The best two years...

Sept 13, 2010

2010-09-13T07:16:00.001-07:00

Well as exciting and successful as last week was...this week wasn't quite up to par. It was still a good week...or maybe i just say it was good to try to seem positive, but yeah, definitely not what it was like last week. It really was a rollercoaster week again. Up and down and hard to keep solid things happening. I can recount a couple of good times tho...We did see the Williams family again..and remember this is a mother led family and we're working with them to progress toward baptism as they've already accepted. Unfortunately she's going through a rough divorce right now, which is causing a lot of stress on the family and particularly to her. So we had a decent appointment with her and her daughter with this guy Ofentse, who will be playing for the sharks (durban rugby team) who's a member of the church. He's going to play next year. He's a big kid but way cool. Anyway, so we took him with us over there and had a good appointment with the mother and daughter. Truly just listening and adapting our teaching to meet their needs. Personal experiences were shared that were exactly what they needed to hear. And Sis Williams, before we had got there, tried to send an sms to cancel on us, but fortuantely the sms never came so we showed up to her house anyway, and in the end it was defintely a discussion she and her daughter needed to hear. We read from the BOM and shared some of our favorite scriptures during times of trial that really help us. By the end, it was exactly what they needed to hear and really helped sis Williams find that comfort... Alright anyway, so i got this new shoulder bag, it's even in one of the pics that i sent, it's pretty rad and people are definitely jealous of it. So i'm going to recount a story of what happened to me when i got that new bag...keep in mind it was only R50 and really cheap. But looks way cool! So i get it on saturday and i go out with Elder Naylor (blond in pics) and we're out and i'm feeling way good about my bag, and he's way jealous of it and all this stuff..and i start talking to this guy through the fence, well just over a fence i guess...it was only up to my chest i'd say. And it's a gate that has bars and it can slide so the car can come in and out. Anyway, so he's got these dogs, 2 of which are pretty mean and one little guy. So as we were following up with this guy and inviting him to church, one of the big dogs jumps through the fence up to his shoulders, so he gets his head through, and bites hold of my new bag! He tore my bag in half! Pamphlets go flying as it's really windy outside. As i fight this dog off he eventually lets go...i'm sure my facial expressing was one of amazement and shock as i looked at my companion. I then turn to the guy we were talking to and all he says is, "sorry about your bag man" i quickly reply, "o no worries, i've had it for a long time" as if to not make the guy realize it meant everything to me...haha. As my companion and i walk back to our car around the corner i really couldnt believe that just happened. I got in the car and said, "that's it, i'm done." Luckily we had a Less active family to see which made my desire to work a little greater. O! And on Sept. 11, still that day, we Americans got together and had a nice Braai, bought some meat and then cooked it, very nice! That was our celebration of the day. Except one English guy had to be there...but it's ok. O then, even that night, which actually cheered me up, my companion and i were invited to a dinner at the Flowerdays from 1st ward. (since i used to be in that ward) So Elder Schamel, Legge (his comp) and us two went there and had a nice dinner. We ate Warthog. It was pretty good. It was really good just to catch up on the family and see how they've been. Their son has now been on mission in London England for about 5 months so it was good to hear how he's been. But yeah, it was a really good evening. Other than that, the week was exactly what i said. Really up and down. Dang, nvm. I remember what else. On friday evening the ward had an activity night in which it was a Talent Show. So all 4 of us in the ward of course went and supported. Last minute we decided to throw down a talent all 4 of us. It was a skit. "A day in the life of a missionary" but we made it pretty funny. We had Elder Fozard (from england, white guy, dark hair in pics) do the commentating, then elder Naylor and myself did the acting out, and we had elder Aires be a couple investigators. It was really funny tho. We had lots of people commment on it after. We just picked random places throughtout the day and acted them out...like for service we swept the stage, and then Elder Naylor and i bumped into eachother and had a sword fight with our broom sticks to show what missionaries really do during service...just random stuff ya know...anyway. It was pretty good and i have it all recorded on my camera. But yeah, that was really a good night for us. Except this older lady in the ward hurt her leg in her talent and we had to help her get home and she fell on me when we laid her back into her bed..it was really funny. But other talents were singing, dancing, art, cooking, etc. There were probably almost 100 people there..so it was a good turn out. Every other day was just usual so nothin to report on. Just finding and teaching. Elder Naylor and i are getting along fine, i hope this email is interesting enough. Count down! 2 more emails then that's it! Yeah!

August 30, 2010

2010-08-30T07:12:00.001-07:00

Hey, another week has gone. What i can say is that it's been pretty decent...We moved out of our old place where we were living with two elders..awaiting our new flat that we'd move into...as we got there...we found it a bit different than expected. Small. Definitely. Lacking in mirrors, cupboards, and odd and end things...plus the hot water runs out super quick. But hey, now a week living there...it's not too bad. There are two mdantsane (zone near by) elders who are also living next door to us that just moved in...their place is super small! haha. But for my last month or so...it'll be fine to stay it. It's still getting worked on, and there's lots of construction going on around the house, but we'll deal with it. The week had it's ups and downs. We focused on a lot of finding. As our teaching pool is basically zerooo. We have maybe one progressing investigator who we might give a baptismal date to this week...but other than that...the other elders really didnt work our area much...and so we're starting from ground up. We've found some good people, and do have a lot of appointments set up for this week. So hopefully things will be ok...We've definitely already started sifting through those that are most exciting and we see could have potential..and kinda dropping those who dont. It's what we gotta do. This last month of mine is too short to waste it with jokers. We're struggling to find solid families to teach..so we hope that will change when we follow up on these appointments through the week. The only good thing is we found a guy, saw him 3 times during the week, and he came to church yesterday...so that was nice. His name is Kaya. He's 23 i think. A good guy. We always had to teach him outside on the grass for the first 2 times...but then the last time we saw him a storm was coming so he thankfully let us come into his house...and we had a good chat about the BOM and prayer...And i think he enjoyed church so that was good. Church was nice because it was ward conference so we were able to see the stake presidency talk...and it was focused on 1 nephi 8 and the tree of life. Mostly about the families as well. Good talks...and overall just a good attendance at church. It was fully packed in the room and so they had to open up the back for more seats..which hasn't happened in a long time. So as we've been knocking around on doors all week...well not all week...but at least an hour a day...my comp has been getting more comfortable i think. Even in his teaching. I still do a lot of the talking...which is what i'd rather do anyway...i seem to put things a bit better...but of course he's improving it just takes the time. The two of us are getting along just fine. Anyway, i for some reason have lost my desire to write this email because i'm being distracted. But yeah, things are fine, totally crazy people we're finding, but we're enjoying it. Thanks! Enjoy the week!
Elder Devenney

August 23, 2010

2010-08-23T08:31:00.001-07:00

Well, there has been a bit of a change again in my location of the mission, as well as my assignment of responsibilities. No big deal tho. What has happened is that I'm no longer a Zl, but training instead. Which is exactly what i wanted to do before i left this mission. I'm no longer in Port Elizabeth, but headed back to East London, just a different area and different ward. So i used to be in EL 1st ward, but now i'm in EL 3rd ward...which is just a bit different. What's nice about it tho is that since i was here 6 months ago, i already know some of the members in this ward, and i basically know my way around the city, so that's a huge blessing in itself. I'll tell you more about it just now... Elder Moorcroft and i were definitely bummed to say goodbye to eachother, but it had to happen i guess. Yo we had a blast together..probably one of my top favorite companions for sure! I've been so blessed in that area of my mission. I just hope my comps feel the same about me...Anyway, we got a call wednesday morning that i'd be transfered and that i'd be training. I said some good byes to a few peeps and then hopped on a bus that next morning at 6:30 AM! where we travelled to EL. It's about a 4 hour trip. We were thankfully on a nice bus over, they had tv screens and they played some funny jet li movie and then some movie with John Cena in it. We got to EL about mid afternoon, then i got my companion soon after that. His name is Elder Naylor. He's from Centerville, and looks like any greenie would look. A bit awkward, out of place, all that good stuff. I've been trying to make him feel as welcomed as possible so he's not homesick or anything. He's a pretty chill guy tho for sure. He graduated in 2009 and yeah, seems like we'll get a long just fine together. The ward used to have 4 elders in it, then about 6 months ago, because of the shortage of missionaries, they had to take two out. So the ward has only had 2 missionaries in it for that last 6 months. So with my comp and i, we were put back in, and now the ward again has 4 elders. We're basically working an area that has had hardly any work done to it in 6 months. I really dont think we have too many progressing investigators, just a couple Recent Converts, but that's about it. So my comp and i have our hands full to get this area back on it's feet. From our first couple of days in the area tho, we've found that it has a lot of potential. It's a bit of a distance from the chapel tho so that's a bit of a bummer. Well really not too bad, only like a 10 min drive i'd say. But not everyone has cars...It's a bit of a lower class area for the most part. Well not all of it, we have variety to work with so it should be alright. On saturday, it was the Mormon Helping Hands, and there were over 100 peeps that showed up from the ward to go to these two different childrens homes and fix them up, we made a garden, that sort of stuff. It was really nice. And Elder Schamel is now back in EL1st ward, (where i used to be) and so we were together again for this Helping Hands. We were companions during last years helping hands in Namibia so that was pretty sweet to see him again. It's been about 7 1/2 months since i've seen him. Shortly after that, which took most of the morning, we started just knockin around in our area doing some finding. Surprisingly enough, we had tons of success. We taught 2 lessons and got a few good solid return appointments. During this time Elder Naylor turns to me and is like, "do people always want us back this easy" i told him no, so don't get used to it. But truly we've already found some good success and prospective people to work with. We're very grateful about that. Also, this area feeds missionaries a ton! My last area we hardly ever got fed but guess what, the ward has it set up that we have 1 DA every day! that's so sweet! I might just get fat in this area before i come home! haha. K maybe not, but we'll see what happens. On sunday, the church is very nice. It's a different style building. The sacrament room was packed, so that was nice to see. We have an awesome bishop, who i've met before when i used to be here...we actually are living in the back of his house. He's bishop Van Heerden, he's like 28 or something. Very cool guy. After church we took this guy, Andisiwe, who was a little strange, but got to show us around for a little bit. We taught 3 powerful lessons, of which were basically my comps first real lessons being taught. One of which we gave out the BOM and he's like, "technically that was my first BOM placed." He's a goon. He's still learning a lot and has definite room to improve...at one point in the lesson he was teaching about the Apostasy, then stopped, looked at me with a horrid look and had to ask what was next. I kinda just smiled and told him what to say. He's doing really well tho. I'm proud of my boy! And i think he really enjoyed the tracting...probably because we actually found success. O and he even had his first door slammed in his face by this Afrikaaner who i started talking to about Cape Town, specifically Bellville, and i said it was a nice place, and he said "you obviously dont know sh*t" and slammed the door. I told him that one was worth a journal entry! haha. Overall, we have a lot of work to do this coming 6 weeks. I'm excited for the new challenge of training and i think Elder Naylor and i will definitely be doing some good work here. I hope you enjoy the week and i hope this gives a good idea of where i'm at! O yeah, and on last monday we went to Kragga Kamma game park, you'll see a pic or so, and then also we checked out the nelson Mandela Bay soccer stadium in PE. We toured it and it was cool! The pics are me and moorcroft. I'll send others next time.

Post update

2010-08-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

Good morning! The week was a bit up and down. We were hardly here in PE at all...since we went and took a road trip down to George and Knysna for exchanges. We left, took some sweet pics along the way...and got down to Knysna. We were in Knysna with the 2 elders there, Elder Randriamalala from Madagascar, and Elder Leach from Washington. It was a good day down there and we for sure enjoyed our exchanges. Our very last appointment we were sitting (elder rand and i) with these 3 dudes around in a little shack and i could fell i'm giong to get sick...i just knew it was going to happen. So as we left Knysna that night, (thursday night) to drive an hour or so to George, yup, i was sick and it all started there. We got to George, and that next morning i woke up with runny nose and the works. I almost didnt feel well enough to go out that day with Elder Frost but i felt that i had better go since it would suck way bad for him not to go on an exchange with me for that day. We just followed up on a bunch of people...then just had one real appointment where i was constantly leaning my head back so snot wouldnt drip out of my nose. But yeah, we spent one more night there, then drove back on Saturday morning, always stopping at sweet places and taking some pics. It's about a 4 hour or a bit more of a drive there, so it's quite a hefty road trip. Elder Moorcroft and I really enjoyed ourselves tho. It was way fun. We got some good instruction given to the Elders and everything, but just the time in the car is the best. We went to tsitsikamma the largest bungy jump in the world, stopped there took some pics and watched some people jump. Eventually we got back to our area, tried to see a couple of people, we saw Deng, made sure he was ready for sunday and the confirmation. Yeah, that was about it on saturday. Sunday i woke up and was still not feeling too great...went to church and all that, it was good. Then we had a way nice meal...o of which i could hardly taste anything that i was eating. That was the biggest bummer. We tried to see some people...but a lot just wasn't working out. Then we went to Bishops house and he gave us a bit of food, at the end of the night, and we just chatted for a little while. We got back and i hit the sack. I'm feeling a bit better today...i've been taking some med and it's been helping. But yeah, that's really all that's going on. I'll just try to send a couple of pics, i think that would make this email so much better. Thanks for everything! Sorry this is short and sucky! Enjoy the week!
Elder Devenney no pics...i suck...they wouldnt get smaller

august 9th
Alright well this week has been pretty good. I'll probably be brief as i've got a few things to do here as well as write this email to you. Um...Really there's not too much to tell. haha. The focus for the week throughout the mission was to improve our Personal and Companionship studies...and Elder Moorcroft and i did decent at it...idunno why but we sometimes get distracted with other things during our studies which cause us just to forget time. There are many great things tho that we talked about throughout the week...actually. One day we had a good deep conversation about some stuff, others we actually felt it better to just do some intense updating in the area book...things like that. But it was a good thing for us to work on, and there's definitely some room for improvement. There's some great things happening, or about to happen with us. Deng, our Sudanese dude who's studying here at the University, should be good to be baptized this coming sunday. So we're pretty stoked about him. He got up and bore his testimony yesterday at church and all i can say is he's awesome. Such a good guy, so yeah that'll be happening this coming sunday. Also at church, we've been teaching this family, the Canterbury's, a white father led family, with kids and everything. Yesterday, one of the sons mark and his gf candice came to church. They're probably like 20 or so...mark is a little strange...i think he might have some funny thing going on in his head. We're teaching about the POS to his family on Saturday and he'll just randomly say, "why do the dogs always bark when the birds are out, does that mean that they know eachother are there?" or he commented on this spray mist that cleans out your eye and takes away all the bad air particles...random stuff! We'll ask him a question, and the response will be just like, "have you guys read that book?" Or something crazy...we kinda just laugh it off or try to relate whatever his answer is to some gospel principle like, "yes mark, that's right, opposition in all things!" haha. K it's hard to describe the situation, he's not mental or anything, just alittle out there i guess...haha. But anyway, him and his gf showed up to church yesterday, his gf is a normal person, but not attractive (thought i could mention that) and it was so funny, as the water was coming around for sacrament, mark was like "i think i'll have two" and took one in each hand, took them like a shot, and put em back in the cup holder. My comp was passing, and i looked up at him and we both couldnt restrain ourselves...luckily we saved a good laugh about it later on. I guess it's just you gotta be there...But anyway...yeah church was good...just a little dry during testimonies... The week has been up and down. A lot of things fell through throughout the week. BUt we still managed to see our usuals. We saw the Rodericks after a few week break from them. It was mostly a just resolving concerns appointment. Kinda about "why does God allow bad things to happen to good people" things like that..they were satisfied with the answers tho. We did quite a bit of Less active work as well. Probably spent a good sufficent time with LA's each day and more in total this week than i've spent since i've been here in this area. Overall things are fine. We're planning some good things today and have a pretty busy day as it is. We have 3 solid appointments later on tonight, so our pday might be a bit shortened. But hopefully we'll be playing some tennis and bball before that. K anyway, really, not too much to tell ya. There's really lots of good stuff happening...so just know we're busy lots of the day...haven't had to do much finding this week since we do have a pretty decent size teaching pool. O and there were these 2 girls from Holland here...and at our Dinner Appointment we got to know them a little bit more. They're here for a service for 8 weeks or something. But yeah, good from far, but far from good. We went to the Fourie family, totally a crazy family. Reminds me of home just a tad. But yeah, tons of food, so good, loved it! it was the best meal for sure of the week. Bro Fourie is nuts tho, it was his bday and he makes the craziest comments ever. I cant explain cuz you'd just have to be there... That's all i have i suppose...Thanks! Elder Devenney Pics this week! One pic is My comp and I and the Cleary District. Elder Malobola on left, Rogers, Tanner, Bagenzi, Me and Moorcroft. Another is from Cleary with the branch pres and 1st coun. Pres Barendse and Bro Pullun. Pres on my left. The other is i think just the soccer stadium at night.

August 2
So i hope this email will be decent. Really i'll just update you overall on how the week went probably. Time is limited as it always seems to be unfortunately. We're pushing to go bowling and we've been writing reports for the past hour + and it's been pretty hectic. But hey, i dont wanna leave this email out so i'll at least write a little bit. The week ended a lot better than last week. We had like no one at church last week, but yesterday we had a bunch of investigators come. It was great. Obviously we planned to have more come than those that actually did, but it's still alright. We had a family of 5 come to church. It was pretty dope! They were friend shipped quite well and got a warm welcome from everyone, and even stayed all 3 hours. it's a family from Rwanda. Father is named Celestin, etc etc. I dunno their surname. But yeah, very nice! Others also showed up, including mama mudapakati, the ma that should be getting baptized soon but yeah, still not ready. Also had Deng! Idunno if you'll remember me saying anything about Deng, but before the world cup he was progressing great. For holiday he went back to Sudan and visited family, and just got back this last week for school starting. He's going into Civil Engineering and is way cool. We saw him friday for the first time back and he's just so ready to be baptized. We gave him a baptismal date for the 8th of august, and of course he said yes. He's so humble, but very wise. One day i'll show pics of all these people...But yeah then we saw him saturday, and he of course came to church...he's sweet. So yeah, he's really our only baptism coming up now...Also had some others come to church...but yeah... Elder Moorcroft and i are doing just fine. I think we laugh too much...every situation we find something to laugh about after. People are just crazy...whether it's the people themselves, the fellowshipper, whatever whatever. That's what's making a good companionship for the two of us. We just get along fine and it makes the work a lot more fun. We're finding a lot of success as well as we're finding and stuff. I went on two exchanges this week...one going back to Cleary with Elder Tanner in his area. I got to see some familiar faces of those that i was teaching when i was there, as well as some members. Including Gine and Tiffany...the recent converts...they're sweet. At least they wont forget about me when i'm home...haha. I built a good friendship i suppose when i was there so it's always great to see them again. I also had Elder Masika, just here in the district in the Lorraine ward, anyway we went on exchanges and it was kinda interesting. He's a good man from Kenya. Yeah he's good just kina young on mission and pretty quiet. Nice guy tho. Oh we also had Zone Conference on Thursday and it was fine. The focus is on "working to strengthen relationships with stake and ward leaders". And we did a workshop about how to make a more effective progress record...which went just fine. It's a long day as usual...and got pretty tiring but it was still nice to see some people. It was a combined zone conference with P.E. and Kwanobuhle zones together. There were lots of things discussed so i wont bore you with that stuff... Our days are getting more and more full and we've just been teaching like crazy it seems. Already our week right now is full til Thursday...almost every hour of the day is packed with appointments...which is a good thing but it can get tiring as well. But we're doing fine. I'll just look at it like a good thing no worries. K idunno what else to say...i'm drawing a blank. I'm enjoying myself....my comp is chill and we get along as i said. No problems nor anything out of the ordinary except random people not wanting to see us for various reasons, rejection, slammed doors, dog chases, sickness from eating greasy egggs that my comp made for me and now i feel a bit weird, yup yup all the usual. I'm good and that's all for the week. Sorry it's a lame one...but Bowling is what we're going to go do and i've been here for wayyy too long already. Peace Elder Devenney

July 26th, 2010

2010-07-26T07:16:00.001-07:00

So i hope this email will be decent. Really i'll just update you overall on how the week went probably. Time is limited as it always seems to be unfortunately. We're pushing to go bowling and we've been writing reports for the past hour + and it's been pretty hectic. But hey, i dont wanna leave this email out so i'll at least write a little bit. The week ended a lot better than last week. We had like no one at church last week, but yesterday we had a bunch of investigators come. It was great. Obviously we planned to have more come than those that actually did, but it's still alright. We had a family of 5 come to church. It was pretty dope! They were friend shipped quite well and got a warm welcome from everyone, and even stayed all 3 hours. it's a family from Rwanda. Father is named Celestin, etc etc. I dunno their surname. But yeah, very nice! Others also showed up, including mama mudapakati, the ma that should be getting baptized soon but yeah, still not ready. Also had Deng! Idunno if you'll remember me saying anything about Deng, but before the world cup he was progressing great. For holiday he went back to Sudan and visited family, and just got back this last week for school starting. He's going into Civil Engineering and is way cool. We saw him friday for the first time back and he's just so ready to be baptized. We gave him a baptismal date for the 8th of august, and of course he said yes. He's so humble, but very wise. One day i'll show pics of all these people...But yeah then we saw him saturday, and he of course came to church...he's sweet. So yeah, he's really our only baptism coming up now...Also had some others come to church...but yeah... Elder Moorcroft and i are doing just fine. I think we laugh too much...every situation we find something to laugh about after. People are just crazy...whether it's the people themselves, the fellowshipper, whatever whatever. That's what's making a good companionship for the two of us. We just get along fine and it makes the work a lot more fun. We're finding a lot of success as well as we're finding and stuff. I went on two exchanges this week...one going back to Cleary with Elder Tanner in his area. I got to see some familiar faces of those that i was teaching when i was there, as well as some members. Including Gine and Tiffany...the recent converts...they're sweet. At least they wont forget about me when i'm home...haha. I built a good friendship i suppose when i was there so it's always great to see them again. I also had Elder Masika, just here in the district in the Lorraine ward, anyway we went on exchanges and it was kinda interesting. He's a good man from Kenya. Yeah he's good just kina young on mission and pretty quiet. Nice guy tho. Oh we also had Zone Conference on Thursday and it was fine. The focus is on "working to strengthen relationships with stake and ward leaders". And we did a workshop about how to make a more effective progress record...which went just fine. It's a long day as usual...and got pretty tiring but it was still nice to see some people. It was a combined zone conference with P.E. and Kwanobuhle zones together. There were lots of things discussed so i wont bore you with that stuff... Our days are getting more and more full and we've just been teaching like crazy it seems. Already our week right now is full til Thursday...almost every hour of the day is packed with appointments...which is a good thing but it can get tiring as well. But we're doing fine. I'll just look at it like a good thing no worries. K idunno what else to say...i'm drawing a blank. I'm enjoying myself....my comp is chill and we get along as i said. No problems nor anything out of the ordinary except random people not wanting to see us for various reasons, rejection, slammed doors, dog chases, sickness from eating greasy egggs that my comp made for me and now i feel a bit weird, yup yup all the usual. I'm good and that's all for the week. Sorry it's a lame one...but Bowling is what we're going to go do and i've been here for wayyy too long already. Peace Elder Devenney

July 19, 2010

2010-07-19T06:56:00.001-07:00

Well here it is...Another week is starting and i have to now think about some of the interesting things that have happened in this past week...hmmm It was actually a pretty decent week for the most part. Monday started off so great with another great FHE at the Mendu's and we had the Moyo's there again. Yo it was so funny, my comp and i were rolling on the ground when we played 30 seconds. (idunno if you've played that game, but it's great!) Tuesday we were pretty booked up in the evening time but found it difficult to find effective things to do in the early afternoon. The assistants came and at about 6 o clock started our exchange with them. I went with Elder Msimango, he's from Durban, and it went pretty good. Saw some good people...although had to resolve some major concerns with our baptismal canidate...who is basically being a joker and not doing what she's promised to do...She accused us of just moving her bdate back just because we wanted her to wait longer...i dont think she really understands what baptism is fully about so i wont be surprised if we dont move it even farther back becuase she didnt even come to church this sunday. On exchanges on wednesday we had a good time. We did some early afternoon finding and ran into some crazy guy that spoke about how this guy from zambia was a "new Christ" and that he just came out and was getting some followers. Now this is like a pretty well off white guy, who is following this "father Christ" guy from Zambia what what. Apparently this zambian guy is soooo humble, has been writing some books to clarify the Bible, and there's only about 10 people in the whole world that know about him. But he did say something that was interesting, that he doesnt go around to tell people about this zambian guy, but people come to him that want to know, and it's their choice if they want to believe it or not...kinda an interesting take on that. but over all we laughed pretty hard...talk about false junk that's out there. There was more to our conversation but yeah, you get the point. He wasnt too interested in wanting to hear our message...but we were invited back. The rest of the exchange was fine, Elder Msimango and i got along fine, he's in my transfer group but we've hardly ever served around eachother. So it was good bonding time for sure... Thursday we saw some lady in the hospital...saw the Rodericks later that night, and had a way good lesson on obedience and scripture study. We planned to give them a baptismal date if they came to church on sunday...but they didnt show...lame. But yeah, they're a freakin awesome family that we hope will come into the church soon. We saw some members later on and did that stuff...but nothing too much to tell ya... We did find this cool family last saturday who we went to again on saturday this week, and right when we got there the father was all "Oh hey elders..." lets go inside. My comp and i were like...hmmm...no one calls us elders on the 2nd visit...this guy must be a member or something...or been taught before...but yeah we taught his son, and his sons gf, and him, about the plan of salvation. The father was like...yeah this book talks about a lot of good things...i even read about the gifts and stuff. Basically made it even more like...hey this guy knows more than he's telling us. I think we'll try to get more info out of him when we go back next saturday...but we totally think he could be less active or something. but anyway, his family has tons of potential and are pretty smart as well. They're named the Canturbury's. I totally wanted to send a pic but i dont think he's going to happen because i dont have a attachy thingy to yeah...send. So, again...no pics...but we'll see if i find one before i 'm done. I dont think you've seen any pics for about 4 months. Cuz my card is full but ive been way lazy to send it home and it's got pics from when i first got to Cleary like over 4 months ago. As for my comp, Elder Moorcroft. We bonded quite quickly. He's hilarious and we always get to our boarding laughin our heads off about the day...we have fun...we knw when to be serious...but laugh tons and make jokes. It kinda sucks cuz we're both pretty sarcastic...especially around other missionaries...and idunno if they all understand our sarcasm. But whatever i guess...We're doing just fine. It's been pretty nice weather this past week. And uh...i heard that the Springboks have been getting their trash kicked out of them in New Zealand by the All Blacks. Idunno if anyone really cares about rugby...but yup. No other real big news happening right now...things are fine. Just doing really good. We've found lots of new investigators this week again so i just hope we'll hold on to them and keep them progressing. That's it. O and the Billabong surf pro was in Jeffery's Bay and Bishops wife, who is awesome, went down with her fam, kids and all, saturday and got a bunch of posters signed and stuff by the pros...and totally might give me one. She's so cool. She phoned us this morning and let us know that the comp was over and that we shouldn't go to Jay Bay because it would be a waste...it's just outside of PE and i think we wouldnt have been able to go anyway...but it still would have been freakin awesome! Kelly Slater and all them were there apparently. Thanks for everything! That's all i have to say! Enjoy the week! Elder Devenney

July 12, 2010

2010-07-12T07:15:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so this week has been a bit hectic at times but it's going much better now. We had an awesome combined Family Home Evening at the Mendu's (a sweet married couple who are members, mother from zim, husband from sa, they have a cute little baby named luthando) with the Moyo family and we played a cool game and they really enjoyed it for sure. So that was a good start to the week. We saw them also later on in the week and it was a good lesson as we finished the Gospel of Jesus Christ....we would have totally given them a baptismal date but didnt because sis Moyo is going back to the UK at the end of the month..total bummer. So yeah, lame, but it'll be ok. Transfer news came on wednesday morning and found out elder Wall would be leaving me to go to Mdantsane just back in East London. He had been there before, but not to that particular area. He'll also be training a greenie so yeah, pretty good news i guess for him although we were killin this place and getting along so great. But whatev, i'll see him again in a few months so no worries. So wednesday we saw a couple of people and then thursday we took him to the bus station at 6:45 in the morning. Hectic! So i was basically organizing all the transfers by myself for the elders incoming and going. Had to make sure elders were getting on planes and arriving and going to the right places...it ended up alright although at one point, Elder Msilayse took a car key with him from here in PE to East London on a bus, and we were stressing of how we were going to get it back in time and what what. I took an elder and we headed to Gramstown quick quick to catch the bus, got about 30 kms out of PE and then realized that there was no way we'd be able to catch it. We had to get a lock smith to unlock the car, which he made tons of money in about 10 seconds unlocking the car (not that i'd have to pay for of course) just so we could get an elders' luggage out of the car and get him to the airport to head to namibia. So that was the only little upset that we ran into...luckily elders coming to PE from East London which is about a 3 hour bus ride grabbed the key from the elder that took it and we were able to get it back the same day. Anyway, everybody ended up going where they were supposed to and it all worked out fine. My companion is named Elder Moorcroft and he's from Edenvale, Jo-burg. A pretty cool guy. He's been in Paarl (my greenie area) for the past 7 1/2 months. So we had a few things to talk about right off the bat. He's very afrikaans but it's cool...maybe he'll teach me more since i've forgot so much. We've already been working hard lately and the future looks bright for us! haha. It rained hard core yesterday and so there was hardly anyone at church. Our baptism didnt happen because we realized the lady needs probably another month to prepare...her testimony just isnt fully there yet so we'll continue to work with her. We only saw the Rodericks on tuesday and Bro Roderick said a prayer right at the end and it was awesome. That's what we spoke about, and even tho he expressed not being comfortable praying in front of everyone, he did it anyway and it was so cool to hear. that's something that i love, is hearing an investigators first prayer in front of us, and doing it correctly. So sweet! Other than that we've been doing a bit of finding and being kinda successful so far. Having a good time knockin on some new doors in different parts of our area that we havent worked before. Although we've found some crazy people who have their views about the "mormons" we usually just laugh it off. Things should be alright tho this transfer. So yeah, i'll keep ya posted as you know. Thanks for everything! Elder Devenney

June 28, 2010

2010-06-28T06:59:00.001-07:00

Our week was really good. We had exchanges with George and Knysna, which went so well! It's about a 4 hour drive to Knysna...a very much tourist place but small town feel. Very pretty. We drove wednesday evening and got there about 8 pm or so. Did some training with the missionaries down there, which went well. Then worked the area for thursday. There are just two missionaries down there, so we did splits and things went really well. I worked with this new elder, elder Leach who i was very impressed with him. He's a great teacher and really good missionary overall. From there, we left that night to drive another hour to George, where we met up with the missionaries and did a similar thing. There are 4 elders that are in George. A very pretty place close to the ocean, and surrounded by beautiful mountains. I could definitely live there. It's bigger than Knysna, but still not a very big city. We worked with elders there, then again slept over friday night, and woke up saturday and got ready to head back to PE. But...let me tell you in brief what happened...

