Jan 22 letters

I got my package this week.  I loved it so much it was awesome.  The pictures were so amazing and I really liked the letter from all my friends.  It was really nice to hear them all bear their testimony about how they gained a strong testimony on mission. The books were so amazing I love them and for sure I'm going to study them.  Also all the candy was great I gave a lot of it to Elder Reynolds and he liked it too.  And the notes from the primary kids were really cute I liked them a lot. 

The article (http://time.com/5103259/cape-town-water-crisis/) is really true. When I got transferred to Cape Town which should have been about a year ago we were told that there was only 90 days of water left.  And it only rained twice in the whole 2 and a half transfers I was there, that I can remember.  But it's only got worse and apparently the missionaries in Cape Town have crazy restrictions on water and stuff.  I hope I don't go there.  It rains so much in King Williams Town.  Elder Reynolds says it rains more than it does in England.  So we don't have to worry about the drought over here, but I wouldn't be surprised to see all the missionaries evacuated to the Eastern Cape for a time. 

This week was Zone Conference week so for us we lost basically 2 days since we also have to drive down the day before for interviews with the Mission President.  It was a nice interview and a nice Zone Conference, but it wasn't really life changing like the last one for me where we learned about budgeting.  But yeah it was a nice Zone Conference that's all I can say.  

We were able to teach some new people this week and we found 2 more father led families.  The amount of father led families we're finding is just crazy.  And some people who are really exciting.  At least if we could baptize one of them it would be a huge strength to the ward.  Next week is ward conference so me and my companion are going to be singing in the choir.  It makes me think of when I was 10 and I volunteered to sing in the choir and then you or dad said I should wait until I was 12 and then by the time I was 12 I never had the desire to sing in the choir again.  But now my desire to sing is back. 

The week after next is stake conference again.  It was so recently that we've had stake conference.  That's exciting though. 

Lately I've been teaching myself to play the Organ which obviously is basically the same as the piano but I really love to play the Organ a lot.  It's so awesome. 

This should be my last full week with Elder Reynolds as he'll most likely be leaving the area next week Wednesday.  We've really gotten along great so I'm going to miss him.  It sucks too because we haven't had any baptisms together at all and we've scheduled 6 for two weeks after he'll probably leave.  

Everyone is saying I'm going to train again.  This is the longest I've gone without training which is 2 transfers.  I don't know how I would feel about that but I don't think it's very likely that I will.  We'll find out on Saturday though. 

We had an investigator, A, who was supposed to be baptized last year but she moved to Peddie.  We knew she was coming back in January but we misplaced her number and had absolutely no way to get in contact with her.  We were praying that somehow the Lord would put her in our path so we could recontact her.  She is supposed to be baptized on February 11.  Well she came to church yesterday.  She's so committed she came the first week she was back.  I was really relieved that the holiday hadn't shaken her testimony or something.  She was reading the Book of Mormon over the holiday and she came to sing in the choir after church.  Really sweet so for sure I think she'll get baptized. 

Otherwise things have been pretty basic here but finally they're really starting to look up

January 15 letter

Yeah Elder and Sister Davies are the senior couple for our zone.  Sister Davies is the mission nurse so that's what she mostly does but aside from that she also makes us food every Monday and brings treats to district meeting every Friday and spoils us all the time.  She is so nice.  Even last week she saw Elder Reynolds broken shoes and gave him 1000 Rands right there on the spot to buy another pair. 

Anyway I did have a little miracle with my license.  I was looking for it all over the place and I came to the conclusion that I lost it all the way back in Cape Town.  So I was sure it was long long gone.  Anyway I decided the only place it could be was in my suit case (even though of course I checked that thing a million times) But I put the suitcase there on my bed and I prayed and I said "I don't think my license is in there.  But I know that all things are possible to him that believes and I believe"  

And then I opened up my suitcase and there it was practically glowing right in the middle of my suitcase.  And then I was just so happy because it was going to destroy our area if we didn't find it. 

This week was OK.  2 of our father led families dropped us.  They weren't really understanding the message but I was disappointed to lose them.  But at least we found 3 new father led families to replace the ones we lost.  Still we only had 1 investigator at church.  All the rest of our investigators who left for December are coming back tomorrow.  Then everything should be good again.  The work has been a bit slow for a long time because of the Holiday season so I'm really looking forward to doing good again.

