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