Well i had called Mike Smith and told him that i'd love to meet as I'd be in George, and the best day would be saturday. We arranged to meet before we left back for PE from George. They drove up from Still Bay and we met for lunch. I had never met them before, nor knew what they looked like. We planned to meet about 11am to have lunch at the new George mall. We were walking when a man said “Cory!” with his hand stuck out right in front of me. That was him! That was my first contact with Mike and Margie. Both retired teachers. Mike had taught English, and Margie had taught art. So Margie and I had a lot to talk about with my past work in the art gallery and passion for the arts. She even gave me one of her oil paintings which was very nice of her. We were able to talk about the family. He pulled out some pictures and had one of mom when she was probably only about 16 years old. We had a wonderful discussion getting to know one another and better being able to explain whey Elder Wall and I were in South Africa. Mike and I are second cousins, as my grandfather and his mother were brother and sister. But it was great to visit with them. They didn’t know it was my birthday until Elder Wall spoke to the waitress and they brought me ice cream with the whole work crew singing to me. So I’m sure if they would have known they might have wanted to do something different. We just spent that lunch time talking to one another and sharing stories and updating them about my family. It was a wonderful blessing to see that actually happen as we’ve been talking about it happening, and wondering if it would. I didn’t know what to give them before we left, but I had written my testimony in a Book of Mormon and gave it to them just before they left. We said our goodbyes, and hoped that within 6 weeks or so I’d be able to see them again. Who knows the little difference it could make. I know it really made my day, and really felt like there was a bit more of a purpose to my coming to South Africa. So yeah, that was in summary, what happened. They were so nice! Some of the nicest people i met for sure. And it wasnt awkward at all or anything. We just talked for the couple hours over lunch, then we went our ways and we drove back to PE which was about 5 hour drive along the Garden Route. The Garden Route is probably the most beautiful part of the whole continent of Africa and is pretty famous. Just way green and right along the ocean. Trees are massive. Huge gullies and bridges that are awesome. We stopped to watch a person jump off the worlds tallest bungie jump at tsitsikamma...it's off a bridge and it's insane. It was way cool. Lots of tourists there. But yeah...you gotta go look up property on the Garden Route...like in Wilderness or somewhere, it's AMAZING!!! But yeah, we got back pretty late...and we were so tired. But we went to Bishop Parkers house and they prepared a cake for me and so we just chilled there for a little while until we were way tired and wanted to go to bed. That was basically my bday...nothing way way exciting, but it was a good day. Got a few phone calls from elders and of course Pres and Sis Probst. Even Gine and Tiffany from Cleary gave me a call and wished me happy bday. So that was nice of them. That's about it for me i'd say. Church was good and we just finished off the week...had a late night last night updating records and doing stats and what not for the zone...but we're excited for the pday today. Should be alright. Hoping to play tennis! Yay! Alright i gotta go and keep this one short. That's my update. Mike can prob tell you more if you email him...i'm low on time. Thanks! love you!
Elder Devenney

June 13, 2010

2010-06-14T06:55:00.001-07:00

My fingers are freezing so idunno how well i'll type, or even how much. Idunno why but it's super cold outside today. The sun is out, a slight breeze, but it's cold. And i dont have proper clothing with me today...but no worries i'll try my best... The world cup started! For all who dont really care about soccer and didnt realize, it's here! 2010 is here! You feeling it! So yeah, it's a bit crazy, but i dont think it's what it was made out to be. I actually think the country expected so many more people to come and now they're kinda worried. Hotels had been built for this time, and apparently they're just not being booked as expected. Even not all the tickets at games are being sold. It's a shame. Friday, opening night, was a bit hectic tho. Tons of noise and people in the streets. It was pretty cool. But we still found people to teach even during the games, some of which they don't really care about the games...so it's a bonus for us since we cant watch it anyway. Greece and Korea played here in Port Elizabeth on Saturday and honestly, it didnt seem to hectic. Traffic was a bit worse, but that's about it. We still found things to keep ourselves busy even during that time. The week started out with some training meetings for the new District Leaders and Trainers. That was all monday evening. Then we had 7 missionaries sleep over at our flat, (as they were in for Zone conference for tues and had no where else to stay) They're all part of our zone. It wasnt exactly planned but we did it anyway, and luckily we had a bunch of spare mattresses. We got up early on tuesday and headed to the chapel for a pre meeting with pres and sister probst. Then most of the day tuesday we had our Zone Conference. The focus was on the BOM and using it to confirm the message of the Restoration. That specifically was what our 60 min workshop was on. During that time, we did some role plays, discussed, evaluated our teaching, etc, and committed them to practice more using the BOM in studies and role play with eachother. The whole zone conference was great. Talked about great things...Pres and Sis probst are just awesome! That was from about 9 am to 4:30 pm. It always takes that long for everyting to be discussed...but yeah. Things were good. We had some final lessons with J.P. and Deng before they left for home. We'll miss them but they'll be back when school opens up probably the second week in july. On wednesday we had a good day. We took this guy Luthando who comes out with us always to fellowship, well we took him to Spur to thank him. A nice place to eat. He's going to Queenstown for the holiday and will be back when school starts again.But yeah basically up until friday we just kept seeing more of the investigators that would be leaving, making sure they'll be alright during the next month, and committed them to give out BOM's and stuff to family and friends when they go back home. It was good.
Then on friday we had a great district meeting. We focused on the BOM and using it on our door approaches. And how we could improve our skills in that. It was such a good district meeting. Elder Curtis (our DL or the one conducting it) prepared perfectly and we implemented it and used the things we learned in the meeting that very day. And it worked! Elder Wall and i had set about 2 hours of solid finding time, and all we did was knock on doors and use the BOM as our approach, and we found success! Even a white father led family who we're now teaching and even saw again last night. Plus tons of other good potential people! So we were pretty stoked on that. About two weeks ago we were doing some street contacting down in Summerstrand out by the ocean, (very nice place) and talked to a bunch of people, but one was this family from Zim. I might have mentioned them already...the Muyo family. Anyway, we've seen them a few times during the past weeks and what not, and they committed to come to church. Well they cam yesterday! It was awesome. I always felt that street contacting was pretty worthless and never produces anything good, but within 2 weeks from our first contact, and meeting them, they've come to church. It was great to see them and we think they enjoyed it for the most part. Church was really good...except the people are kinda lame at going out of their way to talk to new people, or our investigators that we bring...besides some of the fellowshippers that we've taken to them...so that's a struggle. But yeah, that was pretty cool. We still had other investigators at church too, but it was just cool that the Muyo's came so quickly and kept their promise. So many people promise...but so few actually keep it. Anyway, overall we're doing fine. We got some exchanges this week, and next week will be going down to George and Knysna. So that will be about 3 full days outside of our area...our area will suffer for stats, but it's things we gotta do. But we're just happy zone conference is out of the way til next transfer...Elder Wall and i are getting along great. We have a "Do a good thing jar" where each time we do a good thing we put something in the jar and when it's full, we buy clothes. haha. We like to reward ourselves quite easily. It's funny. But yeah, we're definitely working hard and trying to lead the zone the best we can. We're worried that during the world cup the elders just wont be focused on the work at all and will rather be disobedient and just watch the games with members or whoever...and if they do that they'll truly lose blessings that the Lord has for them. It's just how it works. So yeah, we're trying to be the best we can and work hard. Good things are happening for sure. Despite losing half our teaching pool with school closing, we're being led to families now which is something that we've been praying would happen. Things are just much better than where they have been in this area for the past 3 months. Even Elder Wall says that and he's been here for a while. We're making a difference. That's it tho! Thanks for everything! Elder Devenney

Jun 1 , 2010

2010-06-03T07:53:00.000-07:00

So...let me update you and tell you why i'm emailing you on thursday instead of the usual monday... Last week was good. As you know it was transfer week...An expected phone call came from president on tuesday night just before i fell asleep asking me if i'd like a bit more responsibility yadda yadda and be Zone Leader here in PE. "Sure thing" i said. No worries...so wednesday was full of a couple of tears...(from some investigators like Gine and Tiff and the fam and others) but for the most part my goodbyes to those in Cleary weren't that bad. I told them that i'd see them again since being a ZL i still will go on exchanges with the DL in Cleary...so it's not too far away. But yeah, that was wednesday. Now thursday, being the actual transfer day...was a bit more hectic. I got all my stuff together and that morning, early, got with Elder Wall my new comp. Elder Wall is a good buddy of mine. We were in the mtc together and flew over together...so we're already bff's anyway...which is always good news to get. So yeah, we hoooked up, i got my stuff in the car and quickly dropped it off at my new boarding...then we needed to make sure that flights of incoming elders and outgoing elders from our zone was ok...so that basically took all day organizing and making sure everything is going to work out and go smooth...that all the elders get to where they need to go. We had a bit of proselyting time...maybe like 2 hours in between, then we had to wait at the bus stop for like 2 hours til these correct buses came in from throughout the country. Yeah that kinda sucked...but everything was fine and there really weren't any problems...That was wednesday... Thursday i got to check out more of the area a bit, talked to Wall about the work that needs to be done...(which is a lot). My new area is actually PE main. Like the main city, called Central, then Summerstrand which is a very nice area out by the ocean..also have some township lowerclass that we can work which is very close to the chapel. So in this area we have a little bit of everything...we can work rich white area, colored, or black areas...we got it all. Which has its advantages for sure. We also have NMMU (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Univ) in our area so we teach a lot of the students as well. There are advantages and disadvantages to that also.... So as for our teaching pool...it's consisted of a lot of students like i said...some part member and less active families...but honestly this area needs a lot of help. Idunno what's been going on before i got here...but it needs some help...Walmer (which is where the chapel is and really what my area is called for the most part) is a semi difficult area but of course, that's if i say it's difficult. Any area can be anything you make of it depending upon your attitude right? But yeah, it's large, but has great potential i hope. Friday we had some more teaching appointments, also saturday. Friday it rained most of the day which was really nice to have a change in the weather...it was cold last week but has since warmed up. We gave some District Leader training to the DL in Cleary (my old area) and had to drive out there after our meeting on friday morning. It was all good and yeah...i just hope Cleary will be able to continue to be successful as it was when i was there...i just hope they keep working hard. So what we found out was that there was going to be a zone leader council on monday...and we needed to be ready for it. Which we really didnt have much time for. Sunday we had church...it's a ward...the ward has been here forever it seems like and another ward shares the building (it's the stake center) so it's nice and what not. I've met the bishop and some other members...the bishop is cool. He's like 35 and totally talks like a surfer. You can say dude and things and that's just the way he talks...it's awesome. So yeah...His name is bishop Parker. cool guy. Anyway, so we left PE for Cape Town monday morning early and arrived just before lunch (obviously plane ride) and had a great lunch. For the next two days...til tuesday we had this Zone Leader Council. All the Zone leaders flew in and at the mission home we all counciled on a lot of different things. There were 16 ZLs, we also had the office elders, and the AP's and of course Pres and Sister Probst. We had short reports on strengths and weaknesses in our zones and what could be improved and things we wanted to discuss. President addressed us for a long time on the responsibility and things of a ZL and the weight that is on our shoulders...but anway, we talked. Our discussion was ranging from Accountability, Goals. The World Cup, Member and ward work, Teaching skills, etc etc. So all of that was shortly after lunch through til dinner. About 4 hours straight. We had dinner, then went right back into things. We counseled on what might help each area, the needs and concerns of elders, and what solutions there might be to those different subjects. Did that til about the end of the night. We also talked about some of the "unwritten rules" of things to do when conducting a meeting...a lot of really good stuff basically. That went til about the end of the night...The next morning we had a combined study with everyone which was great...basically we all just asked some deep doctrine questions to pres Probst and got some sweet info out of him...then talked more about a few things we couldnt cover on monday, finalized the next 4 months of Zone Conferences...ate lunch, then basically packed up and got out of there..hopped on a plane and came back to PE. Well as soon as we flew in, about 5 pm yesterday, we immediately started our companion exchange with the AP's. Elder Tanner was with me, and luckily he had served here in PE previous so he was helping me around where to go since i had only worked it for about 2 full days. It was a way good exchange. Elder Tanner is in my transfer but we've never really been around eachother because he was here at the Jo-burg mtc while ya know...i was in provo...and since we never served around eachother we just knew eachother in passing. But now we got a full day with eachother it was nice to get to know him better. We wouldnt mind being eachother's comps...he's from like logan or something... anyway, we taught some guy from Sudan who should be getting baptized asap...but will be coming back from school break in about a month..so we'll wait til then. Also taught and found some others...but anyway...Things are decent here. That's the problem with a lot of our teaching pool is since all the schools will close during the world cup, everyone will be going back home for over a month and then coming back...so that's going to be a struggle for us because so many progressing investigators are students that are leaving...and we'll have to change our focus a little bit. The exchange ended today at 5 pm and are now just finding time enough to email you and tell you this...we still need to do our shopping for the week...unfortunately that thing in Cape Town took up our pday so we wont get much play this week...but hopefully on monday we'll find something fun to do. So uh...i hope that gives you a better understanding of where i am...things are good. I'm enjoying myself. Sad to leave Cleary but excited for some other great things that will be in the next few months. Since i'm a ZL in PE i'll have the opportunity to travel to George and Knysna which is part of our zone and about 5 hours away. That area is supposed to be some of the most beautiful parts of all of Africa, and it's part of our zone...pretty stoked for that. And i'm glad that i'm here because this was going to make meeting the smiths (fam here) so much easier because near that part of the zone is closer to where they live. Even on our plane ride to CT the pilot announced that at one point we were passing over Still Bay and i was shocked but excited because i never really knew where it was...so yeah...hopefully this'll give us a better chance to meet before i leave. That's all i got...Love, Elder Devenney

May 24th, 2010

2010-05-24T07:03:00.000-07:00

Well this week has been really good....with the baptism and everything it went great! i'll get to that just now...The week started off really good... Tuesday we had a great day. We saw almost everyone that we wanted to see. The best part was that at the end of the day we had seen Mark (the skater) and his family. We had originally just planned to watched and explain more about the Restoration but instead we spoke about Prayer and the BOM. The lesson went great. This time we had mark, his gma, his sister mandy (25 yr) and his younger brother (15). So it was nice. At the end of the lesson everything made perfect sense and they better understood prayer right...but then just before we were leaving...mark wanted to know more about the after life. He expressed more about his mother passing away last year...and wanting to know more. This was becoming an emotional subject for the whole family. Mark told us about how he used to have this other kid that he used to skate with who's mother had committed suicide. Mark could never understand why this kid always looked depressed and pale and everything...until mark himself lost his mother. So this opened a perfect discussion about the rest of the plan of salvation. We emphasized the importance of the BOM and how it has so many truths that are in there that help us better understand the after life. We left Alma 40 for him to read and we'd explain it more in depth when we come back again. Even Mandy the sister, it was her first time seeing the BOM and she just sat with it on her lap stroking it and looking very curious through it. But it was funny, we read the first verse of Alma 40 with him...and it states something along the lines of "And now my son, i perceive that ye are still questioned concerning the resurrection of the dead."...something like...we read him that verse and left him to read the chapter which would help him better understand the after life. We bore testimony that he would see his mother again...and we can be with our loved ones again...everyone was very emotional. ...But we went back there just yesterday and started the POS with the family...unfortunately mark was out and so we just stopped after our earth life...we'll finish it when mark gets there tomorrow. But they really liked what we had spoken about and it made perfect sense. Wonderful family... Yesterday was the baptism of Gine and Tiffany Marias. Great people! They had asked me to perform the baptism which was an honor and even the whole baptism service was so spiritual. My companion gave an excellent talk on Baptism...many members were there for support...it was a great day for a baptism...just really hot outside. But the water was freezing...haha. But yeah...it was a great service and they'll be a great addition to the branch. They're the best! I think they're worried that i might leave...but i told them to start praying for understanding if i do leave this transfer...but they have a strong testimony already. We're still teaching great families...and we dunno exactly who will be next to be baptized. But we're hoping that this next transfer we should get at least a family...and even a part membe family also..another mother and daughter. So yeah we feel very good about the work and are always trying to improve ourselves. It'll be interesting to see what'lll happen for this week...maybe i'll stay...maybe i'll go. But i'll keep ya posted on what happens if anything...Thanks to everyone! Each day is something different and if i leave...i've very much enjoyed my time here in Cleary. Thanks for everyone for the prayers! The mission needs them! O and i cracked my skateboard unfortunately this past week which ruined my day...haha. It's still in one piece..but could break completely if i'm not careful...i do have an old extra one...so i'll throw that one on...i dont wanna buy another...but it's sad. But i'll be alright... Elder Devenney

May 16, 2010

2010-05-17T07:04:00.001-07:00

There has been a lot that has happened this past week...some great things...and some not so great. But i'll save the bad news for the end...as hopefully it'll set a proper tone for everyone as they read the good things happening first...

The week really has been great when it's come to the work here in Cleary. We've honestly seen so many miracles this week of how the Lord truly is preparing more and more people for this gospel. I'll start by the beginning of the week tho...Monday evening it was Gine's bday so we were invited to hang out with the family and eat and play a game and what not. She made some great samoosas (triangle shaped breaded baked things with meat inside) also some home made pizzas (mini) and some egg roll stuff sorta, with pies and cakes etc. Way good. Then we just played some game...than we had to leave there and go to another bday thingy...of which we got fed more food. This was at the Deklerk family...a part member family...good food...sorta over done...and we couldnt really finish it but did the best we could...that finished our night.

Let me give you an update on some of the investigators that we're teaching. I feel the Lord is preparing a lot of Mothers and daughters to come into Cleary...haha. As there was a baptism last week of a mother and daughter...Gine and Tiffany will be baptized next sunday...and also another Mother and daughter...part member family are progressing and i could see how they will also be baptized probably next transfer. As for Gine and them...That whole household is doing great. There is another girl Roxanne who is wanting to be taught also now...although she's been sitting in on the lessons for probably the past month...i think it's finally struck her that this is right. So there were 4 of them that came to church from that family just yesterday. Gine and Tiffany are great tho...we went through some of the baptismal questions and talked also of missionary work one night with a great video clip. Gine had then told us that just the day before she had sent a BOM to Cape Town to her brother...we were stoked cuz without us even speaking about it she's already doing missionary work before she's a member. But yeah...next sunday will be their baptism and we're almost out of things to teach them cuz we've done so much with them. We'll see them again tonight for a FHE. They almost want us to come everyday if we can...haha. It's funny. And Gine told me last night that she and tiffany would like me to do the baptism next sunday...which i told her i'd be honored to do. So that was sure nice of them.

Remember Mark the skater and i told you how we're teaching his fam? yeah we had a great Restoration lesson with an object lesson. It was great....then later that week i saw him and this other guy skating and i couldnt help but stop and skate a bit with them. This time when i played a game of s.k.a.t.e with mark i beat him. haha. Idunno if he was too happy about it..but then we played another anyway. He's definitely the best skater i've seen in SA. But yeah we'll continue to teach them and the family. They invited me to skate their rail on sunday...but instead i invited them to church...

Basically what i can say instead of naming names...is just show how great our teaching has been this past week. When we teach the Restoration we use an object of cups which helps people understand better the Apostasy and all the churches in time forming, and the need for the truth to be restored. Everytime we teach it like that, the spirit tells everyone, hey this makes sense. That simple lesson, as we've taught it tons this week...has been a great eye opener for so many people (as it always has in the past) but for some reason this week it's just been so great to teach that lesson. It's the truth! i know it!

Church yesterday was great as we had some good people show up. Remember the Lebrons? Well they had said they'd come to church so i sms'd Lenica Pyne to make sure they're ready on sunday, as she lives across the street. Well unfortunately the whole fam didnt come but it was just the mother and her little cute daughter (3 years old) And she ended up staying all three hours. It was a good thing it was a decent sacrament meeting and everything else also. So we hope to get the whole family next sunday, it'd be great. But yeah...as for Cleary and the work and all that we're doing...it's on a high for sure. I kinda dont wanna leave and i'm afraid that in a week and a half when the transfer news comes in that i'll be leaving...but i guess i'll just wait and see..ya never know.

Now i guess i can tell you a bit of the bad news that happened this week...
Wednesday night we got a call informing us that President and Sister Probst wanted to meet with the whole zone at 1:30 pm the following day. The two of them were supposed to be in Jo-burg at a Misson Presidents Seminar all week. So we were all pretty confused about why he was back in the mission. We all were thinking about what it could be and just figured maybe it was something about the World Cup coming up and some things he needed to tell us. Non the less, we went to Walmer Chapel here in PE and waited for them to arrive. It was us missionaries and also the senior couples. Of which all of us had no idea what to expect. Pres. and Sister Probst were personally going around the mission to inform each zone of the news, and had met with the Kwanobuhle Zone that morning. We all filed into the Relief Society room and he unvailed the news. He told us there had been a death in the mission. His name was Elder Zulu. He was serving out in Mtata about a 4 hour drive from PE. Maybe more. And that it had happened on monday. They (the 4 elders serving in mtata) had decided to go to the ocean to take some pics...(which is quite a drive and might have been outside their boundaries) Well as they got to the spots they were messing around on the rocks and taking pics and everything...the winds and the waves were quite harsh that day. And so, unfortunately at one moment while taking pics a large wave with a gust of wind knocked Elder Zulu into the water... if the others also fell in he didnt tell us. Pres Probst then told us that as the waves were large they ended up carrying him farther and farther out to sea. He might have hit his head as he fell in also...There were lifeguards on duty which quickly responded...They did get his body back to short and started CPR on Elder Zulu, as the other 3 elders had to watch. After some time, they could not revive him. He had taken too much water in. This was now 3 days after the incident as president was telling us the story. No one in the room had a dry eye. To think that we had lost a fellow brother in the mission was horrifying to us all. President and Sister Probst continued to tell us, and to encourage us not to ask why did this happen, as so many would...but to always remember that there is a purpose to God's ways. And that we dont always understand them. He reminded us of the revelation given the Joseph Smith that of those missionaries who lose their life in this great work, will continue it on in the Spirit World. They talked for quite a while...We then spoke for a while of those who did know Elder Zulu and could retell what they remembered about him and good times they had with him. I had only met him a couple of times, but he had served here in Cleary about 6 months ago. We then all wrote notes to his family telling them what a wonderful missionary he was. The sad part is, that he is just about the only member in his family, and we must remember that his family probably doesn't fully understand the Plan of Salvation and the Atonement like we do. Pres Probst encouraged us to always remember his family in our prayers, as well as the other Elders in Mtata for what they must be feeling. Who knows, maybe this might open a door for the family to accept the gospel...God's ways are higher and knows more than we do...Further more, the service was held back in Zim as his body was transfered back up there. They had a Area General Authority speak at the funeral with hopes of reading some of the missionaries notes they had written to the family for encouragement. I'm sure it was a wonderful service...
Elder Turner (one of my comps in EL) was Elder Zulu's companion at the time. And he had called me monday morning before the incident...it's amazing how something like that can happen...even to a missionary in the field. Please keep the Zulu family in your prayers...as we have all week and will continue. They need to have feelings of understanding and not anything against the church...we hope everything will be alright. Also keep Pres and Sister Probst in your prayers as well...as it's a horrible feeling for them at this time. . Thank you so much,

Elder Devenney

2010-05-10T07:27:00.001-07:00

Mothers day

2010-05-10T07:22:00.001-07:00

Well Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful mothers! It was a great week for us. We worked hard to find some new people to teach. Our efforts were not wasted. Throughout the mission we've seen hundreds of new investigators each week. It's been a big effort throughout the mission and focus to find new people...and we're doing it, but now lets just make sure we hold on to those investigators so they progress. Early this week i went on an exchange with Elder Msilasye in his area. He's in the walking area in Cleary, so i spent the day walking around and teaching his investigators. It was nice. We only ran into a couple of crazys...just some crazy lady telling us her dreams from years back and wanting us to interpret what they mean...and although we didnt have an answer, she told us that when we come back we better be ready to tell her the real meaning of that dream...how the heck are we supposed to know! haha. Other than that, we just walked around lots, saw some people and taught and what not, and then...yeah basically ended. As for our progressing investigators and people that are doing well. First off, Gine and Tiffany and the whole family are doing just fine. We taught one of the best Plan of Salvation lessons i think i've ever been in...all because we combined teaching about temples during our life on earth, and at the very end of the lesson we watched a short 8 min clip from a dvd i have about the revelation given to Joseph Smith about the Celestial Kingdom. It was a great ender and i think all that were there...which were about 7 or so people, learned a lot. It was very spiritual. So yeah, i had never taught it bringing in so many other points into the lesson before, but it really paid off in the end. The very next day we went back and taught them more about the temples and watched another dvd explaining about the purpose of them etc. So that was way awesome. I've ordered some temple pics and as soon as they come in i'll give it to the family. Their focus shouldn't just be on the baptism, but truly on the temple. So i think they've realized that now. As for...lets see...the Lebron family...doing great. They didnt come to church this sunday, but they better this next week. haha. They're good tho and we still feel really excited for them. The Tyler family...doing well. We saw them twice this past week and just read from the BOM and watched a conference talk from Pres. Monson the other time. They come to church, but just dont grasp some of the other commitments like reading and praying as a family. So we're just taking our time with them. But both him and his wife Rochelle came to church and brought their 10 year old boy also. So that was nice to see. It was Rochelle's 2nd time coming, so she must like it a bit more now if she's having a desire to come back. And Bro Tyler is funny as ever...quiet at church, but hilarious when we get to his house. On Friday we had interviews with Pres. Probst. All went well. And basically he just told me that he's definitely seeing the district and the area as a high. He says as far as he can think back he's never seen it better than it is right now, and can see our hard work paying off. So Cleary is on a rise! Who knows what'll happen to it soon. Just hopefully we'll be able to keep it up for however long i'm here. And after i leave of course...But other than that i just told him that with transfers (which is in about 2 or so weeks) that i'll be fine with whatever happens. If i stay that's ok, if i go that's ok. So yeah...til then... That night we got to see Mark. (that skater and his family) for the first time. It's about a family of 5. It took a little while for everyone to get home so it was just Mark and the two of us for a bit. That gave me and him a bit of time to do some catch up on the skate scene around the world. He updated me on the pros and whats what ya know...so that was what i needed...haha. I'm sure we'll skate sometime soon if i find the time. But as soon as the family got back, we taught about the first half of the P.O.S. and it went fine. But yeah, hopefully things will work out and we'll keep teaching them. Saturday toward the end i had to do a baptismal interview for this lady and her daughter who were getting baptized on sunday (yesterday). It ended up being over 2 hours by the time i was done, Carmen, the mother, liked to talk a bit. haha. But nontheless it went fine. Candice is 9, and had been coming to church for over a year and was being a great example to her mother. So what ended up happening is just because this little girl had been coming to church, the mother soon followed. Now, months later, they're baptized. All from the simple example of the little girl who had been waiting to be baptized but couldnt because she was so young and needed more support. So yesterday they were both baptized. It's just the two of them in their family. She's not married and doesnt have any other kids. But yeah, she's from the other elders area...not mine and elder malobola. But it was a great baptism service yesterday and everything went fine. So yeah...now in 2 weeks we'll have another mother and daughter getting baptized but this time it will be from our area. Should be pretty nice. Other than that, not too much is going on. Yesterday was great, and again i hope all the mothers had a great day! Thanks for everything!

April 26, 2010

2010-04-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

Good morning. The week has been excellent. Especially as we've been able to view all the sessions of General Conference finally. Truly they were inspired talks that were so great to listen to. I especially liked all the talk about the families and the role of parents. There was one particular talk that made me a bit sad and made me miss mom, one that was spoken about single mothers. Idunno who it as by...but yeah. It was great...but not so great cuz it was too intense..if you catch my drift. haha. The week started out great...we had a very inspiring Zone Conference on tuesday. I had gone to zone conference with some things that were troubling me about transfers and just some things on my mind but by the end of conference, president had addressed all my concerns and questions without me having to ask them. It was so great. He's such an amazing mission president. During the conference tho...we were combined with the Kwanobuhle zone and the P.E. zone. So it was a large conference. But of course...out of all the people that could get chosen to give a spontaneous talk...it was i. Idunno why i always get chosen...but i guess i dont have the best luck. It turned out alright tho. I gave a talk on "what does it mean to find them that will receive you?" as the focus for this transfer will be on finding. I shared a quote by Alexander Graham Bell that kinda stuck through the whole conference and i think everyone liked. Speaking about how as one door closes, another opens...and that open door will come in many different ways. Honestly i cant remember the quote or exactly what i spoke about...but i just know it went alright. The conference was really good overall tho. Probably one of my favorites. Through the week we've been blessed actually when it came to finding and teaching new familes. We're teaching a great father led family new who we have taught just a couple of times who we're actually pretty excited about. They're the Labron family. Parents and 4 children. Elder Malobola, now being here for over a week, is pretty excited about the potential in the area and thinks that many baptisms could be coming. Optimism like that is what we need. I feel the same way tho...whoever comes after me will definitely see some good things happening. Gine and Tiffany are so ready for baptism. We're super stoked for them. They're doing so good but unfortunately there's always complications. Satan is out to break down those two. There is this lady, Jacintha, who actually introduced Gine to the missionaries first, is not spreading bad rumors and saying bad things about Gine and the family. So it's really stupid. Jacintha is not a member, but most of her family (children) are. Idunno what the deal is...but we're going to be speaking to her to make everything better. But we'll be having a FHE at Gine's place tonight with the family anyway, they're so cool. To give you an update on the Tyler family as well...i told you his wife came to the church last week and they enjoyed it. But yeah, we finished off the 10 commandments with them and Bro Tyler has had an interesting past. He's so funny. He'll tell these stories of stealing bags and bags from stores, walking out and wondering how he got away with it. He said he stole like 37 pairs of jeans all at the same time. He's nuts. It's tough to describe the lesson and his stories, but we laugh our heads off by what he tells us...i'll tell you one day. He's like this skinny 35 year old guy, you wouldnt realize it now, but his past is crazy. He's done a lot of wrong, but is doing much better since he first met the missionaries. He's learning a lot and loves the church. So we'll just keep working slow with that family... Other than that...life is pretty good for the most part. We're teaching lots. Looking for new ways of finding and getting new investigators to build our teaching pool. We have great familes. The District is working well as a whole. Not too much to complain about really...Thanks for everything! Hope you're all doing well! Love,Elder Devenney

April 19, 2010

2010-04-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

Alright, well to be honest i never feel like i know what to write anymore in these emails. So i have a feeling my emails i just gonna get less descriptive and less descriptive til i get home...but i'll try my best. As for the week, it was a bit hectic at first with some stuff that happened. We did get transfer news but nothing happened to me surprisingly. I stayed, and Ochanda left. So i did get a new companion. His name is Elder Malobola, from Pretoria, SA. We kinda served around eachother in East London, so i did know him a bit, but yeah he's a good guy and i'm sure we'll get along fine. But this whole transfer some crazy stuff seemed to happen...i was really surprised that i'm actually still here. Idunno...President Probst just seemed to make a lot of surprising changes throughout the mission...but all i know is i'm here in PE one more transfer at least. I was a bit bummed at first, just how things happened, but now for the most part i'm fine with it. I just gotta do 6 more district meetings...which is always a lame task. but whatever i guess. One positive note is that i'll be able to see some fruit of our labors from last transfer...We gave 3 baptismal dates this past week. Shooting for the 23rd of May. So we're pretty excited about that. We gave Gine and her daughter Tiffany a date, and it was a really great lesson when we did it. Truly with the help of our Branch Mission Leader, Theo, the spirit was there and they accepted the challenge to be baptized. so yeah, that was pretty cool. One other great surprise was yesterday at church. We showed up and Bro Tyler was there, and he brought his wife and this other guy Mario. That's like 4 sundays in a row that he's come. He enjoys the church a lot. And we were even unable to see him this past week, but he did promise to come this sunday and he followed through with his word. That was the first time for his wife to come to the church, (she's catholic) so she said it was very different, but i think she like it a lot. Sacrament meeting was pretty packed, which was nice, and the hymns and speakers were really great yesterday which added to the good time. Truly throughout the week it was just a lot of saying goodbyes for Elder Onen and Ochanda, who both left. So 2 new elders came into the district. It was a lot of running around through the area, mostly on wednesday tho. Because that's when we found out. Thursday as it usually is was the day of transfers, so everyone was getting on a bus, going to the airport, etc. Always kinda a hectic day. Lets see what can i tell you about...Elder Malobola has been out for about 13 months. He's a pretty chill guy. He's pretty thick, used to body build a bit. But not too big...He's 25 and is actually the only member of his family. I always have a lot of repect for many of the african elders who are the only members of their family and come and serve a mission. That takes a lot of guts. Whether or not their family agrees with them coming, they still do. On a general note, the end of the week was filled with just introducing Elder Malobola to the members/investigators. We also found a couple new families to teach. And even the focus for this transfer is finding. So we'll be getting briefed about that stuff i'm sure over Zone Conference. Which is tomorrow i might add. Should be alright. Well lets see...i honestly dont know what to say. Just know i'm still where i was last transfer, still enjoying it for the most part. And i'll keep ya posted on life, maybe i'll have more to say next week. Thanks!
Elder Devenney

