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