Tuesday, January 3, 2012

January 3. 2012

Sup-
How's it everybody,
I'm sorry that I didn't have a chance to email yesterday. Because New Year's Day fell on a Sunday, all of the email shops were closed on Monday. I hope everyone had an awesome New Year's Eve and Day by the way. This week we went to a place called Bruma which is a huge market place where you haggle with people for really cool, traditional African stuff. It was crazy. All of the shop owners pretty much swarmed us because we look rich all dressed up. We had to fight our way out almost. That was the most interesting part of the week though.

We started to teach a few new investigators that we found. They're really cool and just happen to be like the only black people in all of Alberton. It was awesome. They're the Ntshonyana family, and don't worry because I still can't pronounce it. The family is a mother, a son and four daughters. They're all super nice, and if we can get them baptized I know that they will be a super strong family in the church. That lesson was last Tuesday, and after that everything went downhill way fast.

Almost 90% of our appointments this week cancelled our teaching appointments. It was actually looking like a very promising week until that happened. The only other person that we taught this week was Marcus, who is going to baptized soon if we can get him to quit smoking. I mentioned him in my last letter, and he was actually doing very well for the better part of a week, but he relapsed. He's been taught every lesson like 3 times now and he has a strong testimony, he just has to quit smoking. To help we go see him almost everyday.. That's one reason we see him anyway. The main reason is that we don't have very many investigators because rich white people are the hardest people to teach ever, so we have a lot of open time to tract and visit members.

I also crashed my bike this week and I have a huge welt the size of a grapefruit on my thigh, and it's turning a bunch of crazy colors and it hurts. It was just a result of me being dumb though. I didn't rip any of my clothes or anything though which is good. I'm really working on staying positive lately. My companion, Elder Blake, and I are working on developing Christlike attributes and Hope is the one I'm working on right now. It's really hard to make a person (myself) who is a pessimist by nature, to have a hopeful point of view.

Since most of our appointments cancelled, we have had a lot of time to tract and I think we're getting to be pretty good at it. I've just recently been trying to think "I'm going to get into this home" before I ring every call box, and it has actually been working really well. I'm also learning to be more bold, and aggressive when talking to people about the church rather than trying to dance around the fact that we want to help them.

This week Elder Blake also got a flat tire which means we have to walk until we can get him a new tube, and get our bikes serviced. It doesn't seem like a big deal until you think that our closest investigator is like a 45 minute walk from our flat, and the church building is like an hour walk. I never thought I would be glad to have a bike in my area until I had to go without one.
New Year's eve and day were really fun though. I was able to hang out with my district since we weren't allowed to be out proselyting because of all the crazy people out partying. I like pretty much all of the guys in my district, they're all fun to be around. Especially Elder Beenfield. He's an awesome guy, but he's one of those people who makes you feel like you have done nothing with your life. Not because he's mean, but because he's just so much better than everyone at everything he does.

Anyway, I love you all and I'm so thankful for all the letters and everything. Remember to read and pray always, and follow the commandments to the t. I miss you all.
-Elder Awesome
Elder Blake and Me at the summit
View of my area from the mountain we climbed

Crazy cactus we found on our hike
Same cactus
What tracting for us looks like

This is what all the fences around every house looks like

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