Mar 29, 2010

2010-03-29T07:02:00.001-07:00

Hey there! Another good week as it's been. I can start by saying some of the best, that Mara was baptized yesterday and it was an excellent service. Very spiritual and many members were there to give her that love and support that she needs. She will continue to be here in SA til June, then she goes back to Switzerland. She lives right next to the Temple up there. It's crazy. But yeah that was definitely a highlight for the week and you'll see a pic... As for the rest of the week. It went great. Monday we were able to go exploring around downtown and checking out the ocean and the piers down that way. Beautiful. We also went on a search, because i had heard there was a skatepark down that way, so eventually we found it, i skated it, then we did some more errands and what not. I wasn't too impressed with it, and there were only bikers and a lot of ghetto white trash people. haha. We had an excellent FHE with the Pyne family...of which we played some games and enjoyed ourselves. Idunno if i told you or not, but there's a girl in the branch who is engaged to this kid who was a missionary here who finished right when i started. Well he's living in Ogden and going to Weber State. This girl that he's engaged to is one of the Pyne daughters. She went over there during Christmas time and spent about a month there. Anyway, it was pretty random but she's hoping to go and live there and be married by August. But yeah, that's where we had an FHE... We spent many of hours, the four of us, working on one of our investigators, Gine's, door. We replaced her door and it turned into a 2 day project for us. We had to cut it down to size, sand it, and the hardest thing about it was that we didnt have proper tools to do anything. We had a hammer and screwdriver, chipping away at this wood...it turned out alright but it was a lot of work. It was a good time tho. That was on tuesday and wednesday mornings that we did that service. I went on an exchange with Elder Msilayse in his area, we were very pressed with time, but it worked out. We saw some of his investigators and what what, and it went alright. Then that evening we taught a great Preach my gospel class and it went really well. The next day, thurs, we got our tires on our car fixed, as they were super sketchy, then did some weekly planning as usual, and then had a lot of appointments through the day. Friday we had interviews with President Probst and i kinda got the impression that i wont be staying here long, but he does see that things are going very well in Cleary, because the numbers sure show it. He just said that as a district we're doing great and was very happy with us. After that, again we had a busy day seeing people. And that evening i went on an exchange with Elder Giles who was going to work with me in my area for the day. It went fine. He's from Arizona and going home in about 3 weeks, at the end of the transfer. Saturday was full of appointments, correlation with our Branch mission leader, more service projects, and good stuff like that. Now sunday we had the baptism like i said, got a good meal from a family, then went out to work. We took our branch president out fellowshipping with us and our last appointment was with Gine and the family. i wanted her to understand the principle of the apostasy and the need for the restoration in depth. So we had a great lesson using an object of cups to help understand. I think it was even Pres. Barendse's first time seeing it. I was pretty bold with her and told her that even tho all other churches are great, they dont have all the truth and authority. At the end, the lesson went so great, and i asked her that when she finds it out to be true would she be baptized, and she agreed. It wasnt what we planned, but that family is so close, they need a date. And she understood completly. She even commented on how i explained the name of the church to her,and the importance of if it's Christ's church, it'll be after His name, and she said that she had never looked at it like that. That alone struck her hard she said. So...long story short, but it was a great lesson, and we hope to get at least her and her daughter a baptismal date this coming week. Other than the things i've shared. I'm doing fine. Life is good. I hope everyone enjoys Conference this weekend, as for us in Africa, it'll be shown 3 weeks from now...Thanks for everything! Elder Devenney

March 22, 2010

2010-03-22T07:02:00.001-07:00

Good morning everybody! Hope you've had an enjoyable week. Things here are great. I've definitely seen the Lord at work during this week as well as the past. We've seen and been blessed with things we're trying to do in this area. Both myself and my companioin, and the other companionship, are working hard to be creative in our efforts, and seeing success while doing it. Cleary has not been this successful for a long time, even as i've been able to look through past weeks before i got here. Both companionships are working hard, using members, finding, and getting people to church more than ever before. And i'm assuming it'll stay that way in the coming weeks. As a district, we're having a good time while doing it also. We enjoy eachother, and know when to take things serious and know when to enjoy the work as well. So in a general sense, things are fine. I really cant say that anything way fantasitc has happened. We're finding more and more people that are interested. Even more families. Something that i have seen though is an increased desire for people to read the Book of Mormon. This really has been a blessing. One of the investigators, Mara, who will be getting baptized next week, is now in Helaman of her reading. She's cruisin. Another two investigators, Gine and her daughter Tiffany set a goal that they would finish 1 Nephi before we see them again, just in a couple of days. As well as others have said they cant wait to read it for themselves and find out what this "book" is talking about. I love it when that happens. Honestly, the BOM is one of the great conversion tools that we posses, and it's a shame when we have to force reading on to people that never really have that desire to just open it up for themselves and start reading. That's why, if they just start reading and praying about it without our bugging them to do it, their prayers will be answered so much faster. I love it! And am enjoying watching other people grow to love it as well...(not that i havent for the whole time i've been on mission, but here it sticks out). So just after studies on Saturday, i got a nice phone call from a family member. Can you guess who? Yup it was our family from here in SA. The Smiths. So it definitely came as a surprise, but it was great to talk to him. (i had passed on my phone # to him) As he might have been sending emails to you...those of you (mom) who know where he stays...but for those of you who dont...he lives down the coast in a small place called Still Bay. A good few hour drive from where i currently am. But basically we just briefly spoke about what i've been up to and if i get to sight see and what not...I probably dont live the lavish life like he would expect someone to live if they come to SA to visit...but i've definitely seen a lot since i've been here...and enjoyed it. We just said we need to stay in touch and we'll be meeting for sure. How awesome would that be! What a great opportunity it would be to get to see that side of the family...that makes the trip worth it eh?haha, well, a little more worth it i suppose. All i can say is that life is fine, there are no complaints. Unfortunately i havent been playing any games of skate with anybody this week...but that doesnt mean that my district isn't trying to learn. After a few falls they usually quit for the day, but Elder Onen has the spirit of wanting to learn so he usually gets back on even if he takes a tumble...it's pretty funny. He's the most committed. There's not much else to say...Cleary is going just fine. It's a big area...still learning but feeling much better about it. That's all to say! Elder Devenney Pics...Ochanda looks huge on the left, msilasye, onen, me. You can see the chapel just down below, and the lake behind us is called...you guessed it, Salt Lake. :)other is back in East London near the ocean...

March 15, 2010

2010-03-15T07:26:00.001-07:00

Heeellooo.... Good morning. This week as you can guess...is going to be a bit better than last week. It's given me more days to figure out the area and feel more comfortable. I've been able to meet more and more of the members and build that relationship. And was even able to go to church for the first time yesterday since the previous week was stake conference. The branch is good for the most part. It's a functioning branch, more so than some of the other branches i've been in. As for the week, we've been able to see Mara, one who does have a baptismal date. She's the foreign exchange student living with a member family. She's doing excellent. She'll be ready on the 28th of March, which she as well as we, are excited for. She's progressing so fast. She's now in Helaman in her reading and just cruises through the BOM. We also have Marcel, the other guy with a baptismal date. When we met him on Saturday we spoke about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and what what, he's doing alright just facing some Word of Wisdom issues that he's trying to overcome. He's doing alright tho. We expressed how we're going to have to move his date back a few weeks, probably for sometime in April, and it's for his best. When we first told him that he was a bit bummed, but by the time we explained everything he understood and agreed with it. He knows he wouldn't be ready for baptism on the 28th of this month, and if he did, then he might go back to his old ways which we definitely dont want. So we're setting a new goal that he can work toward which is fine with him. Other than that we have a pretty big teaching pool of a few different families. We might be giving two more baptismal dates this coming week to a mother and daughter. Gine and tiffany. But we'll see how things go... During and after lunches i've been teaching the elders in my district to ride my skateboard. haha. They love the challenge but Elder Onen, how's a kinda big guy, who probably is the best at riding it, fell two times right on his butt, got up, but later on realized he could hardly walk. It was way funny. We had to fetch him early last night because he's in the walking area..Anyway, it brings for some good laughs. They wanna be good at riding it before the transfer is over... But on that note, i did see two skaters at one point in my area when we had a few mintues before an appointment. The first ones i've seen. They were skating in the road so i couldnt help but stop the car and go talk to them. One of them was actually pretty good. There were just two, and the one that was better is sponsered by Element SA and also Billabong. So using the other kids' skate and his shoes, i challenged him to a game of SKATE for fun. (Like PIG) it went for a little while, and he actually ended up beating me. just barely tho. I put up a good fight for not having anything i was used to and being in my whites. But i got their names and stuff and who konws, maybe it'll turn into teaching opportunities right! ;) That's what i'll hope for. But next time i skate with them, i'll have my own stuff and i'll be able to skate better...haha. Nah it was just for fun. So things here in Cleary are good tho. Elder Ochanda is alright. I wont tell you things that bug me, but for the most part we're getting along. My district is chill and they're a load of fun. We enjoy ourselves. We're working hard and focusing on working with our ward and branch leaders especially our branch mission leader. That's a focus for the mission. Since we also had Zone Conference and had Elder Kaliker of the Seventy here with us, that's what he wants us to do. It's something we're already doing...but just a refocus. It was a good zone conference and talked as well a lot about prayer and why not more investigators are joining the church, it's because they truly do not pray even when they say they do....So we're going to try to work on that. But yeah, i've seen some great humility being shown throughout the district, and we're working for unity as well. There's great things ahead for Cleary. And even our stats were tons higher than it has been in this area for a long time. So that is showing that we're not only getting high numbers, but also working smart in doing so. Yeah...that's really about it i'd say. The week is just busy busy with teaching and testifying. Haha. That's all we do. Still learning the area but adapting quickly to the new situation as i always seem to do. There's really no issues...I hope your'e all safe, happy, and enjoying life. Thanks for everything! Much love, Elder Devenney pics are my district now, by the ocean with a dude in speedo in EL, and a chopped up whaleshark in EL

March 8th 2010

2010-03-08T06:52:00.000-08:00

Hello.

There will be a bit to tell as some of you already know my news...Yes i've left the great city of East London and the great ward that was so kind to me and who i loved...to a new branch, new area, and new city. The city of Port Elizabeth is about 3 hours away from EL. Before i tell you what happened on the day i left, i can fill you in on earlier this week. Transfer news came on Wednesday morning and i would be leaving Thursday. We figured i wouldnt be going anywhere because the news could even come Tuesday night and we hadn't heard anything. It was a surprise as it came the next morning informing me that i'd be leaving. So i had wednesday to say my goodbyes to those i could. I stopped by quite a few of the members and some investigators and gave them my best and told them how much i had appreciated their help and friendship. My time there really was too short...and it was a bummer that i'd leave but hey, i guess i just gotta go.

So i packed and headed for the bus station the following morning on thursday. Public transport is disgusting. There were 5 of us traveling by bus to PE. I sat in the back left side of the bus, very last seat, crammed because no african is as tall as me and they make the seats super close to eachother...luckily i was by the window that would open up just an inch for some breathing air. The place smelled...was hot...and was not an enjoyable ride. I'm pretty sure i was the only one on the bus that was white...not that it realy matters. But hey, after 4 hours or so on the bus, we made it to PE and i got my companion. Elder Ochanda from Kenya. I knew him a bit when he first started when i was out in Queenstown. He's only been out for about 6 months...but is a good guy. He's tall like me...But yeah. I'm still just a District leader, and there's 4 in the district. We live in PE but work an area about 15 minutes away called Cleary Estate. It's larger than i expected. Kinda more lower class. Full of muslims and Christians. The church is luckily a building, but it's just a branch right now. It's slowly growing. I am in the driving area...and the other two are walking/biking. It's unfortunate how things worked out...because elder ochanda used to be in the walking area for 6 weeks, now came over to this new area...so he hardly knows anybody in our area. And as well, Elder Onen was working in my area, and now just went to the other walking area. So it's kinda like a double white wash where none of us have a great idea where we are going or who our investigators are etc. It's been tough. We've had Elder Onen show us around our area and where some members and investigators stay. It'll take about a week to get used to everything. Others in my district are Elder Msilayse from Tanzania, and Onen from Uganda, and Ochanda from Kenya. I'm sure everything will be alright...sometimes being with all africans can be a bit hard to adjust...but i think it'll be fine.

We have 2 that will be getting baptized on the 28th of March. One is an exchange student from Switzerland who has a strong testimony already. She's staying in a member home. Within 3 weeks she's read half the BOM and is way excited about everything. Her parents support her decision, and even back at home she lives very close to the Temple there. And she had no idea what it was before she was being taught. So yeah...then the other one is a guy named Marcel. Cool cool guy. He's pretty excited for things also. Idunno how old he is exactly...twentysomething. But yeah that's kinda it for those coming up. We might have a mother and daughter with a baptismal date here pretty soon as well.

Sunday we had a stake conference. That was really nice. Tons of people were there. It was great to see. Yeah...idunno what else to tell ya. The area that i'm working is mainly a colored area...meaning mostly colored people. Their ways of living are quite a bit different...they love the smoking and drinking and partying...it's a sad thing. It's kinda like being back in my greenie area in Paarl...i havent been in a mostly colored area since that time. Our living courters...as in our boarding is super small and i dont like it. We have bunk beds and if i lay flat my feet and my head can touch each end of the boards. It's way lame. haha. But i'll survive. Things other than that are pretty good. I dont have many complaints. Idunno how long i'll be here...i have a feeling it'll be a short time for me...we'll see tho. That's all i have time to say! Much love,

Elder Devenney

Feb 22, 2010

2010-02-23T07:44:00.001-08:00

Sorry about not writing last week...i spent forever trying to set up a new "myldsmail" account...so as you can see this will be my new email for the next little while. It's good though because it's basically the same as gmail. I no longer have to worry about a little amount of space and constantly having to delete old emails like i had to with the old system...so they actually did something right this time in setting it up through gmail and hopefully i'll be able to attach more photos and things like that. But yeah, that's the reason why i didnt write anything last week...

This week has been interesting, but good i'd say. Even last week was good. I can sorta try to fill you in on the previous week first. We had a DL training thing, and will no longer be having workshops anymore with the AP's. It's just gonna be DL training meetings instead...but it went well. We just spoke about how the DL's role and how important it is etc etc. Things are going really good right now tho in the district as well as with us personally in our area. I cant really remember too much last week...so i'll just go on to this week...

It started great...played tennis again on monday for a few hours with Coultas...it was super hot but so fun. Then we had a great FHE with the King's family. A single mother and her 5 kids. Good family in the ward tho. So that was pretty sweet. That night i went on exchanges with Elder Larson in his area. We had a blast. So i was there all of tuesday as well and got back to my area tuesday night. We walked forever i swear...about 8 kms in the morning because we had to take the car to get serviced and so we tried to see some people but things didn't exactly work out...but we still made the best of it. Then got back, had some great appointments with some people in their area that are progressing toward baptism in the coming weeks. Yeah, it just went really well and we enjoyed ourselves.

Got back in my area on Wednesday and had a good day. Once a week we get together with Ethan Flowerday, our Ward mission leaders son who just got his mission call this past week to go to the London South mission. He's pretty stoked about that. Leaves at the end of May. But we get together with him and watch the PMG dvds and talk a bit about mission and things. He likes it and the parents appreciate it. That night we were supposed to have a great lesson planned with an investigator family and they were even going to give us food but we ended up having to change that appointment because Pres. Probst came in and wanted all the EL elders to have interviews that night. Pres. and I had a good interview and things are going well. He asked a lot how the members were liking us missionaries...(they've had some jokers and the members in this area can tell a lot if missionaries are serious or not and things like that) anyway...i told him that we have a great relationship with the ward and the members. Which is very true. I'm pretty sure everybody likes us. So that basically ended our night after interviews.

Thursday we drove out to Butterworth. About a 120 km drive north of our area...dont go there too often, just once a transfer or so to see a Part member family up there. They only come to church once in a while but came a couple weeks ago and brought their 24 year old daughter and she's pretty interested and wants to learn more. So we spent a few hours out there and taught her the restoration and things like that, and it went really well. Butterworth is pretty junky tho...big township and not a white person to be found. But i guess it's nice sorta...haha. That night we just drove back, got back late, and had a good correlation meeting with Bro Flowerday. I think he's pleased with our efforts and stuff.

Friday, had the usual, District meeting and what not. A lot of our appointments didnt hold. We saw an 18 year old kid and taught him, visited a few others, but then the day kinda fell apart. That night we hadn't eaten so we needed to take our dinner hour and decided to go to Guidos, a pizzaria place. Dang good! We went there last weekend for dinner also. We decided if we dont have a dinner appointment with a member on friday that's where we'll go and eat. It's cheap too for the two of us to just share a large pizza or something.

Saturday we did some good work. We took out a Less active guy, bro Somonono to fellowship with us. We just found out as he's trying to come back to the church, and looking for employment, that he's been smoking a bit, so he's been feeling really bad. But we took him out and had a good time. Got to see a couple people, knocked on some doors and got in a taught some great lessons to some families about faith. Things went great. We dropped him back in Beacon Bay and met another fellowshipper, Leon Kaschula, (Bishops son) he's an RM and what not. We took him to that white family, shaun and karin who were referred to us and who we were supposed to see on Wednesday but had interviews instead and had to cancel. Well it was good to have Leon there because he's local and wha tnot and they were able to meet some other members. Well It had been about 10 days since we last spoke with them, and the first appointment went so good they were really happy with us. Found us really mature and liked what we had to say. But it looks like satan crept in...Karin, who does most of the talking in their relationship, and knows a bit in the Bible, apparently did a bit of research on the internet about the church and of course came across some anit-mormon stuff. Yo, it was bad! We couldnt even get through the entire Restoration because she had already read so much bad stuff about Joseph Smith. And she wouldnt have anything to do with the Book of Mormon anymore. We were there for about an hour and a half trying to explain things. But she would always jump the gun and try to say something that we were just about to answer if she'd just stay quiet. It wasn't the best lesson, and both Cooney and Leon were getting a bit anxious to say things. Luckily we didnt just bash or anything like that, but she basically expressed how they dont want to be involved with this type of church and she doesn't even want to read the BOM. She almost gave it back to us, but i told her that she should give it back to Barbara (the member that gave it to her) out of respect. So yeah it was a shame that it happened like that...there's no way she was willing to listen to us too much. I have had anti mormon stuff been brought out on us before, but not that bad. I just felt bad for the whole situation...it's stupid what some people put on the internet...

But on a better note, right after that appointment...We were invited by Bro Flowerday and his family to go out to eat at Ocean Basket for his birthday. So we were pretty stoked for that. It was a fish place, dang good, but pretty pricey...anyway. it was a nice night. Sunday was stake conference out in Mdantsane...the second largest township in SA...but they have 2 beautiful chapels out there and so that's where it was held. It was in the morning and then after we were fed by Sister Human at her place...and even some other elders came and hung out there. We then visited a Less active guy for a while. Then taught a great Part member family from Nigeria that we found. Very very powerful lesson. The home was a great place and the family was so awesome. So something could happen there. The mother is the only member and we happened to knock on her door and find her. She just had a baby about a month ago and so she cant really go anywhere. Then that night we just spent time with the landlady and the family where we stay. Had some dessert and got to visit with them for a while, so that was our night. Things are on a high. We had a bit of an increase in our stats this week which was really really great to have. So it felt pretty successful for the most part. Other than that...nothing much going on. Still healthy for the most part and enjoying it here. I'm pretty sure i'll stay here for another transfer...but we'll see. Next week is when we'll find out about transfer news...but yeah...things are good. Thanks! Elder Devenney
please forward this on to the usual people if needed...thanks

Feb 8, 2010

2010-02-08T07:12:00.001-08:00

The week started out quite well...last monday after all the usual, Elder Coultas from England and I played tennis for about 3 hours. I was so stoked to play. I hadn't played all mission and i pretty much felt like i was just as good as before i left for mish. So i was pretty happy about that. No one else wanted to play so it was just the two of us. We played 4 sets. I won...(not to brag but just to tell ya...) it was 7-5 6-4 3-6 6-3. So we were pretty evenly matched for the most part...but i prevailed!
I went on exchanges monday night through tuesday with Elder Gouws. Remember my 3some in Cape Town...yeah so he's the new ZL i'm sure i told you but yeah we hung out and worked in my area on tuesday and it went really well. We had some great lessons and we able to follow up on a few referrals that were given to us. This week for some reason has been a great referral week. We've received quite a few. And they've been really good ones as well. Father leds. We got this one from a member who came up to us last sunday and told us to visit this family, she was going to give a BOM to them and we were to do the rest...haha. So we get there, i cant remember which day exactly...o it was saturday...i'm jumping ahead...but it's ok...and we got there and it's a white father led family who had been going through a lot of junk at their last church. And havent been back for about 8 months. Their names are Shaun and Karin. They also have kids...But yeah apparently there was a lot of gossip and false things being said about the family...like that they were witches and false christs and weird weird things...even as they tried to defend themselves the pastuer or whatever just made things worse..so they left. And haven't been back. But luckily as we got there...we were able to answer their questions perfectly and got to talk about a lot of different things. Ranging from Faith, to the plan of salvation...gospel of Jesus Christ, and the BOM. We were there way too long, about an hour and a half. But at the end they were very "impressed" as they said...and really gained respect for us. At first when the wife saw us come in she of course doubted cuz we're just young guys...(especially Cooney since everyone thinks he's 16) but yeah...it was a great appointment. We're going back soonish and they even offered to feed us and we could teach. On our second appointment! We were pretty stoked about that. haha. But we're excited about them.
We've also seen the Harty family and had a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation with a member...an older lady, Sister Joan came with us and bore an excellent testimony which helped a ton. I think they really liked what we have been saying and now we just gotta get them to church...still working on that one.
For District Meeting on Friday i usually like to start out with an object lesson and i usually rotate it around the district. But this week i wanted to do it. I did one using my skateboard and tied it into faith...blindfolded all the elders and did a "plan ride" trick...it's hard to explain but it's way way funny and everybody enjoyed it. My district meetings are getting better and i think everybody enjoys them...which is way appreciated because i've been in some DM's that are just terrible and boring. So i try to make them interesting.
Saturday we played soccer and then dug some gardens later for the Van Tonder family. The cute kid family. They have this little girl Shelby who's like almost 4 that i'm pretty sure i wanna take with me. Kids are awesome. haha. Church was also really good on sunday. it was a good fast and testimony sunday...sometimes they can be a bit hard to stay comfortable through...but it was really nice. Both saturday night and sunday night we ate food with our landlady and her family...the Van Tonders...(the ones we dug for was her oldest son and family) but yeah saturday we were invited for a Braai...which was great...then ate there again after lunch. That was pretty much our week i'd say.
It's starting to warm up and the weather is hard to predict...it's just really humid. We golfed today if i havent already said...we already played 9 holes with this Scottish guy who's the father of a member. He's a nonmember. But we had a blast playing, although it was way hot...Still had fun. He's a good guy. Yeah that's all i have to say for now i guess. Thanks for everything! Have a great week!
Elder Devenney

Feb 1, 2010

2010-02-01T07:04:00.001-08:00

Hey there! Well i'll start from the beginning of this past week. We went golfing believe it or not...for last pday. It was 4 of us driving around getting lost trying to find this golf course a little ways out...well we eventually got there. It was a nice cloudy overcast day...and even started raining about half way through but we didnt mind. We only had 2 sets of clubs with us...and did all 18 holes. It was basically my first time golfing all mission. So it was pretty fun. We were the only ones on the course i'd say...and it was cheap cheap! it was 45 rand for 18 holes...so like 7 bucks. Yeah it was awesome. it took us like 4 1/2 hours to finish tho...so that was the downer...but it was way fun. The course was close to the ocean...and we could see it from some holes...and we even had families of springbok running through some of the course.

The next day we saw the Harty family. That white family that we're teaching and taught about the BOM with them...they new some...but nothing that was really correct...so we helped them get a better understanding about it as well as the bible. We invited them to come to church and the wife was way into it...at the Catholic church she's never been able to take the sacrament there because she's not a member so that's always bugged her but we told her she could at our church and she was happy about that. The wife was more excited about coming than the husband and he said that he didnt want to promise...well unfortunately they didnt come...which kinda sucks but hopefully next week we will. We're planning to take Bro Flowerday our Ward mission leader with us this coming week. So hopefully that'll be successful.

We're still teaching betty and elijah but i think they have some concerns a bit...and they flaked out of coming to church this sunday which is way stuipd...so we're kinda just thinking about what to do next with them...

We had Zone Conference on Thursday which was pretty good. I got picked for another spontaneous talk that was way gay and i'm pretty sure no one prepared for...i had written some things down but didnt really understand it nor did anybody else...so i kinda just made some stuff up and i suppose it made sense...haha. It was some scripture in D&C 29 i think...about spiritual vs temporal laws...but as for the rest of the conference it went really well. Our focus this transfer is on Health and budgeting. Keeping ourselves physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy. So we went over exercising a lot and also about how to budget our money. It's a big thing they're pushing for. So we got a chart and everything to track all our purchases and what what. Trying to make it so our money doesnt run out before the 2 weeks til we get more...but yeah that's about it. It was pretty good.

Had a nice district meeting on Friday morning...I focused on just safety when driving and as well just all the followups that we've gone over in the past. It was really good...After lunch on friday we went over to Michael and Mandy Van Nikerk's place and helped them move a bed to another room...well it sounded easy...but it wasn't. It was like this huge bunk bed log bed that needed to be taken apart and put back together and it had a huge desk thing on the bottom...Michael and Mandy are great...they always have us over for waffles and stuff and invite us for food lots...recently married couple in their 30's i'd say...mandy has been a member forever and has a boy and a girl, 16 and 11. Michael is a convert of only about 2 years...but yeah mandy is prego with another baby. They're awesome...anyway...that took about 3 hours to move that bed...it sucked. haha. Then we just had appointments after...

Saturday we played soccer in the morning...that was nice. We got a referral from a member family in the other ward of a lady that lives in our area. So we went and saw her. She's about 25 going through a divorce and we were able to meet with her and her mother and sister and some other kids...it went really well. At the end of our discussion...which was basically about faith and just kinda building the relationship and getting to know eachother and sharing thoughts what what...she expressed that she's had many people from other churches to their house in the past and we were the first ones that she's really felt good about and completely agreed with what we shared. So we felt pretty happy about that. Then after that we went to the Flowerday's again and we helped make dinner. We made Calamari and it was dang good! That took a while. Jackie...the mother...had her brother pass away just a few days ago...so it was kinda a cheer up dinner thing. But it went really well. Great family...they do too much for us...haha.

Sunday church was good...nothing too much going on...our original DA that we were supposed to have with the Faku family fell through and the Flowerday's just said come over and they'd feed us. So we did...and that was super nice. We ended up watching our SACTM end of year dvd slideshow with them which was great because Ethan is about to get his mission call in the post hopefully in the next week or two and it was kinda encouragement to get excited...It was a good ender to the night. That's about it...

Today we hope to play tennis...i've been wanting to for so long...and we organized all the equipment so it should be awesome.

Cooney and i are doing fine. We're getting along and what not...it's taken about a week and a half to get used to eachother but i thnk we're finally past the "honeymoon" part of the transfer and we feel pretty normal around eachother. haha. So yeah...doing good.

Thanks for everything! Much love,
Elder Devenney

Jan 25, 2010

2010-01-25T07:08:00.001-08:00

Well with transfers last week a couple of new things happened...Elder Turner and i knew that transfers were coming up this past week so we did a lot of saying goodbye to some members...had some great dinner appointments and just did all the last minute things we needed to do. Tuesday night late we got the phone call saying that Turner would be leaving and i'd get my new comp...Thursday was transfer day...we went out to meet my new comp who was driving 8 hours or so to get to East London...so I'm still in the same area, but Elder Turner left me to go to Mthatha...Elder Cooney is now my new companion. He's from Seattle, Washington. He's a ball of energy i'll tell ya what...haha. He's only been out for about 6 months and has only just left his greenie area to be with me. He has been in another place, George, for the past 6 months. It's almost like if you've seen "The Best Two Years" and if you know how excited some new missionaries can be...that's kinda what it's like. It makes for an interesting situation sometimes, but he's a good kid. We're a bit different...but i'm sure we'll get along...
So i've been just showing him around the area...showing him to the new members. That sort of stuff. I felt bad for the kid yesterday at church becuase everybody was giving him junk because he's a pretty small kid and looks like he should still be in high school...everybody was like "young mens is over there" or "Dude are you training!" thinkin he's green...a bunch of other stuff. It's just funny tho. I think he laughed it off so it's no worries. I told him not to worry about it too much...
As for things that have happened during the week...O and other good news. Elder Gouws, if you remember when i was in the 3some in Bellville in Cape Town...i was with Elder Gouws and Lotulelei...well Gouws has been in CT since that time and is now just gone ZL here in East London and is in my District so it's pretty sweet that i get to see that guy again. He's my skate bud...There were some other changes that happened through the zone but nothing too hectic...Elder Schamel was in EL last transfer and i saw him lots...but he's now gone to another place...i'm sure i'll see him again tho.
We've been teaching lots and working hard...got like 5 or 6 father led families that we're teaching...now just gotta get them to church which is always the most difficult thing to do. A new focus is going to be working in Gonubie and even with the ward...they want to do some service projects up in that area...so we've been asked to put a lot of emphasis on going up there...apparently there are some bad rumors about the church spreading through that area...idunno exactly...but yeah Bro Flowerday has told us to focus up there for the next little while.
Other than that things are going just fine...there's relaly not too much going on i'd say...we had a nice DA last night with the Van Tonder family. They gave us some good homemade mac and cheese and they have such cute kids. Four of them...all blonde haired blue eyed. Way cute. But we got talking about conspiracies and a lot of random other stuff at the dinner table...it was pretty interesting...i love converstaions like that. Gets me thinking. Well that's all i have to report...short i know but hope it's alright...
Much Love,Elder Devenney

Jan 11, 2010

2010-01-11T06:51:00.001-08:00

So we wake up this morning to a dark and gloomy rainy day...in multiple ways. My comp goes to the bathroom and while he's in there he looks around and notices that my toiletry bag is missing...with all my stuff in there...so he just thinks that i must have moved it. (I'm still in bed at this point) and then he runs to our study area and all i hear is "dude wake up! we've been robbed!" so i get up and to my luck my skateboard was still on the wall...:) I go to the study and we find both our bags missing. My shoulder bag with books in it, and his little carry on bag with personal things inside of it, his mp3 player mission, and a few other things. Including some stuff from the bathroom...Well last night it was soo freakin hot we slept with the window open...which just happened to be the only window on it without burgler bars...(almost all windows have burler bars on them cuz it's SA...) Well that window is pretty dang high up...so there was two of them. We looked by the window and found finger prints and even on the outside walls. One helped the other up and they got in, walked around, went by our beds into the bathroom, grabbed stuff, chucked it out the window and what what...all while we were sleeping. And this is what we woke up to this morning. Luckily we ran down the street to where some bushes are and just happened to find papers and things lying around, of which they took our stuff there and dumped everything out looking for valuables, and left the things which they didnt want. So we got some stuff back. They left my PMG, my black binder with all my notes from beginning of mission, they left Turner's personal papers from home, his planners, and a couple other things. The stuff that was taken tho was his mp3 player, a watch, our bags, luckily my new razor that i just bought was on the sink and not in my bag...but they got my old razor, all my lotions, and everything else...and my shoulder bag. Luckily we really didnt have too much of value so we got lucky. They could have easily taken other things on the desk but i guess they didnt have time...So yeah that's what happened last night.
But of course we were watched over last night...and nothing happened to us...fast asleep...

So as for the rest of the week...it was quite good. We had workshops in which i was able to see Elder Fragar again and they gave a great workshop on using members effectively. That was really something we needed. Got to have the usual interview with President Probst just about the area and what what. Things are good. Turner and i are doing just fine.

Now that the holidays are over we've finally been able to see more of our investigators and have been blessed finding some new ones too. Even father led families. Including one white family! Yo...this is a miracle. They are Catholic but found out some bad things about their church and haven't been going for the past 2 months. We hopefully caught them the right time as they are very nice and willing to listen. If we were to teach them...(family of parents and three kids...24, 18, and 11) then this would be...i think...the first white family that i've taught my entire mission. It's kinda a rare thing...But we'll see what happens. Other than that...Just been busy. We're teaching another father led...Betty and Elijah...she's from Zimbabwe and he's from SA i think. We have a problem with getting them to the church as it's like a 20 minute drive to the chapel and they dont have a car and taxi is expensive...but they're probably the next up for baptism we would think...maybe sometime next month if all goes well.

