Indawo Enhle

Sanbonani!

Ah... Back in Zulu land! "Indawo enhle" translates to "beautiful place," which if I'm not mistaken, translates to "nauvoo" in some native American language. But there's not better description for the country of South Africa. What an absolutely beautiful place I've been blessed to serve in. Elder Nthengu, Elder Sarai, and I got to road trip through some of the better parts of it on the way to Durban on Saturday, but I'll talk about that more in a minute...

What a fantastic week it's been! Lots of goodbyes, lots of reunions, and lots of laughs and good times. (And I guess some really good spiritual experiences too!)

We had zone conference in Bloem on Wednesday, so instead of driving back to Thaba Nchu on Monday just to drive back again the next day, we ended up splitting with the Rocklands elders and working with them. I got to be with Elder Doane and Elder Odhiambo, which was super great because uh... Doane and I had been planning for him to kill me for a while now, and it just didn't end up working out. But, dying in the same zone and getting to work together a few times and spending p-days together... That's close enough to being companions, right?! We thought so. So we had a good day together, then slept and prepped for #ZoneConf the next day.

So the thing with this zone conference... Elder Stanley G. Ellis of the Seventy came and taught us, and from what the zone leaders were saying, he was going to come with a lot of fire. Be super stiff and whatnot. But as zone conference went on, we found him to be full of jokes the whole time. Elder McNee is from Leeds, and Elder Ellis started poking fun at his British accent, telling him he needs to learn "real" English. We were laughing the whole time, but we were learning a lot too. He taught us about keeping in view the vision of what we want to accomplish, which ultimately, is to help our investigators not only be baptized, but endure to the end and inherit eternal life. "Begin with the end in mind" was the topic. At the end of it, he asked us to make a goal -- what are we going to DO after learning here? It was powerful. I think everyone else had mission-minded goals in mind, but for myself... I kept getting the impression to go home and learn about the temple. So, that I'll be excited for in a few weeks.

Got to see some missionaries that came up for zone conference one last time. I was really bummed last transfer that I wasn't going to see Elder Marumo again before going home, but he's a zone leader in the Bethlehem zone now and they came to our zone conference! So that was a good reunion. Man... I have a good son. Our four and a half months we spent together were some of the best on mission.

We drove back to Thaba Nchu after that for about a day and a half... Lots of hellos a couple weeks ago, and lots of goodbyes this week. It's really too bad I was only in Thaba Nchu for such a short time. There are some pretty incredible people there. We spent Thursday teaching a few lessons and throwing in goodbyes in the open hours. Ah... I'm really going to miss those people. The last family we saw was the Sebusi family. We chatted with bishop for probably an hour. He was telling us all his crazy stories from when he served mission. I think the one that cracked me up the most, though, happened before his mission. He was living in Connecticut teaching ballroom dancing, and I believe he was staying with the bishop. Anyway, he went out with the bishop's sons one night and I guess didn't know the difference between a pina colada and a virgin pina colada. So they got accidentally got super wasted. So they went back home that night and experienced a hangover for the first time ever. When they asked the bishop for priesthood blessings, he refused since they were drunk. Hahaha... Man. I guess some lessons you have to learn by experience, eh?

The next day we needed to grab Elder Sarai from Kimberley, and Elder Nthengu and I both served there, so... The zone leaders said it was cool if we wanted to go spend the whole day there. What an amazing experience that was. Seeing people from my greenie area that I haven't seen in a year and a half... That's enough to put you in a really good place. One thing that I found ironic is that a number of people had been married and had kids in the time I was gone. Which I feel like is going to be the same thing that happens when I'm back in Mormonville... Hmmm. Anyway, I think probably the most special visit we had all day was to Martha. It really is an absolutely incredible story with her. The impeccable timing of our starting to teach her can only be attributed to the Spirit. She had just given birth to her baby Ellie a few weeks back when tragedy struck. I remember Elder Reeves and I showed up one day to her grandmother telling us that things were very, very bad. We found out that Ellie's uncle had done something terrible that left her in very critical condition. After she was at least stable and out of the hospital, we gave her a priesthood blessing. Things didn't look good. It was likely that she was going to need ten surguries to keep on going. Soon after that, I got transferred away. Talking to Elder Reeves and Elder Lewis later on, I heard updates about Sister Martha. Elder Reeves had the honour of baptizing her, and he told me that the Book of Mormon essentially saved her life. After just four surguries, the doctors said that Ellie wasn't going to need anymore. She was healed. But, that still left something else. The uncle. I believe one of the toughest commandments Christ has ever given us is to forgive our enemies. It's something that's much easier said than done. But somehow, Martha was able to find a way to forgive her brother for what he had done to her child. And when I walked into their home on Friday, I saw two of the happiest people I've ever met. Ellie is a year and eight months now and happy and active as ever. Martha's testimony of the gospel as well... Man. Things have been turned entirely around. Hands down the greatest part of missionary work is seeing the gospel bless someone's life who desperately needs it. And that was the case with Martha. Definitely a tender mercy of the Lord to get to be able to see her again.

So that happened Friday, and the rest of the week was a lot of driving. South Africa is an absolutely beautiful country. On the way to Durbs, we passed by Bethlehem and visited the Van Der Leek family. They used to live in Bloem and fed the missionaries like crazy. We drove through Golden Gate National Park after that and saw some beautiful rock formations resembling Yosemite or Bryce Canyon and a sign for a small village called "Alma." Missionaries always get pictures by it, but no one seems to know where the name came from... Hmmm... Road tripping is fun though. Especially being with Elders Sarai and Nthengu. We've been scarce around each other since the MTC, so it's been good catching up with them.

While we're doing the PMTC, we don't really have a proselyting area, so we're free to attend church basically anywhere around Durban. Elder Nthengu's first area was Molweni, so we went and attended there on Sunday. Visited some people he had known and taugh, then spent the rest of the day in Umlazi. Ah... Overall just a really good day. Molweni's a cool place. Up until a month ago, they were just a group. They're now a branch. A small one, but a branch nonetheless. Serving somewhere like that I feel like would be really special. There's a lot of unity when numbers are few.

Welp, we start PMTC today at noon! And from now on our p-days will be Saturday, so just a heads up, if you have something you want me to read this week, make sure to get it to me by then! Life is good. Mission is great. I'm just excited for whatever lies ahead this week.

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

Thanda kakhulu,

Umdala Johnson