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
Monday, December 29, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
December 22, 2008
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
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
Monday, December 15, 2008
December 15, 2008
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
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
Monday, December 8, 2008
December 8th
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
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
Monday, December 1, 2008
December 1, 2008
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
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
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thanksgiving Post
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
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
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
November 3, 2008
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!
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
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!
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!
Monday, November 17, 2008
November 17, 2008
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
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
Monday, November 10, 2008
November 1, 2008
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
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
Monday, November 3, 2008
Nov 2, 2008
(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
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
Monday, October 27, 2008
October 27, 2008
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
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
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Pictures Galore!
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.
Monday, October 20, 2008
First Letter from South Africa
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
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
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Corys leaving SLC!!
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.....
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.....
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
October 10th
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
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)
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.
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.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Date Unknown- After October 2 is all I know...
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
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
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.!
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.!
Monday, October 6, 2008
Amber here
Cory! I know you wont get this till you read your blog upon your return, but hello??!!! Wheres MY personal mail?? Afterall I am taking chunks of my life to post your letters on the blog and all I get is a shout out from the letter?! Lame.
Love you!
A
Love you!
A
Oct 1 2008
Mom and Family,
Thank you so much for the letters you been sending! Jess, Amber, Dad you are all so Great! I really apreeciate it. Mail is what we look forward to, besides gym time of course. haha. Weve been playing a bit of volleyball during gym, and its awesome. I wont lie though its pretty difficult to play when half of the kids here seem like theyve never played before. No joke. Its pretty sad but still fun.
So yesterday we had tuesday deveotional and had elder Garn of the quorem of the seventy and his wife talk, it was good from what I remember. you dont get a lot of sleep here especially when your companion snores way loud and talks in his sleep! we bought him some of those snore things that cover your nose or whatever...help spread the nostrils to help not snore...it hlpes some. but hes good. Its just the other 3 of us that have to suffer.
So along the lines of what elder garn was talking about was aot of D&C section 4..."the field is white already to harvest" we as missionaries need to be unified in what we do. there are people ready to hear our message(especially in SA) but yeah lots of other good info goo...
So my companion and I taught lesson #1 to an investigator today( pretend) she was a sweet old lady that acted as if she was of the baptist faith and wanted to learn about the church. Me and Elder Ledek did way good we thought. Bettern than expected for sure. It was a little sketchy at first but by the end we really got things moving and taught by the spirit the best we could. The more practice and times we teach the more comfortable well be at it. But yeah..it was a cool experience for sure.
So lets see what else? I cant really remember what i said the other day. Ive been here for a week- yay! Its weird wondering what everyone else is doing because im so busy all the time. sometimes forget there is life outside the MTC.
Oh Yeah! I saw Nicole like on my third day here. Im sure youve seen the pic on her phone. It was so random and kinda funny. But still cool that I saw her.
Well the church is great! ha! MTC is doing good! haha, Elder Devenney wouldnt mind some packages of goodies while he is here...just so you know. Trevors mom already sent me some treats so hurry and catch up mom and dad!!
Ill write again soon...
Hello All...
Elder Devenney
Thank you so much for the letters you been sending! Jess, Amber, Dad you are all so Great! I really apreeciate it. Mail is what we look forward to, besides gym time of course. haha. Weve been playing a bit of volleyball during gym, and its awesome. I wont lie though its pretty difficult to play when half of the kids here seem like theyve never played before. No joke. Its pretty sad but still fun.
So yesterday we had tuesday deveotional and had elder Garn of the quorem of the seventy and his wife talk, it was good from what I remember. you dont get a lot of sleep here especially when your companion snores way loud and talks in his sleep! we bought him some of those snore things that cover your nose or whatever...help spread the nostrils to help not snore...it hlpes some. but hes good. Its just the other 3 of us that have to suffer.
