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