March 4, 2019 - Mission week 87: On the Road Again

So this week was a little different.

namely Elder Koch from the Area Seventy came a we all had a good time talking about how we need to gather the Elect and build the church on a solid foundation here. Talked a lot about how we need to make sure people Truly Repent so that they are truly converted. Which is true, without somone feeling true joy from the gospel, they will eventually fall away. He is a pretty straight shooter, just telling it as it is, and I love that. 

We also had to cram our entire zone of 12 missionaries into one ford ranger, so the drive to mission tour was a party. 

We spent most of the week tracting again, still working on getting more people

Transfer news came and I am once again moving, not far though, just to the zone leader area of this zone, so Motana aka Pretoria North. I'll have a car again, and this is the whitest area of the mission, so lots of afrikaans and just different culture, so that'll be cool. go get the other side of south african living. 

Things are otherwise good, got a funny story for you:

I've been searching for weeks for a post office to send some letters, and now, the day before i leave here, i find it, only to realize i have walked past it ALMOST EVERY DAY for the last 3 months. so i'm a fool 

i thought that story would take longer. 

but life is good

the work is true

I am running out of time to do this. 

Repent ye repent ye

kthanksbye

February 25, 2019 - Mission week 86: Day 600

Today is day 600 of my missionary service, which i think is pretty cool stuff.

had a cool moment of being guided by the spirit. we were trying to see a former person out in the boonies, and i could not remember where her house was for the life of me, and she doesn't have a phone, so i remembered where a member stayed and then the person we were looking for was there. I think the spirit didn't help me remember her place, so that i would go to the members and remember their place and actually have time to see both of them. "the spirit brings (or doesn't) bring things to our remembrance so we can do God's Will."

Taxi contacting continues to go well and we are finally getting some new people to teach and putting people on date. 

It only took 10 weeks but we are finally having success here, just in time for me to probably get transferred next week like I always do when things start going good. 

Something random that makes my laugh here is that whenever you say the name of Christ around an old lady who isn't a member, they usually clap there hands and start dancing. I really wish I had video of it, its usually the funniest thing ever. and like every old lady does this.

Go Read Helaman 5. 

and I end this short email with a question, which is easier, to die for something or to live for it. I've been thinking about that, since someone told me a quote form Nelson Mandela that is something like "I will die for my cause and if nessisary I live for it". which I think is way cool

kthanksbye

February 18, 2019 - Mission Week 85: Missed Venture

So they have these local taxis that are called Toyota Ventures, and they are awful cars. But Thats what we take to get anwhere we want for like a dollar. But we didn't get one in time to avoid getting all of the skys water dumped on us. so that was fun. 

this week was still more endless tracting, we are still having trouble with people actually being at our appoinments, leaving us with nothing to do each day. So once again I don't really have much to talk about.

Gonna have to figure out this whole "can talk to parents" craziness. 

Life is good, i feel bad about short emails, but i really got nothing. 

I do have pictures though, since we are emailing up in pretoria north and have waaayyy better internet. 

so I will end with a quote from Brother Jaysons talk on Sunday 

"All the past doesn't matter. The Church is true, we are children of God, we know what to do."

So have a good week, and go help someone. 

kthanksbey

 OTHER STUFF FROM CHAMELEON VILLAGE

Djembe Drum i bought

 My collection of STUFF

some bracelets i bought at chameleon village 

we keep having power outages, so candles 

my face 

the best drink ever 

Sunset

February 4, 2019 - Mission week 83: woopdedoop

so this was a week of not a lot, since both me and my companion were failry incapacitated with some sort of  food poisoning. really only had a hanful of lessons through the week. 

we do have a great lady nemed Phingile who is making awesome progress, she asked us a lot about fasting recently, and we seem to really be helping her out .I love when people actually ask questions and make use of the answers we give. 

There really isn't much else to say, so i won't force it. 

but I can talk about two awesome Recent Converts named Mike and Elias, they are both super excited to go to the temple and do some amazing study, you'd think they'd been lifelong members. Every time we go there we have a great conversation . 

Not really much else to say, except happy birthday Mom. 

pictures of Elder Blue, 

and whatnot i forgot

raising power word ministry, but it looks like raisins power word and we walk past it every day and i laugh at it every day

kthanksbye

January 28, 2019 - Mission Week 82: The Feet

We are walking now, so Its taking some getting used to, but we are going pretty well. We had a pretty good week overall, met lots of people, the two to name being Phingile, and NK, philgile being awesome, and NK being an evangelism leader who shouted at us for 45 about the how the HOLY SPIRT IS OUR PROPHET, WE NEED NO MORE PROPHET WE HAVE A BIBLE WE NEED NO MORE BIBLE THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE POWER THE HOLY SPIRIT IS OUR GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT IS ALL WE NEED!!!!!! it was a wild ride for sure. 

sorry i don't really have much to say, things are much slower when you walk to each appointment. 