Yeah there's not too much else to report on. It's been a good week...it's been super hot lately but this is the first day that it's rained which is nice...although it sucks it has to be on a pday...o well. K well much love!

Elder Devenney

Jan 4, 2010

2010-01-04T06:53:00.001-08:00

So the week went and has been just a little bit better than the previous week. We've been on the hunt for some new investigators and have been going through to find some new ones...and we have had some success this past week that will also flow into this week. We're starting to organize more fellowshippers to come with us...as people in this area have actual lives it's hard to get even the young men to come out with us for the day. Back in township...ysa and ym and what not would come with us all day no problem, 5 days a week or more, and they wouldnt be tired of it. But here it's a different story...So we've had to work around that.
We taught this great guy Kabika from Zambia. Pres. Probst was telling us to teach everybody during this holiday season...even if they're just here for a couple of weeks. So that's what we did. Found this guy from Zambia that was staying in his sisters house for the Christmas season and we just started teaching him. We met him 3 times in the past 2 weeks and had a great First lesson with him just a few days ago. He was stoked about the BOM and everything that we talked about. He unfortunately never came to the church as things came up...but we'll be passing his name on to the elders in Zambia i'm sure. The seed was planted...
The members are still taking great care of us...feeding us and always offering anything they can do for us. We've been working on a ward garden for each family...i might have told you...it's about the size of a doorframe and each family in the ward is encouraged to have a veggie garden that size, and we've kinda been getting it going. Starting them up for the families and diggin and what not. It's been good. Our ward mission leader Bro Flowerday is awesome, we worked his garden and got fed and what not. As well as other families. Bro Flowerday is an awesome guy. They lived in England for a while...he's freakin loaded...they almost bought this castle house but didnt, they have 3 kids, one about to go on mission, he's a previous bishop, he's freakin smart and is a professor in charge of universities around here...anyway...yeah they take good care of us and invite us over all the time...
Anyway...new years eve we were told not to work very late...only til about 5pm or so. So then we hooked up with some other elders...went to the CES building and played some ping pong till the end of the night. That was pretty fun. New years day we were told not to go out and work at all...(mostly cuz all the parties and drunk people that would be out etc) and so our zone and some other elders from the mdantsane zone came to our chapel and we just played sport for a while. Played some volleyball...soccer...i skated a bit...then when it got dark we played mafia which was awesome. O and for lunch just my comp and i were invited to a braai with the Dixon fam, as well as the Flowerdays were there...it was soo dang good. but then we went to the chapel for sport.That kinda concluded our new years...then it was back to work the following day.
Uh...yeah just in summary...things are going fine. Most of our investigators are back in town and we should be back to the normal teaching schedule and everything with them...it's been a bit tough with the holiday season. So yeah that's kinda it...Hope that's good...Thanks!
Elder Devenney

Christmas Post

2009-12-21T10:05:00.000-08:00

Well this week has been a bit better as I’ve gotten more familiar with the area and what what. Last Monday we played some nice soccer at our chapel on the field. It was the East London Zone against the Mdantsane Zone. So there were way too many players on the field…needless to say with Schamel, myself, and a few others…we were unstoppable. Haha. Well not really…but it did come down to 4 – 4 and we needed last goal wins…and of course I dominated and put the last goal in…it was a good ender.This week has been a pretty mixed up one tho…Tuesday was a long day. We’ve been helping a member in the ward move and they had SO much stuff it was ridiculous. Long hours…about 6 of them on Tuesday we were moving boxes back and forth and it was getting quite tiring. They moved into a house that must have been half the size and I really don’t know how they’re going to fit everything in. There were only about 4 or 5 of us helping out on
Tuesday…then the rest of the ward members were going to come on Wednesday. So after helping on Tuesday later on that night we went to one of our appointments…got dropped by the mother of the family…in which she hated me but liked my companion because he was south African. She was Dutch Reform, and wanted us to meet her minister…just another crazy person. But yeah that sucked that we got dropped…she said we could come back in a years time.
Wednesday morning we again helped move the Theron and Hill Family. We had a Christmas Talent Show with all the missionaries at the chapel. President and Sister Probst were there and we started out the activity in the morning watching a movie titled “The Christmas Shoes” and I’m pretty sure every missionary was holding back the tears…it was a sad show. But it was a nice one to watch (since we don’t watch any in the first place) after the movie we had a nice lunch of pizza, then the talent show. I did a bit of Tae Kwon Do and taught a couple other missionaries how to do a Volly Kick (dunno if that’s spelled right) but yeah it was pretty fun. Other talents included singing…poetry, stand up comedy (my comp) impersonations, soccer juggling, and a bunch of other stuff. It was so funny. That was only a few hours in the day then we went back to work in the evening. Just visited more members and got fed and visited other Lessactives and what not. That was about it.
Thursday we had Zone Conference and it was so long, but good of course. It went from 8:30 in the morning to 4:30pm. Things in the mission are continuing to change a bit…tighter schedules and just stuff president wants us to do. He wants us consistently out of our boardings by 10 AM, since the start of mission we’ve usually just either done service right in the morning or taken our lunch then and gone out by 12 or so. But he wants us out in our areas all day and just taking a sandwich or something with us. But it’ll be alright. Zone Conference is always good...it always gets us pumped up.
Friday after district meeting, went out to eat, then went to work. We focused a lot on finding new people, and we had a little bit of success. We have been told by our ward mission leader, who is awesome by the way, to work Gonubie and try to find some people up there…apparently it hasn’t been worked too much. It’s only about a 10 to 15 min drive from where we live, and it’s still part of our area…it’s just far from the church. Probably a 20 minute drive. But yeah…got in a couple of houses…not too successful tho. I don’t remember what else we did…
Saturday we played some volleyball with the ward in the morning…then soccer…(not that it’s our pday or anything) but then had to again do service for another family, the Thornhills, who were also moving. This move wasn’t as bad. We had a lot of help and their place was pretty small so we got everything done within a couple of hours. But I was beat after that. Later on that evening we just tried to do some more following up and find new investigators…idunno what happened…it’s all a blur. O wait…we had a surprise Braai with a member family who called us up and invited us over. It was dang good. Just talked for a while…there were about 10 or 15 people there…but way good food. That ended our night.
Sunday was good. Church was good. We did a singing thingy with another family singing Silent Night and I’m pretty sure we all started off tune and singing a different version from what we practiced…so it wasn’t the best. But it was alright I guess. Then the rest of the day we went around talking with members and others because the ward wants us to start helping members plant gardens…so we got spades and other things the other day…but yeah we just have been planning when and where for the members and less actives. That really concludes all our week.
It’s been good tho…I hope everybody has a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!Much love!Elder Devenney

December 14, 2009

2009-12-14T07:13:00.001-08:00

Hey there!Well it’s been an interesting week with transfers and all. Mkhize and I had planned out what might happen to the two of us…we assumed because he had been there in Ilinge before me that he would be the one that was going to be transferred. We waited patiently on Tuesday for transfer news but nothing came. Not until the next morning. And it was a bit of a surprise. Instead of Mkhize leaving and me staying, it was the other way around. Mkhize would stay and get a new companion, and I would leave to go to East London 1st Ward. East London is about a 2 hour drive towards the coast, quite a big city. So that news came Wednesday morning and I left Thursday morning for East London. A nice long drive in the morning…then finally arrived and got my companion. Elder Turner is his name, from South Africa, Jo-burg. The area in which we work is COMPLETELY different from what I was previously working, which means that it’s going to take a while to adjust. I’m still a district leader of 4. The are is predominately white rich people. It’s a beautiful area as I’ve been able to work and go around the past few days. The area is called Beacon Bay, also work Gonubie, and even way north is called Sunrise on Sea. It’s a large area, and the work is a little slow. It’s completely different when you go from township missionary work, to white area missionary work, you cannot do the same things in the two. And I’ve hardly been in white area my whole mission, so I was kinda stressing about it at first. Mostly we’ve just been trying to visit the members and get to know them better. Our teaching pool is small…and as for the work it can be a little slow as I said…we struggle to get people coming out to teach with us…struggle finding new investigators…basically we could knock all day and no one would want to let us in…plus it’s holiday so it’s even worse. I’m not a big knockin on door fan anyway…so we’ll be working in a different way this transfer to try to increase our teaching pool.
Let me try to let you get a picture of what the area is like. Yes, it’s huge. We’re driving…of course. But parts of it are just beautiful…right on the beach…we take a daily drive on a road for about 10 minutes right along the coastline that looks at the ocean. We’ve gone on the rocks and found some seashells and relaxed a bit to figure things out. I love the smell of the ocean. So it is a beautiful area…which is a blessing…but it’s a difficult one…probably one of the hardest in the whole mission when it comes to success.
Elder Turner has already been here for 3 months. He’s a good guy. We’re getting along just fine. Saturday we had the ward Christmas party up at Bishop’s farm, which is far north in our area. I got to meet most everybody, had a nice braai…people were swimming…playing pool…just hanging out. So it was really nice and a way fun party. Church on Sunday was nice. The chapel is a very nice building and the members are great as well. Oh and the bonus of the rich areas to serve…is that we get fed all the time. That really is a change from my last area…so that is a blessing…if I don’t get too fat! Haha. Other than that idunno…just things are fine. There’s really not too much to tell…I’ve just been trying hard to learn the area…and know the members. There’s really not much else I can report on. Hope this is good enough of an update…Thanks!
Elder Devenney

December 1, 2009

2009-11-30T07:07:00.001-08:00

Hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!
As for us, we were informed that we should not celebrate Thanksgiving, as it's not a recognized holiday here, and that normal proselyting would continue like a normal day. We all figured that's what would happen anyway, so it wasn't that big a deal.
Unfortunately the week started out a bit bad on my side. I got sick, food poisoning is what i'd imagine it was. I must have eaten something and it ended up making me feel horrible. So both Tuesday and Wednesday we didnt even go out into the area. Just hung around and tried to get some rest and get over it. Tried to drink lots of water, etc etc. It was a bit boring, but we ended up going on some nice walks (because being stuck in the boarding all day blows big time, and we found a nice lake/reserve place and we chilled up there for a while. It was way pretty. O and we had some problems with our electricity. It went out, so we went to go get some more (we have to buy our electricity when it gets low, well mission pays for it, ya know...) So we went to Pick N Pay to get some more (local grocery) and they said we were unable to buy it becuase it was blocked and a whole bunch of other stupid reasons. So we called the office, called the landlord, trying to figure out what to do. Needless to say we were completely out of electricity and they couldnt solve it that day. So we ended up spending the night with some other elders at their place. Same thing happened on Wednesday, still couldn't get any. So we had to sleep over again. But we did finally get it on thursday, which was great to have. Thursday i was feeling a bit better so we went back into the area. It was a slow week for us...but we stayed busy.
On Saturday we went to the chapel for our class that we teach, but found that the YM/YW were having an activity. It was a dance activity. So we hung around and helped out, ate a bit of food, that sort of stuff. It was pretty fun. They were learning how to dance...idunno what kind of dance...and then half of it just reminded me of high school becuase they'd form a bit circle and then random people would jump in for 30 seconds at a time...ya know...and then hop back out. Of course only most of the girls were brave enough to go in. A lot of the guys were even too scared to ask any of the girls to dance. It's funny...doesnt matter where you go in the world, guys are always more uncomfortable and shy when it comes to dancing and what what. So i have now made it a goal of mine that when i get home, i want to take a dance class. haha...but anyway, it was fun and ended up being a great activity for how small the branch is.
Sunday church was really good. Elder Mkhize and I spoke in sacrament meeting. I was the concluding speaker. It went really well...other than the chapel was hot and we only had fans in there...but it went really good. Our theme for sunday was Jacob 3:1,2 and Alma 57:27. It talked mostly about being Firm and Pure in Heart. So i talked a lot of about the stripling warriors, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and of course the Savior. I kept my time of 15 minutes and overall i think it went really well. I tried to focus my talk on how to have a Firm Testimony and how to live to it til the end of our lives like many of these men in the scriptures...But other than that church was good.We had a few appointments and just ended our day. A window of teaching has again presented itself to a PM family, Mama Matiso's family. I think i told you we're teaching her daughter Vuyokazi, as well as her other daughter. Only 2 out of the 5 are members if you remember me saying. But now the husband, although he struggles with english, has expressed how he might want us to visit him as well. We've been praying for fatherled families as this is our main focus. So hopefully this will be a father that we can bring into the church that will be strong support to the rest of his family.
Other than that...not much. Just keeping on going. Thanks for everything everyone! hope you enjoy the holidays!
Elder Devenney

Nov 9th, 2009

2009-11-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

Well because of last week i'll try to make up for it by saying a bit of what you would have heard last week, as well as this week...
Starting last week i wrote about one of our investigators named Vuyokazi. A 23 year old Part member family member. Her mother and sister are both members, and now she's getting interested as well. Even the father of the family came to church for the first time yesterday...So There's mama Matiso, (mother) and amanda (other sister) who are both recent converts probably within the past 4 months or so. But are active and excited. So anyway...with Vuyokazi...we've been visiting her for just a couple of weeks now and she's come to church maybe 4 times or so, maybe more. She's a fashion designer, has her own shop here in Queenstown. It's a new business for her tho, so she just started. We talked with her a little bit about faith a few weeks ago and challenged her to act on her faith and do something to increase her faith in the Saviour. We gave her til the next time we saw her, which would just be a couple of days, then we'd follow up and see how it went. Anyway, to make a long story short, she expressed how truly she saw how her prayers were making a difference. She had been praying sincerely that people would come to her store so that she would be able to have enough money for rent, etc, and her prayers were answered. Her business is going well...even with how new it is. I think there's also some issue with her and her father...but i'm excited to find out her thoughts about him now that he visited the church yesterday...Also something else that she told us was that some lady came into her store and told her how nice she was and how great her work was and the lady ended up asking Vuyokazi what church she goes to, surprisingly enough she ended up saying the LDS church. (previously she had been going to a happy clappy church, ya know drums and all...but i know she hadnt learned anything there) and when the lady heard her say that she said "why!? how could such a good girl like you go to THAT church" "why dont you come to my house and i'll tell you all about those mormons and what they believe in". Good thing Vuyokazi ended up sticking up for herself and told her no thanks, even when she's only come a couple of times and at that point we had probably only sat down with her 3 times with short visits. She could have easily found some anti stuff through this lady, but we were glad that she stood up for herself and what she's been feeling and was able to deny that lady. I was happy to hear that. But she's doing well nonetheless. We'll see what happens with that family in the future. We're slowly getting them all to church one by one...
Last week for our book of mormon class we taught about how to introduce the book to people in a sit down situation. Had some practice role plays, evaluated, repracticed, it was pretty intereting. The Ym and Yw have been doing a lot of missionary work for us, going out and talking to people about the gospel, and even tried to teach for themselves...which is something they shouldnt do without us, and luckily we corrected them...but they're really finding joy in missionary work. And they've given us a lot of referrals which was great to see. So this time for our BOM class, this past saturday...we focused on Pass Along Cards. How to talk to a random stranger on the street and invite them to take the card, etc etc. We kinda did the same thing, practiced, role played, then took it to real life and had an activity to give away pass along cards to those walking by the chapel. Everybody was so scared at first, but once they started they realized it wasn't that bad and would want to give away more. We had huge success with it. Including referrals from the contacts they made, with some we've already visited yesterday. The branch is becoming more and more focused on missionary work through classes, as well as the Family Mission Plan of which i've spoken about in past weeks...
As for this week...things are going just fine. We've been having a lot of success in bringing people to church. I think my first couple of weeks we were only getting maybe 2 or 3 investigators at church, now we have usually 8 or 9. So we're feeling good about our efforts on that side.
Silindokuhle, our RC, was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday which is good to see. He's a solid young man.
O on saturday night we had a nice dinner with the Ndlelo's, 1st counselor in BP, and YW pres...i'm sure i've mentioned them before. I had promised to make them a chocolate cake, so that was half the reason of going over there. Which we did by the way and it was fantastic as always. Then they made us some pop and pork and stuff...pretty nice meal.
O yes, we had workshops and interviews this past week which i almost forgot about. On the 18th of this month we're having Elder Hinkley, (Pres. HInkley's son) come to our mission and tour it. Well almost this whole transfer, but on the 18th is our Zone Conference in which we'll see him. The focus for this transfer is Chapter 3 of PMG, all the basic things that we teach. So for ZC when he comes, one companionship will have to teach him The Plan of Salvation in 15 minutes...i'm hoping that we wont get picked for that one. haha. It would be a bit intimidating yeah...So that's what the workshop was on. And that's what we're going to focus on in District meetings and so on...just to prepare for that. How to better teach these lessons...Should be interesting.
Other than that there's really not much else going on. Things are good. Ilinge is fine. No big news there i suppose. Just teaching and having a good time! Hope that was a good update for ya...
Thanks,Elder Devenney

Oct 26, 2009

2009-11-02T09:28:00.000-08:00

Good morning everybody! It has been another week here in South Africa where the weather has been up and down. Rainstorms, overcast, sunny and hot, it's been it all. I hope you're all enjoying the weather back at home...whether that's hot or cold i do not know...
Yesterday Silindokuhle entered the waters of baptism! It was really great. He's such a good kid. Monde, one of the other Priesthood holders who fellowships with us on a regular basis did the baptism. It was great actually, neither my companion or i got chosen to do any part of the program. Didnt even have to give a talk. haha. I think it's the best like that. If the members can do the baptism and confirmation and what what, then as soon as we Elders leave it's not a big deal for the investigators getting baptized. Yesterday was a rainy day tho...so i felt bad for those getting into the water...it couldnt have been too warm. As we all huddled around the outside baptismal font, with some watching from the inside, Monde had to dunk him 3 times because Silindokuhle kept floating to the top. haha. It was a pretty funny scene. But it worked out in the end on the 3rd try. :) He'll be confirmed a member of the church this coming sunday by Bro Patha, our 19 year old young mens president who comes to see Silindokuhle quite often with us.
As for other parts of the week...It's been off and on with good things happening and what not. Some days almost everything would fall through...and it would be hard to find productive things to do in the mean time. We did however do some good service this week at the Branch Presidents house, President Mjiba helping him "transplant" grass to another location...it was funny. He's a hilarious man. Then we also helped another member at the local clinic in the garden diggin around some corn, or mealie as they call it. It was good to get out and get dirty a bit.
We've had some really great Lesson 1 lessons this week with investigators. One in particular using an object lesson and at the end she said that if we're telling her the truth and as she finds out about it, she'll have to join the church because she hasn't felt like she's coming as close to Christ as she should have been, but if she does what we've challenged her to do, she'll be making the right step toward Him, she said. It's a mother and a son who is a referral from Monde actually. Just taught the mother, but we feel pretty good about it. We also did see the Nunu Family again, watched the Restoration DVD. There was one case where we tried to watch that dvd with a Recent Convert this past week...unfortunately for some reason half the sound wasn't working...but it was quite pathetic when i could quote the whole movie. I wish i knew how many times i've watched that DVD in the past year...i remember i went on an exchange with this elder in Namibia, and we watched it 5 times that day...sorry just a side note...
So lets see what else...We got that frisbee...and played that and rugby last monday...idunno if i told you or not. But that was freakin fun! I miss playing regular sports...and it's sad that i get winded within the first 5 minutes of playing. I'm still so out of shape...
I'm thinking of something exciting that i could tell ya that's happened this past week but i'm struggling...so i might just leave it at that. Just know that life is going fine...nothing too much has changed. Transfer news will come tomorrow. I'll let ya know if anything major happens...Nkosi!
Mdala Devenney

Oct 19, 2009

2009-10-19T07:25:00.001-07:00

Good morning!
It's a very nice looking monday here, as throughout the week we've been on and off rain and now it's a cool sunny day...I hope everybody's week went great and are all doing well!
On my side things are about the same as usual. I cant say too many great things happened over the past week...but i'll tell you anyway.
Monday we were on a search for a frisbee and we went everywhere looking for one. Apparently frisbees dont exist in this place...so unfortunately we were unable to find one that day. But we were able to obtain one during the course of the week so that's what we'll be doing today.
We were having a bit of trouble with our car, the ABS kept acting up, and we took it in, they couldnt fix it right then, and they're going to have to order a new part. But in the mean time we're still able to drive the car...which is a blessing. Having to have the other elders drive us to and from our area, and having to walk all around ilinge is not a fun thing to do.
We had some great lessons this past week. We organized for a couple of Recent Convert lessons to be taught by not us, but by their home teachers and other members. Specifically we had one to a RC young woman who had her two home teachers teach, as well as 2 friends in the YW all teach about the Plan of Salvation. It was like a massive army in that house. It went great. We were there just for support. It gave the members more opportunities to teach, and of course the RC gets someone else to hear from other than just us. So we felt like it went really well. We also did it with another Recent Convert Afika who was baptized only about a month ago. It went great.
Silindokhule is doing great. He'll be getting baptized this coming Sunday. He's stoked for it.
We went on exchanges on friday, i went with Elder Lyman...came to ilinge and we worked my area. He's from...Highland or something like that. Anyway, it went fine. Nothing to really report on there...
We've continued to introduce the Family Mission plan to 3 more families this week. All of which were quite excited about it and really feel that it'll help in the goals that the branch has set. We took it to the branch president Mjiba and his wife/family, as well as to the Elders Quorum Pres Mabobole and also to his first counselor Bro Erik and his family. We got great responses with it. So it's slowly making its way through the branch to each family. That's our main goal as you know..to get it to every family that we possibly can. As long as their willing to use the plan.
On saturday we had the Book of Mormon class that we taught and it went really well. We're looking at the comparison between the Bible and the Book of Mormon and what each one says about another. Had group discussions, presentations, went really well i thought.
We're teaching a family, well it's a part member family, the Nunu's. I might have said something about them already but this week we were able to really start teaching them. We taught the first lesson and about the book of mormon on another visit. The husband is the only member,but is LA anyway. The mother has known missionaries, but never allowed them to teach her or the family. We're now teaching her and 3 of their kids. She says she doesnt know what changed her mind this time of why she's allowing us to teach her, but she says she likes us for some reason. She always jokes that because she only has one son that she wants the two of us to be her other sons and just stay at her house. It's pretty funny. We taught some great lessons and we're again going there on wednesday. She and the kids are part of the Assemblies of God church, but likes us and likes what her husband has turned into since he's joined the church. It might take a while, but i see some good things happening with the family...if they dont disappoint us...
There's not too much else going on lately...church was great yesterday. The whole sacrament room was basically full. Most people i've seen...that's stll only about 75 people or so tho...which is apparently not as many as they used to have in the past...but things are going great. We also kinda put in a word at our correlation meeting that the missionaries are not getting fed much here in Ilinge...hopefully some things will start to change. At least on sunday...So i think because we kidna guilted Pres. Ndlelo into announcing that for us...and how we complained...him and his wife fed us yesterday. They're awesome. They tried to surprise us with it but we kinda already figured he'd feed us. Then we just talked last night forever about their missions and a bunch of other stuff. They were both missionaries to the Kampala Uganda mission a little over 3 years ago. That's how they met eachother...but yeah their super awesome.
That about does it for now...Thanks!
Mdala Devenney

Oct 12, 2009

2009-10-12T07:12:00.001-07:00

Well we were kicked out of our last internet shop, as they wouldnt allow us more time, and i thought that i wouldnt get to send a big email out but fortunately we just decided to come to another shop...
The week was a pretty decent one...It has been rainy and good thunder and lightning storms quite often. Which is nice for a change. I actually enjoy it when it rains, then i get to bust out that ol rain jacket...
There hasnt been anything too spectacular that has happened this past week...but monday we played some soccer in the rain and got way muddy and it was awesome...although we almost had to run home from the field becuase we were too nasty to get into any cars...but we worked things out...We had zone workshops on Tuesday about how to make our planning better...basically. It was good...i guess. Sometimes i wish they could just keep things the same as they are already going well...but i guess new ideas and new things to try out dont hurt us...so we've been trying to implement some of the things that we learned at workshops into our weekly and daily planning sessions. It's been going alright so far...no real dramatic improvements.
I'm really enjoying my time here in Ilinge now that i've been here for a few weeks...it always takes time to learn where people stay and get comfortable with all the members and investigators and so on...but things are going really good lately. We've been working with some of the Auxilaries, like the Elders Quorem Pres in helping him in his home teaching. He took us to two families that we didnt even know, and one was a Part member family in whom we are now going to start teaching. It's really been a blessing. Even through the Family Mission Plan that we're still working on, it'll help us establish the kingdom, and then the baptisms will be coming. Silindokhule is still on for the 25th of October and is super stoked about it. That kid comes to everything and loves the church.
On saturday we had our first Book of Mormon class that we taught. It went alright. Nothing too exciting. We were unable to access the tv to watch something, but things worked out anyway. For the first class we had like 10 or 11 people come, which was fine as we hardly even announced it. Then after the class we had some fun and played some games. It was good to see everybody laughing and enjoying themselves.
Church was a rainy one, and i think that's what made less people come on sunday. Although we still had a pretty good turn out...I tried to pay attention but sometimes it's hard when i just dont understand...but my xhosa is improving i suppose, and i can pick out certain things to sorta know what they're talking about...
Yeah basically there's not too much to tell...I only have a couple more minutes so i'll just end it there. Hope everybody is doing great!
Elder Devenney

sept 21, 2009

2009-09-22T09:38:00.001-07:00

Molo Umjani!

For an update for the week...things are going pretty good. Ilinge is an interesting place. I was fortunate to finally see what a church service is like in Ilinge. Church started at 10 am...They meet in a couple of trailors but they're done up really nice. They have big grounds with a nice garden in the front, and the inside looks quite nice. The service was really good. As soon as the clock hit 10am then more people started coming in. We probably had maybe 60 or so people at church. I was quite surprised when only 10 were there at the beginning. But it was really good. I'm trying to learn the names which i find more difficult than anywhere else i've served, but it's alright. We have some really good leaders including the 1st Coun. in the Branch Presidency...he's a stud. Return Missionary, hilarious, and knows his stuff. His name is Pres. Ndlelo. All the rest are pretty cool too...idunno what to say.

Anyway...the week was pretty decent. Unfortunately our car is in the shop and still will be til the end of the week...so we've just walking around a lot in the area. It's a pretty good size area and so we spend a bunch of time walking. Especially if appointments fall through...then it gets really tough and tiring. But it's all good.

So Friday we had District Meeting and i decided to do it on Vision and Goal setting. We did an Area SWOT. It was actually pretty nice having to prepare for it. It all went really well.

Idunno if i told you...but when i was up in Namibia we ate some Giraffe and it was WAY good....just thought i'd let you know. O and also while i was in Nam i was drawing money out with my MSF card and i forgot about it for a minute or two and the ATM ended up eating my card. It was retarded. So i was without a MSF card for about 2 weeks...somehow i survived tho. They had to order me a new one and i just got it the other day. So finally today i was able to buy enough food for the week...i was a bit worried.

As for people we're teaching...we have one guy with a baptismal date sometime in october. I've only met with him once. We're teaching this 14 year old kid named Silindokhule who is awesome. Yo he's smart! He's been to church a lot and already wants to be a missionary. His sister is a member. He's like a 20 year old in a little boy's body. He's hoping to be baptized in the next month or so. We dont have a date for him yet tho.

Ilinge is good tho...as i think i might have said before...it's very rural. No street lights. Dirt roads. Cows walking around everywhere...it's a small township i guess. But it's fun none the less. People seem to be nice...i usually just let Elder Mkhize do all the talking since he can communicate...english is a big problem there. Probably more than half of church on sunday was in Xhosa...so i just read the Book of Mormon...tried to catch a few words and understand...but i couldnt that easily.

O i forgot to tell ya...Transfers were this week so the zone changed a bit...we lost i think 3 elders and 3 new ones came in. Elder Holt...my trainer from Canada...if you remember...is now a Zone Leader in Queenstown. It was a bit of a surprise but it's kinda cool. I'll have to go on an exchange with him sometime this transfer...so that'll be interesting since it's been about 9 months since i've seen him. He's doing well tho. He's almost done, he goes home in December.

Well that's about it. Elder Mkhize is a stud...we're doing really good. Hope you're all great!

Elder Devenney

Sept 13, 2009

2009-09-14T08:47:00.001-07:00

So this week has been a bit interesting. As i was up in Namibia, after Elder Schamel and myself had finished doing weekly planning on thursday we got a call from President Probst. He told me that my visa was expiring for Nam on the 11th of September...friday. He said that it would be illegal for us to stay there without a renewed visa and that i could possibly go to jail.. So he told me that i would be receiving some transfer news a week early. It kinda came as a surprise although i did know my visa was expiring and i figured i'd be transfered anyway...but it was a bit sudden for me as it came very fast. I was told that i would be leaving the following morning within 24 hours and that i'd be heading down to the Eastern Cape of South Africa to a place called Ilinge. He also asked me if i'd like a bit more responsibility...i said yeah sure...so i'm a District leader now. That was good news i guess...

I said my goodbyes to those that i could in my area and in my last area...packed...had a late night finishing up stuff...then hopped on a plane heading for Cape Town. Elder Frager, Elder Hoffman, and myself were the only 3 that were leaving Namibia. It was a bit difficult as all our hard work was about to pay off in Nam...There were multiple baptisms coming up in the branch. Three this weekend, and 4 more about 3 weeks from now. So it was a bummer to go but either way things will be going great up there. We definitely left that branch better than it was 6 months ago.

So i got on the plane and like i said headed for Cape Town. I ended up going with the ZL's in Cape North and working in Langa for a day or so. Sleeping over at their boarding. The following morning the plan was that i'd go fly down to East London with President and Sister Probst, as they were going for stake conference. So that's what i did. I had a nice little chat on the plane with President and Sister Probst which was good. The flight was about 2 hours down. Then we got our rental car and drove outside of East London for about 45 minutes to the Mdantsane ward to have a bit of a conference. (this is saturday) So we got there in time for the Priesthood Leadership training meeting...and stayed later for the Adult Session. Elder Rendlun of the Area Seventy was there addressing and it was way good. After that it was about 7pm and i ended up grabbing all my stuff and loading it into the Queenstown ZL's car and driving back to Queenstown. That's about another 2 hour drive east. Got in about 9pm or so and stayed over at their boarding. Sunday we had Stake Conference but since Queenstown is so far away from EL the leaders did it twice. The one out in Queenstown was at about 2pm. So i eventually got with my companions...Elder Mkhize who will be my actual companion. He's from Durban. And Elder White who is about to leave, he's been in Ilinge for 6 months. I'm replacing him. But as for the next couple of days we'll be together in a 3some til transfer news comes. So that's my current state.

So if you're a bit confused...Queenstown is about as far east as we go in this mission...well south and east. The only thing farther is Mthatha. Ilinge, where i will be working, is about a 25 min drive outside of the main city...it's way rural. There are no street lights. And you drive for about 10 min on a dirt road to get out there. It's nuts. But it looks pretty cool. I was only in the area for a little bit yesterday so i cant really give a full account of what it's like. It's big time Xhosa speaking tho...So it looks like i'll drop all the Afrikaans i've learned and focus on trying to communicate in Xhosa. It might take a little bit. Apparently they struggle to find people that speak really good english in this area...but it'll be fine. We'll work it out. I've got some good ideas for this place...so it should be good.

Queenstown isn't too big of a city...maybe like Ogden or something. Definitely nothing like Cape Town. But we live in a pretty nice neighborhood. Probably the most quiet place i've lived so far. It's really nice. Well the boarding is a bit small...it's like one room with everything in it...and then a bathroom. But it should be fine. I'm a bit excited to start a new area...the only thing i'll struggle with is that language barrier. But my companion can speak Zulu so it's pretty close...he can communicate pretty well.

As of anything else....not too much is going on. Just going to try to enjoy this new opportunity and responsibilities...should be fine. It was a bummer to leave Nam, especially Elder Schamel...we were only together for about 4 and a half weeks. It was a way short transfer for the two of us.

Hope that gives you a bit of an update on where i am and what's going on here! Find me on a map!

