June 1, 2015

Dear Mom,

Another week down! It is great to get your email, and to just have a relaxing P-day. I always love p-days because emailing, and just getting to relax! I am glad to hear you returned safely from California. It sounds like it was a long tiring drive, especially in traffic. I know what you mean when you talk about bad traffic, and fearing for your life! The traffic is so bad here! During rush hour it is bumper to bumper, an a lot of times the traffic lights go out thanks to load shedding, so it is even worse. I can't wait to just drive on small roads again without traffic. 

I am sorry to hear about your Cousin passing away. I did hear about Elder Perry. Our AP's text us yesterday morning. I went to visit sister masters this week, and her dogs made me think of Shasta, and made me miss her too. I hope you are doing alright with Lucy. 

That is exciting that Lena had a baby!! 

Yeah I have seen the article, but thanks for pasting it. I was interviewed by Collette last week Sunday, then the article was posted on Tuesday. Collette has been texting us telling us about it. It is really cool that it got put on the Church website. Sister Chater that is a member here in Randburg kind of set it up. She knows collette, and she thought it would be a cool story for the church website. She then lined up for collette to interview us. I am glad you enjoyed it, and it is just cool, it was on the Church website. 

It must be the Taim family that emailed dad. They are a great family, and I really enjoy their company. Sister Taim is the relief society president, so we have been doing a lot of less active work for them. They have given us a lot of names, and we have visited them. She has been really appreciative of us helping to clean up all the names. Most the people have moved, so it helps them to update there records. 

Well that is exciting about the church making flight plans. I guess you will just have to figure it out when they get you the itinerary. I am just happy to get home, I don't really care how it happens. I wouldn't like to stay in Salt Lake though. I would rather have you come get me if I have to wait for the morning flight. Just keep me updated I guess. 

That is cool you got to go and do a session in the New Port temple! I miss going to the temple. It has been about 2 month now! I can't wait to try and go like every other week. I don't know an Elder Samuel. There are I think two new missionaries that just came from the Marshall Islands. I guess I will try to find him. 

Don’t feel bad you aren't coming to pick me up. I am happy to be flying home with my group, and just to get home. I would love to come back sometime, but I am just happy to be coming home. Don't feel bad that you aren't coming to get me. We finally got to meet with Abibi this Saturday. We are also meeting her sister named Farida. Smart wasn't there, so that is disappointing. We had a cool lesson with them, and they more fully understand the restoration now. Something we have been trying lately with investigators, and even with people on the street is being bold. We have just been really bold with our claims, and it is really working. People are understanding our purpose, and it makes our work a lot easier. As we are bold we can really sort out the jokers! A lot of times we aren't bold, and we just teach people for a while, but they don't understand our purpose. 

Jackie is doing well. We did service for her at her tuck shop on Wednesday. I was on exchanges that day with Elder Gramm, so he was with me in Randburg for the day. He is really funny, and we laughed a lot. We also saw Jackie on Thursday night, and we just tried to focus our lesson more on her faith, and getting her to understand she knows enough to follow. It seems like everytime we teach her, we just talk about her smoking. We tried to just avoid talking about it, and it was a great lesson. 

The Van Schalkwyk's are members. We didn't see them this week. I guess we do see them at church, and Brother Van Shcalkwyk is super funny! I don't know if there is any relation, I will have to ask them. 

I guess we did a lot of service this week. We helped two different people move this week. One family was leaving the ward, and so we helped just move all the heavy stuff outside of there little town house for the moving truck. The other lady was moving into a bigger cottage, and so we had to help get all her furnachurd from her storage container. It was a super long drive, but it was fun. We were there with a lot of the Priesthood, so that was nice. 

We also did the soup kitchen with sister malpage again! That was super fun, and it is amazing to help these people. The people we are helping are homeless living under an overpass. Sister malpage has been helping them a lot. She is trying to help them help themselves. She has been making them clean up there living area to earn the food. It is great because they have really cleaned up, and they have been regaining hope. 

As I said again this week we didn't teach a lot, but we have stayed busy. We had a lot of appointments cancel on us. 

I guess we have been doing some good contacting and tracting as well. Elder Asay and I have been trying a new approach at tracting. We do a survey approach that is pretty effective. People have actually come out to there gates, or have talked to us through their buzzer. Normally if we say we are missionaries they hang up on us. 

I am glad that you are getting up the mountain, and enjoying it! That is exciting to hear about the little spring! Are you putting sheep back on the property this summer? 

 I still come to an internet cafe. The internet here is pretty fast though. I am able to look at everything. I can get on the dropbox, and I normally do. I just can't upload pictures because my ipod won't let me. 

 A cool miracle happened this week as elder asay and I were coming back to our flat to pick up a DVD. As we arrived there was a family in our complex that was carrying grocieries up to there flat. We asked if we could help, then we introduced the gospel. They were both really interested, and we got there number and stuff. This was just a great miracle. Firstly it is a father led family, then just looking at the timing. We could have missed them so easy. I guess that was a spiritual experience just knowing that god is involved in every little part of our work. 

 I don't know what to tell you about Elder Asay. He is just a fun guy. We laugh and joke together a lot. He is just a really funny guy. he is a really good teacher in lessons, so I can just relax and know it is all good. I will try to think of some funny experience this week to tell you. 

Well I hope your week goes well, especially adjusting back to a normal schedule. I am loving what I am doing, and know I love you. 

Love

Your son