March 27 letter to Mom

This week has been really interesting.  There's some really crazy people in Cape Town.

First of all I have seen about a thousand trannies lately and it's honestly starting to discourage me because it is one of the worst forms of wickedness and abomination in this world.  I feel a lot like some of the prophets in the Book of Mormon, whose hearts hurt because of the wickedness of the people. 

There's some other crazy people that we teach.  There's one old guy who smokes pounds of weed every day and we are teaching him and his wife and it's kind of weird to work with a grown man who struggles with drug addiction.  

We've been teaching a drug lord named S so that's kind of crazy, but he's a good guy.  We have a homeless man who comes to church every Sunday named Brother S.  We gave him a bunch of clothes and he immediately sold them.  The funniest thing about him is that he stole some of the baptismal clothing from the church and that's what he wears hahahaha

Our investigator S is one of my favorite investigators that I have taught so far on mission.  She has been an absolute joy to teach.  Every time we teach her the spirit fills the room.  She reads like 10 chapters of the Book of Mormon every day and she's been fasting and praying .  She's really awesome.

Last week we got invited to go to Youth Conference.  The APs chose 4 companionships from Cape Town to go who they apparently thought were the "Most powerful missionaries"  and they chose us hahaha.  It reminded me a lot of my last Youth Conference I went to before I came here, which is a very nice memory for me.  It was a lot of fun and it was so nice to be able to go and do something different on a Saturday than just proselyte.  

My companion is teaching me how to cook lots of really sweet African dishes so that's exciting.  I can't cook anything American or normal but I can now cook some African dishes haha :)

March 20 letters

To Mom: So being in Langa lately we haven't had too much success but we do have 2 sisters who are really progressing.  One is named N and  we met her almost the first week I was here.  Actually they took all the new greenies to our area to get some exposure to mission and she is one of the people that they found.  N actually comes to church right after work because she works night shift.  

N gave us a referral to teach her friend S who is also super awesome.  We taught S 3 times this week.  At first she told us that she doesn't know if God is real.  Then we challenged her to pray and find out.  The next time we came she said that she had prayed and that God answered her prayer.  We taught her about the book of Mormon.  The next time we came back she had read the Restoration pamphlet and 6 chapters from the book of Mormon.  Me and Elder Monoalibe were super excited.  She came to church on Sunday as well and now she is preparing to be baptized on April 23, which is her daughters birthday so that's really nice.  I don't think we will have any baptisms this transfer but there is a few people who still might make April 9.  I guess we'll see.

Something crazy is that Cape Town is in a serious drought and it hasn't rained this year at all.  As far as I know it has only rained once in the past 6 months.  The water supplies are really short and so the whole city of Cape Town is having water shut off for 2 days at the end of this month.  That will be really crazy if it happens.

Anyway Langa is really sweet.

To Dad: oh yeah and by the way we have been playing soccer every Monday.  In Cape Town there are really nice fields for us to play at and we bought a ball and it's super nice.   I am getting really out of shape though haha.

Zone conference

March 13 letters

Letter to Mom:

So the difference between Langa and Mdantsane is huge.  Mdantsane is called the land of milk and honey in the mission and for good reason.  You always have members present at all of your lessons and you teach a lot of people.  The wards are strong.  There's 2 chapels and the church has been there for over 20 years.  Also you baptize a lot of people.  Not only that but the Eastern Cape is a lot quieter and a totally different environment.  It rains a lot and it's super humid there, and the cost of living is so cheap.  Groceries are super cheap. 

Here in Cape Town and specifically in Langa things are a lot different.  First of all Cape Town is a lot more of a hectic and busy place.  Everything feels like it's moving at a thousand miles an hour and everything.  Also Cape Town is a very iniquitous city.    What makes it kind of annoying about Cape Town is that there is so much sin so there's nobody in the branch who I think I can trust.  We take brothers with us to do missionary work and they hit on the girls we go see and try to break the law of chastity with them and they turn around and smoke weed and stuff and scare away all of our investigators.  Also there is 3 or 4 members in the ward who are rm's who met their wife here in Langa and came back and married them within like 2 months.  That causes a lot of problems for us because people are always asking us why they did that and if they can date us and stuff which we obviously can't but the other people obviously did.  There's even a few people who went less active because the missionary that taught them immediately came back and got married and 9 months later there was a baby.  That's very frustrating for us and very sad. 

