Monday, December 23, 2013

In December drinking horchata...

Sawubona!

We blessed the snow down in Africa this week my friends and family. After dropping into the negatives, we were bombarded with with a couple meters of heavy snow. The plows in Kimberley were out in full force, all the schools were shut down, tin shacks were collapsing by the dozen...it's been bad news.

But only just kidding. It's been hot as ever this week! We had our ward Christmas party on Saterdag... What did we do? Braaied, played sand volleyball, played with water balloons... Ya know, typical Christmas stuff. :)

I'm short on time this week, so I'll just include some highlights and then get to the really good juicy stuff next week. Stay tuned.

Have I talked about sphatlo before? It's a food here. Basically a quarter loaf of bread, egg, chips (fries), cheese, palone, Russian (sausage), tomatoes, green onions, and sauces all crammed together. It's a heart attack waiting to happen, but it's absolutely delicious. There's a shop in the township we eat at every once in a while. It's just a couple of guys that run it and they are the dopest dudes ever. We were finally talking to them this week, and lo and behold we ended up teaching them! One of them, Letlhogonolo, has been looking for a church to join. When we started talking about Joseph Smith and how he was confused about religion, he said, "Just like me!" Isn't it great how the Lord prepares people? He's always watchin out for us missionaries.

I can cross another food off the bucket list this week... We helped a ward member paint her house purple, and our reward was chicken feet. I'm short on time so I'll include pictures next week, but what you hear is what you get. Feet, straight from the chicken, battered in spices, with everything still there... Talons and all. They gave Elder Reeves a li'l bit of a runny stomach that night, and I was making fun of him for it, only two hours later to be hit by a gut torpedo and have to run straight to the toilet. Karma sucks :(

But in other good news, Vuyo was sustained as ward mission leader this week, we have been answering President Grobler's plea to find father-led families, our members are getting involved in the missionary work, they're learning to love each other, the work is moving forward, the church is still true, and praise Jesus almighty my guitar finally has strings on it!!! In the words of Thokozani, we've had a "hallelujah week" and expect more good times ahead. 

So to close up, we stayed with the ZLs last night and they took us to the CRC church as a Christmas present. Don't worry I'm not converting or anything, but a lot of investigators attend it so we wanted to see what it was like. You hear the term "happy clappy" churches a lot here, and ohhh man this was as happy clappy as it gets. It was more of a rock concert than actual church. Again, pictures and a video are coming next week. I think they missed the scripture that talks about the Spirit communicating with us in a still small voice... If anything it just confirmed to me the truthfulness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hoorah for Israel!

Oh and then we made horchata last night too. Blows the doors off the stuff at Cafe Rio. Baie baie BAIE lekker.

Hope everyone has a merry Christmas back home! Don't take for granted the cold or the snow or skiing or anything like that... I'd give so much to be tearing up the slopes right now. But it's cool, because how often in your life do you get to spend Christmas tan, in short sleeves, playing volleyball? 

Stay well, stay positive, love your lives, and have a most merry Christmas!

Baie liefde,

Elda Johnson

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