Thanks,
Elder Devenney

august 24th, 2009

2009-08-24T08:25:00.001-07:00

Like i said last week, i got my new companion Elder Schamel and things are going fantastic. He's a way cool guy and we get along great. Companions have been a great blessing on mission so far. But yeah, he's chill, we laugh a lot, he's learning the area way fast which is great, he's a smart elder, so it's been nice having him. It's weird tho, the transfer is already half over and i've only been with him for a week. It feels so weird...
So the week was really good. We worked hard this week and have been seeing those people that we kinda neglected the past couple of weeks because of the mix up of working two areas. Basically we've just been working hard to see all the members and progressing investigators that we have so that Elder Schamel will get to know them quick.
We had Zone Conference and Workshops friday and saturday. It was really good. Zone con is always amazing and President Probst really helped us get motivated for the work. Although some things are changing in the mission...They're being more strict with rules and what not...it's quite sad. Music has been tightened...it's now only hymns and MOTAB. So that's a bit of a bummer. Basically that's the biggest one that you'd probably care about...anyway tho. Workshops was good, we addressed a concern that was perfect for us here in Namibia. Our Branch Mission Leader is kinda a joke, he's alright, but he's just really busy. In workshops we realized the importance of him and his role and how we can help him feel better about his calling. Because we meet with him once a week to discuss our areas and investigators and how the branch can help us...but sometimes we dont feel that information gets to the Branch President. But what we're going to do is try to introduce a Branch Mission Plan, so that us and the branch are all on the same page. It's kinda the branche's vision on what they want to happen in 6 months time, etc, and how us as missionaries can help to achieve that vision. It's a really great thing, that neither of the two branches have right now. But yeah that's going to be happening in the near future.
Another great thing that we all did on Saturday was the Mormon Helping Hands Project. We went to a place up in Katutura, north end of the city, to a place called Mt Sinai Center to help take out dead grass, move lots of gravel and dirt and bricks, and planted a way nice garden. We must have had about 150 people from both branches come out, plus non members that came and helped. It was a great activity. That took about 4 or so hours in the morning. From about 9am to 1pm. It was good also to have President and Sister Probst there for it. It was a nation wide thing...all across africa, everybody was doing it on the same day. So yeah, that was good.
Other things to report on are not too much...things are doing really good. We saw a lessactive family yesterday just because...and the mother really showed her love for us and our visit. Like it was an answer to her prayers. Then this morning we sent a text to her inviting her and the family to a family home evening tonight and she sent us back like a 4 page text telling us thank you so much and yadda yadda yadda. I wish someone did that more often. When people tell us that we're answers to their prayers, and exactly what they needed at that time of day, it really makes us feel good that we left our boarding in the morning and we did it accomplishing something and helping out at least one person. It made us feel special...
Thanks for all the love and support from everybody! I really do appreciate it! The week was good, nothing too much to say...
Played our zone soccer today in which my district creamed the other district...finally we won one! The whole 4 transfers i've been here it's my first time that we've won...so that made us feel good. We're thinking about getting a trophy..haha.
Alright, love you all!
Elder Devenney

August 3, 2009

2009-08-03T07:21:00.001-07:00

Hello Everybody...Hope the week has been great for you...
I'll start where i usually do...past monday...played some wicked volleyball in which i loved and brought me back to the good ol days...i might have already told you...but yes it was fantastic. I'm amazing...that's just about it...
The next couple of days flew by and which i dont really know what to say. Been seeing the usual people...nothing to report on there. But we do have 3 with a baptismal date...Sara, mona, and andrew. All related. Andrew is a joke tho and i'm pretty sure i dont even like it when he's there. He doesnt take things seriously...so we just kinda had to give him one anyway since his sisters have one...but if he's not going to be doing what he should etc etc i have no problem saying no to him. But we're happy for them. Aiming for the 22 August. Paul...We were stoked for him and had planned on 5 September for his Baptism. We talked to him...it's still something he wants...but he said what about October. We said that's fine. I think he's just a little nervous about his English and he just wants to be taught more...we dont want to push him. But he's so awesome! Others...just finding lots of new people to teach...I dont want to say anyone new becuase i wouldnt be surprised if we dropped them by next week...where's my faith...lacking i guess. I'll let you know more next week.
K so funny story...was on exchanges with Elder Tsiu...he's the district leader (this is friday) which was probably the worst day to do it on but he had no choice...So after District Meeting the whole zone went to Cattle Baron...a pretty nice steak place to eat...usually we like to go out to lunch after DM...K so we go and there's this other kid in the other District who's been having a hard time...not really enjoying mission right now...but anyway...it was a good day for him. He was having fun, talking a lot, just enjoying the day. Bad luck struck on his side and when we were eating he wasn't feeling too good...Well he ended up throwing up all his food...he didnt make it to the toilet. It was close to all of us and some other people...it was so brutal to watch. We felt pretty bad...So idunno if you felt that was funny or not...maybe it was just more funny when i wrote it in my journal...k i'll move on...
Things went alright the rest of the weekend. We had a great Saturday for some reason...idunno what it was...O and i had basically my first fight with anyother missionary. I wont name names...i guess...but it was just ridiculous. He's a stubburn missionary...doesn't really respect our time and doesnt really care about anything else but what's best for him...and we're under his wing right now...there's not much we can do. There was a bit of tension going on...but whatever i guess...
So anyway. Fragar and Ballard went to Cape Town. Ballard is finished with mission and is going back home to the states. They're down there for a ZL council. So on the good news...we have the car for the next couple of days. It makes things nice.
Transfers comes on Tuesday, of which i'm pretty sure Carver and i are staying together. We're hoping we do. He hasn't been with a companion for more than just 1 transfer before...so it's about time. And i'm pretty sure Pres knows how well we're getting along and making things progress in our area...
Alright well that's all...Things are pretty good for the most part! Hope everybody is healthy! I'm a bit sick...:(
Thanks!Elder Devenney

July 27, 2009

2009-07-27T07:52:00.001-07:00

Hello!!!!
Well the week started out last monday...going to the Okapuka Game Reserve. It's about 30 Kms outside of Windhoek. It was pretty nice. We were in the big safari jeep thing...driving through bushes etc...it was pretty dope. We saw Giraffe, Rhino, Baboons, Springbok, Gemsbok, Waterbuffalo, and a few other things. No elephants tho...or lions or whatever...so that kinda sucked. But it's all good. The Rhinos were like 5 feet from us at one point. 3 of them. It was way cool. Got some way good photos and videos. So yeah that was my first game park experience and i'd say it was pretty sweet. Obviously could have been better...but anway...
As for the week it was kinda a rollercoaster. Those days walking around get so hot and tiring, especially if we dont have appointments. Saturday was such a hard day for us...we must have walked over 10 miles...we didnt have one appointment that day so we didnt know what to do....well we did...but it just didnt work out. So it was a LONG day. Other than that the week went pretty good. We've found a few new people to teach, even a solid family that we feel pretty good about. It was sad...two of our investigators that we saw this week...named Esmaralda and Lipertine...of which we just started teaching, came to church this sunday. It was great to see them there...the only bad thing was that they were there at 8:30...and no one else was even there of the branch. Except Bro. Katjotjo...cuz he's a faithful guy. Not even the presidency was there...they all rolled in 5 minutes before nine...it was ridiculous. Anyway...they had a good time and really enjoyed it. We taught the gospel principles class and it was excellent! Taught about prophets...had a nice vid...anyway. With the two girls we have great hopes for them.
Paul...we're considering and still praying one whether or not he should have a baptism date. We'd like him to. But we'll see i guess...We had a great lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and drew it out perfect for him...it was very spiritual as Mario was still there and helping him understand it better. Mario shared a powerful testimony about his conversion and the choice he made to join the church. But the only bad thing is idunno if Paul understands about the Authority when it comes to being Baptized. So we're going to have to explain things better for him...i'll keep ya posted on that.
Friday night's class went great. We had speakers looking back at all the Christlike Attributes that we've been teaching for the past 4 months since the class started. Both members and investigators participated and gave talks. It went great. Then, as Carver and I are in charge of the games...we had a nice basketball shooting/question answer game that we had prepared. It was hilarious. O idunno if i told you but the Allens left, (the Senior Couple up here) they finished and just went back home this past week. We got a new Senior Couple, the Jones. They're so great! They attend everything and love to have fun! So we're pretty excited. Obviously they dont know a lot about Africa...but you have to start somewhere.
Sunday night's class was actually more of a seminar given by Ballard and Fragar. It was on Goal Setting. It was actually really good. I wish i was better at it...i started to when i was with Fragar...but havent done too much with it since. I know i need to start tho. So it was very inspiring. That'll be one thing i'll definitely be doing when i'm home...
As for everything else it's going pretty good...not too much else can i say. This is the last full week of the transfer...then news will come half way through next week. Carver and i are staying together tho...we know it! i would have it no other way...haha. Thank you! :)
Elder Devenney

July 12, 2009

2009-07-13T07:08:00.001-07:00

Well of course i wrote a message and it didnt send...so this one will be a lame one. Sorry...
We had Zone Conference on Friday...and it was great. President Probst shared some great personal stories that were exactly what we needed to hear. Both him and Sister Probst are amazing and i enjoy it more and more now when they come and do the Conference. They really got us excited and encouraged to do more work and work harder.
Saturday we had Workshops with the AP's. We were focusing on finding out concerns of people we teach. and how to go about doing it. It was nice and it helps out a lot. We did some role plays...it was lame...but we had to do it. That's about it.
Carver and i are doing great...like usual...as expected. O and what's amazing is all my soccer skills that i'm great at. I have about 6 or 7 solid tricks that i know that i'm pretty proud of. What's an advantage of walking around in our area is that we get to mingle with all the people there. There's always a group of kids around every corner playing soccer and we always mess around with them. They teach me some stuff but for the most part i can do a lot of the tricks they can...and they think it's amazing. Carver isnt too good...but he's learning...haha. we practice back at the flat. That's the fun times.
Other than that i dunno what else i want to say...the week went great...sorry...i'm too lazy to rewrite all i said before. Thanks!@
Elder Devenney

June 22, 2009

2009-06-23T07:12:00.001-07:00

Yeah so transfer news will come tomorrow. Just so you know. I'm still gonna be in Namibia...no worries there. But who knows what'll happen. My time with Fragar has been a blast...especially these past few weeks. It's going to be sad splitting...But it'll be good to see who my new companion will be...so anyway...

Lets talk about the great success of the week...first off...the highlight of the week was the Movie Night. There was great opposition tho...especially on the night of the event. So first off...we got the movie in the mail this past week...as you know it was the Emma Smith movie. We finished printing off tickets...spreading the word...etc etc. Well the night came...and we spent most of the day setting up, running errands...things like that. We bought a sheet...set it up in the chapel, rearranged the seats to be more theater like...got all the popcorn and the popcorn machine, organized all the sign up sheets. All that stuff ok...Anyway...the night comes and people start to show up. Lots and lots of people. I'll tell you first off that there were 112 people there...73 of which were nonmembers. That is a HUGE successs alone! We had everybody sign in Name, addresss, phone number, so we have everybody's contact information. And we'll do follow ups in the coming week. So anyway...another great thing is that we had Rovy singing and playing his guitar as people came in. It was awesome! K so here's the opposition...5 min before we were going to have everybody come in...one of the sound adapters broke, two missionaries then left to run half way across the city to the southern mall to buy the adapter to which they arrived only 10 min before it closed. They did get it tho. The banner that we had that said "Cinema" that went in the front hanging in the air didnt get finished til about 30 Min before everybody started arriving. And so we had to fetch that before people came. o and first off...the branch gave us a budget of N$600 for the night...earlier in the week we went to cash the check...and because it had a little line on it..they wouldnt accept it...it was stupid. So we didnt have the budget money at all for the night...but we worked things out anyway. K then also on the night...it just so happened to start to rain, and not only rain, but hail half way through the movie. We had to stop it for an intermission because the hail on the tin roof of the church was so loud that we couldnt even hear it through the huge speakers...It was quite a challenge. Then after it was all done...we spent about an hour after cleaning everything up. And i forgot to mention that we took shifts going to primary watching all 20 kids and trying to entertain them and control them, as well as keeping everything in order. So really...none of the missionaries watched the movie. We were busy the whole night. But good thing me and Fragar watched it back at our flat anyway...K so that was the night! and it was great!

Another highlight was on thursday...we went to Miriam Haita's place...as we were invited over to make cookies. So we went. To our surprise we also had a very nice dinner waiting for us. It was her, her son Peter, and daughter karen. (She is the one who wants to be a member, teaches herself everything at work, and who's husband is completely against her joining or even meeting with us, also the kids, but luckily he was out of town for a week so we got to see them a couple times this past week) it was nice. So We made peanut butter cookies, and coconut cookies. they were great! even tho we burned some...

We were so beat from the movie night that saturday we just had a chill relaxed day. Didnt do a whole lot...Uh...That's about it really. The week was a great one tho...way way busy with preparation...but it was good. Lots to do with Public Affairs as well. We're hoping to meet with the Prime Minister for the Parliament day on 9 July. We're still organizing invitations to Politicians etc...i'll keep ya posted. That's all! Thanks!

Elder Devenney

June 8, 2009

2009-06-09T09:32:00.001-07:00

Wow it's actually a bit chilly today...
Got lots of good stuff to report on this past week...
First off...things are really in motion right now. We got lots of good stuff happening in the coming weeks. One of which is the Movie Night that'll be on the 19th of June. We've organized it all and we're hoping to watch the Emma Smith movie. We hope! The word is in...but they just have to send it up from Cape Town. We've been busy printing tickets...flyers...etc etc. We handed out tickets to everybody at church yesterday...one for them, and one for a friend. We've been spreading the word even here at our famous internet shop. We invite all. It should be one of the biggest activities the branch has done...maybe ever. We're going to make banners...organize food...all that good stuff. We're trying to involve as many people as possible. This is really going to be a good opportunity for us for finding. We will have a system of everyone that comes will put all their information on a paper, so we can contact them in the coming weeks. It's really a big missionary effort on our part to find more investigators in a way that's fun and just outside the normal church, ya know.Other upcoming events are Public Affairs...We've organized about 30 YSA to go to Parliament at the first week of July. We're going to have 2 training sessions...because we dont want people to look like fools in front of a bunch of politicians ya know. Anyway...that's up and coming in the next few weeks...so we'll be pretty busy with all of that.
As for people we're teaching and stuff that happened this past week...it goes as follows...I'll start with Rovy. Of course we met with him a couple times this past week...everything went great. But the highlight was that on thursday night we decided to go see him actually perform. He's in a band with him and his younger brothers...they're so sick! it was a place called Zenzo and it was an outdoor place where food was served and they just played...it was chill. We ate, and just listened to him perform. He even dedicated a song to us...josh groben. haha. It was tight. He plays guitar and lead vocals. But yeah they played a wide variety from...eagles, enrique englasies(?), some new stuff, Hotel California, a bunch of other stuff too, some spanish songs. Anyway...it was tight. It was the first time i had to talk over music when i was talking to someone. Then we got pics with the group and just chatted with him for a while. Then Friday came around and he came to the Scripture study class. And saturday we saw him early in the morning, just read from the BOM, then later that day we went out to lunch together in town. Went to a nice outdoor place. Then of course he came to church. So yeah...Rovy is cool. It's just tough still cuz he's not planning on marriage for a while...and he's living with that older lady. But it's all good...just good to be his friend.
Fausta...we've invited her to be baptized. We've given her two options...either the 4th of July, or the 18th. She hasn't decided yet. But she really likes the church...and she comes every week. She's makin lots of friends too so it's good.
Last is Miriam. Met with her and taught her at the Heymans. Her and her daughter. Went really good. She's got a hard life with her husband not giving her much of support...and she so wants to be a member...it's kind of sad.
We met with this Shalihu family. I think i might have said something about them before...they have a daughter who's 14 and her name is Ana. She loves us coming. Just watched Finding Faith in Christ DVD..but it went really well. They've been struggling right now and are just having problems with the family...finding workers...and Ana and her gymnastics. Ana travels all the time to SA and Zim and all over for her gymnastics, and wins a lot. But they're looking for a sponser for her. If i wasn't a missionary we would help her out so much more, anyone that could just listen to her talk would just melt and couldn't deny her a sponser. The family just has to pay for all the travels and competitions out of their own pocket...and they're struggling to do it. So yeah...we're trying to help them out. We've been sending them spiritual scripture texts each night too...to help them out. But yeah the big surprise came at the end when we were just about to leave...Ana runs into her room and then comes out with $N40 dollars to give to us. We were like "no way!" you need that more than us. But she insisted...she said it was prayer money. I think she just really wanted to give it to us and she just thinks we should get paid for it. Anyway...we're hoping to take that 40 bucks and double it and buy her a birthday present cuz she had a birthday like a week ago. Should be a good surprise.
We readjusted our Saturday schedule this week and got out in the area at 830 in the morning. We got to see a lot more people...cuz not everybody was drunk...as they usually can be at night. Then we just did our studies mid day..and had normal schedule at night. We're thinking of making it a district wide thing...which will help everybody out a lot.
Well that's about it basically...things are going really well. Just staying busy...Yup yup...hopefully we dont run out of steam these next couple of weeks...Hope all is well! thanks!
Elder Devenney

Two posts in one week because Im( amber) the slacker!

2009-05-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

Well first off...this weekend has been another holiday weekend here in Namibia. I swear they have more holidays here than anywhere else i know. Friday was a holiday...and it was actually pretty sweet...It was "Ascension Day" and it was a Nation wide holiday. It's apparently the day that Christ ascended back into Heaven after he was resurrected. Cool eh? The other one was African Union Day...which was yesterday. So that's why i'm emailing now. All the shops and everything close on holidays here...you can hardly find anybody out doing anything...it's weird. No one on the street or anything...definitely different than holidays back at home.
So the week has been really good. Gilbert...that one guy i talked about..has become the surprise of the transfer for sure. We saw him two or three times last week, he came to the scripture study class on friday, and the missionary training class on Sunday. and he came to church. And we paired him up with Bro Katjotjo (YM pres) becuase they live near to eachother in our area so that the two of them could do home teaching. And guess what ,they did it the next day. We'll have 100% HT here pretty soon! haha. hopefully. But yeah and we're seeing him later today and he's going to come out to do missionary work with us...good stuff.
Lets see...the main people that we're still seeing is a mid twenties girl named Fausta...i migh thave mentioned. We keep talking about baptism and encouraging her to consider a date but she says she's still thinking about it. She's come to church for the past month i think. She's good. I think it's just family problems...just kinda scared to commit and to tel lthe family about it. So yeah...
The other is still Rovy...we have high hopes for him...he comes to church alot and it was his Bday on sunday. He's so chiill. But he's living with this older lady...and i dont think marriage is going to come as soon as we hope...but we still see him twice a week...just hope we dont run out of things to teach him...
Went on two exchanges this week...one wish Elder Carver from South Weber...so right down the road from me. He's pretty cool...we've already predicted that we're going to be companions next transfer...so we'll see. He's pretty new still...but it went good. Had a way fun time.
The other i went on was with Elder Ballard...he's only got one more transfer then he's goin home...He's chill too. Both these guys we could have hung out back at home just like any day...Elder Ballard is a way cool guy, he's the ZL out here...and we just enjoyed the time. that was on friday. O and he's from Washington.
Things are so much different ,for the better now, than it was when we first got here. We've really made a difference in the branch by bringing more excitement to it...We have Elders Quorem back up and looking a bit better...most sundays everybody would leave and there would be 10 people in EQ, 6 of which are missionaries. So we've started to change that to make it more how it should be...m ore exciting for people to come to, instead of just leaving.
Classes are still going strong and soo good. Average of about 25 people now at Friday night class, and about 18 at Sunday night class...It's going great. There's not too much else going on...just the usual. Played some good soccer yesterday with the Zone...6 on 6. We lost barely...well they were up 4-0 first half...then we came back...with 3 goals by me i must say....to end it 6-4...but we still lost...it was fun. Well hope all is well! thanks for everything!
Elder Devenney

*Funny story...My companion about two weeks ago was approached by a guy off the street selling a watch and a couple other things. My comp looks at the watch, likes it, asks how much the guy says 150. My comp thinks he's smart and says 100. The guy agrees. So he thinks he got a great deal on this watch right...a couple days later it stops working. He shakes it, it starts up again, but later on that day it stops working again. Basically he bought a broken watch. i just laughed. So this week we went to China Town and i find the same watch being sold, different color, (i got white) for 30 bucks. ha! take that Fragar! and mine still works to this day. haha. ( that's like 3 US dollars) but yeah it was just funny. Then i got a soccer ball...that's already lopsided...and we got 3 matching basketball jersies for our game we had against the Angolans...which i will now explain. Me, Fragar, and Louder, played bball on Saturday against some Angolans. There's about 25 or 30 Angolans that play at the chapel on saturday mornings. We decided to go and play. So we got our jersies...lookin fresh...and played. We were in for a hard game...They're rough out there. Some of those guys dont play with mercy. Anyway...we won our first game...lost our second, and lost our third. It's 3 on 3 and first to 5. then we just rotate out. Needless to say they foul a lot and make retarded calls. but it was still fun. I thought i was going to die...i hadnt played that hard of a bball game in a long time...but it's all good.
On another note...the week was good. Two great blessings came just yesterday..among the many we receive. But two stood out to me yesterday at church...one was Miriam. We hadnt seen her in about a month but she came to church. She had been gone for a while. She was the one that was so ready for everything, so accepting, but then her husband is a jerk and doesn't want us in the home. Anyway, she came to church by herself yesterday, loved it, then came back for our Missionary training class that night. I talked to her after and she basically said that she doesn't like being called an investigator, she knows everything, and she accepts and loves the church. She said that she's already made up her mind that she's going to join the church and be a member. She's searched for many years, going to church to church, but she loves and knows there's something different and true about this one. It was so good to hear! seriously i couldnt say anything. With little work on our part, she does her own research at work, coming to church, and has even made up her mind she wants to be a member. That's so awesome! Plus she'd be so good for this branch here...next Relief Society Pres for sure! So yeah that was a blessing...
The other came through Gilbert. Gilbert was that one guy that chased us down the street about a month ago asking for us to visit with him. We taught him once, then were never able to see him again becuase of his schedule at work etc. So basically we havent seen him for a month. We thought he dropped us. Anyway, we gave him a call yesterday, but no answer. To our surprise he came to church. I hardly recognized him cuz it had been so long. Well he stayed for the whole thing and i sat with him during Priesthood and after we started talking. Come to find out that he was actually baptized about 2 years ago and is already a member. It was some country where they have a small branch..not here in Namibia. Cant remember what it was...o well. So yeah and he also said he was given the Priesthood too! i was like no way! Another less active priesthood holder that's come back to church that lives in our area! that's so great! So Gilbert went from being a dropped investigator, to a Priesthood holding member, instantly. That cut out about 6 months of work on our part! haha! It was great to hear. that's another additive to our FHE's and HT assignments...etc. Plus he came to the class last night and said he'll be coming on fridays also and wants to come out with us to do missionary work! yay! haha.
Still teaching some great guys...future leaders of the church here i'm pretty sure. Others are slow to progress...like their drinking and partying...but it'll soon all be over for that. Alright well the week went great! No other big news to report on...hope you guys are all doing well!
Elder Devenney

Lots of photos

2009-05-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

April 26, 2009

2009-04-30T12:43:00.001-07:00

Well in the past week so much has happened...it was amazing to see all the new and changing things going on here. O and what was nice about this morning is we got out and played some soccer as a Zone this morning...then had a nice braai...so we're emailing a bit later than usual. It was so nice to get up and do something in the morning, i hope we do it more often this way.
Well the week started out really good. All throughout the week we've been going on splits. I believe we tried for 3 times this week, but it only happened twice. On these nights i go with one Priesthood holder, while my comp goes with another. How it's been going is we'll drop those two off in an area..and we'll coordinate it so our appointments are all pretty close. Those two will walk the area for the evening while me and my fellowshipper go and drive to our appointments. We get twice as much man hours in during the day and we're able to see twice as many people. Overall in the week we made around 10-15 extra hours of missionary work just thanks to the splits.
This week was busy for me...Wednesday i went on exchanges with Elder Mutiyetsi (from Kenya) in his area. They're in a walking area. So after 7 months i had my first experience walking on mission! Can you believe it! No wonder i'm so out of shape...all the riding around in the car. But it was so funny cuz my first day walking...it just so happened to rain. This week we were blessed with off and on rain for 2 days. Which is quite rare cuz the rainy season was already over...and the winter here is just cooler...and cold at night...but no rain. So yeah we walked around and rain while the lightning was going and we were getting soaked...it was fun. Elder Mutiyetsi wasn't enjoying it tho..but i was! haha. So we had a good exchange...nothing too great happened...then on thursday we had a normal day. Saw lots of people...including Rovy that one "cool guy" i was talking about earlier. Plays in a band...yeah. He asks so many good questions it's hard to even prepare for that guy. But he's way chill. From Angola. But anyway...then we typed up the newsletter...you'll see it soon...then went on a split and found a great family. Two of the girls we found at this family came to church too...so it was great. Then I went on another exchange that night and all of Friday with Elder Christensen to their area...Worked a long day...pretty busy. So basically i was just moving around a lot this week. But it was good to go to some different areas and meet some new people...even if it was just for a day.
The classes we're starting...and have been starting are the one on Fridays where we teach it and it's on Christlike Attributes..i'm sure i told you. Our first week it was just 4 people there. This last week we had 18. We only expect it to continue to grow. We had lots of members and investigators. Everyone's job is to bring a friend...we see good things coming from the class. Saturdays we have institute..that we attend sometimes. We had Bro. Duncan Mcmillan from Cape Town up with us this weekend. He's in charge of all the CES stuff for Institute and Sem and stuff. So he taught an amazing lesson so we HAD to go visit. Then we took his son Joseph on a split with us that night...it turned out to be a terrible night cuz all 3 of our appointments dropped and we couldnt find a place to go all night...but it was still fun. We just followed up on some people. Joseph is just about to turn 19 and working on his papers. He's excited. So yeah after that we just dropped him off back at some hotel place...talked to Duncan about our ideas...and headed back. This week has been so crazy...we've hardly taken full lunch breaks and have never gotten home on time cuz we're running around all the time...droppin people off or appointments..something always happens. But good things are coming from it. Then Sunday was church and i swear it was Missionary day at church...Elder Fragar was asked to give a talk right before Sacrament...Then Gospel Principles we taught...but that's usual...every sunday we teach that...then it just so happened that they decided to combine Priesthood and RS at the end and asked the missionaries to talk about member missionary work. So basically we were busy at church to say the least. It was good tho. O yes another class we're about to start is a mission training class on Sundays. So we'll have classes fri, sat, and sun, all in attempts for people to get more excited and get investigators out. That one will start next sunday.
We go visit Bro Pavano, the Pavano family is solid members. They have 5 daughters i think...just a great family. Anyway, Bro Pavano is like 69 and doesn't come to church. But every sunday we go to his house to give him the Sacrament...it's been a blessing for us to do it too. It's really helped me realize the importance of it and what a blessing it is to give it to someone who has such a strong desire to have it. Then it's always nice to go to that home cuz every time we're there they feed us...yup it's nice:) Alright well things are good...nothing else to say. Hope you all are great! Talk to ya soon!
Elder Devenney

April 20, 2009

2009-04-20T12:55:00.001-07:00

This week has been a hectic one...but good to stay busy. It started out good...just been teaching a lot. We've been teaching this guy named Elasmus and his cousin, her name is Fausta. For the past two sundays they've been coming to church. He was previously taught about a year ago, but we picked him back up and started to teach both of them now. They've gotten really interested and yesterday even they were both jotting down notes at church on the talks that were given. They're pretty solid and we're going to start seeing them about twice a week. I'll keep ya posted on their progress.

I cant remember if i told you last week but this guy named Gilbert found us. We were driving and i just so happened to see this guy as we drive past try to flag us down...i thought he was just waving. We ended up stopping just down the street anyway for our appointment and he came running down the hill. Turns out he had just got back to Nam, he had previously been in SA studying for school, but had met with missionaries about a year ago and really wanted us to come and visit him. He was so happy to see us. He still remembered so much too. We saw him and taught him and he basically already knows quite a bit. It was a perfect example of the blessing of being guided to someone that is prepared. He's a cool guy. About 24. His dad isn't too cool tho..so we had to teach him outside of his house...but it was still alright.

Elder Fragar and myself have been keeping quite busy with Public Affairs. He was in charge of it before he was on mission, for about 3 years, all across Aus. That was one reason he was sent up here to Nam, so he can build up the Public Affairs. We already have plans being made for the Mormon Helping Hands project in August and we're just trying to meet with those important people of the country here in Nam. Last week we had a meeting with a lady where we presented our ideas for the city. Even this morning we met with...well not just the two of us...but a lady named Womba who has a calling in the church who is the Director of Public Affairs here, we all met with about 15 advisors of the Regional Department of Health and Services...something like that...at a big round table and briefly spoke about the ideas for the Helping Hands project. They will be discussing it futher and letting us know. In the future we're hoping to also meet the Mayor and Prime Minister. Who knows if we'll be able to tho...but yeah that keeps us busy...more Elder Fragar...but i'm there for support.

Over the weekend we had Zone Conference and i think it was the best one i've been to. It's probably the one that i got the most out of...i had to give a spontaneous talk...but it went good. Then after we were addressed by both Pres and Sister Probst, ate some good lunch and then talked more about things going on and just really gave good direction for us. Pres also spoke about the Parable of the Sower...also comparing it to the vision of the Tree of Life...it was amazing. I wont go into detail but basically we're trying to work with our members and to introduce PMG to them...we want everybody to land on good ground and bring forth fruit...even as the parable says...that sounds kinda stupid but i promise the talk was good. We had Workshops the day before that and really got great ideas on how we can introduce PMG to the members. We're trying to get at least 3 families trained on how they can use it and how they can do missionary work on their own. This is the big focus right now all across the mission. Yeah and then yesterday at church Pres and Sister Probst again spoke in Sacrament...and then i had to teach Gospel Principles Class with them there...it was intense...but went way good and overall at church we had something like 15 investigators there with the district. So it was a good sunday.

Friday we had our Scripture study class for the first time...went good. Small turn out but it'll slowly build up. We're doing Christlike Attributes right now...nothing to report there.

O funny stuff...yesterday there was this guy in a Land Rover sitting outside of this house that we were teaching at...we ran out to get some stuff out of the car and we hear this "Hey guys" but it definitely wasnt Nam or SA accent. It was this guy from the U.S. from Atlanta. He said he had been here since 2007 and he married a Namibian. Anyway he was cool and he basically just called us cuz he said we looked like Americans and he had to find out. It was weird to hear him speak tho...i'm no longer used to that accent of the south. It was funny. But he was cool. His name was Ollie! ha! cool name eh? Alright well hope that's a good enough update for the week! It's been a good one...staying busy...Hope everyone is doing great! Love ya!

Elder Devenney

Happy Easter!

