June 28, 2010

Our week was really good. We had exchanges with George and Knysna, which went so well! It's about a 4 hour drive to Knysna...a very much tourist place but small town feel. Very pretty. We drove wednesday evening and got there about 8 pm or so. Did some training with the missionaries down there, which went well. Then worked the area for thursday. There are just two missionaries down there, so we did splits and things went really well. I worked with this new elder, elder Leach who i was very impressed with him. He's a great teacher and really good missionary overall. From there, we left that night to drive another hour to George, where we met up with the missionaries and did a similar thing. There are 4 elders that are in George. A very pretty place close to the ocean, and surrounded by beautiful mountains. I could definitely live there. It's bigger than Knysna, but still not a very big city. We worked with elders there, then again slept over friday night, and woke up saturday and got ready to head back to PE. But...let me tell you in brief what happened...

Well i had called Mike Smith and told him that i'd love to meet as I'd be in George, and the best day would be saturday. We arranged to meet before we left back for PE from George. They drove up from Still Bay and we met for lunch. I had never met them before, nor knew what they looked like. We planned to meet about 11am to have lunch at the new George mall. We were walking when a man said “Cory!” with his hand stuck out right in front of me. That was him! That was my first contact with Mike and Margie. Both retired teachers. Mike had taught English, and Margie had taught art. So Margie and I had a lot to talk about with my past work in the art gallery and passion for the arts. She even gave me one of her oil paintings which was very nice of her. We were able to talk about the family. He pulled out some pictures and had one of mom when she was probably only about 16 years old. We had a wonderful discussion getting to know one another and better being able to explain whey Elder Wall and I were in South Africa. Mike and I are second cousins, as my grandfather and his mother were brother and sister. But it was great to visit with them. They didn’t know it was my birthday until Elder Wall spoke to the waitress and they brought me ice cream with the whole work crew singing to me. So I’m sure if they would have known they might have wanted to do something different. We just spent that lunch time talking to one another and sharing stories and updating them about my family. It was a wonderful blessing to see that actually happen as we’ve been talking about it happening, and wondering if it would. I didn’t know what to give them before we left, but I had written my testimony in a Book of Mormon and gave it to them just before they left. We said our goodbyes, and hoped that within 6 weeks or so I’d be able to see them again. Who knows the little difference it could make. I know it really made my day, and really felt like there was a bit more of a purpose to my coming to South Africa. So yeah, that was in summary, what happened. They were so nice! Some of the nicest people i met for sure. And it wasnt awkward at all or anything. We just talked for the couple hours over lunch, then we went our ways and we drove back to PE which was about 5 hour drive along the Garden Route. The Garden Route is probably the most beautiful part of the whole continent of Africa and is pretty famous. Just way green and right along the ocean. Trees are massive. Huge gullies and bridges that are awesome. We stopped to watch a person jump off the worlds tallest bungie jump at tsitsikamma...it's off a bridge and it's insane. It was way cool. Lots of tourists there. But yeah...you gotta go look up property on the Garden Route...like in Wilderness or somewhere, it's AMAZING!!! But yeah, we got back pretty late...and we were so tired. But we went to Bishop Parkers house and they prepared a cake for me and so we just chilled there for a little while until we were way tired and wanted to go to bed. That was basically my bday...nothing way way exciting, but it was a good day. Got a few phone calls from elders and of course Pres and Sis Probst. Even Gine and Tiffany from Cleary gave me a call and wished me happy bday. So that was nice of them. That's about it for me i'd say. Church was good and we just finished off the week...had a late night last night updating records and doing stats and what not for the zone...but we're excited for the pday today. Should be alright. Hoping to play tennis! Yay! Alright i gotta go and keep this one short. That's my update. Mike can prob tell you more if you email him...i'm low on time. Thanks! love you!
Elder Devenney

