Sanbonani!
You meet all sorts of people in Stanger... On Friday, we were going to have lunch with Sister Moodley, when a young Indian fellow probably in his 20s came and jumped in our car with a huge smile. He introduced himself as Raman Pillay and explained to us how the missionaries used to visit him and explain everything. His mind was pre-occupied at that moment with Katy Perry, though, as he kept asking us if we knew her and telling us he was recording a track with her at his house later that night. Eventually we got his address and told him we'd drop by sometime. After he left, I announced my guess that he was high. Elder Mphaka's guess was that he just wasn't all there. Vincent said it was probably both. We shared a laugh, then went and enjoyed a nice plate of chicken curry.
Man... What a week! Where to begin... I guess I'll start with last Monday. Spent most of the day in Ballito, and might have found the coolest li'l surf shop in Africa. It was probably a good thing I got away from there or I might have gotten some crazy ideas about taking kite boarding lessons. Haibo... The other find we made that day was pure maple syrup...something I haven't seen in over a year! Eish, it was R60 though, so it's gonna have to be a special occasion when I'm able to buy it... Don't take maple syrup for granted, you silly Americans.
Tuesday I ended up in Phoenix on exchanged with Elder Mackie, and what a fantastic time we had. He's been out on mission one transfer now, and he's just stellar. Plus he's a SoCal native, and were able to talk good music for a while... It's been a while since I've met someone that knows Sublime and the Dirty Heads. Anyway! We had an awesome day of proselytizing. Most of the planned appointments fell through, but it gave us a couple good opportunities to meet people. As we were going to deliver a Finding Faith in Christ DVD to someone, a guy chilling on his balcony asked us, "What are you selling?" We replied, "Pest control!" But only just kidding... We told him we teach people about Jesus Christ, and he invited us right in. He told us his dad was a pastor, and we were a little worried it was gonna turn into a Bible bashing session, but it ended up turning into a nice discussion sharing with each other about our own missionary efforts. He showed us pictures of the service they've been doing in places like Malawi. And just out of the blue, he invited us to speak to the youth at his church, which uh... Is exactly one of the things we've been wanting to do as a district. So that was pretty cool. And then later on, we knocked on the door for another appointment, which turned out to be a bunk, but one of the things Big Z's been having us do lately is to find out why the Lord has brought you to a certain area. So if an appointment bunks, start walking around and talking to people and finding the person or people He needs you to talk to. So that's what we did, and we were able to talk to a couple guys out building a driveway who had a lot of questions about the gospel. Let's hear it for letting the Holy Spirit guide!
Back in Stanger, we were a little slack on finding last week, so we tightened up our efforts this week. We were able to talk to lots of people in lots of different situations. We had some conversations with people that ended up not being interest, but hey... It's cool learning from them anyway. While we were walking from the hospital on Thursday (more on that in a second...Elder Mphaka and I are both fine, don't worry!), we greeted a man standing outside his shop named Fuad and were able to have a conversation with him. He was talking about what a crazy, violent world we live in, and we mentioned that one of the things we do is visit people at their homes and share a message about Jesus Christ that can help us make sense of this crazy world. The whole conversation, I was trying to discern if he was Christian, Muslim, or Hindu, and my guess was Christian, because he was talking about God, and he didn't have the beard or hat that Muslims usually wear. But as it turned out, he was Muslim, so he respectfully told us he wasn't interested, but thought that it was a great thing we were doing. He explained a little bit of his beliefs to us, which was cool. South Africa's crazy diverse... What a neat opportunity to get to experience it all. Anyway, we did a lot of street contacting as well, and it's usually pretty easy to tell who's prepared. We met a guy named Brian, and he was so excited to meet us and told us he has lots and lots of questions. Others, you can definitely prepare are not prepared, but it might take a day or so to realize. Whereas other places, people will just tell you if they're not interested, in South Africa it's different sometimes. People are generally very polite in conversation, and they won't tell you they're not interested. But, they will give you a wrong address, wrong phone number, and/or a time to come over when they know for sure they won't be there. It makes us laugh sometimes, but hey... That's mission. We did some tracting as well in Groutville and found some good potential. I found a book by John Bytheway back in Newcastle (I think that's where I'm getting this from... I could be wrong) where he encouraged elders to have a "one more door" attitude. So in Groutville, it was getting time to head to the Khawulas for lunch, but we decided, "OK, let's try one more door." And as we did so, we found a husband and wife that warmly invited us over next week. Pretty neat.
We've been looking for service opporunities and ways to get word out about the stop smoking class we're putting together, so we spent some time on Thursday doing that. It was super funny... We were going to volunteer at the hospital and talk to the municipality about setting up an information table outside the city building offering people information about the class. At both places, we kept getting directed around to different people. "The person you need to talk to is so-and-so..." And then we get to so-and-so, and they tell us, "Actually you need to go talk to that other guy..." And it kept going in loops, and I think at one point it even circled around back to the same person. Eish... Anyway, we got accomplished what we wanted to, so things are looking good!
Bright and Octavia are doing very well! Bright opened up to us a little bit about some challenges he's facing, but told us that he wants to change, and that put a smile on Octavia's face. She was sick this weekend, so she wasn't able to make it to church, but Bright did! Oh man, and he loved it! The members did a great job, too, of welcoming him and making him feel comfortable. Missionary work is goooooood sometimes.
Transfer news came Saturday night, and Elder Mphaka and I are staying together another transfer, which we're stoked about! And to top everything off, Elder Childs is gonna be our new ZL, Elder Marumo's getting transferred to the zone, and I was talking to Elder Marumo last night and he told me two of the families that we had been teaching together in Newcastle got baptized yesterday!!! He said there couldn't have been a better way to leave Newcastle. What a champ.
Good times ahead. Things are pickin' up here in KwaDukuza. I've got a good feeling about this transfer.
Sala kahle. Stay positive, and love your lives my friends.
Much love,
Umdala Johnson
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