2009-04-14T08:46:00.001-07:00

Well because Namibia loves Easter so much, just about all the shops were closed over the weekend, including yesterday, so we had to email a day later. Hope no one stressed over it! Ha!
Looking back at this week it's been a great one. My companion and i have been blessed with our efforts in finding those willing to be taught. Since Elder Fragar and i were whitewashed into the area and we had no idea who investigators were, members were, etc etc...it's been a hard time trying to figure out the best way we can use our time to figure the area out and everything else as well. We decided to look at past potential investigators...those who missionaries had maybe taught once or twice in the past year or so and do some following up, see why they were only a few times, if they still wanted to be taught, what happened, etc etc. After lots of research and planning we had much success. We've had fellowshippers come out with us just about every day, showing us around and coming to appointments with us. We had our first real sunday yesterday at the church. It was nice...small...but nice. The members are great...and we, even with this first week, had 3 of our investigators come to church. We've been blessed by finding father led families...and some great priesthood holding potential men.
One in particular...although it's a sad story right now...but i'll fill you in...We met with this lady named Merjam (Miriam) Heita and her son Peter (17) and daughter Karen (11). We met with them 3 days in a row this week! They were loving it. Merjam works for the Prime Minister and is the Secretary. Any time she has free time she's on LDS.org checking out everything. she even printed off "Our Search For Happiness" and has been reading it. Well her husband doesnt like people in his house...and we had only briefly met with him once...just said hi and introduced ourselves...But other than that he's been out of the house whenever we come. Both the kids were very excited to learn and they both were reading the BOM and they could tell us everything about what we had taught them the time before. Well we came on Saturday..and we had a great object lesson for them about the Restoration and we planned on watching the dvd...well they told us that this was going to be the last time we could see them...her husband no longer wanted us to come, and he said that he didnt want this influence on his kids...He's very skeptical about other religions other than the Catholic, Lutheran, and some other...i cant remember. He thinks any other church isnt true...which i dont quite fully understand...So it was totally sad to hear. She told us that at the beginning on fo the lesson...but we went on with it anyway. I have to say it was the best lesson i think i've ever been in. It went so great! Merjam said that she would come to church no matter what, she had told her husband that she was going...but she wasnt allowed to take the kids. which is sad cuz karen has been before and she's loved it. Well Merjam did come to church, and we're trying to figure out a way we can meet with her outside of her house...maybe at work or something. She has a coworker that is also a member of the church..which is good. Seriously it was such a hearthache to hear...She and the kids are "elect" when it comes to the gospel. They would have been baptized within a month guarantee...nah idunno...but they sure had the potential. They would have us there everyday if it were possible...We're just going to have to wait it out til her husbands heart gets softened...It'll happen eventually tho...whether soon or years...But other than that the week went great.
We had a really good FHE at the Pavanoh family last night. Had a good lesson given by one of the daughters about the 5 scriptures to live by...then a good game...the usual FHE's ya know...and we went up as a Zone yesterday to this high point in the city where in 1992 the country of Namibia was dedicated for missionary work. We read the dedicatory prayer and read the talks that were given...it was nice.
The thing about Namibia is that it really has so much going for it. It's a great place to be doing missionary work. The people here seem like in general, that they're much better educated than in SA...or at least parts. They speak English very good. There are about 4 or 5 different languages spoken...including Afrikaans, Oshivano...idunno how to spell it...you guys can do the research if you want...plus a few others. Just tribal languages.
We're going to be starting a scripture study class on fridays, as well as helping out with the Institute and getting things happening more for the branch. It just seems like they need a bit of a kick start and then investigators will be coming in fast. It's a bit slow moving...but we know our way around for the most part...still don't know a lot of people. But we are being blessed in all of our efforts.
Elder Fragar and myself have set hi goals for the time that we'll be together...assuming we'll be together next transfer as well...and we're excited to see how they turn out. We have about 13 solid investigators that we're teaching for this past week..and our week this week is just about all the way full with teaching appointments. Tonight in fact when we were on exchanges...i was with Elder Gowen, we followed up on a family and we're going to be seeing them tonight, should be about 6 or 7 there...which will be amazing as we planned a good lesson about the Restoration. Well I just hope all is well and know that things are going good here in Nam! See ya!
Elder Devenney

April 6, 2009

2009-04-06T09:03:00.001-07:00

Well as you guessed i'm finally up here in Namibia. This week was a bit hectic with different things going on..but they worked out. On tuesday we left, got on the plane, flew two hours up to the airport in Nam, and saw the rest of the missionaries here. My companion that i was supposed to be with the entire last 6 weeks was Elder koume from the Ivory Coast. We got our stuff together and headed back to his flat. We were together for a total of...1.5 days...or so. then on Wednesday night transfer news came in. The REAL news for this new transfer. We both assumed since we hadn't been together this whole last transfer that we would both just stay together and in the area we were supposed to work. Well that's not at all how it happened. He was told that he would leave...and go cover two different areas with another companion walking. And i would leave and be Elder Fragar's new companion and that we would both move to a different flat. So right as i had unpacked everything, i had to repack and get ready to leave in the morning. So me and Elder Fragar got to know eachother for a couple days earlier this week, not knowing that this transfer we would actually be companions together. So yeah he's my new companion. We live in this pink house behind some guy's home, it's small but it does the job. We drive. And we cover an area that neither of us are familar with...so it's been a bit difficult this past week. We really havent done much work but have more just trying to figure out where everything is...and who the members are and so on. We serve up in Katutura...well in the Katutura Branch here...and work in an area called Khomasdal. It's quite a large area...and we're excited to start things moving.There are two branches here in Nam...well yeah the whole country i think. One in Windhoek and one in Katutura. We just work in North Windhoek so yeah...it's just separated. They're quite small...and our chapel in Katutura is in a school....the one in Windhoek is nice tho...it's an actual chapel. Small. but it works. That's where we watched Conference at yesterday and saturday...which was great by the way. Hope everybody enjoyed it. Especially Elder Hollands talk yesterday morning...Yo! Powerful!So the things that are going on here...We have no idea who our investigators are..or who previous misisonaries have taught. So it's basically like starting fresh. We're slowly getting introduced to the members of the branch...and so i'll let you know how this week goes for the work.Namibia is a great place. Windhoek is very civilized...small. I think there's only about 265,000 people in the whole city. Downtown Ogden looks like Downtown Windhoek. A few big buildings but nothing too huge. Something that stands out is how clean this place is...when you compare it to SA where there is trash everywhere and all in the streets...Nam is the opposite. You will hardly find any of that here. I can really tell that the people love the country. the people that we've met so far seem very nice as well.This transfer will be a bit different...for some reason it's just a 5 week transfer instead of 6...idunno why exactly...but yeah just as a heads up i suppose...Um...I dont really know what else i can tell ya...I just found out we had a speeding ticket somewhere in Bellville that i guess i'll be spliting with Elder Gouws and Lotulelei...that's a bummer...but it's alright. Last transfer was so much fun...it's almost weird just having one companion when i was so used to having two.Being up here in Nam you're almost a bit out of the loop. In the whole country there are just 12 missionaries...all of which are here. Apparently there is a small group of about 20 members that live about 4 hours north of here and get together on sundays...i thought that was pretty cool to hear. Well that's all the news i have for ya. Hope everyone had a good weekend and good week!Elder Devenney

March 31, 2009

2009-04-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

Well it is the end of the transfer this week and we were privilaged to have President and Sister Probst (MP) to come and talk at the Bellville Chapel yesterday at church. Pres told me that the news came in and that i would be leaving to go to Nam on Tuesday...hopefully. That's fine tho cuz i spent the entire transfer in the 3some serving in Bellville. It was a great transfer and the 3 of us had a great time serving together. It'll be different in Nam but i'm excited for it. You kind of get exiled away from the rest of the mission when you get sent to Nam but it's all good. I hear great things about it and Pres is excited for us to get up there.
For the time being (As of last night) i'm just staying at the ZL's boarding in Cape Town with another guy waiting to go to Nam. His name is Elder Fragar from Sydney. He's 27 and is a self made millionaire no joke!This guy is amazing. He knows how to get things done. Just talking to him for a little bit about it i have a better knowledge of how i can make a lot of money...he did it in property and investments...anyway. He joined the church at 21 and never considered serving a mission but last minute he figured out a way to get away from his company and get it into the right hands and come and serve. It's amazing. None of his family are members...just him. But yeah he's very good at what he does. So i'll just be with him for a couple of days.
Back in Bellville earlier this week we were teaching an investigator named Brennan. He is old apostolic, married, very very smart, and enjoys learning about different religions. He's met with missionaries for about 3 months now...but is yet to come to church. He knows his Bible very well and it's different going in there when we meet with him. Most of the time if it's someone that knows there stuff very well it usually turns into a bash appointment where they dont want to be proved wrong and they wont accept what we have to say. Brennan is different tho. We just discuss different questions that he has and we try to answer them. So it's a little difficult to prepare when he jumps from subject to subject. Anyway...our previous appointment he had questions about the resurrection and so what he wanted us to do was to go back and study and come back to him. We had explained that when we are resurrected we will have our bodies...and he was lke no no there's no way we have that. He just couldnt comprehend that when our bodies get buried in the ground that when they get decomposed...we'll actually get that back. We tried to explain of course...but he wanted us to study it out. He said that there was no way that anybody could tell him/convince him that we'll get our bodies back. So we went back and studied the next day and came back to him. All we did was show him scriptures in the Bible and explained how Christ had his body...so we all will have that opportunity. Anyway...the lesson went great...at the end he thanked us and said that we were very prepared and that he had no futher questions concerning the matter. and that we answered them all for him. It was a great time for me to learn as well. Ever since then my studies have been a lot better. But yeah i wont see him again...but hopefully he'll figure it out and come to church. He has a BOM and he also read Our Search For Happiness. We had just given him Jesus The Christ to read...that's an intense book...that i'm still reading...and we wouldn't give it to normal investigators...but we knew he'd learn A LOT from it.
I said my goodbyes yesterday...i hardly saw anybody but it was alright cuz i had to come back and pack everything and get to the ZL's flat...
Um....things are good. No complaints. I'm still in one piece and by the time i send another i'll be in another country! crazy! Well hope all is well! My love,
Elder Devenney

3-23-2009

2009-03-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

Hello!

This week wasn't too eventful so i'll probably be pretty brief.

We had zone workshops and interviews and it went good. The AP's and Pres and Sister Probst came up to our church building in Bellville, cuz we're doing workshops by district now...so it was us and the Panorama Elders and Paarl Elders. Basically they focused on how to improve our Personal Studies. It was good. Then interviews and what not went good as well. Pres Probst is awesome.

Then friday we had Zone Workshops and we learned about Companionship Studies...how to make them better...basically it wasn't even that great and i'm pretty sure i didnt learn all that much...but it was still fine.

We're having a bit of a problem with Bro Joosta. As he's been having some problems with Smoking and Word of Wisdom problems...we've been trying to help him out so he can overcome it. He's done good so far but we got a call from his wife Saturday morning asking us if we could come visit at 10:30 in the morning. So we got on over there and she basically told us that Bro Joosta has been hanging out with his friends (keep in mind their in their 40's i'd say.) And he's gotten back into drinking as well. Both of his friends are just about going through a divorce and she wanted our help. It was quite the shock because he had been doing so well these past few weeks. Well we didnt really know what we could do for them at that time...but we just talked to them and kind of discussed with Bro Joosta what was most important to him. Basically was drinking more important than his family? He knew the right answer. So we just kind of committed them to talk to eachother and decided what they needed to do. It wasn't the best way to start out the day...quite disappointing. We then just shared a couple of thoughts / scriptures with them...

Yesterday was a good day. It was stake conference for Cape Town. It was nice too cuz it was here in Bellville. Lots of people came out and it was great. We had Pres and Sister Probst talk in it. Also a member of the Area Seventy talk as well. Elder Hill and then his wife spoke also. They talked a lot about just current things that the First Presidency have been pushing...like temple recommends...maybe even getting a temple here in Cape Town in the near future...Shared some great stories...all the usual. But yeah then we had a nice DA with the Louw Family. Talked with them forever and what not...Yeah other than that just trying to keep busy with other families...sorta slow but it's all good.

Still no news for Nam. We were on a mission wide fast for partially that reason...but haven't heard much yet. It'll be interesting to see what happens next transfer when news comes in cuz we'll find out more next week. Anyway...That's about it. Hope all is well!

Elder Devenney

March 16, 2009

2009-03-16T07:14:00.001-07:00

Hey everybody...this week was pretty good...just like most other weeks. We worked with Bro. Joosta...our Bdate canidate...well was. At the moment it's on hold becuase of his smoking still...but we got him the 15 step program like i think i might have told you...and it's going alright. We're hoping things will get back on track for him in the next week so we can have another date for him.
So i'm totally a chef here...well not in our flat and not for our companionship...cuz we never eat at our boarding. We get fed a lot by members, which is great, but we also eat out a lot...which isn't as great...haha. But saturday we went over to the Browns...great family. they have 4 sons and the father is the Elders Q Pres. They invited us over to cook our food for sunday after church. We went and we made Rooties...idunno how to spell it. Basically like tortillas that we made from scratch. We got to eat them yesterday with some curray and it was dang good. Spicey, but good. We get fed lots of hot food down here...but it's good stuff.
O something amazing happened this week...well sorta. A few weeks ago right outside our flat a guy came up to me named William (Villiam) and just talked to me while my comps kept walking up to our flat. He's like mid 20's white guy. I talked to him briefly and i just introduced what we did. He lives/lived at the same complex that we live. He always wondered about us cuz he saw us but never wanted to ask any questions. Well we chatted and i found out he was moving out on saturday, i offered for us to help and saturday came around but we got busy and i guess he got other guys to help him anyway. Well while we talked he said he wanted to meet with us and he was married and his wife was over in Hong Kong or something like that. Well i just had his address but then he moved. All the following week i was thinking about him and thinking how we could find out where he moved or how we could get his number...and then i kinda forgot about it this week. Well to make it short we were at the mall buying some stuff and we were in our whites and we decided to just go to one more store and as we walked in a guy came out, i double checked cuz he looked familiar, he did the same thing, and guess what! it was William. We greeted eachother and what not and talked for a bit. My comps kept walking cuz they had no idea who it was and they just assumed i knew him from Paarl. Well i got his details and he's stoked on us meeting with him. So we're planning on contacting him prob tomorrow to go meet with him and his wife. I think he just wants to learn more about it...idunno if he fully understands why we would come. But it was definitely a blessing to see as i had thought about him so much and figured we would never see him again. Heavenly Father definitely placed him in our path. But yeah i'll keep ya posted and let ya know how it goes this week.
We've decided to do a service project for the community...well at least me and Elder Gouws got this great idea. We're going to build ramps, or boxes or something for the skatepark here in Durbanville. (the skatepark i had said) it's a pretty decent park, just ouside, but some stuff could be better and we want to fix it up and clean it. So we made an announcement yesterday in church asking for old scraps of wood and what not so that people could help us get started. We're pretty stoked about it...well the idea at least...Sounds good eh? O and i learned how to do a pole jam!
President Probst called the other night and let me know that they've met for a 3rd time up in Nam to find out details..but he doesnt quite know for sure yet. It just needs to be approved. It's still that they are just thinking we're going up to steal jobs. It's not us personally...just in general. There are still 5 or 6 waiting to go up. If we dont go up this transfer...since there's only like 2 weeeks left anyway...something will happen for next transfer...he'll just have to figure it out. But yeah things are still going good.
Thanks! Love
Elder Devenney

March 2, 2009

2009-03-05T10:16:00.001-08:00

Well I'm still in Bellville...that's our area that we work but it is quite huge as i had said before...we live in a place called Durbanville...just outside of Bellville and we have members that live all over the place. So we're usually driving around a lot to get to each appointment. Our church building is like 15 minutes away...well maybe 10, but it's still quite far. It's a ward as i think i might have said...Anyway i'll tell you about the week..

We did some good old basketball last monday with the zone...it was pretty chill. Tuesday we did some service washing our Bishops car...he's got this massive van thing. As for missionary work it's been a little bit slow this week..just as a heads up. It's mostly white area and Dutch Reform so people hardly ever let us in their home. And a lot of our appointments fell through so i'll just focus on our other stuff we did...Wednesday we did some more service for the Elder Quorum President uh...babysitting...basically. No we moved some stuff...around. haha. K well i'll just tell what happened on Saturday and friday and what not...it was awesome. O yeah and we get fed A LOT in this place. I'm going to be so fat. But it's nice. O and i jumped on a tramp for a little while this past week. It was awesome. I can still do sweet flips. Saturday we hung out with this Korean Family that came here to learn english..dont ask me why cuz SA is not the place to come to do that. But we chilled with the kids and they were playing this Korean Talk show thingy all in Korean and they'd laugh and we'd sit there cuz we couldnt understand...now i guess i know what Heiner and Alex and them go through over in Japan. But a couple of the kids know Tae Kwon Do and we did forms together and i could almost remember. I told him that we had to spar coming up soon. K then Sunday we went over to the Kruger family again and they taught us out of Preach my Gospel and as soon as i walked into their house i saw this skateboard sitting there...and i was like No WAy, i ran up to it and saw that it was mine that i'd been trying to get from up in Paarl. Pres Kruger is the Branch Pres in Paarl and Elder Power gave him the skate to give to me and so it was like an early Christmas when i walked into their home. It was awesome. So me and Elder Gouws will be going to this little skatepark that we found today and it's cloudy so it's a blessing. I think we're just going to go to the mall and stuff too...and play some Volleyball. O yeah we did that on Friday night too.

K this email is pathetic but i dunno what else i can say. Things are good. Miss you guys! Love

Elder Devenney

Feb 23, 2009

2009-02-25T07:08:00.001-08:00

Well it's an interesting story of where i'm currently at...i'll get there in just a bit...but it's been a good week.
Transfer news came in on Tuesday of last week and i found out that i would be serving up in Windhoek (Vind-hook) Namibia for the next little while. Usually when they send missionaries to Nam they usually leave them up there for 6 plus months. So that's where i'll be for the next little while. Well thursday came around and i got everything packed and we had to be in Cape Town by 9pm but me and Elder Power got things done pretty quick...well me...and we just drove down early and hit up Century City. A big mall here in Cape Town. Walked around forever cuz we hadn't planned anything for the day. And ate some all you can eat pizza which wasnt even that good. Well we picked up Elder Power's new companion and slept over in some other elders boarding for the night. We were a 5some. It was a terrible night's sleep. Woke up the next morning and we had Zone Conference here for the Cape North Zone. They kept us and we had planned on leaving for Namibia after the Zone Conference. The reason they had it early, the Zone Conference, is because we had Elder Watson of the Area Presidency come and talk to us. He was also going to speak later on that night in Bellville (part of CT) he served as Secretary to like 6 previous Presidents of the Church and the Quorem of the Twelve. It was a decent talk...he told some cool stories. His wife also spoke for a little while. Well after that we headed back to the mission home and everyone that had to hop on a plane did and the rest of us, (going to nam) had to wait til Saturday for our flight. Well we found out right then that all of our Visas had gotten rejected to go up to Nam so long story short...I'm currently in a 3some serving in Bellville for the time being. It's about 35 Kms from Paarl. Towards Cape Town...in the same area. My Comps are Elders Lotuleli and Gouws. Gouws came up from George in the Eastern Cape where he had been serving for a while. He's a skater...so we have much to talk about! ha! He's from SA. Elder Lu is from West Valley and he's tight. He's just been in Bellville for one transfer. He's a big Tongan guy...way chill. I dunno how long i'm going to be here in Bellville...maybe a week...maybe a few weeks. not quite sure. But it's cool either way. It's been pretty good this past few days.
Things in Bellville are a bit different. It's a HUGE area. As for the missionary work it's a bit more difficult as for finding anybody new and for teaching..compared to Paarl. They're lucky if they find 1 investigator a week. And for stats and everything...it's just harder to do stuff. Bellville in general is a beautiful place tho. Very high class. Got some very nice people that i've already met...O and funny story...
Yesterday at church we met a lot of people and one lady came up and when she greeted me she was like you're Irish huh. I was like yeah i think so. So she starts telling me that her family's name is Deviney or something weird and how they always used to pronounce it Devine. Basically she said that me and her are related some how...and she wants us to come see her. Apparently...as i'm told by Elder Lu that she's a little crazy. haha. But we're going to try to see her sometime so maybe i'll find out i have some Devenney's down here in Bellville. Funny stuff!
As i said we met some great families here and our Branch President in Paarl, President Kruger, lives here in Bellville so we're going to his house tomorrow for a FHE. Cuz i saw him at that Fireside on Saturday night with Elder Watson...So i have some connections here in Bellville. Actually a lot of people recognized me at church yesterday..and when i tell people i was up in Paarl they usually know somebody up there.
Well things are doing good and I'll keep you posted when i go up to Namibia. Thanks everybody!
Holly i got your package with alex's stuff and pics so thank you!
See ya!
Elder Devenney

More Photos

2009-02-18T07:21:00.000-08:00

Photo Dump!!!

2009-02-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

Im such a bad sister!

2009-02-17T07:37:00.002-08:00

Apparently- Ive got two photo cards of Corys now and I havent finished posting the last of his photos....so Im going to try really hard this week to get more of his photos uploaded so I can send back one of his cards .....ek. Sorry Cory!!!

Feb 16, 2009

2009-02-17T07:37:00.001-08:00

How's everybody doing? Hope everyone had an excellent week. Things here were intense this past week and i'll get to it all in just a bit. We worked hard and broke a few records here when it came down to stats...so we're pretty stoked about that....
Well the week started out well as we went to Cape Town to hike up Table Mountain last week on Monday. We got a late start but it was all good. The weather was nice and sorta cloudy so it wasn't too hot to climb, which was a blessing. First off, we get there and we're ridin with the ZL's in their car while other missionaries are in other cars. Well as we get to our parking spot anytime the car backs up there has to be a missionary behind the car at all times. So one of the missionaries hops out and directs elder Nyoka in his backing...i think Elder Nyoka wasnt even paying attention, and idunno what the other missionaries that were driving were thinking...but in short, Elder Nyoka backed straight into the other car. Totally dented both cars. At least my accident wasnt out of pure stupidity! haha. I just laughed. But as for our hike...it continued on a long step up all the way to the top. It was an intense hike...took about an hour and a half to get there...and i basically had to stop every 5 minutes after we had gone for the first half hour. I thought it might die...literallly...haha. Well once we made it there it was beautiful. You'll soon see the pics but it looked over Camps Bay and Cape Town on the other side. We just walked around for a couple hours then hiked back down. We hit Cape Town traffic on our way home and it was basically too late to do anything once we got back to Paarl. It was fun tho and i can at least say i've done it. Next time i'm taking the Cable Car...
One day this past week...dunno when exactly...but we were just walking in this neighborhood and we stopped to talk to this one guy. Well his name was Allon, not knowing it til he came outside, but he was handicap physically. and mentally i guess...But just more physical. He was a little slow but we started to talk to him anyway. As we talked to him we actually found out he was quite smart, and knew a lot, and believed in a lot of good things. I thought about how i think i might judge too quickly...cuz he even told us that he was just a little handicap and dont let his appearance bother us becuase he was fine mentally. Well we talked to him and he had a lot of interesting questions for us. He said that just 4 weeks ago he had talked to missionaries from our church and they told about the Book of Mormon and they said that we didnt believe in Christ...this was a surprise for us because we know we're the only missionaries in Paarl and we had never talked to him. And surely we would not, or any other missionary wouldnt, say that we dont believe in Christ when it is the biggest thing on our name tag. We clarified some stuff and we couldnt figure out who he must have talked to...Jehovah Witnesses? who knows...It was interesting.
O yeah i hope everybody had a good Valentines Day on Saturday...I know i did. Me and Elder Power had a date at La Romantica! with eachother...haha. We actually celebrated on Friday...and i wasnt too impressed with the place. Elder Power finished off my food...but we got to watch some good Rugby. That sport is brutal!
At church this past uh...yesterday we had a great speaker from the High Council in Cape Town come in. He spoke about Preach my Gospel...I dunno what's going on over there but they're stressing every member have one of these in their homes. You know it's what us the missionaries study from each day...yeah...well it was powerful. He spoke about the importance of the basics in our church and it's funny to think i probably couldnt have explained the Restoration to anyone before i came on mission...that's pretty sad....
Good news for the week...we have a Baptismal Date for Sydney which is going to be on the 15th of March. He's a great guy. So we're pretty stoked for him. Well all i can say is we stayed was busy...very busy...as it was the last week of the transfer. I hope everyone is doing good and thanks for everything!
-Elder Devenney

Feb 2, 2009

2009-02-06T12:46:00.000-08:00

This week has been quite interesting...i can name the events and i'll give you details in a bit...1. Car Accident2. Elder Power's ever deforming hand thanks to a Spider Bite3. Went to the Hospital4...other stuff...
Well it's been like a rollercoaster this week. Lots of interesting things have been happening so it's been interesting to see...First off yes...#1 happened. We were going to go see a member, but i realized they weren't home so i made basically just like a wide left turn. As i was going back to the left side of the road a car, which neither me, robbie, or Power saw, came pretty fast and i'm assuming he was trying to pass us before we got to our lane. Well he slammed on the brakes, i was only going like 5 mph maybe...and our left front of the car hit his right driver side door. Basically didnt do much to our car but his was a bit worse of condition. He was driving a little green like smart car thingy...sorta. Well it was 3 guys, all of which i'm pretty sure didnt have a license and they immediately called the drivers dad who lived just around the corner. It was a muslim guy, and everything worked out. I'm pretty sure he's freakin rich anyway cuz the next day his car was fixed. It was just surprising, no one got hurt, but we still have to report it in. Our car is just a bit dented and paint off. No biggie tho. Just gotta be careful. Didnt take me too long to get in my first accident! K that's not something to be proud of..i wish it hadn't happened but hey couldnt help it.
My companion woke up Wednesday with a red mark on his wrist. Basically by Friday it had gotten worse and it was like a zit on his arm. We popped it a couple of times and it would have nasty white juice come out :). Well Friday we went to the Chemist and got some cream and just some pills. By Sunday it was hurting him so bad he couldnt even move his arm. We decided to leave church early and go to the hospital. We paid a bunch to see a doc for 3 minutes to have him tell us something we already knew. It was retarded. Basically every day it would be burning him constantly, and his whole hand is swollen. It's doing ok now but it's still looking disgusting. We have it wrapped up. I'll keep ya posted if he turns into Spiderman anytime soon...We took some nasty videos too, it's awesome!
For missionary work it's kinda been up and down. Thanks to Power we just chilled back at the flat and have been taking it easy this week. He cant really stay awake and focus all that much. It just drains him of all his energy.
We went to go to an appointment the other day to see this little family and the wife was waiting at her gate for us. She had the BOM in her hand. Basically when we got there she told us she didnt want this book and she didnt want us to come back. She said she had been talking to some people and they told her what we do. I asked her what she had heard but she wouldnt tell us. This happens a lot. People start brining out false accusations against us and we dont even have time to reply back. It's dumb. So she dropped us. I feel bad, but whatever you cant really help it. People rely on other opinions way too much. She hadnt even read what we wanted her to read so she has no idea what it really says when i'm sure they told her more anti stuff...well whatever i'm just venting. I'll stop...
We're just staying busy with lots of stuff...as usual. Nothing too much coming up. We might have 2 or 3 Baptismal Dates coming up so we'll see. We'll probably set them for sometime in March tho...But yeah just a heads up. One guy from Congo, his name is Sydney. I'm sure i've mentioned him before. Way cool guy. Then Sister Brinks (RC) daugther Celeste and her neighbor Alisha. We'll see tho. Well there's not much else to tell. We buzzed our heads the other night...and Elder Power did mine with his one hand...it was funny. but we look smart. We watched the Testaments for sports night...haha. Alright that's all the news. Thanks!
-Elder Devenney

Jan 26, 2009

2009-01-27T07:38:00.001-08:00

Well this week has been another pretty good one. We had Zone Conference down in Cape Town on Wednesday. Me and Elder Power got a bit lost..thanks to his terrible directions he was giving me...so we were pretty late..but it's all good. We got there eventually. Cape Town is pretty crazy and i dont really know my way around there too good...but i'm starting to. The Zone Conference was very nice. It's basically all day, well til about 4 or so...President Probst and his wife talked to us a lot of course...those two are amazing. Especially Pres Probst, he knows ALL i swear. We had a deep doctrinal discussion part of the conference where we could ask him any questions we wanted. That guy knows a lot...anyway...so yeah that was about it for that. Just eat lots and speakers and what not...

Thursday night and Friday we had the Zone Leaders come up for exchanges. It was Elder Nyoka and Elder Pappoe. They sleep over and then we just split the area and go with one of the ZL's. I'm sure you've figured this out by now...but yeah i was with Elder Pappoe. He wasn't feeling too good...but we tried doing some stuff and making the best of our time. Elder Pappoe is a 24 year old from Ghana. He's a professional soccer player...i can say that because he's played his whole life. He basically grew up training for the world cup and when he was only 15 his team won. He finished school and then decided to come on mission. He played in Ghana and all over, but his decision to come on mission was final and everyone in Ghana, including all the clubs and teams etc, said that if he goes on mission he's not going to be playing soccer in Ghana for the next 7 years. Well he took the opportunity anyway and left. Since he's been on mission his manager back home has still been working trying to find him a place outside of Ghana. Well good news for him because he's now signed a contract to play for Liverpool when he gets home. He only has one transfer left. It was quite a big sacrifice he had to make to come, but you can see the outcome of blessings that he's receiving as he's going to continue with his soccer career. Pretty crazy huh! So yeah the exchange went good...
He tried to skate a bit...i was a little scared for him...

On saturday we were visited by Elder Powers second family...well basically. They were on holiday in Cape Town, somehow got our number, and wanted to take us out for lunch. it's not quite allowed...but it's all good. So we ate at a chinese restaurant and then they took us shopping for food. Basically she hooked us up for the next 2 months of food and everything else we ever need. It's ridiculous. This family is very well off and the spend a lot on us! it was crazy! but we were grateful. It was fun and i know my comp enjoyed seeing them since they're from his home ward. So yeah that was most of our Saturday.

We got to confirm Sister Davids and Sister Brink as members of the church yesterday. It was Branch Conference here in Paarl so we had some members of the Stake here giving talks during sacrament meeting. Neither of us did any confirmations, we had a member and the branch pres each do one. It went really well and everything. But yeah since it was a special sunday it was crazy to see all the different people come to church. I have never seen so many white people at church before! haha! It was a good turn out.

Last monday we went driving in the mountains and went exploring. It was sweet. We live on one side of the mountains so we decided to go explore the other side of the city. It kinda took us a long time and we kept getting lost and going into random people's vinyards...it was pretty, but not where we wanted to go. So it only took a couple hours but we eventually found the right road and started up the mountain. It was an amazing view. We even saw a family of baboons and another male baboon later up on the road. we stopped and took some pics but i didnt want to get too close for Elder Powers sake...he's too innocent to get attacked by these feroscious?? animals...so we didnt leave the car...haha. But yeah the exploration taht we had was a nice adventure and we took some sweet pics. It would be the ultimate sunset spot cuz we could look as far north and south and west as we could, and we could even see Table Mountain from up there. (which is in Cape Town)

Well the work is still good. Me and Power are getting along way good...almost too good cuz sometimes it's hard to stay focused...haha. But it's alright. We're staying busy and just enjoying the time here. That's about it! See ya!

-Elder Devenney

2009-01-22T12:02:00.000-08:00

2009-01-20T08:43:00.000-08:00

Jan 19, 2009

2009-01-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

So as you can tell this past week was a good one...I'll get more into it here in a bit.
Things are still going really good with me and Elder Power. We're just having a good fun time. We're like the same, so it's easy. Last week we played some soccer at a park and we did some nice skating ouside. He used to skate a little so i had to see some of his moves..i was quite impressed. haha.
We had the interview for Sister Davids on Friday. The Zone leaders came in to do it. She did pretty well and passed, but something kinda funny...we had been emphasizing about praying more about Joseph Smith and Thomas S Monson to know that they were prophets. Well she must have misunderstood us cuz in the interview she told Elder Pappoe that she had been told to pray in the Name of JS and Pres Monson. I laughed when he told us that. Obviously she wont be receiving any answers to prayer if she does that...but elder pappoe reassured her that no, that's not what they told you to do, and clarified it. So that was all fixed up and what not. Other than that he said she seemed ready and knew her stuff...
We had a great baptism yesterday. Sister Pauline Davids...ya know...she got baptized. She's my first! Getting to baptize her was an amazing experience..but it always takes a little while for things to actually set in. But it was a great service. Tons of people came out from the branch to support her and she even had a friend who i think was Roman Catholic there too. Two people gave talks...they were really good...from what i could pick out...since it was in Afrikaans. haha. Then as we got ready to do the baptism i sort of explained what and how it would happen. We have a font in the church, just so you know. We got there, said what i needed to say, and did it. She was pretty emotional about it, and i can tell that she was so ready for it. She has been very commited already from the time that i first met her. She's come to church 11 times before her baptism. That's a lot. Many times it's just like 3 or 4 before people get baptized...So she was definitely ready for it.
That was basically the highlight of the week...
We've been continuing with the Bakala Bidzou Family. They're awesome. I think Brenda has a lot of stress right now. She just started a new job and has to put Jovica, their daughter, in the cresh. (day care). I think she does a lot of the work with the kids and Bidzou just kinda relaxes and doesnt do much work. It must be hard. We're probably going to talk about how it's a two person relationship when it comes to the family, ya know, try to get Bidzou more involved and more responsible. The Congolese people just have their own ways of tradition. It's more the wife does everythign...and the husband works. But yeah...they're good. haha. idunno what else to say there...
At sports night we filled up a bunch of water balloons before and in the middle of sports we told them we were going to play some soccer outside and we ended up bombing all the little kids with water balloons. It was sweet! Earlier this week there were like 15 kids, outside of Alpha's place, that had grapes they were eating. Well they started throwing them at eachother and then i threw one at one kid..well bad idea. It was me, elder power, and robbie, we were all victims here..they started launching grapes at us left and right, i got pelted on the head and then i had to take a little kid for cover, it was a battle in the streets of flying grapes! our car got graped up, our clothes were gross, my hair was nasty for the next day...yeah but it was hilarious. They just wouldnt stop either! I tried to take cover but i just couldnt escape their skills..Alright well that was a pointless story. But where it ties in is we're planning on doing some drive by water balloon launching at those kids to get them back...yeah that'll teach them to mess with us.
I dunno what else to tell ya...Just lots of the usual teaching/finding/service/yeah...that stuff. ya know mish work. Things is good! Thanks!
-Elder Devenney

As promised pictures!

