We didn't get to watch conference yet because we don't have
a building in Langa. We actually meet at a preschool, so they are going
to show conference this weekend instead. I am very excited.
To answer your question about food:
This transfer has been pretty sweet because Elder Monoalibe
is a pure Xhosa guy so he has been teaching me to make a lot of different Xhosa
dishes.
One thing I have made is called Mbako, or English Steam
Bread. It's basically just home made bread but it's really good. You can
use the same recipe and make something called Gwinya, or English Fat
Cakes. Gwinya is basically fried bread hahaha :) It's like one of
the most amazing things you can eat. Usually that is about the size of a
hamburger bun. You can put meat on it and it tastes amazing, or you can
put honey, or jam on it and it tastes amazing. Or you can eat it plain
and it tastes amazing. It's not very good for you though hahaha. But
it only costs 1 rand to buy one which is about 8 cents... And you can feed
yourself a full meal on about 2 of those. I'm pretty sure it's the
cheapest thing you can buy here so I eat it a lot more than I probably should.
There's a meal I really like which is much more healthy.
I'll make it for you when I come home. It's called Umgqusho, or in
English Samp and Beans. Literally it is just samp and beans.
As far as fruit goes I have not eaten anything interesting,
but there is a lot of fresh fruit everywhere and the apples are tiny here.
I can't mention things I love without mentioning Coke.
Of course you know African coke is 10 times better than American coke. I
love it a lot.
This week was a bit interesting. Home teaching got
shuffled around so some issues were brought to our attention. There are 3
guys in the ward who have apostatized. 2 of them are returned
missionaries. The 3 of them became offended somehow and decided they
wouldn't come to church anymore. That was a long time ago. The
problem now, is that the 3 of them have banded together and apparently they are
studying false doctrines and anti mormon doctrines and there's a real worry
that they will drag some people down with them.
Our investigator S is so awesome. We've been
seeing her some more and apparently she has a lot of things to overcome.
She's been fasting and praying and she is really making serious changes in her
life. She is one of my favorite people that I have worked with so far on
mission.
We've even been having lots of other successes with
different investigators in the past week and I will tell you more about them as
they progress further.
To Dad:
This week has been really awesome for me. I have
focused on laughing and smiling and making jokes a lot, and it has been so good
for me. I feel like normal again so I'm really happy. I realized
that for me being kind and charitable is not the same as maybe for another
person. I like to cheer people up and make them feel happy by making them
laugh or making them smile. I was praying so hard for charity but I
thought it would just be this magic love in my heart for everyone and that I
would just exude it or something. I realized the Lord already blessed me
with what I need to be a charitable and kind person and it's in a little bit of
a different way then I was thinking.
I didn't watch conference yet. We are going to watch
it next week, but I like the story you told about Elder Eyring. It
reminds me of something that happened to me this past week. We have a
returned missionary in our area who has completely apostatized. Actually
we have like 5 or 6 of those. But this one in particular is named U and he used to be really faithful and just a powerful guy. But apparently
his dad died and it just destroyed him. Anyways U is now a
woman. We were preparing to go visit him with some of the strong brethren
from the branch, and everything inside of me wanted to just rebuke this guy. For a
few seconds I was thinking that and then I just felt a shift in my mind and I
saw this guy in God's eyes. This guy probably thinks the church hates
him. Almost all gay people think that. He doesn't need a
rebuke. He doesn't need me to call him to repentance. He needs us to show him love. To show him that
we love him and want the best for him. It might be hard for me to love a person, but it's not
hard for God. It was a pretty powerful experience for me to see somebody
in God's eyes.
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