In all I would say that I like Mdantsane more because it's a quiet place and there is more success, but I really like Langa as well regardless of the things that are hard here.  Me and Elder Monoalibe have been working really hard and having lots of success and everything here.  We've really been praying for miracles and we've seen some crazy things happen in the last week.  Everyday we find someone new who is absolutely prepared to hear the gospel.  That being said I don't think we are going to get the goal of 10 baptisms which is sad.  I don't want to baptize anyone that's going to immediately go less active and the retention rate here is already terrible, so I want to make sure people are really ready before we baptize them.  I think there's probably at least 5 though that are really ready which is a lot.

On Sunday we had a lesson about women in our lives and stuff and I just kept thinking about my mom hahaha.  I'm just super grateful for you for giving me like pretty much everything I could ask for and for loving me so much and making sure I turned out right.

Letter to Dad:

Dad I heard a talk this week that I thought was really sweet and it answered some questions for me.  I definitely recommend that you listen to it and read it if you want.  It's called 7 deadly heresies by Bruce R McConkie

Me with N who is the old lady that me and Elder Muller miraculously healed some months ago

Me with W's little sister in Mdantsane

This is our recent convert sister S and her family who are already members.  I like this picture because it makes me and Elder Reedy look like giants

Our last baptism in Mdantsane with a kid called L

Me with Elder Wilson who trained Elder Greengrass and Elder Reedy

March 6 letter to Mom

So yeah my new area is Langa which is in Cape Town.  the area is the most fruitful in all of the Cape Town areas so I'm super excited about that.  My new zone leaders are Elder Hernandez and Elder Payne.  Elder Payne is going home at the end of this transfer so he decided to make a goal for our zone to get 40 baptisms this transfer and 20 baptisms in Langa.  The only missionaries in Langa are us and the zone leaders so that means we need to get 10 baptisms this transfer.  That's a pretty high goal so me and my companion have been fasting and praying all week to ask for help.  I have already seen several miracles as a result of this.  

My new companion is Elder Monoalibe.  He is from Johannesburg.  He's awesome I like him a lot.  Me and him get along really well.  He is a super good missionary and he's super obedient.  He has been on mission for 4 and a half months now but I don't really feel like the senior companion or anything.  Also he really likes to run so we wake up every morning at 6:30 and we go running.  I'm very glad because I'm losing all of my fat rolls.  It sucks though because there are no weights in the new apartment where I'm staying so I am no longer getting yacked :(  very sad. 

To answer your questions.  Nobody has asked me for money yet or anything like that.  I don't know I think South Africa is a much more first world country than anywhere in South America so I have a different experience from my friends there.  Mom the toilets and the beds and everything here are the same as they are in America hahaha.  This is a first world country so everything is the same hahaha.  The stuff isn't as good as my bed certainly or my stuff, but it's about the same as a mediocre hotel.

Cape Town is sweet.  It's really cool to wake up every day and see Table Mountain and Devils peek in the distance.  It's a way cool city.  Also they have dominos pizza and subway and pizza hut so I'm way stoked about that.  I ate dominos on the first day.  I was very excited.  

Something funny now is that the APs are in my district so I am the district leader for the zone leaders and the APs hahaha.  

We have had a couple of really sweet experiences already here in Langa

 First of all there's a kid here named M who just moved in because he's going to school here.  He is a member but he's living with his aunt who is not.  We started teaching his aunt and she is the nicest lady.  We taught her about the book of mormon and asked her to pray and ask specifically if it was true.  We went back the next day and she said she had a very special experience while she was praying and that she is super happy and excited to get baptized on April 9th. 

We also taught a family called the M family.  We decided to teach them the Word of Wisdom and then commit them all to baptism.  It seemed kind of random but it was absolutely perfect.  The dad started telling us about how he smokes weed and pretty much breaks the word of wisdom in every way possible.  By the end of the lesson they both committed to fast and pray to try and live the word of wisdom and also to be baptized on April 9th.

So far it's been way sweet I'm super excited to be here. 

Oh by the way I have a million pictures to send but I don't have any way to get them from my camera to the computer so please stand by