandile. 

First, Jerry. So last week we walk into church and there is a guy that I have never seen before sitting next to a white guy.... WHITE GUY.... YOOO!!!! That stuff dont just happen here in Sada and the only times that it ever happens is if someone from the Stake is visiting. So it turns out that the guy that was sitting next to him that I have not seen before is one of our less active members... Bro Elvis... So we set up an apt and we go and see him. So Bro Jerry, he is probably early 40's and he lives in an area called Extension. Thats even crazy too... So we take Bro Elvis with us over to his house and we teach this dude. P.S his house smells like the inside of a cigarette... We will work on the Word Of Wisdom later haha... and we teach him. It was an awesome lesson... And so our goal as my companion and I were talking... Is to reactivate Bro Elvis and then in the end have him baptize brother Jerry... YO! That would be sickkkkk so that is our goal. 

The other one... Sandile... This guy is too cool... Hes a member referral, because member referrals is the Lords way of missionary work, and he is a father of 3 kids. We teach him right and he basically told us that he likes to go hike up mountains/anywhere away from everyone to go and pray and so when we talked about Joseph Smith it reminded him of him. He accepted the invitation to be baptized and we are so excited to watch him grow in the gospel. Dis gospel gone blez dat guy 2 much dough.... Stake Conf had some powerhouse speakers too. Our Mission Prez is a boss and so he killed it on that podium. I talked about the whole statistic of member referral baptisms compared to Missionary found baptisms and all of stuff and so our President really focused on trying to tell all the members about how important member referrals are. And just a little statistic that our mission just shot out from our president... One of our wards in the mission has a baptismal date this sunday... 22 baptisms in one day... 22!!!! ALL MEMBER REFERRALS... Wow that is insane... If that isnt proof that Member Missionary Work/Member Referrals is the way that Heavenly Father wants his work done then I do not know what will... 

This next coming week though is going to be awesome though. I am excited to see what The Lord has in plan for us! But hey love you all! Birthdays on misson are pretty much just another day haha but it gucci! Hope everyone has an awesome week love yall!

weekly letter 25

You know wasssuuupppppp!! What up everybody! This week has been awesome! This week we had transfers and so it was super sad to see some go but then at the same time... you know it was nice to see... yea... go... but man Elder Thayne and Elder Crowell were too cool and it was sad to see them go... I got to drive down to East London which is about a 2 hour drive which kinda sucked... but then we dropped off my old companion and then I got to go and visit all of Elder Crowells past members whom he served previous before Queenstown. It had been a year since he had seen any of them and to me that was super crazy. Crazy to think that that will be me in a year or so and then going back to see the people whom I served will be so crazy. It was super nice though because East London  is beautiful. Also during transfers it is super cool being able to see all of the Elders in one place. East London is the connection spot for three of our zones and so it just gets full ed with Elders which is always nice. I am pretty jealous of the missions that get their whole mission together at a time because that is sweet. 

So you all know how I was just given a mission guitar and what not... Well one of the new Elders in our zone our new district leader.... like his 2nd day here... he broke one of my strings... yea.... so thats a pretty good first impression... haha but no worries though.... Trials come in every shape and size.... It gucci cause I go hard in the paint na meannnn....

My new companion though is too cool. Elder Nyika from Zimbabwe. He just barely turned 22 and he is 4 and a half months on mission. Same transfer as my last companion. He is super cool. We teach together great and we have a lot in common and also the Elders in our boarding are staying and so yea... This transfer is going to be awesome!!! 

Its funny because as he has been introducing himself... He told two of our recent converts that his name is Elder Obama... And that he was President Obamas son and that due to attention reasons that he would be using the surname Nyika.... They believe him hah and then we were also teaching about temples and so we convinced them that his house "The White House" is almost as big as the temples. 

This is going to be a sweet most likely 3 months with Elder Obama though so I am super excited.... Next week for my birthday we are planning on hiking up this super sick mountain... It gonna be dope so stay tuned... 

Well hey... Love you all and hope that everyone is doing well!!!

Church Is True, Jesus Is The Christ