June 13, 2010

My fingers are freezing so idunno how well i'll type, or even how much. Idunno why but it's super cold outside today. The sun is out, a slight breeze, but it's cold. And i dont have proper clothing with me today...but no worries i'll try my best... The world cup started! For all who dont really care about soccer and didnt realize, it's here! 2010 is here! You feeling it! So yeah, it's a bit crazy, but i dont think it's what it was made out to be. I actually think the country expected so many more people to come and now they're kinda worried. Hotels had been built for this time, and apparently they're just not being booked as expected. Even not all the tickets at games are being sold. It's a shame. Friday, opening night, was a bit hectic tho. Tons of noise and people in the streets. It was pretty cool. But we still found people to teach even during the games, some of which they don't really care about the games...so it's a bonus for us since we cant watch it anyway. Greece and Korea played here in Port Elizabeth on Saturday and honestly, it didnt seem to hectic. Traffic was a bit worse, but that's about it. We still found things to keep ourselves busy even during that time. The week started out with some training meetings for the new District Leaders and Trainers. That was all monday evening. Then we had 7 missionaries sleep over at our flat, (as they were in for Zone conference for tues and had no where else to stay) They're all part of our zone. It wasnt exactly planned but we did it anyway, and luckily we had a bunch of spare mattresses. We got up early on tuesday and headed to the chapel for a pre meeting with pres and sister probst. Then most of the day tuesday we had our Zone Conference. The focus was on the BOM and using it to confirm the message of the Restoration. That specifically was what our 60 min workshop was on. During that time, we did some role plays, discussed, evaluated our teaching, etc, and committed them to practice more using the BOM in studies and role play with eachother. The whole zone conference was great. Talked about great things...Pres and Sis probst are just awesome! That was from about 9 am to 4:30 pm. It always takes that long for everyting to be discussed...but yeah. Things were good. We had some final lessons with J.P. and Deng before they left for home. We'll miss them but they'll be back when school opens up probably the second week in july. On wednesday we had a good day. We took this guy Luthando who comes out with us always to fellowship, well we took him to Spur to thank him. A nice place to eat. He's going to Queenstown for the holiday and will be back when school starts again.But yeah basically up until friday we just kept seeing more of the investigators that would be leaving, making sure they'll be alright during the next month, and committed them to give out BOM's and stuff to family and friends when they go back home. It was good.
Then on friday we had a great district meeting. We focused on the BOM and using it on our door approaches. And how we could improve our skills in that. It was such a good district meeting. Elder Curtis (our DL or the one conducting it) prepared perfectly and we implemented it and used the things we learned in the meeting that very day. And it worked! Elder Wall and i had set about 2 hours of solid finding time, and all we did was knock on doors and use the BOM as our approach, and we found success! Even a white father led family who we're now teaching and even saw again last night. Plus tons of other good potential people! So we were pretty stoked on that. About two weeks ago we were doing some street contacting down in Summerstrand out by the ocean, (very nice place) and talked to a bunch of people, but one was this family from Zim. I might have mentioned them already...the Muyo family. Anyway, we've seen them a few times during the past weeks and what not, and they committed to come to church. Well they cam yesterday! It was awesome. I always felt that street contacting was pretty worthless and never produces anything good, but within 2 weeks from our first contact, and meeting them, they've come to church. It was great to see them and we think they enjoyed it for the most part. Church was really good...except the people are kinda lame at going out of their way to talk to new people, or our investigators that we bring...besides some of the fellowshippers that we've taken to them...so that's a struggle. But yeah, that was pretty cool. We still had other investigators at church too, but it was just cool that the Muyo's came so quickly and kept their promise. So many people promise...but so few actually keep it. Anyway, overall we're doing fine. We got some exchanges this week, and next week will be going down to George and Knysna. So that will be about 3 full days outside of our area...our area will suffer for stats, but it's things we gotta do. But we're just happy zone conference is out of the way til next transfer...Elder Wall and i are getting along great. We have a "Do a good thing jar" where each time we do a good thing we put something in the jar and when it's full, we buy clothes. haha. We like to reward ourselves quite easily. It's funny. But yeah, we're definitely working hard and trying to lead the zone the best we can. We're worried that during the world cup the elders just wont be focused on the work at all and will rather be disobedient and just watch the games with members or whoever...and if they do that they'll truly lose blessings that the Lord has for them. It's just how it works. So yeah, we're trying to be the best we can and work hard. Good things are happening for sure. Despite losing half our teaching pool with school closing, we're being led to families now which is something that we've been praying would happen. Things are just much better than where they have been in this area for the past 3 months. Even Elder Wall says that and he's been here for a while. We're making a difference. That's it tho! Thanks for everything! Elder Devenney