So along the lines of what elder garn was talking about was aot of D&C section 4..."the field is white already to harvest" we as missionaries need to be unified in what we do. there are people ready to hear our message(especially in SA) but yeah lots of other good info goo...
So my companion and I taught lesson #1 to an investigator today( pretend) she was a sweet old lady that acted as if she was of the baptist faith and wanted to learn about the church. Me and Elder Ledek did way good we thought. Bettern than expected for sure. It was a little sketchy at first but by the end we really got things moving and taught by the spirit the best we could. The more practice and times we teach the more comfortable well be at it. But yeah..it was a cool experience for sure.
So lets see what else? I cant really remember what i said the other day. Ive been here for a week- yay! Its weird wondering what everyone else is doing because im so busy all the time. sometimes forget there is life outside the MTC.
Oh Yeah! I saw Nicole like on my third day here. Im sure youve seen the pic on her phone. It was so random and kinda funny. But still cool that I saw her.
Well the church is great! ha! MTC is doing good! haha, Elder Devenney wouldnt mind some packages of goodies while he is here...just so you know. Trevors mom already sent me some treats so hurry and catch up mom and dad!!
Ill write again soon...
Hello All...
Elder Devenney
Sept 29th
I guess I havent really written you guys back for a few days now, so I Figured I would now. I have some extra down time because we just finished a service project.
Well as i sit here listening to music with my other 3 roommates, I just wanted to reassure you guys that im good. things arent the easiest, and I havent even been here a week. Im excited to no longer be the new elders cuz that sucks to be honest. Being newbs is pretty lame and it takes a while to figure everything out. My district is very cool. there are 8 of us all together. We take things serious at times but laugh so much. We have to have a little bit of fun while being here ya know? Yesterday was fast sunday and we had good meeting s and devotionals. They all had really good speakers and talked about a lot of good stuff. the main focus yesterday was about our companions and how necessary it is that we never lose eachother. Its been good that me and Elder Ledek have gotten along. hes pretty chill and we have a lot in common. Everyday for the most part we have large group meetings and class. We usually have 3 classes throughout the day that are around 2-3 hours long. then we have personal and companion study in between. WEll get like 45 minutes of gym time each day except saturday, that will be nice. on friday we played some sand volleyball. Some of the kids in our district arent very good...but its still fun. On saturday we have class for like 12 hours - no joke, its crazy. for extra time we try to walk around and teach other elders about the first discussion. This includes our heavenly fathers families, apostasy, the restoration, Christs ministry, Bof Mormon, prayer, etc. Its going good, and Elder Ledek and I are getting it down the more we teach. Tomorrow, is our first TRC where we have to teach an investigator lesson #1. Its not a real investigator, but yeah hsould be intense, but good practice. Well get to watch oursleves after and see where we didnt do very well and what areas we can improve on.
The food is actually pretty good I think...although some might say otherwise.
So I think prayer is becoming a big part of my life as Im in the MTC. I think Im having the most sincere prayers Ive ever had and its been great. I really need my heavenly fathers help while being here. I need help to learn, apply, and teach these different principals. We seriously pray so often and I can really feel the difference.
I just finished the Book of Mormon again and I started into the PGP. I have to say that Moroni has to be my favorite section of the BOM. It gives so much and is straight forward. Im pretty sure I marked up like half his book. haha.
Its way good...well Ill probably write you again here soon...Please send some letters, and tell others to do the same....Thanks!
Love you!