Also I have the flu once again, so can't really think.

love you all

kthanksbye

January 20, 2019 - Mission Week 81

This has been one of the weeks.

Monday was zone activity elimination free for all chair soccer. that was fun 

Tuesday, I was with Elder Spencer on Exchanges here in Soshanguve. had a lot of fun, he served here, like 6 months ago, so he was happy to see old faces.

Then on Wednesday we had to pick up the entire zone to go to zone conference, since our zone only has one car. Had a nice zone conference, most of the messages lined up to be about Personal Conversion. Very nice one overall. 

Thursday, we had exhanges with the Elders In Atteridgville, I was in Atteridgeville, with Elder Dyantyi, who goes home in like 3 weeks. We had fun talking about Old Elders and people and things from early in our missions. 

Friday, Was District meeting and we had to go up to pretoria to get the mission trailer to help the Mabopane Elders move into Mabopane on Saturday morning. So that was my first experience with driving a trailer. Trial by fire on bad road and super heavy fast traffic in a big city. on the wrong side of the road.

Saturday most of the day was spent on that move, but we saw a few less actives. then we got transfer news, Elder Spence is leaving to Mamelodi, I am staying and getting Elder Blue. They are changing me from Zone Leader to District Leader, and moving the Car to the new Zone Leader area of Montana. So I will be walking this Transfer. That'll be fun. 

Sunday was Elder Spence saying goodbye, and lots of our people came to church. 2 hour church is going much more smoothly now. 

So yeah. Its been a good week. Lots of errends and unexpected changes, but i've learned that Faith is the Currency of Heaven, when we can have a lot of that, we are truely rich. I'm coming ot have more faith i think. 

The news has come of Our new Mission Presidents name, but i will take a moment to talk about the current one President Dunstan George Bennet Twai Chadambuka. He is one of the most succesful buisness men in all of Zimbabwe, he has forearms to rival popeye, and has the strongest testimony of the work, and namely the stongest testimony of the Priesthood, of any man I have ever met, I have learned much from him, and I am happy that he will be my Only Mission President. I have got a good relatoinship to him and hope to one day be as mighty of a Man of God as he is. 

Favorite funny quote of the week: "I had to go to the funeral for some guy my co worker had lunch with once".

kthanksbye

nice picture of soshanguve in general

our member who always gives us ice cream ice cream machine 

us emailing 

our christmas dinner

elder bele

 Our super dope investigator Godfrey

Elder Spence loves donuts

January 14, 2019 - Mission Week 80: You Underestimate my POWER

ITS HOT

that about sums up this heat wave of a week. 

We did so much tracting. We are trying to build up our teaching pool again after the holidays. People loose interest or just don't come back after that. SO yeah. Met with Pretty again, who is insanely hyped to get baptized, this is probably the most excited person I have ever taught. Other than her, not a lot really to talk about. Just meeting people, trying to get them to meet with us. Trying to get members more involved and get reffererals so we can do actually good missionary work. 

but I've thought a lot about why we are on mission. beyond just spreading the Gospel. Like what we get out of it. and it comes down to "Learning to Subdue the Natural man." which is something we all need to do, but mission kinda forces you to do it. So I want everyone who gets this to think about the need for that in their lives and how they can better do that. 

Also something I've been looking at a lot is the Power of the Priesthood, and one thing I would point out is that Calling on the Priesthood, should be viewed on calling on Christ. not just a last resort thing, but something we do to increase our faith. It is not the Priesthood that causes miracles. It is FAITH. the priesthood merely serves to increase peoples faith and such. the only thing purely dependent on the priesthood is ordinances and presiding authority. Miracles and Faith can be found anywhere and in any one. So just have faith, and we shall see the salvation of God. Hope that actually made sense. 

And here is word for word, the notes in my planner for this week

• President Interviews Fun Times
• Two Hour Church Fun Times
• Exchanges Fun Times
• Getting a little lost Fun Times
• Getting trapped in someones house by a dog Fun Times
• HOT HOT HOT Fun Times
• Gonna have Fun Times not having a planner when I get home Fun Times and not knowing what to do Fun Times

so with those Fun Times in mind, go have some Fun Times of you own. 

live life

kthankbye

Fun Times