December 29, 2008

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