Kwa-thema week 3

Happy Monday everybody! hope everyone had a great week. Let me just say, this week has flown by very fast! and it is also crazy to think that I have been on mission for over a month now. Mission has been the best decision of my life for many reasons that have already been made known to me.

I would like to share an experience that i had this week. it is about the power of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is referred to as the "Keystone of our religion". this refers to an archway, and the keystone is the top stone, which holds everything together. without the keystone, the arch would collapse. so, it is very important and sets us apart from every other church in the world. my companion and i were riding down the street and a young guy called out at us to come talk to him. With talking to him, we found out he is a rapper. dope. however, he said his little brother was given a Book of Mormon and he decided to pick it up and read a page or two from it. From just that little reading he said he has been wanting more and was so curios about the book. he wanted to learn more. He was so intrigued by its words. this is the power of that book. from just reading a little bit from the book, random people who know nothing about our church know it is special. 

I realized something very important this week about the role of being a missionary. I understood that were are to invite others to come unto Christ, so they can receive the happiness and blessings it brings. But, as missionaries and church members, we are also there to comfort others through hard times. No matter their beliefs we are there to comfort others. a dear sister in our ward lost her mother this week. Her mother was Roman Catholic and she was raised by those beliefs. However, she wanted the missionaries there to help comfort her family. i am so grateful for this opportunity to help others, who may not believe the same things, through hard times in their lives. after the funeral the family wanted us to basically be part of their family and eat and talk more with them inside their home. it was a very special moment for us missionaries. 

In this life, nothing is predictable. We do not know what Heavenly Father has in store for us, be we know it is all part of His plan. There was a family this week that we started to teach a couple weeks back. They are a very loving, caring family and the mama was pregnant. she was in a lot of pain and asked us for a priesthood blessing to help her, and we did. She was able to have no pain which was a blessing for her. We were in the area that she was staying and decided to check up on them. while we talked to them, they were very sorrowful. She gave birth to her daughter and she was in good health. the next day however, she passed away. I cannot imagine the pain they must have felt. She asked us to please stay a little longer to help give them comfort. they asked us to pray with her and her family. she thanked us for helping her through this hard time.

We are all brothers and sisters. We are taught to love thy neighbour. I learned that our role as missionaries and people in life is to help others. This is the most important thing for me to understand. to be able to bring joy and peace to everyone. This is also Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ' mission. I know that he cares for every single one of us. He does. I know that as we strive to live the ways that He has taught that we will find comfort in each of our lives. I would like to share my testimony of Jesus Christ, that He is the Son of God. He came to earth because he loves all of us. I know that through him we are able to be with our families forever, and see our loved ones again. God sent His only Begotten Son to pay the price of sin for each and every one of us. this is a very crucial part of his plan, that He died for ALL of us, not just those that choose to follow Him, but fer everyone. As Heavenly Father sees a light in all of us we should strive to do the same, and not focus on the bad things of others. I know that He will help us through our hard times. I heard a song this week that said "at the hardest times we are brought to our knees, but on our knees we find the most comfort" I know this to be true. No matter the trials ahead of us Jesus Christ will strengthen us and help us get through them. Please care for each other and show love to all. 

Elder High

Week 2

Hello! So, this week we met a witch. well, actually two witches. both named Elizabeth! haha it has been an amazing week here in Kwa-Thema. so, let me explain a little bit about Elizabeths'. Here in Africa there are about 144,000 religions here. I was talking with Elder Mathanjwa who is form Durbin about why there is so many. Religion here is either for entertainment, business, or for tradition. For example, there are new churches popping up everyday. A big thing here as a status figure is owning your own church. So, if someone loses their job, then they start a church. Its super crazy and messed up but is a huge thing here. 

