Mar 29, 2010

Hey there! Another good week as it's been. I can start by saying some of the best, that Mara was baptized yesterday and it was an excellent service. Very spiritual and many members were there to give her that love and support that she needs. She will continue to be here in SA til June, then she goes back to Switzerland. She lives right next to the Temple up there. It's crazy. But yeah that was definitely a highlight for the week and you'll see a pic... As for the rest of the week. It went great. Monday we were able to go exploring around downtown and checking out the ocean and the piers down that way. Beautiful. We also went on a search, because i had heard there was a skatepark down that way, so eventually we found it, i skated it, then we did some more errands and what not. I wasn't too impressed with it, and there were only bikers and a lot of ghetto white trash people. haha. We had an excellent FHE with the Pyne family...of which we played some games and enjoyed ourselves. Idunno if i told you or not, but there's a girl in the branch who is engaged to this kid who was a missionary here who finished right when i started. Well he's living in Ogden and going to Weber State. This girl that he's engaged to is one of the Pyne daughters. She went over there during Christmas time and spent about a month there. Anyway, it was pretty random but she's hoping to go and live there and be married by August. But yeah, that's where we had an FHE... We spent many of hours, the four of us, working on one of our investigators, Gine's, door. We replaced her door and it turned into a 2 day project for us. We had to cut it down to size, sand it, and the hardest thing about it was that we didnt have proper tools to do anything. We had a hammer and screwdriver, chipping away at this wood...it turned out alright but it was a lot of work. It was a good time tho. That was on tuesday and wednesday mornings that we did that service. I went on an exchange with Elder Msilayse in his area, we were very pressed with time, but it worked out. We saw some of his investigators and what what, and it went alright. Then that evening we taught a great Preach my gospel class and it went really well. The next day, thurs, we got our tires on our car fixed, as they were super sketchy, then did some weekly planning as usual, and then had a lot of appointments through the day. Friday we had interviews with President Probst and i kinda got the impression that i wont be staying here long, but he does see that things are going very well in Cleary, because the numbers sure show it. He just said that as a district we're doing great and was very happy with us. After that, again we had a busy day seeing people. And that evening i went on an exchange with Elder Giles who was going to work with me in my area for the day. It went fine. He's from Arizona and going home in about 3 weeks, at the end of the transfer. Saturday was full of appointments, correlation with our Branch mission leader, more service projects, and good stuff like that. Now sunday we had the baptism like i said, got a good meal from a family, then went out to work. We took our branch president out fellowshipping with us and our last appointment was with Gine and the family. i wanted her to understand the principle of the apostasy and the need for the restoration in depth. So we had a great lesson using an object of cups to help understand. I think it was even Pres. Barendse's first time seeing it. I was pretty bold with her and told her that even tho all other churches are great, they dont have all the truth and authority. At the end, the lesson went so great, and i asked her that when she finds it out to be true would she be baptized, and she agreed. It wasnt what we planned, but that family is so close, they need a date. And she understood completly. She even commented on how i explained the name of the church to her,and the importance of if it's Christ's church, it'll be after His name, and she said that she had never looked at it like that. That alone struck her hard she said. So...long story short, but it was a great lesson, and we hope to get at least her and her daughter a baptismal date this coming week. Other than the things i've shared. I'm doing fine. Life is good. I hope everyone enjoys Conference this weekend, as for us in Africa, it'll be shown 3 weeks from now...Thanks for everything! Elder Devenney