What the hail?!

Sawubona!

Man this week has been all sorts of crazy... First off we've gotten more rain in the last week than in the last three months combined! We were having lunch at the Ludicks on Wednesday and it even started hailing! And it was like 80 degrees outside, so apparently that can happen!

Anyway, where to begin...last Monday was the last day with Elder Kruger. Man...goodbyes are one thing that never really get easier with time. But there comes a time in every missionary's life when he has to kick his father out of the boarding and send him on a bus to Durban (remember, mission lingo here...Pop Pop is still safely at the house in Fruit Heights!). But we said goodbyes to him, Elder Childs, and Elder Gonzales, all moving on to new chapters on mission.

Tuesday I was in a threesome with the Bloemanda elders. We went and played with some foster kids in the morning, had appointments during the day, and did a whole lot of not eating since our allotment was in a day late...it was brutal! Elder Sakurime would look at me with a hungry face in the middle of lessons and just mouth the word "allotment." Anyway we were kinda forced into fasting that day. But! Elder Reeves and the other Elders coming to this zone arrived by bus at about 10 o'clock that night! First time I see Elder Reeves...he's carrying a guitar and has some sort of animal skin headband on and I know right off the bat this is gonna be a stellar transfer. But we stayed at the Rocklands and Bloemanda boarding and it was off to Kimberley in the morning!

Man... Elder Reeves is the bomb!!! Kinda crazy how much our personalities click. He's a big reggae fan, and he likes 311...no one else I've met on mission has even heard of 311! Ah man this is gonna be a great transfer. And he has some big ideas for Kimberley too! We're gonna have Satan scared out of his mind by the time we're done with him here. But Wednesday, and then most of the week two, we were kind of getting him introduced to a lot of the members and the area. That's where we want to move a lot of our focus to...getting the ward functioning properly. They were a branch here until just a few months ago, so we're going to have meetings reguarly with the bishop and auxiliary leaders to make it a solid ward that we can be proud to take investigators to!

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we did service and got bunked on a lot of appointments...but the few lessons we did teach were powerful. Elder Reeves is power. I'm so excited to start working with him more and more. Wednesday night we had an interesting appointment... We're working with a less-active family, and somehow or another a bunch of people from the Old Apostolic Church ended up there... The lesson turned into a Bible-bashing session which was going nowhere. So Elder Reeves bore his testimony and we got out of there.

Thursday we went and had Sphatlo...it's a food in the township that's basically a quarter loaf of bread stuffed with egg, fries, sauce, palone, Russian (a big sausage thing), and a few other things that will clog your arteries. But they're only 15 rand! $1.50 for you Americans! Anyway, we met a guy making them named Xavier... He's super happy but his mind is in the toilet. I haven't heard that many four letter words in I dunno how long. But he had a friend that was a lot more humble that we're gonna be teaching next week! There's a saying I think Elder Stengile told me... "Teach when you find, find when you teach." Always be open to talk to anyone, because the gospel is for everyone. You just never know who may be ready to accept it! We ran into Xavier again the next day at the Pick N Pay...still a filthy mouth. Eish.

Friday we played soccer with Tshiamo and Bakang and guess what...finally made my goal of scoring a goal against a team of black African soccer players! Aight I can go home happy now :) but I still have the work of salvation to hasten so I can't go quite yet. We also had a meeting with Bishop Tshabalala and made some pretty sweet plans for the ward. We're gonna do great things here in Kimberley!

Saturday was service and General Conference all day long. The Kimberley ward didn't have a means to watch it, so they had to wait for the DVDs to get here. So Elder Reeves got to see all 10 hours for a second time and it was just as power as the first time. Uchtdorf, Holland, Christofferson, Ballard, and Perry were among some of my favorites. And I think this may have been the first time that I didn't fall asleep once during Conference... Boo. Freaking. Yeah.

And uh...interesting food highlight of the week. Khanyi made us worms last night. More like caterpillars... I thought sheephead was weird until I ate worms. I think I'm officially African forever. I've eaten WORMS!!!

Aight that's it for me this week. The work is moving forward! Watch out Fruit Heights 10th Ward, Kimberley's gonna be the biggest and most power ward in the world by the time we're done with it! Hoorah for Israel!

Stay well, stay safe, stay positive, and love your lives!

Much love,

Elder Johnson

PS...special shoutout to Elder Francom for making it back home to Utah safely! Sank you so much for taking the package to mi familia. So much sanks. Amen.