Sanbonani!
Eish... Tripe. Its scent on the stove smells richly of bum, and the taste is hardly any better. At least the time I had chicken feet the spices helped to keep my mind off of what I was actually eating, but with tripe? The flavor serves as a reminder that the organ you're consuming was once the first stop for food as it made its way through the animal's digestive system and eventually out its rectum. I say the animal, because I'm honest to goodness not sure if it was a cow, a goat, or an ox. Haibo... But! It's off the bucket list, and I'm another step closer to being a true African. Brother Gbenga keeps telling me I'm a black man stuck in a white man's body, so hey... My skin will catch up sooner or later! An outward expression of an inward change, right?
But anyway, I guess we can start with where we left off last week. The story of how I ripped my pants... So once upon a time, during our hike with Brother Classen, he told us the tale of Moreson Ranch, which is about an hour outside Newcastle. According to legend, there are lion cubs there you can play with for a mere fifty rand (five bucks for you Americanos). It sounded too good to be true, but after finding out Elder Akal was getting emergency transferred and that this would be his last p day, we decided to exercise our faith in Brother Classen and make the drive. Boy, did we receive a witness after the trial of our faith (aka the hour long, pot-hole filled drive). What an absolutely incredible experience. When you're in Africa, what you don't do is sit around at the boarding and play board games. What you do do is go let the lion cubs chase you around, scratch up your arms, and even rip a huge hole in your jeans. You rub their bellies, you dance with them, and you even give them piggy back rides. I guess the only thing better would be if we could baptize them... But I think they should be covered considering that blessed day when they shall lie with the lamb without any ire.
Enough of those guys though, on to the work of salvation!
Yoh, some weeks on mission are awesome and smooth sailing, but others are kinda...learning weeks I guess you could say. When three of your investigators get baptized, you kinda have to evaluate your teaching pool and ask yourselves, "Ok, what next?" I think it hit both Elder Marumo and myself that we need to make an extra exerted effort to find and talk to people. The question is... How? We have some great plans to work with members, but in the meantime, we've started working on some conversation starters to talk to everyone we meet in all sorts of situations.
Big Z's big thing this last week actually fits perfectly with what we want to make happen. He emailed the whole mission to let us know that our "service hours rendered" stat would be changed to "contacts made." The goal he wants us to work toward is 40 per week, and yoh, we're gonna have to stretch a bit to make it happen. But in a good way. President's absolutely incredible at helping us grow and reach our full potential. I guess if we don't push ourselves and make improvements in our lives every once in a while, how can we expect those we teach to?
Kindo's power as ever. We took him teaching with us on Friday, and I was blown away. He's usually a bit shy around new people, but he contributed to the lesson and bore such powerful testimony at our teaching appointments! He even shared his conversion story with another member family we were visiting. It's not just everyday you find someone like him. I feel so blessed to be a part of his finding the gospel.
Eish... Tripe. Its scent on the stove smells richly of bum, and the taste is hardly any better. At least the time I had chicken feet the spices helped to keep my mind off of what I was actually eating, but with tripe? The flavor serves as a reminder that the organ you're consuming was once the first stop for food as it made its way through the animal's digestive system and eventually out its rectum. I say the animal, because I'm honest to goodness not sure if it was a cow, a goat, or an ox. Haibo... But! It's off the bucket list, and I'm another step closer to being a true African. Brother Gbenga keeps telling me I'm a black man stuck in a white man's body, so hey... My skin will catch up sooner or later! An outward expression of an inward change, right?
But anyway, I guess we can start with where we left off last week. The story of how I ripped my pants... So once upon a time, during our hike with Brother Classen, he told us the tale of Moreson Ranch, which is about an hour outside Newcastle. According to legend, there are lion cubs there you can play with for a mere fifty rand (five bucks for you Americanos). It sounded too good to be true, but after finding out Elder Akal was getting emergency transferred and that this would be his last p day, we decided to exercise our faith in Brother Classen and make the drive. Boy, did we receive a witness after the trial of our faith (aka the hour long, pot-hole filled drive). What an absolutely incredible experience. When you're in Africa, what you don't do is sit around at the boarding and play board games. What you do do is go let the lion cubs chase you around, scratch up your arms, and even rip a huge hole in your jeans. You rub their bellies, you dance with them, and you even give them piggy back rides. I guess the only thing better would be if we could baptize them... But I think they should be covered considering that blessed day when they shall lie with the lamb without any ire.
Enough of those guys though, on to the work of salvation!
Yoh, some weeks on mission are awesome and smooth sailing, but others are kinda...learning weeks I guess you could say. When three of your investigators get baptized, you kinda have to evaluate your teaching pool and ask yourselves, "Ok, what next?" I think it hit both Elder Marumo and myself that we need to make an extra exerted effort to find and talk to people. The question is... How? We have some great plans to work with members, but in the meantime, we've started working on some conversation starters to talk to everyone we meet in all sorts of situations.
Big Z's big thing this last week actually fits perfectly with what we want to make happen. He emailed the whole mission to let us know that our "service hours rendered" stat would be changed to "contacts made." The goal he wants us to work toward is 40 per week, and yoh, we're gonna have to stretch a bit to make it happen. But in a good way. President's absolutely incredible at helping us grow and reach our full potential. I guess if we don't push ourselves and make improvements in our lives every once in a while, how can we expect those we teach to?
Kindo's power as ever. We took him teaching with us on Friday, and I was blown away. He's usually a bit shy around new people, but he contributed to the lesson and bore such powerful testimony at our teaching appointments! He even shared his conversion story with another member family we were visiting. It's not just everyday you find someone like him. I feel so blessed to be a part of his finding the gospel.
The week as a hole was a little bit difficult, but the Lord rains down his tender mercies as continue moving forward in faith. Sunday was a beautiful end to the week. One lesson in particular I really enjoyed. We were following up on a young guy we had found a couple months back, and we weren't able to find him home, but his mother was there. She invited us in, and we found out she's been going through a rough time, so we were able to share some comforting words with her. Brother Gbenga was even brought to tears. We came to realize as well that she works with one of the members that we had just shared a member missionary lesson a couple days back. The Lord sure has a good way of putting us in the right place at the right time.
We've got a little treat coming up in a couple weeks too. I don't remember if I mentioned it, but we talked to Big Z a while back about doing a member fireside while he's in Newcastle this transfer, and he loved the idea. We talked to him again this week to buff out the details, and I'm as stoked as ever. One thing that's true of church members worldwide is that they're more likely to come to things if there's the promise of food, so we'll be serving rooibos tea and biscuits following the proceedings (don't worry, it's herbal tea!).
We've got a little treat coming up in a couple weeks too. I don't remember if I mentioned it, but we talked to Big Z a while back about doing a member fireside while he's in Newcastle this transfer, and he loved the idea. We talked to him again this week to buff out the details, and I'm as stoked as ever. One thing that's true of church members worldwide is that they're more likely to come to things if there's the promise of food, so we'll be serving rooibos tea and biscuits following the proceedings (don't worry, it's herbal tea!).
After all our adventures the last few Mondays, we're finally taking a little break today. Gonna take care of some shopping, gonna make biryani, and I'm even gonna try and learn how to cut my own hair! Woo! Wish me luck... I'll have pictures next week. Prepare to be either blown away or to laugh really really hard. Let's hope for the former.
Sala kahle, my friends. Stay positive, love your life.
Much love,
Umdala Johnson
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