   The second type of churches here are traditional churches. Some big ones here are called Zion Church, or 12 Disciples Church. they wear weird outfits, go out in random fields, dance and sing. but, the biggest part of their worships is worshiping their ancestors. even though the bible clearly teaches against this, they don't really care haha. So the 1st Elizabeth is a gogo, or grandma, and she actually seeked us out. She was interested in what we taught and wanted to listen to our message, so we taught her. Well..I'm not gonna lie i was scared. she had statues and urns and weird snake things all over her house that she prayed to. We started to get to know her and her beliefs and she is part of Zions' Church and speaks solely zulu. She could understand English a little but did not speak it well. we had our friend from the ward Scott luckily, and he spoke zulu and was able to communicate with her. she asked him what we believe about ancestors and Jesus Christ. so we explained how we love our ancestors and how they are important to our history, but they are not perfect. but Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are. out of nowhere we shared a scripture talking about having no idol Gods, and she was very defensive. she pulled out some of her ancestors things and said that it was wrong in the eye of God to worship these things??? ish, I should have been scared here but i wasn't. Because the spirit was there, and it was strong. Scott started talking to Elizabeth in zulu and we didnt know what he was saying. coming to find out after, he barely knew what he was saying. he said the spirit was putting words into his mouth as he spoke. she understood the commandment God gave us, and how loving He is and how we can change. She started to get emotional.

   Elizabeth all of a sudden was so caring to us. we asked her to pray for herself about the things we taught her, and she said in English, "I don't have to pray, i know it's true. I feel it in my heart." I tell you this so you can understand how the spirit works. when we have faith in the Lord, and show our faith, He will help us. We trusted in the Lord. He knew she wanted to change, even though it is completely different than we she has learned her whole life. The Spirit softens hearts and manifests the truths to it. I know the church is true, and the comfort that it brings not only me, but others. I hope everyone has a great week. 

Elder High

1) Our District/Zone

2) Me and Elder Rocha 

3) one of the random horses walkin around this place

First week in the mission field - Kwa-Thema

Hello Everybody! hope everyone is having a great week. My first week in the field has been incredible. I am in an area named Kwa-Thema, which is about 45 minutes outside of Joburg. Last week was a very fun week leaving the MTC. there were only 6 of us missionaries left in the MTC on the last day because the others had to fly to their areas early. so the only ones left were missionaries going to Joburg, which was awesome. they could be some of my future companions! I will say that i do miss the food in the MTC very much, it was nice having 3 meals a day and never being hungry. But, I am so happy to finally be in the field!

   I will try to explain my area as best as I can, but it is hard because nothing compares to it haha. So, my area is called a township. If i were to compare it to the U.S. it would be like the hood, but huge. all of the houses are small little shacks that are not insulated. most of them have families living in them, sometimes around 7 people in one. most are about the size of a normal living room back home, pretty small. So, as anybody would be, i was pretty shocked! i didn't understand how people lived like this! but, they do not know different, and they are totally fine with it! Many of the homes after you walk in are very nice homes though. and everyone has a TV and huge speaker systems! I will say people here LOVE their music. holy, they play music so loud all day and all night. it is crazy. 

    Anyways, so that is what most of my area is like, but there are suburbs to the township called "the shacks". these are pretty sad to see biking through because they are, well, shacks. But these are where the people are most humble! people are so sweet here, its insane. 

  the people here are the kindest people i have ever met. we ride to down the street and everybody says "sawubona" which is hello in zulu. it is considered rude if you don't greet a person walking by. kinda weird because nobody greets strangers walking by in the U.S. another funny quirk here is that nobody uses their front doors! it makes no sense to me but whatever haha. probably the best thing about here is all of the children. no matter what area we are in there are always kids playing soccer in the street or just a big group together laughing, thy are so sweet. All of them think it is so funny to say "Hello" to me because i am white, they always laugh when they say hello. 

   with that said, I am the only white guy here for like 30 miles, which i don't mind! i really don't notice honestly. but the locals do. they think I am like a celebrity or something. i am always getting asked funny questions. like Do I know Beyonce, or Donald trump, or that I look like Joseph Smith. I get a laugh out of it. 

    The hardest thing right now is the language barrier. even though everybody speaks and knows English, they don't use it! everyone in this township speaks Zulu, which is like Xhosa. so we greet and try to small talk in Zulu with the new people. most of the time i have no clue what they are saying, but I will pick it up. it will be hard though, because every area speaks a different language. like I said this one is Zulu, but Kiyeso was Tswana, and others are Afrikaans, and Xhosa. It will be a challenge to understand them all, but it will be a blast.

