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
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
