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