Hiking!

Weeeeeeelll, I loooove my companion. Elder Çoka is awesome, we have been having lots of fun in the area learning it together because of we were given two areas. The people we are teaching are awesome and the members here are amazing! 

I miss my district from before, those guys were awesome, but i have got another super awesome district and i am serving around elder bu again. ( he was very close in Botswana) we live like seven minutes away from each other. Funny thing, we found out a while ago that his older brother served in the same mission as my brother just a while before. And then last week discovered that his mom served in my dads mission, Though we are still waiting to figure out dates. 

We had a super fun activity with the some of the YSA in our area on Saturday that was pretty dope. We went on a hike and then played a ton of games with them. There was four elders (Smith, Çoka, Burgess, and Khupiso.) And six YSA The idea was that if the start having more activities together than people will actually come to institute, so we will see if it worked. Two of the sisters brought us a gift on Sunday which was pretty awesome. 

The other polokwane flat is going to be sold so we will be cleaning that out soon but in the meantime we got to snatch some pretty snazzy dishes from the flat. And now i have measuring cups for the first time on my mission. 

The scripture for this week is 1 Nephi 17:13  "And I will also be your ^alight in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the ^bpromised land; and ye shall ^cknow that it is by me that ye are led." 

Remember that the lord will always provide a way if we keep his commandments. He will be our light and our guide to show us the way. 

Stay safe and trust on the lord! He is there, watching out for you always! Have a good week! 

Love Elder Smith

When 2 Become 1

Hey, Hey hey everyone! 

I have spent the past week trying to combine two areas into one, its been a little bit of a struggle as both areas had an appointment every night at the same time and those people live on opposite sides of town and can only see us at night. Otherwise filling in the days has been nice, because now we have much more active days. 

I am now getting to know the members of the branch much more which is super sweet because they are awesome! 

My New companion is Elder Çoka (Choka) He is from Albania, and was also in my mtc group. It is way awesome to be with him again! We are working well together and getting these two wonderful areas in order! There are now four of the six elders from my mtc group in this zone which is pretty cool! I just took a selfie with him for you all because we did not get any pictures this week so i hope you enjoy it. 

I included some pictures of an awesome room in the house of some people that we teach. i loooove it so much. 

There was some confusion when i said i am going to own a car so let me explain. There was a change made to the car policy for the mission. Cars used to stay in the area for the next elders that came. However because the missionaries have not treated the cars as if it is something they own the mission has decided to give ownership to the cars. So now the car will stay with the driver and travel to the next area with him. Until he goes to another country anyway. So here is a pitcure of my new old car.

I am probably a little late to the general conference wagon but i just got to finish it yesterday so here are my favorite talks.

From General conference i really liked the talk from Adilson de Puala Parrella in the Sunday afternoon session and I have already put together my list of ten potential wives for when i get home. 

Jk, it was a great talk, but not for me quite yet. Two of my real favorite talks are:

Joni L Koch in the Sunday afternoon session. It was a wonderful talk. The importance of being untied as one cannot be underestimated. In being united there is power and safety. 

Ronald A Rasband in the Saturday afternoon session. Very powerful, it is always important to think about what good we can do in the positions we are in. 

Anyway! Have a good week everyone! Remember to always trust in the lord! he is there for you! 

Love Elder Smith

Oh wait, real transfer #3?

Hey! Wow, this week was way too hectic!

It was the last week of the transfers so of course it was hectic! We met some super awesome new people that we are teaching, we had zone conference, a baptism and transfer news! So yay! Shall we get into the week?

Tuesday was exchanges with the zone leaders, so that was pretty fun i got to take one of our zone leaders (Elder Wallace) around our area which was pretty fun because i don't know the area that well yet. Wednesday was just a normal day.

However on Thursday i got to go to the university for the second time since i have been here, It is our farthest area and we can only go there when we have the car. It was pretty important for me to get over there in case Elder Sjovold got transferred away, so that i would be able take care of the area. While we were there we got to meet some pretty awesome people, and i got to know the ysa in the branch far better! The members in this branch are pretty awesome! The wild thing for that day was that our car battery died, which could have been really bad because we were in a place where nobody has a car, but luckily we got someone to help us. 