Jun 1 , 2010

So...let me update you and tell you why i'm emailing you on thursday instead of the usual monday... Last week was good. As you know it was transfer week...An expected phone call came from president on tuesday night just before i fell asleep asking me if i'd like a bit more responsibility yadda yadda and be Zone Leader here in PE. "Sure thing" i said. No worries...so wednesday was full of a couple of tears...(from some investigators like Gine and Tiff and the fam and others) but for the most part my goodbyes to those in Cleary weren't that bad. I told them that i'd see them again since being a ZL i still will go on exchanges with the DL in Cleary...so it's not too far away. But yeah, that was wednesday. Now thursday, being the actual transfer day...was a bit more hectic. I got all my stuff together and that morning, early, got with Elder Wall my new comp. Elder Wall is a good buddy of mine. We were in the mtc together and flew over together...so we're already bff's anyway...which is always good news to get. So yeah, we hoooked up, i got my stuff in the car and quickly dropped it off at my new boarding...then we needed to make sure that flights of incoming elders and outgoing elders from our zone was ok...so that basically took all day organizing and making sure everything is going to work out and go smooth...that all the elders get to where they need to go. We had a bit of proselyting time...maybe like 2 hours in between, then we had to wait at the bus stop for like 2 hours til these correct buses came in from throughout the country. Yeah that kinda sucked...but everything was fine and there really weren't any problems...That was wednesday... Thursday i got to check out more of the area a bit, talked to Wall about the work that needs to be done...(which is a lot). My new area is actually PE main. Like the main city, called Central, then Summerstrand which is a very nice area out by the ocean..also have some township lowerclass that we can work which is very close to the chapel. So in this area we have a little bit of everything...we can work rich white area, colored, or black areas...we got it all. Which has its advantages for sure. We also have NMMU (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Univ) in our area so we teach a lot of the students as well. There are advantages and disadvantages to that also.... So as for our teaching pool...it's consisted of a lot of students like i said...some part member and less active families...but honestly this area needs a lot of help. Idunno what's been going on before i got here...but it needs some help...Walmer (which is where the chapel is and really what my area is called for the most part) is a semi difficult area but of course, that's if i say it's difficult. Any area can be anything you make of it depending upon your attitude right? But yeah, it's large, but has great potential i hope. Friday we had some more teaching appointments, also saturday. Friday it rained most of the day which was really nice to have a change in the weather...it was cold last week but has since warmed up. We gave some District Leader training to the DL in Cleary (my old area) and had to drive out there after our meeting on friday morning. It was all good and yeah...i just hope Cleary will be able to continue to be successful as it was when i was there...i just hope they keep working hard. So what we found out was that there was going to be a zone leader council on monday...and we needed to be ready for it. Which we really didnt have much time for. Sunday we had church...it's a ward...the ward has been here forever it seems like and another ward shares the building (it's the stake center) so it's nice and what not. I've met the bishop and some other members...the bishop is cool. He's like 35 and totally talks like a surfer. You can say dude and things and that's just the way he talks...it's awesome. So yeah...His name is bishop Parker. cool guy. Anyway, so we left PE for Cape Town monday morning early and arrived just before lunch (obviously plane ride) and had a great lunch. For the next two days...til tuesday we had this Zone Leader Council. All the Zone leaders flew in and at the mission home we all counciled on a lot of different things. There were 16 ZLs, we also had the office elders, and the AP's and of course Pres and Sister Probst. We had short reports on strengths and weaknesses in our zones and what could be improved and things we wanted to discuss. President addressed us for a long time on the responsibility and things of a ZL and the weight that is on our shoulders...but anway, we talked. Our discussion was ranging from Accountability, Goals. The World Cup, Member and ward work, Teaching skills, etc etc. So all of that was shortly after lunch through til dinner. About 4 hours straight. We had dinner, then went right back into things. We counseled on what might help each area, the needs and concerns of elders, and what solutions there might be to those different subjects. Did that til about the end of the night. We also talked about some of the "unwritten rules" of things to do when conducting a meeting...a lot of really good stuff basically. That went til about the end of the night...The next morning we had a combined study with everyone which was great...basically we all just asked some deep doctrine questions to pres Probst and got some sweet info out of him...then talked more about a few things we couldnt cover on monday, finalized the next 4 months of Zone Conferences...ate lunch, then basically packed up and got out of there..hopped on a plane and came back to PE. Well as soon as we flew in, about 5 pm yesterday, we immediately started our companion exchange with the AP's. Elder Tanner was with me, and luckily he had served here in PE previous so he was helping me around where to go since i had only worked it for about 2 full days. It was a way good exchange. Elder Tanner is in my transfer but we've never really been around eachother because he was here at the Jo-burg mtc while ya know...i was in provo...and since we never served around eachother we just knew eachother in passing. But now we got a full day with eachother it was nice to get to know him better. We wouldnt mind being eachother's comps...he's from like logan or something... anyway, we taught some guy from Sudan who should be getting baptized asap...but will be coming back from school break in about a month..so we'll wait til then. Also taught and found some others...but anyway...Things are decent here. That's the problem with a lot of our teaching pool is since all the schools will close during the world cup, everyone will be going back home for over a month and then coming back...so that's going to be a struggle for us because so many progressing investigators are students that are leaving...and we'll have to change our focus a little bit. The exchange ended today at 5 pm and are now just finding time enough to email you and tell you this...we still need to do our shopping for the week...unfortunately that thing in Cape Town took up our pday so we wont get much play this week...but hopefully on monday we'll find something fun to do. So uh...i hope that gives you a better understanding of where i am...things are good. I'm enjoying myself. Sad to leave Cleary but excited for some other great things that will be in the next few months. Since i'm a ZL in PE i'll have the opportunity to travel to George and Knysna which is part of our zone and about 5 hours away. That area is supposed to be some of the most beautiful parts of all of Africa, and it's part of our zone...pretty stoked for that. And i'm glad that i'm here because this was going to make meeting the smiths (fam here) so much easier because near that part of the zone is closer to where they live. Even on our plane ride to CT the pilot announced that at one point we were passing over Still Bay and i was shocked but excited because i never really knew where it was...so yeah...hopefully this'll give us a better chance to meet before i leave. That's all i got...Love, Elder Devenney