2009-01-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

(Sorry- its been a crazy week and I havent been able to post as much- Cory sent about 200 photos so ill upload as much as I can next week...stay tuned!)

Jan 12, 2009

2009-01-12T07:41:00.000-08:00

Well first off, transfer news came in last week and we found out that Elder Holt would be leaving to Kwa Nobuhle, which is a township down by Port Elizabeth...and also that i'd be staying in Paarl and i'd get a new comp..of course.
Well Elder Holt and i parted ways, said our goodbyes, and i welcomed Elder Power as my new companion. He's from South Africa, Petoria in fact, chill guy. This is going to be a good transfer. We get a long really well. Like a lot of the same music, same sports, he's big into soccer but he used to skate back back in the day so i'll see what he can do later today. We've been playing some nice soccer in the flat where it gets crazy! it's fun! i cant explain it...but yeah he's been out for 15 monthsish...something like that. Way good guy. So yeah...
As for this week, the first half was really just saying goodbye to a lot of people for Holty and that sort of stuff. We went into Cape Town for transfers on Thursday and he left, picked up new comp, and headed back.Friday we went up on Paarl Rock and had a little district meeting up there..is was pretty chill. Uh...we've been workin hard already but we've been having a lot of fun at the same time. I'll learn a lot this transfer i can already tell.
Sister Davids who is getting baptized this coming sunday invited us over for a good sized meal on Saturday. We had some fat cook, basically scones, and some Potchicos (dutch oven)...it was really good. It was her birthday too so wish her a happy bday mmk. She's getting excited cuz the day is coming up quick.
Our sports night was crazy on saturday. There were like 20 random little kids that came who i had never met before. haha. It was awesome. Played some soccer indoors, that sort of stuff. Plus we had all the usual guys so it was a really good turn out.
Other than that...not too much going on that i can tell you...Things is good. Starting to warm up again...but it's ok. Hopefully it wont be too bad. Yup yup...sorry if it's short but i hope everyone is doing good and i hope to hear from some of you soon! Thanks!
-Elder Devenney

(Hey Amber here- Cory just sent his photo card so check back in a day or so and Ill have uploaded a bunch of his photos !!!)

Jan 5, 2008

2009-01-05T07:38:00.001-08:00

Well happy 2009 everybody!
The new year was spent in our flat. A lot of drinking goes on down here for a couple days so the mission didnt really want us out working or even leaving for that matter. So i took a nice nap, wrote a few letters, skated for a bit, and just chilled. It was nice. That was basically our new year celebration...
Well i was thinking of what i might be able to tell you about this week...and there's a few different things. First off...We had a baptism yesterday. It was good. Sister Vernia Brink, that one lady.., got baptized. Elder Holt did the baptism, which was his first of the mission, so i was happy for him, and i gave a short talk. He had to force her down, (she's a big lady) and it was pretty funny. Her foot even came up, but we got it done the first try. It was a spiritual experience for sure, just a good time. She had her family there too and after she told us that we now needed to teach the rest of her family. So that was good news.Since it was fast and testimony meeting, both me and Elder Holt got up and shared our testimonies. I probably wouldnt have, but i figured i should just cuz..and since transfers are this week i might be leaving Paarl, so i just wanted to thank everyone for their love. I was way happy i did it. As you know...i dont get up and do that very often, but after i could totally feel a difference and i was way glad i did.
Sister Pauleen Davids is still getting baptized in 2 weeks, and yesterday was her 10th time at church. She's so awesome. She's powerful. She's got these crazy stories each day of how she can tell she's being tempted to do something, but then she's just like, stupid devil, and doesn't ever do it. Whether that's picking up some money, gossiping, or just other dumb people trying to change her mind about baptism..like the old J-Ho's, she just stands her ground. But yeah she's getting excited and can't wait for her baptism. All the members already think she's a member becuase she's there so often, they don't even realize she hasn't become a member.
So a few of our Priest age guys in the branch have gotten themselves mixed up in a little bad habit that is quite common in SA. Yeah they've turned to drinking. No Bueno. So we've been sorta slowly trying to get them to come fellowship with us and been trying to see them and teach them about stuff...without being blunt and mentioning what we've heard. We can tell that one guy definitely feels out of place, his name is Charlton, and we're doing a FHE at his house tonight with a bunch of other families. So that'll be nice. He's a cool guy and his whole family is awesome. Just the mom and three boys. But we're trying to work up FHE's all over our area. We've already got one going with the members still out in Smarty Town, and we're starting two more, one in Wellington and in Amstelhof tonight.
There is this old lady Sister Swazi Lambert who when we first met her was in the old folks home just sick as a dog. She couldnt even get out of bed. We've been meeting with her every now and again and we hadn't seen her for like 3 weeks and then last week she came out to church, and walked! She was a referral by one of our members, the Julies Family. Hilton comes fellowshipping a lot and Sister Julies is just an awesome lady. You'll see pics soon. Well we saw her twice this week, just a short visit and what not, and then she came to church again yesterday. She used to be in terrible shape, but she's improved so much in these couple of weeks, and she keeps saying she wants to get baptized. It's pretty funny. She's like 86 or something. But yeah it was just crazy to see.
We had an interesting talk with Alpha and Janine Mahoku-Sady, the Part Member Family that we've been teaching. We started this good lesson on new years resolutions, and all of a sudden all of Janine's family popped in and her dad started preaching to us in Afrikaans. Keagan, one of our fellowshippers was with us and they just started battling, or so i thought. Janine's father basically stopped our lesson, and started telling us what he believed, keep in mind he's a preacher of his own church. It turned out ok, although we got nothing out of it and he kept being like "verstan?" which means understand, and of course we didnt. We couldnt stop him either cuz he would just keep going on and in english and Afrikaans...anyway it was just interesting. You definitely cant teach with contention there, so we just didnt say too much. Keagan explained the BOM and so Alpha was happy he did that. It was just an interesting night...it probably doesnt sound like anything since i didnt explain it very good...sorry. haha.
Well anyway i dunno what else i can say. Things are going pretty good. We're going to Cape Town for a Braai at the mission home or some park or something with the Zone, playing some sports what not. Should be pretty fun. This tuesday we find out about transfers and if we're leaving or not, then thursday we go. So who knows if i'm leaving or not or where to, but i'll let ya know soon. Hope everyone is doing good and hope you had a fun new years! but not like down here...:)
-Elder Devenney

December 29, 2008

2008-12-29T07:51:00.001-08:00

Well it's just about 2009 and whoa that's crazy! I wonder how many memories i'll make in this coming year..i'm sure it'll be quite the interesting one...
Well this past week has been really good. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and as you know I got to talk to a few of you, so thank you! Christmas in SA is soo much different than it is in the states. It's a lot of partying and they dont really do gifts down here. No one has a big tree, few houses have Christmas lights, obviously no snow, and it's much much less of a deal down here. But it was still a good day for us. We visited a bunch of families and people we planned on seeing. Christmas Eve we baked a bunch of brownies and muffins so we could give them to a couple of families. We also put together 2 nice Food bags for two families, well one of them is the Julies Family. They are members and they're way sweet to us. The other we gave the bag to is Sister Pauleen Davids. That one lady who will be getting baptized soon. Both of them dont have a whole lot so we bought a bunch of stuff and secretly (or tried) to drop it off without them seeing us. It was a success for the most part. But some kids by the Julies house ratted us out apparently...haha. So they figured out it was us.
Earlier in the week we painted with Bidzou the Congolese man. He lives in a garage and we painted it a bright pink. Well maybe not bright, but it was still pink. It was way fun tho. It was his Christmas present to Brenda. So that took a while and then we had to go and we had to leave kind of in the middle of it, but we saw him later on and it was all put back and looks great! We were happy to see that. Him and his family are doing good. Brenda and Jovica (little baby girl) and Puka (boy) were all away for Christmas out in Smarty Town, about 15 Km or so. But I think they're all back. Bidzou came out to church yesterday, so that was good to see.
On Christmas we ate a big dinner with Bro and Sis Lawrence of the branch. We ate with Hillary's Family (Sis Law..) who are the Mattee's. They aren't members i dont think but we ate with them at their house and then about an hour later we went and visited Alpha and Janine (Alpha is from Congo) one of our part member families that we work with. I'm sure you've heard of him before. But yeah they invited us over after and we ate some more and i felt bad cuz we couldnt even finish up the food...I was soo full. But that basically concluded the Christmas Day.
Saturday we had a Sports night Braai (BBQ) pronounce it Bry if you guys didnt know. Ya know just the usual one that we have on Saturdays...yeah it went good. Since it was the last of the year we thought it would be fun to cook up some burgers and viennas and stuff. There was a pretty good turn out and Alpha even came. He was showing these kids some karate stuff and he took out Elder Holt and some other kid, it was hilarious, i took some videos so you'll see them soon. Anyway we just played some soccer and ping pong etc and hung out. It was a good time.
Yesterday it rained. and it's been cloudy and cool for most of the week, and even today it's nice and cool again. But yesterday we drove out to Franschhoek, (franch-hook) about 15 Km SE of here...i think. I dont really know...but we had a Dinner Appointment with the Bartles. They're white members that drive out to Paarl for church each week. They're pretty sweet. Franschhoek is sooo beautiful. Seriously you should see it. It's an awesome little town and the drive out there is amazing. It's not really part of our area but we went out anyway. We probably wont be able to see it or go out there again...but we took a few pics and what not. Go google it if you can. Ate some nice food and chated for a bit then had to come back. It was good tho.
O yeah down here everything is cold. Mostly...like all our Christmas food and dinners are mostly cold meat and cold pastas and salads. I wouldnt mind some hot ham at the moment...mmm.
The ZL's came out to paarl to do the Baptismal Interview with Sister Brink who's getting baptized this next sunday. Everything went really well and she passed with flying colors! haha! It was good.
That's about all i can report on this week. The numbers may not show it, but we did a lot of good stuff.
I hope everyone has a great New Years! I know we will...cuz we're not allowed to leave our Flat on new years day...haha. Too many crazy people out! Love you all!
-Elder Devenney

December 22, 2008

2008-12-22T07:17:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas!Well i've got a bit to tell ya as of this week so i hope i can keep ya interested for a while. We're about to head out to Cape Town to go have a braai and play some soccer for a while, so we're trying to hurry. It's a nice day today. Cloudy and starting to rain. Finally...it's been a first since like a month ago. It makes me happy and it's a good way to start out the new week.
As of this past week, we've committed Pauleen Davids to Baptism. We plan on her date being the 11th of January. She's a way sweet lady. She's the one that was a referral for us and just started coming to church by herself and kept all committments and gave up a bunch of stuff, like her coffee a few weeks ago. We got her some Chickery and some roibos tea instead. They drink roibos a lot down here. It's pretty good. Just an herbal tea. But yeah she's been doing way good and we felt like she was ready, even tho it's been so quick. Been just like a month and a half since we started teaching her. But yeah so that's exciting. I dunno if i'll still be here cuz i think transfers happen right before that. so we'll see...i'd like to be here for it...but ya never know.
We've been teaching that family named the Bakala-Bidzedous ya know? Father from Congo, mother is Xhosa, two little kids...yeah they're awesome. They live in a garage and we're planning on painting it for them tomorrow. They're a way sweet family and we meet with them a couple times a week. They even were able to come out to church yesterday and we were way stoked to see them there. We also have another Congolese man named Sydney that we've been teaching. Previous missionaries had met with him but he's been going to school and stuff so for the past month we were unable to meet with him. He still comes to church tho, and when the BB's came we introduced them to eachother and i guess the two guys already knew eachother. And another Congolese man named Bruno who's a member was there at church, and he knew mr. BB also. So i think that helped that he saw some other guys he knew going to church. We were also able to see Sydney and follow up on his reading and what not this week, it was good to see him. He's way chill and humble, and funny. haha.
We've been teaching this members parents, named the Ardenses for a while. The father i think is the only one who really understands us. We've been stressing reading the BOM for the past month i swear and we were about to drop them cuz they wouldnt progress and come to church or anything, but then we decided not to. We met with them and i told them that i would bake them muffins if they read. Well of course, we come back and they still hadnt read, but i did make the muffins. Bro Ardense said he was reading the plan of salvation pamphlet...so that was a start i guess. We talked a bit about that and before i knew it they took the muffins! I was mad. haha. I kept my part of the bargain and they hadn't kept theirs. But whatever. I made it a point to say that i was loaning them those muffins and that before they took a bite, they had to read the chapter. It was kinda funny. They're sweet tho...just no progression.
I've really noticed the power of prayer this past week. One day, we were doing some following up and happened to pop in at this lady named Sister Idas, who we had intro the BOM to a couple weeks ago but hadnt met with them since. Her husband was just coming back from work and we just talked to her for a bit and then before we left just asked if we could offer a prayer, (as we usually try to do). Well i said the prayer and when i was done, a bit awkwardly, and surprisingly, she was crying. Right after that she just opened up to us telling us how things weren't ok with her and the family and that they might be losing the house. Her husband had started a new company in the past year and he lost a lot of money on it, and in the middle of it, he was having an affair with another woman. She basically just told us everything that was going on, and we didnt really know what to say. I shared a cool scripture that was on my planner that is in Phil 4:13. Says "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" It was kinda crazy cuz i had just put that on my planner that morning, and it seemed quite fitting for Sister Idas. She wants to see us again. It was just pretty cool.That same night i had to say a prayer in another home. Same thing happened. The guy, eric, older man who isnt a member but his wife is, opened up to us and got emotional after the prayer. He might have been a bit drunk i dunno...haha. But yeah...
We've had a good solid spiritual thought that we've been leaving with people that talks a lot about gifts. And was even something we went over in Zone Conference a few weeks ago. We've been trying to focus our scriptures that we read with people to be more on Chirst, cuz it's christmas ya know...and one that i like to share with people is one in James 1:17 talking about gifts. Since quite a bit of Christmas is about giving gifts and sharing those with others we felt it was appropriate. Sharing even that our Heavenly Father gave a gift to every single one of us...his Son Jesus Christ. So a thought that i might share with you and is even something that we share with everyone we meet is...What gift can you give Jesus Christ for Christmas?...I'm still trying to figure it out completely. Tons of room for improvement...and i know all of us can figure out what to give if we think about it hard enough. Anyway...
We played some ping pong at sports on saturday...it was so fun! and some soccer indoors. It wasnt the best turn out but hey it was good.The week other than that was pretty decent. Nothing too crazy going on i dont think but that gives you a little slice of my life here in SA. :)
I sent out some packages...hope you get them eventually those select few! :) Dankie!
-Elder Devenney

December 15, 2008

2008-12-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody!

This week has been pretty good. Busy stuff with going to Cape Town for Zone Conference on Thursday and staying over til friday evening. It went way good tho. We were seriously at zone conference at the Guguletu Chapel for like 10 hours straight. It was brutal but still fun. The second half we just sang Christmas songs and watched a slideshow and watched an animated cartoon after the book "You are Special". Remember that book? hey that's a good book eh? i sure like it. Good message ya know...

Well as for the Missionary work here in Paarl, it's been way good this week. We did a lot for Pauleen Davids this week. Met with her Tuesday and Thursday. After our lesson on Tuesday we planned on doing some service for her by replacing her door. Well the hinges...her door would run along the ground and it was tough to close, so we volunteered to fix it for it. Well we got some tools...hammer and screws and some other random stuff that we could gather from members..and got the door off. We cut up the door and made new spots for the hinges to go by carving it with a hammer and a screwdriver...yeah it was tough. Well long story short, it worked. haha. and now her door works just great. It was only like 2.5 hours or so...a bit more than we planned on.
But continuing with Sister Davids...We've taught her about the 10 commandments and word of wisdom lately. And when we saw her on thursday, she gave us all the coffee in her home so she wouldnt have it anymore. She's a very committed lady, as you can see. She's at church every sunday and we'll probably ask her to be baptized pretty soon. She's awesome tho. She calls me Ravaldo or something like that. until she looks at my name tag and reads Devalngo...haha. it's not that she cant speak english, she's just funny. She gets it right occasionally.

O yeah when we went into Cape Town it was so nice. So much cooler than here in Paarl. I dunno how many of you realize that when i say it's like 40 C it's like 110 F. yeah last fast sunday it was 43 C. HOTT! i about died. but this week hasnt been that bad. yesterday was cooler and cloudy. i enjoyed it.

We met with this less-active guy who's 21 named Jonathan. His familly has been members for a while, but he got way mixed up in drugs and all sorts of stuff. He's got a couple kids, and him and his girlfriend are having some hard times. Well we've invited him up to do FHE with us these past couple weeks, and we finally got to meet with him and his girlfriend one on one this past week. They've been struggling in their relationship and his girlfriend Shareen got really emotional when she was talking to us. We planned on just seeing how things were and maybe just sharing a thought or something, but instead we jumped right into the plan of salvation and taught them part of it. Shareen has such a strong desire to learn more and is loving our company there. They said they'd be at FHE tonight so that's good. We're hoping Jon will come back to church, and he'll get his life back on track. I'll keep ya posted...

We saw Raymond, (Zimbabwae guy) we hadn't seen him for a few weeks. We left him the BOM when we first met him, and come to find out he's been reading it like crazy. We left him with questions of the soul, (questions that people commonly have, like is there a god? Why does got let bad things happen? Does He answer prayers?, things like that) With references to find answers in the BOM. Well he had even been writing questions and highlighting stuff in his scriptures. He had a few questions about the resurrection and wanted to know more, and what he ended up doing was even teaching me some stuff i didn't know. He also had questions about one that said, how can i avoid sin? He's been showing the book to many people and having them read from it as well, even when he's at work. He knows not to just read the scriptures, but to look deep into them, and seek for the better understanding. It's crazy. He taught us some stuff for sure. Way cool guy.

We had our sports again at the church on saturday. Played some volleyball and dodgeball. We had a way good turn out. well like 10 people...but that's way good for us. haha. Kenny, (kid who had a drug problem) has been coming out and he's even coming back to church. He's stayed for all of church the past 2 sundays. It's awesome to see how much progress he's been making. Sorry if you dont remember him, i probably mentioned him like a month ago.

We watched the Christmas Devotional yesterday at the church. Hey that was good huh!? I enjoyed it. I didnt get to see the Temple Square lights tho...so i was kinda bummed about that. i'm sure it's beautiful tho.

Hmmm well mommy this is my shout out to you...have a wonderful Birthday on the 18th! dont party too hard like they do down here! ha!

Hope everyone else is doing good! Christmas is soo soon!

-Elder Devenney

December 8th

2008-12-08T07:41:00.001-08:00

Who Ganded? (How's it)

This week has been pretty interesting...even getting here to find an internet cafe. On our way over both internet cafes that we usually try had been closed, and we were asking around to where other ones were. This guy named Legrand from Congo helped us out a bit and we actually started talking to him about the church. Cuz we figured it would be good, even tho we don't normally do it. Well he's a preacher and he's got his own church but we went to his home that was right here above one of the shops and talked a bit about the apostasy and Joseph Smith and about the restoration a bit. We didnt have any scriptures with us, but he just wondered a lot about our church. Long story short...i was a bit worried i wouldnt be able to email today but we finally found a place...yay!

So it's been crazy hot now. like 40+ C. Seriously soooo hot. and it doesnt even cool down during the night a whole lot...so it's hard to sleep. we have our fans blowing on us without any covers and yeah...it's brutal. Something about Paarl is that it's always lke 5-10 degrees C hotter than it is in Cape Town. For some reason...i think it's cuz we're surrounded by mountains and it's just like a bowl that keeps the heat in. it's brutal.

One day we were coming back to our flat and we (I) chased this poor little kitten up our stairs and on to our walkway in front of our door. Since we live on the second level. Well it went to the railing and was scared to death and all i wanted to do was pick it up cuz i love kittens...well it didnt want to see me and it decided to jump and free fall two stories down to the bottom. Batman style. It was awesome. And somehow it ran away unharmed...

Elder Holt hit one year and we celebrated!

Well as for the missionary work...We've still been working with the Bakala-Bidzedou Family. Except they dropped our appointment yesterday...lame. and they couldnt come to church either...lame lame. Sister Brink, the one we're planning on baptizing, also said we didnt have an appointment yesterday...when we did...which throws off our whole IAC (investigator action calender) that we've made up for her...and that we spent many hours making perfect...lame. but she came to church with part of her family so that was good.

We were trying to do some finding up in Newton, well we have been, for the past couple of weeks. It's like between Paarl and Wellington...idunno if that makes a difference. Anyway...We knocked on this door and talked to this lady for a while and she told us that she knew who we were because we had talked to her brother a few weeks ago. Her brother was Jacque, a guy we met doing some finding again, but just in a different street. Well Jacque had told us that he would contact us becuase he wanted us to talk to his lady friend who used to be a muslim but went back to christianity. Well we waited and waited, (few weeks) and we had tried to go see him but we never could catch him at home nor would he call us. So we kinda forgot about it. Well since we just knocked on this lady's house and said she was jacques sister we were excited cuz jacque had told her about us and the BOM. There was also a younger guy there that sat in with us for the second half of the time we were there. This guys name was Sharl. Well long story short but Sharl ends up being the lady muslim turn christian's son. He thought that his mom would love to hear what we were sharing. So we got his number and will be contacting his mom soon! We thought it was pretty cool how it ended up. Even when we were waiting for that referral, by our own efforts, and the Lords, we were able to get it anyway. It was pretty sweet.

We went on Exchanges with the Zone Leaders on friday. Elder Mabulana and Elder Nyoka came out to Paarl for some reason. I went with Elder Nyoka and took Paarl and the other two went up to Wellington area. Something kind of cool, and i dunno if i told you, but Elder Nyoka was Harrison's (Smith) companion in the MTC in Jo-Berg. Crazy huh! He's a pretty cool guy. It's crazy how small a world it is. But yeah we just stayed busy, saw some people, had a good time, etc etc...the usual. He taught me some good stuff and had a lot of good things to say about me, so that's always nice. :)

Saturday night after our sports activity, which we played Dodgeball, we got a phone call. Well this was later saturday night, after bed. and if we get calls late at night it most likely means something bad happened, or we're giving talks in sacrament...haha. Well fortunately/unfortunately it was a call informing us that ADT and the Fire Brigade was at the church. Bro Benans (1st Counselor in Bishop) had been at the church doing his gardening until late at night for some reason. This was around 11 pm or so...when we got the call. Apparently there was a short and Bro Benans had smelled smoke and saw it and so he made some quick calls...but no one was able to get a hold of him. Finally the President of the brach called us, Pres Kruger, and we eventually got a hold of Bro Abrahams to go down there and investigate. We were kind of panicing and making phone calls cuz we didnt know how bad anything was...we just knew there was a fire. Well it ended up not being that bad so that was good...just a little short in the priesthood room and it didnt spread.
O yeah and when i say "we" i meant Elder Holt...i was passed out on my bed during all the phone calls and everything...so i didnt hear about it til sunday morning. :) idunno how i didnt hear anything...that's what i get from this heat i guess and the work.

Had Elder Holt cut my hair!

K well enjoy the snow! i miss it!
Happy B-Day Whit! Love ya guys!

-Elder Devenney

December 1, 2008

2008-12-01T07:11:00.001-08:00

Happy December 1st!
This week has been great and i'll get into it in just a sec...First off just to let you know, yes i'm still in Paarl. Transfers were on Wednesday but just as Elder Holt and i guessed...we weren't planning on leaving. So good thing we didnt.
The past week A LOT of stuff has been happening. A lot of good stuff. :) First off...There was this lady we had been seeing a few weeks back during my first transfer. We saw her the first couple weeks of it but she kept dropping our appointments or something kept coming up, so we kinda forgot about her. She had been seen by missionaries before just a couple times...before i got here. Her name is Sister Brink. Well basically we went to see her last week and she's made some major progress. She finished the BOM and has been feeling great about everything we've explained to her. She lives in Wellington, and has a couple member friends. Brother Peter Smith is our fellowshipper and lives just down the street, so he's been following up on her quite a bit. Anyway...if i didnt tell you she's like 40 or something, married, with a couple kids. Her youngest is like 18 i think. All girls. So yeah we met with her twice this past week, once to follow up on how things have been for her, how's the reading/prayer going, all that good stuff. Like i said she's made tons of improvement from what we could tell and what Bro Smith was telling us. Our second time we saw her we decided to teach her the Gospel of Jesus Christ, including Faith, Repentance, Baptism...etc etc. Well to make a long story short, Elder Holt and i planned for her that morning and decided to commit her to be baptized on the 4th of January. And as we taught her, things felt really good, and she accepted that committment and will be getting baptized and confirmed that following week. So that's pretty exciting eh! It was a very cool experience, even just asking her to be baptized, and even seeing her reaction to such a question. So that's the main news for the week...
We were out doing some finding...well we were actually looking for this guy Moses but ended up finding this lady named Brenda instead. We just introduced her to the BOM and got a return appointment...We met up with her, her husband, her neice, and her kids. This is the Bakala-Bidzedou Family. (Bee-Shoe) The husband is from Congo and is so awesome and humble. Brenda is Xhosa. and her Neice lives in Smarty Town, (like east of paarl). They have one like 7 year old boy named Puka, and another baby. Well we met with all of them and taught the Restoration. Things went great. After the lesson, Mr. BB walked us out and explained to us how he already felt what we were telling him was true. And how it all made sense. We left him a french BOM, and Sophie (Neice) one of her own.We went to see them like two days later but only caught Brenda and Sophie there. We taught them about prayer and also read a bit from Moroni 7 about the Spirit. It was funny cuz even before we started that lesson, Brenda was like "So when are you going to invite us to come and visit your church", This was pretty shocking i thought, having an investigator ask to come to church before we did. Even tho we were going to invite them anyway...i just laughed.We saw them again last night and watched the restoration DVD with them. They're a great family. Mr. BB has such a strong testimony already and he really just wants to know more about it. They're all planning on being to church this coming sunday. Exciting!
We've been doing these records for the church, updating them and visiting a lot of less active families...like i'm sure i've told you. But our sunday school teacher, sister Williams, is one that we went to this week. She's got like 3 older sons, but she's the only real active one. We started talking and she's done so much with her life already. She's been to the SLC Temple and took out her Endowments there, been to New York and to the Sacred Grove. She was telling us about all the Apostles she's met. She said she talked to President Monson in an elevator once. All a bunch of other crazy stuff. So many people out here can barely afford to do such things but she's made time and the money to do what's most important to her. It was cool just to hear all her stories...i wont tell you them all, but she's been around a lot of the starting of the church her in SA. But yeah...good family. She's funny.
At church our branch president, pres Kruger, came up to us and told us how much he's noticed our efforts in trying to get the branch more involved with missionary work. Even the little things he said. More than previous missionaries had done. That was nice to hear. We've really been working our butts off trying to get people more involved and giving us referrals. We've set up that sports night every saturday, set up a Preach my Gospel table at church with BOM's and handouts and Pass Along cards for people to take and give to people. (hopefully not just taking em for themselves). But it was just nice to see that someone had actually noticed our efforts and appreciates what we've been doing here in getting this branch going.Some ladies in our branch brought some random guy in off the street to sacrament yesterday and Elder Holt and I sat by him. He was a funny old guy that would shout "Amen" "Praise the Lord" things like that when he liked what the speakers would say. Well he wouldn't really shout, but he'd say it, and it was funny.
Paarl is getting ready for their big light show. There was one last week up in Wellington but we didnt get to see it. There should be some good shopping this week with some sweet street lights here in N. Paarl, near where we live. The same street where we do the internet and stuff.
O we played some touch rugby on saturday with a couple of guys for the sports night. it was pretty fun. I'm learning! the only dumb part was that we played inside the church cuz some of the guys were being dumb and didnt want to put shoes on. there were only like 7 of us. Guys more my age, it was fun. Kinda complicated tho...i like to watch it on tv, but playing it in a little gym inside the church just isnt the same.
Well i hope everyone had a good week! Reagan i hope things are good with the new baby! Send some pics when you get a chance! Love ya!I'll Keep ya posted...
-Elder Devenney

Thanksgiving Post

2008-11-24T07:19:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Wish they celebrated that down here...haha. Maybe we'll try to have our own feast, or maybe just me. (Since Canada doesn't have it either...)
We found a nice family of sisters that we've seen a couple times already. There are like 4-5 sisters living in the same house/area with a few kids, (some older) and their husbands. We've just taught the sisters, them ranging all probably over 40 or so, and it's been fun. They're way nice..but who knows how well they even all understand us. Their english isn't very good. That's one thing that's difficult down here. Most people can speak a bit of english, but it's the second language next to Afrikaans. We're always bringing fellowshippers with us to better explain things to those that don't understand, which is nice. Even if they say they understand us, sometimes i doubt it.
So we're doing some finding the other day and a bunch of kids come up to us and ask us for food/money. This happens quite often. They have their whole little "act" that they do. Some will say it's their birthday, etc. They'll just follow us around even if we tell them we dont have anything for them. Sometimes i feel bad cuz i can tell they actually need stuff, and other times i just get annoyed. Sad i know...But anyway...so we end up going to the store, because we were pretty close, and we got them some bread. We gave it to them and i'm pretty sure they weren't even grateful. They said they liked their bread with meat, and didnt even say thank you. Over and over people will come up to us, assuming we have money, because we're white. I love to be charitable to everyone, but it's frustrating that they assume we have so much when in reality we can't give everything we have to every person that asks us for something. ya know? hmm...we ended up seeing those same kids later on that day at another part of town and they did the same thing...it was lame...
One night we had the President of the Branch, President Kruger, come with us. He's this way cool guy from Cape Town, well actually Belville, he's got this strong accent and it's awesome. Hopefully i'll pick one up in the next little while...haha.
We went in for Zone Workshops in Gugaletu. it went fine...not much there to say. Just focused on working with members and finding the "elect". it wasnt very long, maybe like half day. so yeah...
One of the nice things about being in Paarl is how many Dinner Appointments (DA) we have. Seriously. Compared to other places, from what i've heard, this place is the best. We were supposed to have one on thursday friday and saturday. then sunday we always get fed by someone in the branch. Unfortunately our thursday one fell through...but we still had the others. yay! mmm so good!
Saturday we had our first Sports Activity. It's something that me and Elder Holt came up with to get more of the members, less actives, and investigators involved in. Every saturday from now on from 5-7pm we're having different sports at the church, with a bit of a refreshment after. Of course since saturday was our first time...it wasn't that big of a turn out. Even tho we had told EVERYONE about it. There were just 6 of us...haha. We played some bball at the church and then some soccer inside. It was way fun. Alpha and Kenny both came out. Alpha i probably mentioned a few weeks back but he's LA and so is Kenny. We're working with Alpha's wife cuz she's not a member. Alpha served a mission like 6 years ago, he's awesome. from the congo....yeah...way funny guy. Kenny is that kid with the drug problem that we're trying to get back to church. We visit him a lot and it was way good to see him come out and play with us. He's doing a lot better tho, and we can see it in his personality and his attitude.
Sunday was an exciting day at church. It was the primary program that they've been planning for a while now. We told everyone to come out. It was funny. We had more people at church than any other week. With 7 investigators! it was awesome! transfer high! So many people tell us they'll be at church, but dont come. It's frustrating because we'll visit them so much, they'll promise to be there, then they wont come. then they'll promise again, and still they wont come...it happens so often. I wish people just wouldnt promise, then we wouldnt expect them. But anyway...after church there was a lunch. This doesn't happen very much, which is probably the real reason so many people came out. :) It was good...The rest of the day yesterday was a bit tough, all our appointments fell through, but it happens. we made good time of other stuff.
So i'm officially into my second transfer. They're starting this new thing where transfer news comes in on wednesday, and you leave thursday. But i'm pretty sure i'll still be here in Paarl. They're making it that way so missionaries dont waste so much time. It used to be you get the news on Saturday, then leave wednesday...something like that. But yeah...Hey something i'm looking forward to is driving! i can start this transfer. just gotta fill out the paper work and do a bit for like a month, then it'll be all good! i'm excited! haha.
Alright well I hope you all had a great feast! Love ya!
-Elder Devenney

November 3, 2008

2008-11-19T08:04:00.001-08:00

Dear Family,
Hey another pday down and now I can send you some pictures. (which I (amber) will try and get scanned and posted asap) Hope everything is going well for you. Send that letter to dad please- I couldn’t find his address. Don’t worry you can open it if you want to it has the same pics as Im sending you now….
We went to the africaans monument today and took a bunch of pictures you will see more when I send home my SD card. Ill probably do it in a couple of weeks. Send back that other one if you get a chance- thanks!
You can still let everyone know they can send letters etc to that address…Jessican asked about it in an email I guess…so yeah just let her know.
Things are still good in Paarl. Lots going on and lots to do. All these pics make it look so beautiful which it is, but ill try to take some pics of the parts of paarl we do work in. it’s a bit different. It can be kind of scary at times. But its not too bad so no worries. Hows stuff? Hows Chalka? Family? I wanna hear from you…also send some picts or something that’s always nice you know. Apparently I do have some mail but I wont get it till Thursday when the senior couples come out. Maybe its from your or not well see I guess.
Alright well this was just for the pictures mainly- love you and miss ya!

