Feb 22, 2010

Sorry about not writing last week...i spent forever trying to set up a new "myldsmail" account...so as you can see this will be my new email for the next little while. It's good though because it's basically the same as gmail. I no longer have to worry about a little amount of space and constantly having to delete old emails like i had to with the old system...so they actually did something right this time in setting it up through gmail and hopefully i'll be able to attach more photos and things like that. But yeah, that's the reason why i didnt write anything last week...

This week has been interesting, but good i'd say. Even last week was good. I can sorta try to fill you in on the previous week first. We had a DL training thing, and will no longer be having workshops anymore with the AP's. It's just gonna be DL training meetings instead...but it went well. We just spoke about how the DL's role and how important it is etc etc. Things are going really good right now tho in the district as well as with us personally in our area. I cant really remember too much last week...so i'll just go on to this week...

It started great...played tennis again on monday for a few hours with Coultas...it was super hot but so fun. Then we had a great FHE with the King's family. A single mother and her 5 kids. Good family in the ward tho. So that was pretty sweet. That night i went on exchanges with Elder Larson in his area. We had a blast. So i was there all of tuesday as well and got back to my area tuesday night. We walked forever i swear...about 8 kms in the morning because we had to take the car to get serviced and so we tried to see some people but things didn't exactly work out...but we still made the best of it. Then got back, had some great appointments with some people in their area that are progressing toward baptism in the coming weeks. Yeah, it just went really well and we enjoyed ourselves.

Got back in my area on Wednesday and had a good day. Once a week we get together with Ethan Flowerday, our Ward mission leaders son who just got his mission call this past week to go to the London South mission. He's pretty stoked about that. Leaves at the end of May. But we get together with him and watch the PMG dvds and talk a bit about mission and things. He likes it and the parents appreciate it. That night we were supposed to have a great lesson planned with an investigator family and they were even going to give us food but we ended up having to change that appointment because Pres. Probst came in and wanted all the EL elders to have interviews that night. Pres. and I had a good interview and things are going well. He asked a lot how the members were liking us missionaries...(they've had some jokers and the members in this area can tell a lot if missionaries are serious or not and things like that) anyway...i told him that we have a great relationship with the ward and the members. Which is very true. I'm pretty sure everybody likes us. So that basically ended our night after interviews.

Thursday we drove out to Butterworth. About a 120 km drive north of our area...dont go there too often, just once a transfer or so to see a Part member family up there. They only come to church once in a while but came a couple weeks ago and brought their 24 year old daughter and she's pretty interested and wants to learn more. So we spent a few hours out there and taught her the restoration and things like that, and it went really well. Butterworth is pretty junky tho...big township and not a white person to be found. But i guess it's nice sorta...haha. That night we just drove back, got back late, and had a good correlation meeting with Bro Flowerday. I think he's pleased with our efforts and stuff.

Friday, had the usual, District meeting and what not. A lot of our appointments didnt hold. We saw an 18 year old kid and taught him, visited a few others, but then the day kinda fell apart. That night we hadn't eaten so we needed to take our dinner hour and decided to go to Guidos, a pizzaria place. Dang good! We went there last weekend for dinner also. We decided if we dont have a dinner appointment with a member on friday that's where we'll go and eat. It's cheap too for the two of us to just share a large pizza or something.

Saturday we did some good work. We took out a Less active guy, bro Somonono to fellowship with us. We just found out as he's trying to come back to the church, and looking for employment, that he's been smoking a bit, so he's been feeling really bad. But we took him out and had a good time. Got to see a couple people, knocked on some doors and got in a taught some great lessons to some families about faith. Things went great. We dropped him back in Beacon Bay and met another fellowshipper, Leon Kaschula, (Bishops son) he's an RM and what not. We took him to that white family, shaun and karin who were referred to us and who we were supposed to see on Wednesday but had interviews instead and had to cancel. Well it was good to have Leon there because he's local and wha tnot and they were able to meet some other members. Well It had been about 10 days since we last spoke with them, and the first appointment went so good they were really happy with us. Found us really mature and liked what we had to say. But it looks like satan crept in...Karin, who does most of the talking in their relationship, and knows a bit in the Bible, apparently did a bit of research on the internet about the church and of course came across some anit-mormon stuff. Yo, it was bad! We couldnt even get through the entire Restoration because she had already read so much bad stuff about Joseph Smith. And she wouldnt have anything to do with the Book of Mormon anymore. We were there for about an hour and a half trying to explain things. But she would always jump the gun and try to say something that we were just about to answer if she'd just stay quiet. It wasn't the best lesson, and both Cooney and Leon were getting a bit anxious to say things. Luckily we didnt just bash or anything like that, but she basically expressed how they dont want to be involved with this type of church and she doesn't even want to read the BOM. She almost gave it back to us, but i told her that she should give it back to Barbara (the member that gave it to her) out of respect. So yeah it was a shame that it happened like that...there's no way she was willing to listen to us too much. I have had anti mormon stuff been brought out on us before, but not that bad. I just felt bad for the whole situation...it's stupid what some people put on the internet...

But on a better note, right after that appointment...We were invited by Bro Flowerday and his family to go out to eat at Ocean Basket for his birthday. So we were pretty stoked for that. It was a fish place, dang good, but pretty pricey...anyway. it was a nice night. Sunday was stake conference out in Mdantsane...the second largest township in SA...but they have 2 beautiful chapels out there and so that's where it was held. It was in the morning and then after we were fed by Sister Human at her place...and even some other elders came and hung out there. We then visited a Less active guy for a while. Then taught a great Part member family from Nigeria that we found. Very very powerful lesson. The home was a great place and the family was so awesome. So something could happen there. The mother is the only member and we happened to knock on her door and find her. She just had a baby about a month ago and so she cant really go anywhere. Then that night we just spent time with the landlady and the family where we stay. Had some dessert and got to visit with them for a while, so that was our night. Things are on a high. We had a bit of an increase in our stats this week which was really really great to have. So it felt pretty successful for the most part. Other than that...nothing much going on. Still healthy for the most part and enjoying it here. I'm pretty sure i'll stay here for another transfer...but we'll see. Next week is when we'll find out about transfer news...but yeah...things are good. Thanks! Elder Devenney
please forward this on to the usual people if needed...thanks