Week 25 (about)

What is up everyone! Hope you all are enjoying the snow, oh Idaho is the best. Suid Afrika has been great, super great. The work here is insane! definitely a celestial area, with hard work haha. we found out this is the biggest area in the mission, which means we have a lot of pressure form zone leaders, Assistants, and President. However, pressure is good, it keeps us from getting lazy. This week has been so busy! every day has been nonstop. We had appointment basically every hour. People are really progressing also, which makes me so happy! I know I haven't written a letter in a couple weeks, Askies, I am trying to improve! 

To fill you in on the last few weeks, things have been smooth. My companion and I both caught the flu, which slowed us down a little bit, but eish, we pushed through because it sucks cancelling appointments. I feel like it is part of missionary work, to push through and work hard!

   We had a baptism last week for our friend Zefa. He is so powerful. He basically taught himself, and wants to come out with us every friday and be a missionary. He is new here to South Afrika, he is from The Congo, so we have been trying to find him some friends. 

    One thing I realised this week is that the friends you surround yourself with can have a huge effect on you. He said if his friends come over, or want him to go out, then they will buy alcohol for him, and pressure him. We heard the same thing from our friend Sipho. Zefa has been strong and completely stopped hanging out with these friends after he told them he is trying to change his life. And wow, what a change we have seen in him! South Africans are wild, they will pay for their friends beer, but will NEVER buy food for them! its crazy, but hey, it is Africa.

The highlight of this week was Sunday. We a busy day! we had Zefas' confirmation, and then had to rush over to the other chapel to meet the people we are teaching. This week we had 17 people at sacrament, which was great. we are hoping to give many of them a baptismal date this upcoming week. All in all, this place is doing really great, even though most of it is a town, not a township. I look forward to the next few weeks, and see what the Lord has in store for us. Ngiyathanda all of you! 

Elder High

Pictures:

1) Zefas' baptism, with most of the youth in Rabie Ridge

2) my comp and I, living life smiling.

3) first "hot dog" in South Africa! It was too good

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Rhinos - The mythical beings

I might write a letter later, but too lazy right now. Here are some pictures from our adventure today. We went to a different park, which was about 50 rand but we were able to drive through it all, and couldn't get out of the car due to dangerous animals. We saw so many zebras there, they are like horses. We saw some other antelope things, ostriches, water buffalo, but no Rhinos!! I swear we drove everywhere searching for them, but they are a myth. Rhinos are not real animals I promise you. It was still really fun, and a nice relaxing P-day activity. These are pictures with the new camera, so I hope they are good quality!

Zebras and giraffes

Hola! Well, hope everyone had a great christmas! Let me tell ya, christmas was sooo weird on mission! Not only am I in a new area and dont know many people yet, but there's no snow here! It's actually just sunny and really hot! For christmas we had a braai and just relaxed. There was a ton of people there. Some went swimming and we were about to but...  oh yeah we are missionaries! Oh well, we went to play some rugby with some of the guys there instead. It was really fun, I always enjoy playing some rugby. But yeah, wow it doesn't feel like christmas without snow, so appreciate it! 

    As for missionary work, it has been a slow week because of christmas and the rules we have to follow. However, we were able to find 6 new people and give 2 people baptism dates which was very unexpected but led by the spirit! We saw miracles performed this week in so many small ways. God works in some weird ways sometimes! From actually going to talk to what we thought were 'drunk guys trying to waste our time' to us deciding to talk to these ones, and finding out they are members. And one wants us to teach his wife, which delayed us 10 minutes and as we are driving off we see a member from the ward doing missionary work!! So many things this week that strengthened my testimony. I know God plans everything, even the details in life, and we should always listen to the spirit to help guide us.

Anyways, that's my week, it was great. We also some some wildlife which was pretty neat! 

Have a great new year!

Elder High

Midrand

Hola! well, I survived transfer day which was super crazy and am now in Midrand! Transfer day was so crazy because a) we had transfers. duh. b) we had a zone conference with all the mission except like 10 elders in Eswatini. and c) we had the christmas program immediately after zone conference!! there were so many people there, but I was able to see many friends that I have made on mission. Well, midrand. A very interesting place. There are not many houses here, mainly huge apartment buildings which are on complete lockdown. It is super hard to actually do missionary work because of this. to enter into them you have to show them your ID and they scan it, they scan a barcode on our car, take down the license plate number, and we have to give them a number that a person that we are visiting sends to us. THEN they will call the flat of the person and ask if we can come in. then we are in!!! I've never been in a more secure place in my life. Even for our complex we have a fingerprint scanner at the gate to enter and to leave. LUCKILY, we have 3 wards and a branch, including three other areas of the mission. Centurion 1 and 2, and part of Rabie Ridge which is a township!! it is super nice to have town, and township in our area. it's the best. 

We taught some powerful people this week. One is a part member family of a member who has been less active for 10 years. he still has his testimony but got "Too Busy". anyways he wants to start coming back to church after running into one of our missionaries who is a doctor and spends most of his time at the hospital. This member has a son who has severe Epilepsy, and has spent more than half of his life in the hospital. He is 18 months old and is now home with them, with a nurse there 24/7. He has had many trials in his life, but has not given up. even after being told multiple times that his son will pass away, he never gave up. His wife is not a member and she has been very interested in the church. They are a sweet, kind, loving family. Wish I could share more about my week but I don't have too much time! Love you all, keep fighting and trusting the Lord!!

Love, Elder High