Oct 28, 2008

2008-11-19T07:49:00.000-08:00

This was a letter that came...so the posts will be a bit out of order...
Oct 28, 2008

Whats up? How are things? Thought id drop a quick letter with some pics for your pleasure. As you have probably found out I bought a skateboard. Yup. I bought some awesome cheap shoes for like 2.50 us. The skate wasn’t as cheap unfortunately, but hey it makes me happy anyway.
I prob wont talk a whole lot about the work but just know its all good. Me and elder holt, are keeping quite busy down here. Teaching, tracking all that stuff. We probably only tract like an hour a day if that unless an appointment falls through, then we try to do more if we cant visit other people.
Last week we got like 12 new investigators tho, we were excited for that and tons more people have been coming to church now that weve visited them- its been good.
Oh hey sorry if you guys think that ive been somewhat racist( I swear amber does)(( I DO NOT I PROMISE CORY!!)) She emailed me and told me she hopes I don’t see people by color, yeah sorry amber the terms used are what people here use……they have difference communities, and they live separate still….so yeah, but ill just say “people” or whatever. Well see, im just trying to give you a better picture that’s all…but anyway.
I hope you been forwarding the emails and I know amber puts them on the blog, bu yeah just keep it up. I just don’t know everyones address I and I lost that paper with everything….
Ive been looking for people with chaka dogs but I cant find any…all the houses here have gates around their doors and yards and usually a small dog. Unless its in the townships where it’s the apartments or little one room houses. Its crazy, but the people seem to be happy still with whatever they have.
Most people will let us in their homes cuz in the day they just leave their doors open. That’s nice when they’ll at least hear what we have to say.
A lot of appointments and referrals not as much finding…its good tho…Like I said we stay busy.
Well if you can just write me back or something, tell me whats up…I have to pay for the internet by the hour so if you (cant tell what he wrote…) tell me something its easier to write and Ill find the time to read it and reply in the week. Hope you’ve enjoyed the emails so far. Miss you guys and send some music ok, or something….xmas is coming…tell me what you want….the us dollar is 10-1 here and in SA so wire (again cant tell what he wrote) if you want something! Haha.
But yeah x mas music or something or anything…whatever you want. Some stuff is cheaper while other stuff is basically the same.
Ps- its already crazy hot here….in the 90’s. but apparently this isn’t anything yet….January is supposed to be the worst!

November 17, 2008

2008-11-17T07:31:00.001-08:00

Hello Everyone!
Paarl has been good this past week. Actually, it isn't only Paarl that we work. Our area is actually Paarl, and up into Wellington. Wellington is a beautiful city full of old buildings and famous for it's wine vinyards. Everything is getting so green now and it'll be beautiful once all the grapes get on the vines. There are different sections of the city that we work also, some inbetween here and wellington. Different parts of the city are named different and it's quite funny. Some names are Chicago, New York, New Orleans, etc. So yeah i've been to places in the states quite a bit. Haha. Our complete area is quite large. I couldnt remember if i told you that but now you know...and have a little better idea of how big our area out here is. Plus it's just the 2 of us when it used to be a small zone back in the day...
This week was good. We had a bunch of DA's, which is always nice. ;) We've started seeing this really old lik 86 year old woman that one of our members took us to. She's in an old rest home and i'm pretty sure she cant even get out of bed. but she realizes she needs to get baptized...or soemthing like that. We've been teaching her but it's just hard cuz we know she wont ever be able to come to church. And how are we expecting her to progress without coming? It's just a weird situation.
This past week we had a couple good days of rain and lightning. It was nice to see. We'd had a few night rains before, but nothing that stayed for a couple days at a time. I got to bust out my sweet rain jacket, and it worked quite well. So thanks! I tried taking some lightning pics one night...it was a little difficult, but i managed to get a couple good shots.
When we were walking around we saw a house with a couple of Huskies. Man those dogs are so pretty. they have white eyes and one of them is going to have puppies in about a month. So we hope to go back and check them out. But the lady we talked to loved her dogs and told us a bunch about them. They're pretty rare down here ya know...everyone has Pit Bulls, or little crazy dogs. Unfortunately whenever i ask if they've heard of a dog like ours, (Chaka), they havent. Some have, but i'm yet to see one. Man i miss that guy...hope he's doing good.
We had a sweet object lesson with this one family that we're again going to see tonight. They're a part memeber family and we did the lesson on faith. We used my skateboard and blindfolded them and built a half pipe and made them drop into it. K not really, but we did blind fold them and we did use my skateboard. It was just a fun activity with them standing on my skateboard and while it gets lifted off the ground, with their hands on my shoulders, i start going to the ground. It's supposed to feel like they're getting really high off the ground when in reality they're only like 6in up. Then eventually they fall and realize it wasn't that bad, it's just funny. We even had our Elders Quor Pres there with us. Good times! I think we did that type of game at some party many years ago...so i suggested it and we tied it into faith...something like that. it was good.
Friday we had a Lekker Braai! We had been planning this for a couple a weeks now at Bro Chris Davids house. That is the guy that ran at Weber State. We got there and ate and everything, it took a while cuz you cook everything over coals. Mainly all the meat and stuff. Braai's are really big down here, every weekend there's a party at our flat. And even saturday night we had another Braai ourselves at our flat. mmm so good!
We've been teaching those two guys from Zimbabwae. Raymond, Teacha, and they had another guy this time, Chris. They're awesome guys. Raymond knows his Bible, but is so stoked for the Book of Mormon. All three of them are wanting to read and have that desire. It's awesome. They just love church, God, the scriptures, everything. Plus they're way cool with us and want us to come all the time if it were possible. Hopefully they'll be coming out to church next week cuz it's the Primary Program and we're going to have a Lunch after. That is very rare and we've been telling everybody about it so they can come. Elder Holt and I also just started this new thing that'll happen on Saturday Evenings. Every Saturday we're going to have a sports night where we can have our investigators, YM, Priesthood, just anyone that wants to come can. it should be a good time. It was announced yesterday and this saturday will be our first time trying it. There are just so many people here that dont come to church, so we're just trying to involve them more and get them to come to these activities. We dont expect it to be big at first, but hopefully it'll get people coming out to have some fun. Plus there will be a snack after, and people only come for the food it seems like. Basketball this week, we'll see how it goes...but i'm excited.
We got told saturday night that we'd be filling in at church again. We both gave talks in sacrament meeting. mmmm it went alright i guess. haha. Since i've been here i've had to give talks at 50% of the sacrament meetings, lets hope that percentage goes down a little...haha. Nah it went fine. i talked on missionary work cuz we're really trying to get the branch and people involved in the work.
Everything else is going pretty good, hope that gives you a glimpse of my week!
-Elder Devenney

November 1, 2008

2008-11-10T07:13:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody!

So bad news i had this whole thing written out and then i did something and it deleted or just disappeared. yeah...i'll try to make it ok tho.

So Obama eh? i've heard lots this week about him but being missionaries we dont get to see the news or the newspaper so it's just been what people have told me. I hope everyone is happpy with that...i'm sure it'll be alright.

So as for this week...We met this lady named Pauleen Davids from a referral from someone in the branch. She is a former Jehovah Witness and had a lot of questions about what church is the right one. When she was in the Jehovah Witness church, she did Bible study and all that, but didnt feel it was right for her. She just didnt agree with a lot of the stuff that was going on. We had a chance to meet with her a couple times this week and come to find out she's gone through a lot in her life. She likes to talk, and doesnt leave much time for us to say anything, haha. She was given a BOM and has been reading from it. She just finished where Lehi has his dream about the Tree of Life. It was good becuase she told us about herself and some of the things going on in her life and how she's had these dreams and doesnt know if she should take them seriously or not. As a Jehovah Witness they said that dreams are just dreams, and that they shouldnt be taken literally. But as for her, she didnt know what to think. We told her a bit more about the BOM and were able to talk a little bit about how to find her answers. She's been coming to church these past couple of weeks so it's been good to see her. She's way nice.

Saturday we had a Braai (BBQ) and we got some chicken and meat and made a nice fire and cooked up some stuff. it was way good. Even though we didnt get to bed til about 11:30, it was way worth it. We might make it a tradition from now on.

Yesterday was Stake Conference for the South Africa or maybe even all of Africa stakes. It was a broadcast from church headquarters and we had Elder Holland and Pres Uchtdorf talk, along with a few others, it was good. Then we had a nice dinner appointment and had some other people to see. We were trying to find a referral and ended up running into two guys from Zimbabwae instead. These two guys are pretty young, and they're cousins. Their names are Raymond and Teacha and they were very happy to have us there and talk to them. Even tho they didnt have much, just a little room to stay in, they were so willing to buy us a cool drink with the little money they had. They're way awesome and were willing to hear what we had to say. Even though we weren't really there to talk to them. We stayed with them for a while and introduced the BOM. They were way interested in it. They read from the Bible a lot and had some questions to ask us. Raymond was reading and he read about the gift of tongues and wondered why he didnt have that. How can he get this. So he asked us that. We explained to him a bit about what it meant and then i asked him how many languages he could speak. He said 8. 8! that's insane. I basically explained to him that without even knowing it he was blessed in that way and with that talent, and that he should be thankful for it. He understood it better and hadn't even thought about it like that before. They were so interested in what we had to say, which was great, because i'm excited to teach them more. Just awesome guys.

O yeah yesterday at church we had the grandson of the Marriot Hotel Chain there. He's this 27 year old guy who's living in Stellenbosh. His name is Mark Harrison. Way chill guy. Kinda crazy. but yeah it was just pretty random to have him there. we might try to play some golf or bball with him one of these pdays. just thought i'd let you know that.

Everything else is good. Went to the Afrikaans Monument this past week so you'll be getting some pics soon. If you havent already. Love ya and miss ya!

-Elder Devenney

Nov 2, 2008

2008-11-03T07:56:00.000-08:00

(Means white person) little kids like to say it.
Just figured i'd throw something like that in...

So it's been another week here in Paarl...still good. I really like it. I'll send you home some sweet stuff pretty soon...maybe. haha. Xmas is comin up so tell me what you want...it'll be small. i'll do some shopping. O yeah...Christmas came early this year in Paarl...for me that is. Yup yup i bought a skateboard. haha! Dont worry i wont get hurt. I do some exercise in the mornings occasionally...and i'll be skating a bit today for the pday. yay! i'm excited. you'll see pics soon.

As for other stuff...we're working hard. We had Zone Conference this week, it was good. President Probst and his wife spoke to us. it was a all day thing out in Malbury. (Cape Town basically) But yeah. The thing that sucks about being in Paarl is that we're out of Cape Town and being part of the Cape North Zone we dont go there too often. It's just me and Elder Holt up here so we're basically left on our own. but i lke it that way. But yeah the real bad thing is that we dont get Post as often unless for some reason we're down there or the Couple Missionaries bring it up to us. but please send letters too if you all want. thanks!

We saw a huge fire this week. A bunch of shacks burning up! it was intense. Then we witnessed a car robbery...I cant remember if i told you last week but yeah...some dude was getting dragged by hanging on the window trying to stop the thieves...it was intense! but hey it's south africa! #1 in Crime!

On friday i went on Exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I went to Cape Town for a night and into saturday with Elder Fife. (Zone Leader) while the other zone leader came out here and worked with my companion. It was good. We worked in Langa, a township down there. It went pretty well. At the end he had a lot of positive things to say about me and the way i worked so it was good to get that experience. But yeah...

Just teaching lots of lessons and trying to find some new families that wanna hear the message. There are so many churches out here and so many people that dont understand what's really going on and the truth. A lot of the times we'll finish with a lesson and introduce the BOM to them and then they'll just not wanna hear it anymore. Some have even thought that what we're doing is like the JHo Witnesses. It's just crazy! They often say that a church doesnt really matter, and that the church is in "them" "they are the church" it's just kinda funny. We can only tell them so much and then we're just like whatever...

WE have a couple really good progressing investigators. Sydney from the congo. hopefully we'll ask him to get baptized soon. He's just waiting for the answer to his prayers. Uh...idunno what else. haha. We have lots planned for this coming week. should be interesting...we have a good FHE thing going on tonight with the Adense Family. Their kids are crazy. They jump around us all the time. but i love kids. We always go to the little townships and kids will just start following us and grabbing our legs and holding on to us with all their might. it's just funny. i love it. I'm sur they haven't seen too many guys like me before...haha. Still visiting lots of Less active families and trying to get them to come to church. we do that a lot. Everything else is good.

Hope everyone is doing well! Love ya!

-Elder Devenney

October 27, 2008

2008-10-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

So Paarl is an interesting place for sure...As poor as half the city
is...i've never seen more mercedes BMW's and Audi's in my life.
It's pretty funny. haha. But hey everything is good.

We hiked up Paarl Rock last week and i'll for sure be sending a few of you
pics, along with the fam of course. My Comp, Elder Holt is from Canada ya
know...It's harvest
season for him so he's all pumped about that..haha.
And he got his Calgary Flames (hockey) schedule in so now he knows when and
where the team is playing. it's just funny.

As for work here in Paarl...It's been good. We've had this assignment
from the branch down here to update a lot of records from the church, for the
less active families. So we try to do like 10 or so a week. We just noticed how
much success we really had with it because of church yesterday. A lot of the
people we visited, who hadn't been to church in forever, promised us they
would go, and so they did. We had a lot more people at church yesterday...for
sacrament that is. So that was nice. probably like 80 or something...haha. Not
that many that's for sure. But hey we can definitely tell we're making a
difference.

There's this guy named Chris Davids here in the ward. Last sunday he came
and talked to me and guess what?? he went to school
at Weber State back in like
'83. Something like that. At the time he didnt speak any english but he was
running track for them. Apparently he was way good. He was All-American and even
had an offer to get a full-ride to BYU at the time. He said no becuase he heard
he would have to stop drinking and partying and stuff...haha. But yeah crazy
huh! So we met with him later on in the week and just chated and stuff and ended
up giving a family member a blessing. just thought i'd let you konw how
small this world is...

We're teaching a lot of people...a lot of cool guys. Like this one from the
Congo named Sydney. he's way chill and he comes to church so that's
cool. We're also teaching this guy Alpha, he served a mish back lek 4 years
ago and we're trying to teach both him and his wife. I dunno what all to
say. We're doing lots of service and choppin some stuff up. haha. Just
keepin busy.

Guess what? ya know
since i'm a grown up now i gotta cook my own
meals...Yeah i've been cookin some good food lately. with a big of toproman
as well...haha. we are pretty limited to what we can buy cuz we dont have a lot
of money to spend each week...that's why we hope and pray for some good
dinner appointments. which we were blessed to have 2 this past week! yay! but
yeah lots of bread and sandwiches. haha.

Um...we're gonna be running around a lot today. gonna try to develop some
pics and go to the mall. Maybe try to find me a skateboard...;) haha. Hey well
sorry if this email isnt that interesting...i think of stuff to tell ya before
and then i forget after. o yeah!

So there's this guy named Mark who's a Rastifarian. They believe that
the second coming of Christ already happened in the 1930's by a guy...i
forgot his name. Basically yeah...becuase it says in Revelations somewhere that
a man will be born of Judea etc etc
idunno and apparently that's where this
guy was born. So he said he was Christ...yeah...anyway. Basically these
Rastifarians have like way long dreds and look lke jamacians..haha. that's
the best way i can describe it. But yeah Mark was in this like shelter place and
he was laying there one night and he saw this book, which ended up being the
Doctrine and Covenants. He felt like he should take it and start reading it...so
he did. Kinda crazy..well he found out about the church and he's been
coming. He doesnt know anything but me and Elder Holt went and took him a BOM
and told him a little bit about it. He was so excited. He was all "this is
the book..." So yeah we told him a bit about it and he's all stoked
about learning from it and he wants to know more. we were going to see him
yesterday but we couldn't get this kid Hilton to come fellowship with
us...so we just didn't go. it was in a scary neighborhood and we
didnt want
to die! haha. we'll talk to him soon i'm sure...So yeah that's all i
can say. He's just stoked about it and i've never seen anyone more
interested in reading the BOM.

Well hope you guys are doing well! Miss ya!

-Elder Devenney

Pictures Galore!

2008-10-23T07:12:00.001-07:00

Oh Cory, poor guy doesnt he know that when he sends me a memory card full of photos that I will be the one who decides what gets posted? There were enough photos that were so silly that I was laughing out loud. However Cory did say to mom that he wanted to make sure that I put only good pictures up...so I chose the best of the best -haha!

Dont know who these guys are...but hey figured Cory would when he gets back!

This was them being civilized!
Cory - better get used to the call center! Might be your next job when you get back!
19 yr old guys...what do you expect!
Again dont know who...

Looks like a nice guy!

The famous map!

Looks like study time to me!

Such dignified men
This is a great shot of Cory at the Provo temple

Looks like its pretty early in the morning fellas - where you off to??

First at class perhaps!?

Cory attempt at trying to capture artistic subjects at the MTC

This was one of many shots...the loot kept getting bigger...its a good thing he was there only 3 weeks....who knows how much weight he would have gained! Goodness!

He thinks hes being funny- kinda is!

Cory looks just like your room at home!
A photo he uploaded...pretty cool.

First Letter from South Africa

2008-10-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

Well hello everybody!
Plan to forward this Mom! thanks!
I made it to south africa on wednesday, after a long plane ride no doubt. We
stayed at the mission home over night and found out where we would be heading
off to in the morning. I'm in a place called Paarl, it's about 30
minutes or so north of Cape Town. I was pretty happy i didnt have to hop on
another plane to go someplace else like a lot of missionaries had to do. Paarl
is an interesting place...full some well off to some not so well off, and some
really really poor people. It has a bit of everything. We do most of our work in
the townships around here, those being the people that seriously live in not
much more than a couple room, rundown, apartments or homes. It's so crazy.
but the people here are amazing and they really like to talk to us, so that
makes it nice. It's pretty funny when there are 98% black and colored
people...it's just a weird feeling. But seriously, they're so great.
We're in the Klein Drakenstein branch down here, and there's only one
church building in the whole city. The City itself is pretty big, with smaller
townships all around. Ok ok let me start fresh..
My companion is Elder Holt. He's a red-headed Canadian, so mom, you might
appreciate that. He's been out for about 10 months now and he hasn't
even been in Paarl all that long, but he's good. We're making some
progress and we're doing well as a companionship. Yeah...We're going to
try to find him a hockey stick and me a skateboard here hopefully soon. haha. We
live in a pretty nice apartment. It has a loft system...Like kitchen and desks
and couches downstairs, then beds and bathroom upstairs. it's small...but
good. you'll see it soon i'm sure...
Ok so now i'll tell you a bit about my first couple days here...
On Thursday (my first real day) i think we had two appointments that we were
teaching lessons. And then we just visited a few less members and taught and
shared some scriptures and thoughts. i got to meet quite a few people so that
was nice. that day was pretty pointless tho...I'll continue.
Friday we visited this kid named Kenny. He's 23 and his mom basically
opened up to us aobut his drug problem. We're gonna try to get him on a 14
step substance abuse recovery thing. We gave him some church mags and music to
listen to so if he feels the urge to do anything to just turn those on and get
his mind out of that area. Then we taught a girl named Nicole about prayer and
the Holy Ghost. We also had two fellowshippers with us, this kid Robby and his
buddy Hilton. They're both members. They've gone with us a lot and i
think they're thinking about missions in the future...we'll see.
They're way cool guys tho. I dunno why they like coming with us...i hated
having to go with the missionaries...even the one time i went. haha. but
yeha...we taught nicole...then just visited a bunch of other people. yeah..
Saturday we did some service for this guy Jerry in the morning. We worked for
lik 2 hours moving a big thing of rocks and dirt and then moved some bricks.
he's less active but he came to church on sunday so that was nice to see.
Then after that we had to go visit a few people and had appointments with a few
others. Funny story...So we're looking for this person to update their
record of the church, trying to find where they live, etc. and we didn't
really know where we were and we're walking down and we see a bunch of young
colored girls...teenagers...they started to approach us. We kinda knew something
was going on...They came up to us and started flirting with us and were telling
what beautiful red hair my companion had and what beautiful eyes i had, so yeah
they just started flirting with us. All we can do in situations like that are
just like turn around and go someplace else ya know. one girl grabbed my arm and
tried to have me go with her and all i could do was shrug her off and continue
in the opposite direction, towards the house...it was insane. but kinda
funny...we laughed at it. So that was my first encounter with girls flirting
with me. haha. i'm sure it'll happen more and more...
Later on we did some tracting and found some new investigators. so that was
kinda nice...We also visited this guy named Alfonzo. He's a college student
and he plays rugby. He sounds like he's american. yeah he's in the
branch down here.
So sunday was interesting...we found out on friday that we would both be
speaking in church for sacrament...you betcha i was excited! haha. I had to talk
on Fasting and the importance of it. I told alittle bit about myself...did the
talk...testimony...yeah. haha. Church is good. or was good...i guess. It's
just different. Being the white tall elder is alittle crazy but the people sure
are nice. They have such strong testimonies. O yeah it's way small down
there too...the branch i mean. Or the number of people that actually come to
church...
After church we had a dinner apppointment with Sister Campher. The food was
awesome but the after dinner entertainment was not...She wanted us to sing hymns
for her..Solo! Yeah right! haha. But we had to...We got up in front of her and i
sang "There is sunshine in my soul today" Needless to say it was quite
awkward and i'm pretty sure it sounded terrible. but whatever. My companion
sang stuff too...then we continued to sing hymns together and she talked to us
about her conversion and going to the temple. From there we made a bunch of
stops to see some people. Found a new family to teach. and yeah...That sort of
stuff. Hope that gives you a bit of what i'm going through down here. It
seems like a good place to start off my mission...so i'm excited.
Alright so yup yup all is good...Dunno what else to say. miss you all!
Mom K definitely send over my camera if you can...Seriously idunno what i was
thinking...i'll make it work somehow. I would love to document these run
down places and the people. Itwould be torture not to have my SLR down here sotell layne to pack it all up and send it down if possible. ASAP! thanks! haha. You are all still welcome to send letters or anything if you want, they'lljust go to the mission home then to me. This is the address. It's just hard to answer everyone's emails but i'lldo my best! Thanks! Miss ya!SACTMPO Box 181Observatory 7935South Africa

Corys leaving SLC!!

2008-10-16T07:12:00.000-07:00

With dad having a business trip taking him out of town the same day Cory was leaving, he made the effort to track Cory down and hang out a bit before they got on the plane. Nancy made some nice goodies for them all to enjoy and he got to make some last minute phone calls. Missing you Cory!

Tickets to SA!
Nice! Goodies Nancy made for the trip. Im sure he really appreciated that on the long flight!
Traveling companion

I cant believe how handsome my brother is!
Looking sharp. I got a call from him as well, however I must have been in a meeting at work. When I checked my messages the following day, there was Cory leaving me a message. I am so sad I didnt get to talk with him before he left. I did save it to my phone however! :)
Another photo of the guys
Heading out to the plane.....

October 10th

2008-10-14T08:31:00.001-07:00

Alright this will be short probably. Mom don’t worry about sending anything else to me, I have so much right now I wont even get close to eating half of it. Also don’t worry about those laundry bags..i was kidding. They like it but yeah they have one. Your just so talented and have so many fans that’s all. Haha. But if you’ve made them and sent them its cool…no worries. Thanks for the medicine, I appreciate it. And the treats with it…but yeah we have so much anyway its insane.

I try to reply as fast as I can but we don’t really have a whole lot of time. Were not even suppose to write until our p-day but no one really follows that rule, so yeah.
Ive some pics being developed so youll soon see me! Haha- so exciting I know. I think I told you but 3 of my 4 companions are going to Africa. The other kid is in another district. The other 5 in my district are going to Winnepeg Canada….

Uh I think that’s all here nothing really new. Had elder tad callister of the 70 here for our Tuesday devotional. It was good.
Well thanks for typing these up MOM!( GRR still doesn’t know its me) Keep up the good work. Love you!
Elder Devenney

Last Letter from the MTC( I have two other letters still to upload)

2008-10-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Hey! plan on forwarding this again...thanks!

Today is the last day at the mtc for a few of us. Like you know we leave at 5
in the morning, go on a plane for some 26 hours...and arrive in AFIRCA! frick!
insane stuff i think. haha. I'm pretty excited for it...as you already know.

Bad news for my companion elder Ledek. he might have to get surgery on his
ankle..i explain it more in my letter mom, it's on the way. but yeah
he's not coming with us
on tuesday. there will be 3 of us going now.
You'll understand later...i dont have time right now. but yeah...sucks for
him. haha. I'll miss him...

The mtc was a good experience. i learned a lot and really strengthened my
testimony. it's weird to think that i might be teaching people in south
africa lessons in like 3 days. it doesn't seem real and i dont feel ready.
but i guess the best way to do it is to just dive right into it and start.
I'm assuming that's how it'll be.

If you guys wanna know anything just ask..i'm so wise now when it comes to
the scriptures. haha. i'm totally kidding. i wish. ask me in 2 years and
i'll probably give you a better answer.

Cape Town is seriously the farthest away from Ogden that i could have gone.
It's so awesome. Yesterday at our farewell devotional or fireside or
whatever they announced where all the departing elders were going and when it
was our turn we stood
up and some kid turned around and was like "i'm
sorry" we were like uh...don't act like you know anything about south
africa. cape town is like a vacation. i'm going to be on a vacation for 2
years. yeah when they called his mission and he had to stand up with other
elders guess where he was going...Utah. HA! yeah we definitely said that we were
sorry for him. haha. south africa or utah...you take your pick. I'm just so
stoked for it and i know it'll be a great experience for me. feel free to
email me from now on. Hopefully i'll be able to check that blog in a couple
days. who knows...i'll keep ya posted and i love you guys! Thanks!

-Your wonderful son/brother!

o yeah dont plan on coming by the airport..i hope you already knew that. i can
call you before i leave...i think.

Date Unknown- After October 2 is all I know...

2008-10-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

Hey!
So I recieved my travel information the other day. There are a total of 4 of us going to Cape Town. We leave on the 14th of Octoboer at 3:30 am, we leave the MTC at 5am to make it to the airport. After we leave slc at 8:30am we will arrive at JFK around 3pm, from there it looks like we probably going to be rushing because our flight out of NYC leaves at 3:55pm. We hop on that flight and go straight to SA cape town. Our arrival time is 3:55pm so with the time change I think its a 7 hour flight. It should be a good 18 hours or something, maybe not that long, but yeah...well get there on the 15th of oct. good stuff.

As for our baggage I have some good news. Since we dont fly S.Africa arilines, I shouldnt have to worry about the whole 2 suitcase thing. We fly Delta the whole way there and we are able to check 2 bags. Each weighing 50lbs for free. As well as a 40lb carry on. charges will happen if my check bags are more obviously. Its 150$ for bags to 70 pounds and 300$ for bages 71-100lbs. I shouldnt have to worry about it tho I dont think. My shoulder bag will have to count as my carry on so no worries.

Other than that I think thats all thats new. Im half way done with the MTC! Yay! Its not too bad tho haha. Conference has been good because we get an excuse to not have class and more time to write letters and chill. Its nice. Just starting the plan of salvation so I gotta study up! Taught in the TRC again twice yesterday. Me and Elder Ledek are really getting good at teaching lesson#1. We are happy with how it went.

Then we had the Referral Center after dinner. This is where people call after they see a commercial to either find out about us, or oder a video, bible, etc. Our job yesterday was to call people and make sure they got what they wanted, offer something else, bear testimony, and ask if the missionaries could come teach them mroe about a subject. Getting referrals and sending missionaries is really the goal of the RC. AS a district I think we got like 7 or 8 referrals. We thought that was pretty good. Its hard tho cuz most of the time they dont even want to talk to you. but its a good experience haha. Then just class and stuff.

Oh yeah my 2 roomies keep getting pies, cinnomon rolls, donuts from the parents. You can order online and theyll just ship it out here. Your welcome to try that( Duh cory- do you think we are all made of money?! Sheesh- whats up with the one uping at the MTC- I think its called "keepn up with the Jones?!" JK :)) If not I guess ill just eat more of theirs. Actually whatever gets sent we always share anyways...so no worries just thought id let you know.

Alright well thanks for the letters everyone. Jessica I wish I could have gone to the concert last week. I was thinking about it that day. but im glad you had a good time. Im jealous. Whitney thanks for writing, mom and Layne I cant believe you bought that camper thing! Thats lame, but cool I guess. Remember Im a boy on a mission - dont worry about the toys! Amber and dad thanks for writing I always appreciate it/ Tell everyone Hi for me. Raegan quit being a slacker...JK. But yeah thanks all. Keep em coming cuz I wont be here much longer.

Hope everyone enjoyed conference with will be the first one where ive watched every session- yay! Well uh....I cant think of anything else to write so...Love you- Thanks!
Elder Devenney

October 2

2008-10-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

Family,
So as I sit here on my p day while doing luandry theres just something so much more difficult about doing it here than at home. As if I dont know how to do laundry all my life, theres something about the MTC where all the pressure is on. A little mistake can ruin all of your clothes....that would really suck. So thanks for teaching me mom! Ill have to wait a half hour and see if it worked or not...kinda scared I wont lie! haha

I think I wrote you a letter yesterday but I have some more time to write so I figured I would. Thanks for sending the package yesterday and just so you know I almost laughted at it...haha you guys are soooo funny let me tell ya. Nah I appreciate it so thanks. Keep encouraging people to write me. I dont like being lame knowking I do have family very capable of writing me, at least while im at the MTC, Ill understand it will be harder when Im in SA.

Lets see...hows that blog coming along? Does it even look good?( HA cory doesnt even know the hours I labor here....) Ill try and take some pics and send you some. I really dont have all that many opportunities to, but Ill try to more. so uh hows the dog? Anything new going on?

Things here are good, nothing too exciting. We are finally on our pday like I said, we got up and went to the temple at like 6am- it was WAY early. But good of course. temple food is so much better than the MTC food. even tho it costs money, its worth it.

Ok well Im a busy guy doing laundry and I need to change stuff...things are good here, Thanks, Love you!
Elder Devenney
PS: oh yeah, all my roommates want a laundry bag like mine.!