Elder Devenney
Well as i sit here listening to music with my other 3 roommates, I just wanted to reassure you guys that im good. things arent the easiest, and I havent even been here a week. Im excited to no longer be the new elders cuz that sucks to be honest. Being newbs is pretty lame and it takes a while to figure everything out. My district is very cool. there are 8 of us all together. We take things serious at times but laugh so much. We have to have a little bit of fun while being here ya know? Yesterday was fast sunday and we had good meeting s and devotionals. They all had really good speakers and talked about a lot of good stuff. the main focus yesterday was about our companions and how necessary it is that we never lose eachother. Its been good that me and Elder Ledek have gotten along. hes pretty chill and we have a lot in common. Everyday for the most part we have large group meetings and class. We usually have 3 classes throughout the day that are around 2-3 hours long. then we have personal and companion study in between. WEll get like 45 minutes of gym time each day except saturday, that will be nice. on friday we played some sand volleyball. Some of the kids in our district arent very good...but its still fun. On saturday we have class for like 12 hours - no joke, its crazy. for extra time we try to walk around and teach other elders about the first discussion. This includes our heavenly fathers families, apostasy, the restoration, Christs ministry, Bof Mormon, prayer, etc. Its going good, and Elder Ledek and I are getting it down the more we teach. Tomorrow, is our first TRC where we have to teach an investigator lesson #1. Its not a real investigator, but yeah hsould be intense, but good practice. Well get to watch oursleves after and see where we didnt do very well and what areas we can improve on.
The food is actually pretty good I think...although some might say otherwise.
So I think prayer is becoming a big part of my life as Im in the MTC. I think Im having the most sincere prayers Ive ever had and its been great. I really need my heavenly fathers help while being here. I need help to learn, apply, and teach these different principals. We seriously pray so often and I can really feel the difference.
I just finished the Book of Mormon again and I started into the PGP. I have to say that Moroni has to be my favorite section of the BOM. It gives so much and is straight forward. Im pretty sure I marked up like half his book. haha.
Its way good...well Ill probably write you again here soon...Please send some letters, and tell others to do the same....Thanks!
Love you!
Elder Devenney
Friday, October 3, 2008
First emailed letter
Date: Thursday, October 2, 2008, 2:08 PM
Hey i hope this works...i kinda forgot the letter that has everyone's emailin it so...yeah i have whitney's right next to me...and i guessed mom's,hope it works. Well whit i know you'll get this at least so if you couldforward this to everyone that would be great!I'm sitting here with a large crowd around me while doing some laundry.I'm happy to say that it was a success...from what i can
tell. i didnt messup any of my shirts...although i will have to use my lint roller on my pantsbecuase of a certain towel i put in with it...yeah bad idea. The MTC has been pretty good so far. I'm assuming you've all been ableto look at my letters that i send home, or on the blog that i hope amber iskeeping up with. I havent looked at it, and idunno if i'll be able to, but isure hope it looks good. I've been here for more than a week now and i haveto say the first week is a little rough. There's a lot to do and a lot tolearn, but if i just go with the flow like i did, then it's thursday alreadyand that seems crazy. every day since sunday went by so fast. which is great.when we first got here everyone would be like "just make it to sunday andyou'll be ok" haha. It was the truth tho. Now i get to say that to allthe new kids that came in yesterday...haha. Those poor souls...So my companion and i
(Elder Ledek) have been really hittin it off well.He's from orem and played soccer at UVU for those of you that dont knowalready. I'll send some pics of us hopefully soon...I just gotta starttaking more. Went to the Temple this morning...had to get up at like 545 for it..but it wasworth it. Temple food is much better than MTC food. That's all i have tosay about that. My roommates like to keep our room nice and cool all the time,like as low as the the therm will let us. So i stole my comps blanket for thepast week to keep warm. and last night i had to sleep with a hoodie on. Andsometimes i even have to sleep completely under my covers. but we turned it upbecuase i've felt like i'm getting sick and it sucks...my throat hurts.ya know when you can feel it coming??? yeah that's how it is. So i'vejust been eating those throat things all day. I just hope it doesnt get worse. Idont wanna get sick
here...As for teachings and things like that...We have the RC and the TRC. The TRC iswhere we actually get to teach investigators lessons. it's pretty intense.and we had our first one on tuesday. it went really good we thought...alwaysroom for improvement. Bringing in scriptures and things to make the messagebetter. The key is always bearing testimony, teaching by the spirit, and makingcommitments, then following up. And obviously just knowing the informationi'm going to teach. Study study study a lot. then teach later on in theafternoon. That's what all our classes are on. We usually have class 3 hourstwice a day. then eating in between and study time, personal and companionstudy. then little sleep...haha. Nah it's not too bad. it may sound brutalbut right now it's getting better. It's not bad, i just cant wait to getoutta here. South Africa will be awesome.Next week we'll be learning and
teaching Lesson 2 which is the plan ofsalvation. So i'll keep ya posted on what that's all about and how itgoes. Sorry if this doesnt make a lot of sense...i'm being timed here and idont want it to stop before i send it. Thanks for everything! I'll keepwriting letters and keep on sending them please! Email just once a week and idont have a lot of time to reply! just wanted to let you know how i'm doing again. Love you all!
