Jan 5, 2008

Well happy 2009 everybody!
The new year was spent in our flat. A lot of drinking goes on down here for a couple days so the mission didnt really want us out working or even leaving for that matter. So i took a nice nap, wrote a few letters, skated for a bit, and just chilled. It was nice. That was basically our new year celebration...
Well i was thinking of what i might be able to tell you about this week...and there's a few different things. First off...We had a baptism yesterday. It was good. Sister Vernia Brink, that one lady.., got baptized. Elder Holt did the baptism, which was his first of the mission, so i was happy for him, and i gave a short talk. He had to force her down, (she's a big lady) and it was pretty funny. Her foot even came up, but we got it done the first try. It was a spiritual experience for sure, just a good time. She had her family there too and after she told us that we now needed to teach the rest of her family. So that was good news.Since it was fast and testimony meeting, both me and Elder Holt got up and shared our testimonies. I probably wouldnt have, but i figured i should just cuz..and since transfers are this week i might be leaving Paarl, so i just wanted to thank everyone for their love. I was way happy i did it. As you know...i dont get up and do that very often, but after i could totally feel a difference and i was way glad i did.
Sister Pauleen Davids is still getting baptized in 2 weeks, and yesterday was her 10th time at church. She's so awesome. She's powerful. She's got these crazy stories each day of how she can tell she's being tempted to do something, but then she's just like, stupid devil, and doesn't ever do it. Whether that's picking up some money, gossiping, or just other dumb people trying to change her mind about baptism..like the old J-Ho's, she just stands her ground. But yeah she's getting excited and can't wait for her baptism. All the members already think she's a member becuase she's there so often, they don't even realize she hasn't become a member.
So a few of our Priest age guys in the branch have gotten themselves mixed up in a little bad habit that is quite common in SA. Yeah they've turned to drinking. No Bueno. So we've been sorta slowly trying to get them to come fellowship with us and been trying to see them and teach them about stuff...without being blunt and mentioning what we've heard. We can tell that one guy definitely feels out of place, his name is Charlton, and we're doing a FHE at his house tonight with a bunch of other families. So that'll be nice. He's a cool guy and his whole family is awesome. Just the mom and three boys. But we're trying to work up FHE's all over our area. We've already got one going with the members still out in Smarty Town, and we're starting two more, one in Wellington and in Amstelhof tonight.
There is this old lady Sister Swazi Lambert who when we first met her was in the old folks home just sick as a dog. She couldnt even get out of bed. We've been meeting with her every now and again and we hadn't seen her for like 3 weeks and then last week she came out to church, and walked! She was a referral by one of our members, the Julies Family. Hilton comes fellowshipping a lot and Sister Julies is just an awesome lady. You'll see pics soon. Well we saw her twice this week, just a short visit and what not, and then she came to church again yesterday. She used to be in terrible shape, but she's improved so much in these couple of weeks, and she keeps saying she wants to get baptized. It's pretty funny. She's like 86 or something. But yeah it was just crazy to see.
We had an interesting talk with Alpha and Janine Mahoku-Sady, the Part Member Family that we've been teaching. We started this good lesson on new years resolutions, and all of a sudden all of Janine's family popped in and her dad started preaching to us in Afrikaans. Keagan, one of our fellowshippers was with us and they just started battling, or so i thought. Janine's father basically stopped our lesson, and started telling us what he believed, keep in mind he's a preacher of his own church. It turned out ok, although we got nothing out of it and he kept being like "verstan?" which means understand, and of course we didnt. We couldnt stop him either cuz he would just keep going on and in english and Afrikaans...anyway it was just interesting. You definitely cant teach with contention there, so we just didnt say too much. Keagan explained the BOM and so Alpha was happy he did that. It was just an interesting night...it probably doesnt sound like anything since i didnt explain it very good...sorry. haha.
Well anyway i dunno what else i can say. Things are going pretty good. We're going to Cape Town for a Braai at the mission home or some park or something with the Zone, playing some sports what not. Should be pretty fun. This tuesday we find out about transfers and if we're leaving or not, then thursday we go. So who knows if i'm leaving or not or where to, but i'll let ya know soon. Hope everyone is doing good and hope you had a fun new years! but not like down here...:)
-Elder Devenney