The world. Wordly things. Work.

Sanbonani!

It's not just every unit you serve in that you find a couple like Brother Benny and Sister Naleen. They take the phrase "every memember a missionary" seriously and share the gospel with almost everyone they talk to! We have dinner with them Saturday nights (s/o to Sister Naleen, by the way, for making the best, hottest curry I've had in South Africa so far!) and literally every week, they have someone new for us to teach. What a blessing. And every once in a while, we'll get the good news that Benny's going to be speaking at sacrament meeting the next day, and this was one of those days. Ah Benny... What a character. His talks keep us awake and teach us some good things. This week's was on the world, wordly things, and work. He told us that cell phones can be good, but sometimes the only rest that they get is when you go to sleep. Afterwards he told us he had to cut his talk short due to the stake speaker needing time, but I guess he had some things about Mother Theresa and Mahatma Gandhi planned to talk about. Guess we'll have to wait until next time.

Ah man, what a flipping good fetching awesome week it's been! Now, I know most of the pictures I send home lately have been on the beach, but I promise there's a lot of missionary work going in between p-days... We've got some service opportunities we're getting involved in, and we've got Sister Pam to thank for that. We met with her in Ballito this week and she gave us the names of a clinic and a child care place that could use a couple helping hands. Oh! And she's helping us get a newspaper article published about our quit smoking class. We met with the Rowberrys this morning, and we've got some more great ideas going for that. We started our advertising campaign this week... Flyered the town, had an information table, been talking to everyone we've seen that looks like they want to quit smoking... The wheels are in motion!

One of the things we've been trying to do this week is to have meaningful conversations with people. I mean, we can talk to a lot of people, but if it's just a quick "Can we share a message about Jesus Christ with you?" they're not going to get much out of it. But, if you can get a meaningful conversation going and then invite them to learn more at the end, that's going to be something memorable. As we were walking around High Ridge on Thursday, we saw an Indian brother sitting on the stairs that we were able to strike up a conversation with. Come to find out, he was going through a lot, and had actually met the missionaries before. We saw that he was smoking, so we asked him if he'd ever had the desire to quit. He took a look at his cigarette, and said, "Well yeah... I hate this thing. I'd love to get rid of it." He gladly accepted the invitation to our class. On Saturday we met a brother named Chris outside his house, and were able to have a good long conversation with him about the world, and how you protect your kids from the things of the world. He gladly accepted the invitation to learn more. As we were driving Vincent home one day, we saw a brother on the street holding a guitar and sporting dreads and a rasta hat. Man... How could we not talk to him? Found out his name is John, and we're planning on having a jam sesh one of these days. And this one's kinda cool... A few weeks ago, Benny and Naleen took us to a referral that had no interest in what we were sharing, but a couple of his friends sat in on the lesson. One of them was a Muslim, and we're not really supposed to actively seek teaching Muslims... Something about it doing more harm than good when it comes to family relationships and whatnot. Anyway, this brother's name was Mohammed, and we were walking around town this week and stopped us, greeted us with a smile, told us he really liked what we shared, and said we should come over again. There's something to be said about planting seeds... Words are powerful, and they may have an effect on people that you weren't even expecting. As Big Z told me one day, we speak the words of Christ, and the prepared will recognize us as servants of the Lord. Kind of a cool feeling.

As far as teaching, this week has been awesome. We've taught more first lessons and found more solid new investigators this week than any other in Stanger! The Tembos are still doing wonderfully... They all came to church this week and committed to be baptized on the 9th of November! We're stoked for them! I don't know if you remember Wilson, but he's the one working at the guest house in Ballito. We were able to have a lesson with him for the first time in a month. We talked with him about his life, his goals, and the Book of Mormon, and he's delighted to learn how much what he believes is in harmony with the Lord's teachings. Great guy. As we've been doing service at the clinic by our boarding, we've gotten to know a brother named Israel Mnqayi, and he's grown really fond of us and what we do. We were able to share a lesson with him and his big family yesterday, and what a great man he is. We shared the Restoration, temple blessings, For the Stength of Youth, and answered some of their questions they have about life in general. Israel told his kids that he had made mistakes in his past, and he didn't want them to have to make the same mistakes as him. Afterwards, he was walking us to the car and thanked us profusely for what we shared. He said that he had never shared some of that with his kids before, and said what a blessing it was that we had come over. My heart just filled with gladness. It's moments like those when you really know you're doing the Lord's work. Oh! And finally, we started teaching two families from Mozambique yesterday, and their first language is Portuguese... So we're getting some Portuguese pamphlets from the office today and letting the work move forward! Hurra para Israel!

And just life in general... I've decided to start taking Tony Horton's health guide seriously and tighten up my eating. It's been going great and I've been eating lots more fruits and veggies, but eish... When curry weekend hits, I don't stand a chance. Our dinner appointments with the Singhs Thursday, Sister Moodley friday, and Benny and Naleen Saturday finish me. But it's worth it. I'll be a healthy person...well, someday. What else... I'm teaching Vincent guitar right now! He's a stud. Been playing just a couple weeks and he's got Time of Your Life by Green Day almost all the way down. Oh! Barbershop for who?! I'm cutting my own hair these days! I've been nervous to try the scissors up to this point, but I gave it a shot Saturday and I think it went well. Either that, or Elder Mphaka's just too nice to tell me I butchered it. Hmmm... And the weather's pretty cray cray too. Thursday was super hot... 37 celcius, which I think is like 98 fahrrenheit. So we thought summer was here, then winter came back the next day. Now, when I say winter... I'm talking like 20 celcius, which is roughly 68 fahrrenheit... Africa's turned me into a wimp :/

I think that's about it for this week. Ah man... Life is good right now. Things are going great. The work is going great. The gospel is true and as good and warm as ever. I'm here at the email shop with Elders Childs and Marumo again... Ah. Lekker. Let the good times roll.

Sala kahle, stay positive, and love your lives my friends.

Much love,

Umdala Johnson