     Spreading the gospel here is so rewarding just from this weeks efforts, we had 11 new people show up to sacrament, and have met 12 new interested people. it is amazing. I would like to share one experience I had this week. "" Me and elder Bete, My companion from fiji, were going to an appointment we had. I saw a papa fixing his car on the street. I felt like I should stop and talk to him, but i shrugged it off. When we left the appointment, He was still there. So, i stopped to see if he wanted helping fixing his car. he said he was just cleaning it so he was good. we got to know him a little bit and then he said, "I know who you guys are. you are missionaries." we explained that we are and how he has heard of us. Some of his family is members, and he has seen us riding around town. he said he wants to start going to church again, and feels strongly about this. He just hasn't had anybody talk to him about this, or invite him. I know that the lord really does prepare people to receive the gospel and this was 100% one that is ready. I know that we need to listen to our hearts, and not push these promptings to the side. If you really think deeply about it, this is one persons salvation. If we would have ridden by without talking to him, he might never get the chance to know about the gospel for himself, and never experience the happiness it brings. Kinda crazy nay. 

   I have been so blesses this week, with having a great companion to train me and a great area to learn in. I am grateful to be able to be here in Africa and spread the gospel to those willing to hear it. 

   Love you all, Elder High

Last MTC letter

Hello! I have one day left in the MTC! SO crazy! We were able to go out with the Joburg missionaries and go proselyting. let me tell you, i am so anxious and scared to go out. We were out for about an hour and a half, and had about 20 interested people to listen to our message. they want to meet again so we took down all of their addresses and phone numbers. 

   The people here are so different. every single person that we talked to believed in God. almost all of them were part of a church, which makes it sometimes easier, and sometimes harder. We went to a township about 30 minutes away from the MTC. and i was kind of shocked by the living conditions. When you think of Africa, that is where we were. They were just a bunch of shacks with dirt floors, and in the backyard of each shack would be two, or sometimes three smaller shacks that families lived in. I will never forget that day that we went out. lets just say it was a very humbling experience. Anyways, i still don't know which area i am going to be serving in! the missionaries here are really cool, and my companion for the day was Elder Simmons from Soda Springs, Idaho. He has been out for over two years and goes home tomorrow. So glad that i got to meet him. 

Well, I will keep you updated next monday on where I am and some more experiences!

Elder High

Week 2

Hey! well i have been in the MTC for two weeks! not going to lie the first week felt like a month, but this last week flew by! i feel like it was just preparation day. this week has been a really, really good week. our main focus has been on the restoration of the gospel, which is a very cool topic. we have to learn how to teach in simple terms about how our heavenly father loves each of us, and blesses us as families. that part is pretty easy to teach, but we also have teach about Prophets and Priesthood and about Jesus Christs' life on earth. I have read the Bible sooo much this week because we have to use this when talking to interested people. This has really blessed me because I see in a deeper meaning how the Bible goes perfectly with the Book of Mormon. 

     I have grown so much while here its kind of crazy. I have also had so much fun. our district is so strong together. we share scriptures that we enjoy and also share special moments that we have had in our life. i would be a liar if i said this hasn't been hard. it has been such a hard week, trying to learn all of these things and working and learning on such little sleep. this is a completely new experience, not just for me, but for EVERYBODY. I have learned to be more patient, and to show love to everyone. we are always laughing and telling jokes in class, but sometimes these jokes don't seem like jokes to others. we have learned to be more considerate and uplift everybody. I am so grateful to be in a small MTC, I can't imagine going to Provo with hundred of people.

    I will try to send some pictures but i don't know if they will send. everyday we get activity time and we have been playing so much soccer and volleyball. i have gotten pretty decent playing soccer with the south Africans here haha.  I had my MTC exit interview yesterday, and it really hit me hard. that next Wednesday i will be out in South Africa in a place that i don't know with someone that i don't know. I am so excited to get out and share the gospel with people. the work here is incredible. Our teachers who have served here have said the people here are so kind and accepting. 

Hope you have a great 4th of july! even though i am here there are so many americans that we are basically throwing our own celebration! its great.  I am so grateful to be out on a mission and learning the things i need to learn. My testimony from learning these things has grown Immensely. everything makes sense to me and why we need to follow the commandments. I have an hour in the afternoon and i will try to call you then.  Love you all. 

Elder High

1.) my district!

2.) two of my best friends here! Elder Krupp from cali and elder Mumford from Utah

3.) one of the most normal meals we have had. See if you can tell what kind of veggies those are ;)