May 8 letters

To Mom:

I have made myself a goal to get a 4.0 in college.  I don't know if I will be able to do it and maybe I'll get wrecked but mission and especially South Africa has really taught me a lot about being a hard worker.  

This week President Merrill came to our branch for church, which was pretty cool.  It was a really powerful testimony meeting.  One of the prominent brothers in the ward, brother M, bore a really cool testimony.  Apparently, he is the person that translated the Book of Mormon into Lingala, which is the language of the Congo.  He said the day he finished and submitted the translation, is the same day he met his wife.  He has the best family.  There is 11 people that live with him that all rely on him for money and clothes and everything. 

The sad thing is that his family, the M's, got evicted from their house last week.  They were eating dinner, and a bunch of drunk people just walked into their house and started moving things outside.  There were some heated and angry words that night, and a lot of drunk people who were absolutely raging drunk and beyond reason which was funny.  We were actually there, and it was sad because they were all saying horrible things about the church, and the M's were very angry which gave the church a bad image.  They ended up staying in their house for the night, but the next morning we helped them move to a new place.  President M, the branch president, organized them a new house to live in which they will stay permanently.  

The next day we helped the young men's president paint his new place.  Afterwards he bought us a smiley (Sheep head)  It was Elder Greengrass' and Elder Hernandez' first time eating smiley so they were very queasy.  Elder Greengrass almost threw up it was really funny.  Of course I'm a seasoned vet at eating smiley so it was no problem for me haha :)

It's weird though, being in SA, because I eat way more things haha.  When I go home you guys are going to think I'm way weird because I always eat bones and stuff hahaha.

Next Sunday S is finally getting baptized, so I will be sure to send pictures of that.  

To Dad:

The Branch verse Branch soccer game was really funny because we played on a dirt field.  Like it was literally dirt.  So it was really hard to do anything except wack the ball and run.  I did have a couple of really sweet shots though.  My shooting and finishing has really improved since I came to SA.