Elder Devenney
Hey i hope this works...i kinda forgot the letter that has everyone's emailin it so...yeah i have whitney's right next to me...and i guessed mom's,hope it works. Well whit i know you'll get this at least so if you couldforward this to everyone that would be great!I'm sitting here with a large crowd around me while doing some laundry.I'm happy to say that it was a success...from what i can
tell. i didnt messup any of my shirts...although i will have to use my lint roller on my pantsbecuase of a certain towel i put in with it...yeah bad idea. The MTC has been pretty good so far. I'm assuming you've all been ableto look at my letters that i send home, or on the blog that i hope amber iskeeping up with. I havent looked at it, and idunno if i'll be able to, but isure hope it looks good. I've been here for more than a week now and i haveto say the first week is a little rough. There's a lot to do and a lot tolearn, but if i just go with the flow like i did, then it's thursday alreadyand that seems crazy. every day since sunday went by so fast. which is great.when we first got here everyone would be like "just make it to sunday andyou'll be ok" haha. It was the truth tho. Now i get to say that to allthe new kids that came in yesterday...haha. Those poor souls...So my companion and i
(Elder Ledek) have been really hittin it off well.He's from orem and played soccer at UVU for those of you that dont knowalready. I'll send some pics of us hopefully soon...I just gotta starttaking more. Went to the Temple this morning...had to get up at like 545 for it..but it wasworth it. Temple food is much better than MTC food. That's all i have tosay about that. My roommates like to keep our room nice and cool all the time,like as low as the the therm will let us. So i stole my comps blanket for thepast week to keep warm. and last night i had to sleep with a hoodie on. Andsometimes i even have to sleep completely under my covers. but we turned it upbecuase i've felt like i'm getting sick and it sucks...my throat hurts.ya know when you can feel it coming??? yeah that's how it is. So i'vejust been eating those throat things all day. I just hope it doesnt get worse. Idont wanna get sick
here...As for teachings and things like that...We have the RC and the TRC. The TRC iswhere we actually get to teach investigators lessons. it's pretty intense.and we had our first one on tuesday. it went really good we thought...alwaysroom for improvement. Bringing in scriptures and things to make the messagebetter. The key is always bearing testimony, teaching by the spirit, and makingcommitments, then following up. And obviously just knowing the informationi'm going to teach. Study study study a lot. then teach later on in theafternoon. That's what all our classes are on. We usually have class 3 hourstwice a day. then eating in between and study time, personal and companionstudy. then little sleep...haha. Nah it's not too bad. it may sound brutalbut right now it's getting better. It's not bad, i just cant wait to getoutta here. South Africa will be awesome.Next week we'll be learning and
teaching Lesson 2 which is the plan ofsalvation. So i'll keep ya posted on what that's all about and how itgoes. Sorry if this doesnt make a lot of sense...i'm being timed here and idont want it to stop before i send it. Thanks for everything! I'll keepwriting letters and keep on sending them please! Email just once a week and idont have a lot of time to reply! just wanted to let you know how i'm doing again. Love you all!
Elder Devenney
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