Happy Birthday to Adam!

Letter to Mom:

I definitely do not feel 19.  I still feel 16 hahaha.  19 is way older than me.

Easter in South Africa is really small.  I didn't even know it was Easter until like Thursday when the Branch President asked me to give a talk in sacrament meeting. 

Elder Mabanga came on Wednesday.  He's a real blessing to me because I like him a lot.  We traded in our car to the mission office the day he got here because he can drive stick.  And we got a manual car and he taught me to drive, so now I can officially drive manual which is dope. 

Today was really awesome.  We woke up at 5:30 and hiked up Table Mountain which was an absolutely grueling hike.  Especially since I'm way out of shape now.  It took like 5 hours but it was super dope and it gave us a really nice view of Cape Town.  Me and Elder Faingata'a slayed it.  All the other missionaries lagged far behind.  

Tonight we have 3 DAs planned with awesome people who are just the best, and they are baking me a cake and stuff it's going to be sweet.  

President Merrill did call me today but I was on top of Table Mountain so I didn't get it haha

We had baptismal interviews yesterday for our 2 investigators who were supposed to be baptized next Sunday, E and S.  S is so awesome.  She's probably one of the most powerful people I have ever taught, but she failed her interview.  Apparently she has been having some problems smoking cigarettes and she hasn't fully overcome it yet.  I didn't know about this but I did have an idea.  It made me very sad though.  I am sure she will be baptized the next time we have a baptism though.

Letter to Dad:

Happy Birthday, Dad :)

When I opened up my presents I saw the one from Dad and I said to my companion, "It's going to be a book by Hugh Nibley"  And he didn't really know who that is, but I opened it up and sure enough.  But I'm super excited about that book.  I really love the Book of Mormon and I would love to gain a really deep understanding of the Book of Mormon.  

I got my companion on Wednesday.  He's a really good guy and I like him a lot.  

Elder Mabanga, Elder Dove, Elder Hernandez, Elder Heald, Elder Tucker, Elder Fangita'a, Elder Allred, Elder Greengrass

April 10 letters

To Mom:

We watched conference this weekend.  I am a missionary, and Elder Costa gave a wonderful talk, specifically for investigators.  You must put 2 and 2 together and realize that that was surely my favorite talk.  When he was talking about unfamiliar words at church, everyone was laughing so hard.  "Who are the Beehives?  What is the Relief Society?"  Hahahahah investigators have said that to me about a million times.  After that talk our investigator S told us that she was very touched and that "He was talking to me."  Haha it was very nice.  My other favorite talk was Elder Sabin's talk from Saturday Afternoon.  In all though I think all of the talks in the Sunday morning session were just phenomenal. 

I have said a little bit about marriage.   I have never taught a single person who is living with someone they are not married to.  Marriage is very easy here.  If they are cohabitating, it would not be difficult.  They would just quickly get married and it wouldn't be too big of an issue.  The only issue is Labola which is one of the dumbest things ever.  The male has to pay the brides parents like 50 thousand rands or something like that before they can get married.  Paying labola is strongly discouraged by the church.

On Friday President Merrill called me to give me my transfer news.  Elder Monoalibe is leaving the area.  He told me that he's releasing me as district leader because he is calling me to train another missionary hahaha.  My new companion is going to be Elder Mbonga from South Africa.  Apparently he is 24 and a recent convert and needs someone with "A lot of spiritual maturity" to train him the president said.  hahaha.  The best news is that the Elder who is replacing me as district leader is Elder Faingata'a.  When I heard this I was so so happy.  You may know this but Elder Faingata'a is probably my favorite missionary in the whole mission.  The other good news is that my new Zone leader is going to be Elder Greengrass hahaha.  I love that guy so much too.  We share an area with the zone leaders so I will be seeing him every single day for the next 3 months again.  Really good transfer news.  

My package came in the mail.  I still need to pay 113 Rands to release it from the post office but I should pay that today.  Happy Birthday to me :)

To Dad:

I am always grateful that I was born to goodly parents that love the lord. Something I hear a lot is something like this: "You were born into the church, but when did you really get a testimony?"  I used to think about that and try and identify when I really found out the church was true.  I used to think it might be when I started reading my scriptures every day.  Or maybe when I started going to the temple a lot.  Since I've been on mission I realized though, that I have always known the church was true.  There has not been a time in my life when I did not have a testimony.  I realized that it's wrong to assume that somebody must find out for themselves the truth of the church when they were a bit older.  Like they weren't sure when they were 8.  Like they didn't have a testimony.  That's doubting the revelation that 8 years old is the age of accountability.  And so basically I am very grateful that I was born to goodly parents who taught me so well, that as I grew up, I always knew that the church was true, and especially that the Savior Jesus Christ lives and loves me.  

April 3 letters

To Mom:

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. 

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