This week is Zone Conference and Interviews and then next week is the last week of the transfer.  These 2 transfers with Elder Reynolds have just flown by.  Probably because we just really get along but he's going to leave I'm sure at the end of next week.  This week we won our 15th straight match against the street boys which makes us 15 and 0.  These boys were really good and they were using an interesting ball we weren't used to so we nearly lost, but in the end we scored 4 quick goals and won 6-3 hahaha.  Our goal is to go 20 and 0 by the end of the transfer.

I'm also getting way excited about this world wide live message from President Nelson.  Whatever he's going to say it's going to be sweet.  

Anyway things are going on great and fine and stuff .

***SIDE NOTE***

Adam's article that he mentioned in his letter last week has now been published.  africase.lds.org.  

January 8 letters

(Adam didn't write last week because all the internet shops were closed.  He just wrote one sentence saying the shops were closed.)

To Mom:

Here is a picture of my hair mom I really like it but I'm not going to keep it I am growing it back

Yeah so a cool story from the week.  On Monday I had this prompting from the spirit to go through all of President Monson's conference talks.  So I started reading a lot of them from all the Liahonas lying around our flat, and reading lots of stories about him and just getting to know who he was more and more.  Then a few days later we heard that he passed away.  Of course he will be missed.  

I think they're going to publish a story that I sent in to the Liahona on Africase.lds.org so you can check that out if you want

That's cool that Sister Green was asking about me and Elder Ivins.  I'm actually chatting with him right now on emails.  It would be so unfair if we went the whole 2 years without serving around each other at all.  Most of the guys in my transfer have served around everyone else in our transfer.  But I still haven't even seen 3 of them.  I'm sure though that at some point me and Elder Ivins will be together.

First of all things finally, finally started picking back up again!  It was such a long long December.  It wasn't back to normal but we did manage to get 15 member present lessons in the week so it's looking a bit better.  A lot of our investigators are still gone though and it's starting to be frustrating.  They were supposed to be baptized in the beginning of December and now we're looking at February 11 or 18 for them. 

We did find some sweet people though and even started teaching 3 new father led families.  We've got a lot of potential but it's taking forever to actualize any of it.  

To make everything so much worse, just when things were starting to look up, we lost the car.  I lost my license and now I can't drive until I get a new one which is going to come from Utah and it's going to take forever.  Our area is way too huge to be walking in, but we're going to be walking anyway.  We walked Saturday and Sunday and I have to say it was hard.  I don't know how Daniel did it for 2 whole years.  We've had to cut off about 80% of our area which means automatically we've had to drop 7 father led families we were teaching.  I don't know for how long, but at least it will help us focus all our efforts on a small area so we can at least teach those people all the lessons and hopefully have some baptisms. 

Otherwise things are flying by.  I'll see you soon.

I (Donell/Mom) received the following communication later on in the morning from one of the missionary couples' email addresses:

Hi mom it's me Elder Heald I have a few questions are you online? (I wasn't, but responded about 45 minutes later when I woke up).  

Next email: First of all do you think you could go to the DMV and see if you can't get a copy of my drivers license so you can send it to me?  We had some great news today we actually made a certified copy of my drivers license that I can use to drive but I still want the hard copy.

My response: Okay

Sister Davies' response: Will get all these replies on to Elder Heald. They have gone on to p Day activities but I will phone him. He is a great young man and dedicated to the work he has been called to. It is our privilege to know him  Thanks Sr. Davies 

Then: Elder Heald just called me asked that I please get a message to you. After checking with the mission office it has been determined that the certified copy of his drivers license will not be adequate. Would you please check to see if you could get a real license. If you could let me know I will forward any messages.

Thank you for your time. Sr. Ursula Davies  

My response: I will go there today, but the mail time is so slow to get the actual license and then to send it to him.  I’ll ask if they have any thoughts on getting it there faster.

Sister Davies' response: We have had a miracle. Elder Heald was calling me when I went to tell him your answer. He has found his real drivers license so all is well.

The Lord does watch over us here. Best wishes.