April 26, 2010

Good morning. The week has been excellent. Especially as we've been able to view all the sessions of General Conference finally. Truly they were inspired talks that were so great to listen to. I especially liked all the talk about the families and the role of parents. There was one particular talk that made me a bit sad and made me miss mom, one that was spoken about single mothers. Idunno who it as by...but yeah. It was great...but not so great cuz it was too intense..if you catch my drift. haha. The week started out great...we had a very inspiring Zone Conference on tuesday. I had gone to zone conference with some things that were troubling me about transfers and just some things on my mind but by the end of conference, president had addressed all my concerns and questions without me having to ask them. It was so great. He's such an amazing mission president. During the conference tho...we were combined with the Kwanobuhle zone and the P.E. zone. So it was a large conference. But of course...out of all the people that could get chosen to give a spontaneous talk...it was i. Idunno why i always get chosen...but i guess i dont have the best luck. It turned out alright tho. I gave a talk on "what does it mean to find them that will receive you?" as the focus for this transfer will be on finding. I shared a quote by Alexander Graham Bell that kinda stuck through the whole conference and i think everyone liked. Speaking about how as one door closes, another opens...and that open door will come in many different ways. Honestly i cant remember the quote or exactly what i spoke about...but i just know it went alright. The conference was really good overall tho. Probably one of my favorites. Through the week we've been blessed actually when it came to finding and teaching new familes. We're teaching a great father led family new who we have taught just a couple of times who we're actually pretty excited about. They're the Labron family. Parents and 4 children. Elder Malobola, now being here for over a week, is pretty excited about the potential in the area and thinks that many baptisms could be coming. Optimism like that is what we need. I feel the same way tho...whoever comes after me will definitely see some good things happening. Gine and Tiffany are so ready for baptism. We're super stoked for them. They're doing so good but unfortunately there's always complications. Satan is out to break down those two. There is this lady, Jacintha, who actually introduced Gine to the missionaries first, is not spreading bad rumors and saying bad things about Gine and the family. So it's really stupid. Jacintha is not a member, but most of her family (children) are. Idunno what the deal is...but we're going to be speaking to her to make everything better. But we'll be having a FHE at Gine's place tonight with the family anyway, they're so cool. To give you an update on the Tyler family as well...i told you his wife came to the church last week and they enjoyed it. But yeah, we finished off the 10 commandments with them and Bro Tyler has had an interesting past. He's so funny. He'll tell these stories of stealing bags and bags from stores, walking out and wondering how he got away with it. He said he stole like 37 pairs of jeans all at the same time. He's nuts. It's tough to describe the lesson and his stories, but we laugh our heads off by what he tells us...i'll tell you one day. He's like this skinny 35 year old guy, you wouldnt realize it now, but his past is crazy. He's done a lot of wrong, but is doing much better since he first met the missionaries. He's learning a lot and loves the church. So we'll just keep working slow with that family... Other than that...life is pretty good for the most part. We're teaching lots. Looking for new ways of finding and getting new investigators to build our teaching pool. We have great familes. The District is working well as a whole. Not too much to complain about really...Thanks for everything! Hope you're all doing well! Love,Elder Devenney

April 19, 2010

Alright, well to be honest i never feel like i know what to write anymore in these emails. So i have a feeling my emails i just gonna get less descriptive and less descriptive til i get home...but i'll try my best. As for the week, it was a bit hectic at first with some stuff that happened. We did get transfer news but nothing happened to me surprisingly. I stayed, and Ochanda left. So i did get a new companion. His name is Elder Malobola, from Pretoria, SA. We kinda served around eachother in East London, so i did know him a bit, but yeah he's a good guy and i'm sure we'll get along fine. But this whole transfer some crazy stuff seemed to happen...i was really surprised that i'm actually still here. Idunno...President Probst just seemed to make a lot of surprising changes throughout the mission...but all i know is i'm here in PE one more transfer at least. I was a bit bummed at first, just how things happened, but now for the most part i'm fine with it. I just gotta do 6 more district meetings...which is always a lame task. but whatever i guess. One positive note is that i'll be able to see some fruit of our labors from last transfer...We gave 3 baptismal dates this past week. Shooting for the 23rd of May. So we're pretty excited about that. We gave Gine and her daughter Tiffany a date, and it was a really great lesson when we did it. Truly with the help of our Branch Mission Leader, Theo, the spirit was there and they accepted the challenge to be baptized. so yeah, that was pretty cool. One other great surprise was yesterday at church. We showed up and Bro Tyler was there, and he brought his wife and this other guy Mario. That's like 4 sundays in a row that he's come. He enjoys the church a lot. And we were even unable to see him this past week, but he did promise to come this sunday and he followed through with his word. That was the first time for his wife to come to the church, (she's catholic) so she said it was very different, but i think she like it a lot. Sacrament meeting was pretty packed, which was nice, and the hymns and speakers were really great yesterday which added to the good time. Truly throughout the week it was just a lot of saying goodbyes for Elder Onen and Ochanda, who both left. So 2 new elders came into the district. It was a lot of running around through the area, mostly on wednesday tho. Because that's when we found out. Thursday as it usually is was the day of transfers, so everyone was getting on a bus, going to the airport, etc. Always kinda a hectic day. Lets see what can i tell you about...Elder Malobola has been out for about 13 months. He's a pretty chill guy. He's pretty thick, used to body build a bit. But not too big...He's 25 and is actually the only member of his family. I always have a lot of repect for many of the african elders who are the only members of their family and come and serve a mission. That takes a lot of guts. Whether or not their family agrees with them coming, they still do. On a general note, the end of the week was filled with just introducing Elder Malobola to the members/investigators. We also found a couple new families to teach. And even the focus for this transfer is finding. So we'll be getting briefed about that stuff i'm sure over Zone Conference. Which is tomorrow i might add. Should be alright. Well lets see...i honestly dont know what to say. Just know i'm still where i was last transfer, still enjoying it for the most part. And i'll keep ya posted on life, maybe i'll have more to say next week. Thanks!
Elder Devenney