December 31. 2012

Hi,

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas this year. It was so cool to be able to speak to all of you that I had the chance to. I miss you all so much. But I'll be home in 10 months, so don't worry.

Christmas was pretty awesome. A couple of the other missionaries that serve around me came and spent the night on Christmas and we had a lot of fun wrestling and playing games and stuff. I didn't beat being home or talking to all of my family though. On Christmas day we had a devotional with all of the missionaries in the area where there was a bunch of music, food and Christmas cookies. I ate like 10 pounds. It was awesome.

This week was pretty slow with missionary work, and pretty disappointing because no one came to church and practically all of our investigators are too busy to see us, and when we tract everyone is drunk out of their minds and not wearing clothes. It's a pretty sad sight. It made me think of how truly grateful I am for the knowlegde of the gospel that I posess and how much it has blessed my life. Count your blessings, you have a lot. We're not allowed to go into our area today because of all the crazy drunk drivers and stuff so we'll have another awesome night of playing games and stuff. 

I really love and miss you all and cannot wait until the day that I get to see you all again in person. I hope you have a happy new year.

Elder Balmforth

December 17. 2012

Ola,

So this week I found out that I'm staying in Soweto for another transfer. That means that I'll be her for 6 months. My longest area yet. I don't mind though. I really like this area most of the time. My companion makes it a lot easier. It's nice not having to do everything on your own.

Christmas this week will be awesome. I can't wait to call home. I'm pumped for it. We should have a lot of pretty cool activities this week too. Even today we're going to Carnivore restaurant where we get to eat a ton of crazy exotic meats like zebra and giraffe. It's going to be awesome.

This last week has been a good one. Not terribly eventful but we did find some more families and taught a ton of lessons and had a bunch of people at church. One of the hardest things for me to learn here, that I'm still learning is that none of my accomplishments do or can come on my own, but with the Lord's help. You hear people say that all the time, but it just goes over your head until you're forced to learn it by doing hard things I think. Or maybe that's just the case for me. We've been having a lot of success though which makes me really happy.

The only negative thing that happened this week is that there was a crazy rainstorm that came out of nowhere and we got soaked in a matter of seconds. I haven't been that wet since my first area. I had forgotten how much it sucks, but now it's fresh in my mind again.

Anyway, that's all for this week. I love and miss you all and hope you have a very merry Christmas. Treasure the time you have with family.

Elder Balmforth