Achuma is teaching us Xhosa but the clicks are really
hard. There's lots of different clicks but the one Kyle was talking about was probably the q click which is really cool and really hard to
figure out and yes I can do it.
Xhosa is really hard though and I'm hoping for the gift of
tongues. Literally
I attached a picture of me with a bunch of kids. Kids
absolutely love white people here especially me haha. Every time we go
anywhere they pretty much mob us and yell "Umlungu Umlungu" which
means white person. Haha and they just mob us. They're always
fascinated with my hair and my arm hair and my watch, but I love them so much.
So basically to fill you in on some stuff
Me and My companion live with 2 other elders in a boarding
(apartment), Elder Palmer and Elder Kakezwa. The boarding is pretty nice
and we have all the amenities of an apartment back at home. It's actually
probably bigger than what I'll live in at college. Just about every
companionship has their own car so we just keep to ourselves most of the
time. We do service every couple weeks though and we usually take other
elders. Usually if we do service or do stuff on p days we take Elder Mei
who is a cool guy from Fiji and one of my favorite missionaries, and Elder
Kraftner I think I told you about Elder Kraftner. He's from England and
he's actually from Elder Greengrass' stake, but he was my homie in the
mtc. And We also take Elder Nkosi who is my homie, he's from Joburg and
Nkosi means King in Xhosa so he's pretty sick. and his companion is Elder
Ondraceck who was my first companion in the mtc and definitely my homie.
So those are basically my best friends right now.
There's 3 wards in Mdantsane and we are in ward 3. The
other 2 wards have 2 sets of missionaries but my ward only has me and Elder
Greengrass. Our ward is super cool though.
I should tell you about dogs. They mob around the
streets and just attack people. There is like a billion of them and
they're vicious. They are definitely not friendly. They don't
actually attack black people though and we are the only 2 white people in all
of Mdantsane so that means they just attack us. they're scary.
Driving is kind of insane here. We drive on the left
side of the road so that's weird and it really took a while to get used
to. But basically there is no speed limit anywhere and it's all 1 lane
roads but if you want to pass someone there's enough space in the middle of the
road so that you can just pass anyone whenever you want and the people coming
the other direction will just move aside a little bit for you haha it's crazy.
Also don't worry about me gaining weight. We don't
work very hard because we drive everywhere but me and my companion run most
days. Also we are so poor. We literally have so little money that
we can't afford to cook normal food. I am dead serious when I say all I
eat for breakfast lunch and dinner is toast with jam and an apple. that
is literally all I can afford. haha and we eat at McDonalds once or twice
a week which costs about 3 dollars for a full meal it's pretty dope.
I need recipes though
On Saturday 8 people are getting baptized but 3 of them are
children of record. We're baptizing this super powerful guy called
Abulele who I told you about. He's one of my favorite guys. He's
really caught the fire of the gospel. We asked him if he'd ever thought
about serving a mission and he said how long is it and we said 2 years and he
said only 2 years? haha we thought that was funny but I bet he'll go on a
mission. He's 22.
Another guy we're baptizing is called Jackie and he's an
albino. He's a black guy with like super white skin it's pretty crazy.
So here is the coolest story of my mission maybe which
happened last week:
We have been teaching this woman called N for a couple
weeks. We taught her the restoration and the book of mormon and the plan
of salvation up to this point. So we went to teach her last week the
Gospel of Jesus Christ and we knew she's been reading the book of mormon and
she came to church and she's been getting a pretty strong testimony. Well
we had invited her to be baptized when we taught her the restoration but she said
no because her husband was a preacher and he was away for military duty.
So anyway we decided to invite her to be baptized again because she now had a
testimony and she said no again. And we were trying to figure out why and
she said well my husband and we were like oh yeah he's a preacher and she said
"No he's the president of the hope of Christ ministries church in South
Africa." and we were like no way that's nuts! Her husband was
literally the president of the entire church it was crazy. But then she said
I don't know what to do. she had the Book of Mormon in her hand and she
was like "This book is true, but I don't know what to do, we can't
join another church but this book is true." and so we basically told
her to put her trust in the lord and as she grew in faith and knowledge the
lord would help her out. It was way cool. Apparently she had told
her husband about the book and he said don't read it they're trying to take you
from the church don't read the book and she said no I love the book it's the
truth I'm going to read it." She was all the way in Mosiah after
only a couple of weeks so we were pretty stoked. I felt like Ammon
teaching king Lamoni or Aaron teaching Lamoni's father or something.
So this past week I have been getting lots of really cool
revelation as I've studied the scriptures and in particular as I've studied the
saviors parables. So this week I want to challenge everyone to read the
parable of the laborours in the vineyard which is Matthew 20:1-16 and pray for
revelation. I have found at least 6 significant interpretations to this
story that really made a difference in my life. There is so much to learn
from this parable and so many levels to the story.
 |
| From Mom: This picture makes me laugh. With his old man glasses and Mr Rogers cardigan and super short buzz cut, he looks very old. He's only 18!!! |
No comments:
Post a Comment