Friday, we spent the whole day on district meeting and then trying to find a a new battery for the car, because at the university was not the first time it died on us. It took us all day to get one because we drove from place to place and either they did not have the one we needed or they would not take the card that we had to pay for it. 

Saturday was Zone conference and then transfer news! Always one of the best parts of the transfer!  Well.....

It seems that the lord wanted about half of the mission to be whitewashed (lose both their missionaries and get new ones) So a ton of people got moved around and are starting from scratch in their areas. The strangest thing is that our zone leaders stayed together as zone leaders but got moved to another area... 

Anyway, what happened to my area? Well my branch is Polokwane, i have been here for four weeks we had four elders in the branch, Elder Sjovold, Elder Gohnert, Elder Iloa and I. each companionship had half of if Polokwane, But Everyone except me are to be transferred, So yeah, i will be left with both of the areas. (Polokwane 1 was already the biggest area in the mission) I dont know my area that well, much less their area, but i guess i just have to trust that the lord qualifies who he calls? 

On Sunday We had a baptism for Aisha and Joseph, a mother and son, they are super sweet and elder Sjovold is the one who started teaching them! It was way awesome to see them get baptized because they have been talking about how much they want to since i got here. They are from Zimbabwe and are some of the sweetest people i have ever met. 

Also! They made a new mission rule that if you drive a car its yours and you take it with you to your new areas, soooo, I WILL BE OWNING A CAR SOOOOON! ;)

This week was awesome as has every week.

I have learned that no matter what happens you just need to stay positive and trust in the lord, because he is there for you, he will hold you up and show you the way, and give you the strength to keep on going. 

Have a good week everyone! 

Love Elder Smith! 

Wait... It rains in Africa?

Hey! Paintball last week was so fun, we had sixteen elders playing and we had quite the battle. There should be some pictures included. We also got to play soccer with some other elders and investigators on Saturday and that was pretty sick. Though it was raining when we had planned to play and stopped right as we started to play. The field was still wet though, and i may have coated myself in mud once or twice. So that was pretty great. 

While we are on the subject of rain i might as well talk about it! When we went to play paintball on Monday it started raining, and that was the first time it has rained while i have been in Africa (mostly because Botswana does not really rain). That night there was a giant storm with lots of thunder and lightning. And then on Saturday when we went to play soccer it was also terrible rain, the roads were covered in water. It was pretty sick, but yeeeaaaah. Not so safe. 

We were supposed to watch two sessions of conference on Saturday and two on Sunday but the power went out in the chapel on Saturday, so no conference. The wifi also got struck by lightning so we are emailing at a shop today. We got to watch the Saturday and Sunday morning general conference sessions but the other ones we wont watch for another two weeks. Conference was great! What was everyone's favorite part? 

I love this area! It is great, the Branch is way fun and filled with awesome people! And all of the elders are awesome as well! This zone actually have two of the Elders the came from my mtc group, it was awesome to see them again. 

I hope the pictures are okay because i cannot see them.

Oh i bought these sick paintings and i am going to get three more today, they are awesome! The colored ones will be a set of five, a group of animals called the big five. 

Love Elder Smith!

Giant Moth

Ahhh, man, computers are fun, we spent about an hour trying to get them working before I got on, so that's all good and fun, but anyway why don't we get on to this past week!

So life in Polokwane is quite swell, the members of the branch are awesome, though we don't get to see them too much during the week as most of the live in the other elders area. This past week has been quite interesting, we did not get to see to many people but we did a lot of work.

Tuesday was a normal day. Wednesday there was a strike in town so we had to stay in the flat all day until night time when we had appointments close to the flat, Thursday one of the elders was sick and we had to take him to the hospital, spent hours there. And had to rearrange our whole schedule. (he is fine now.)Friday was normal again but then Saturday we helped some people move and we had only planned on it taking a couple hours, but it actually went from 7 am- 6 pm.

So it was a little bit of a different week, but it was fun and we did a lot of good things which was awesome. The people we helped move were super fun and amusing, they are friends of a member but not members themselves, we kept driving back and forth between three houses with a trailer full of stuff. And we all rode in the bed of the truck. My companion was enjoying himself so much in the bed of the truck because it is completely illegal in Norway. However we see cop trucks here with just a ton of random people riding in the bed.

The biggest adventure that happened this week was the giant moth we found in our flat, I was brushing my teethe and leaned down to rinse my toothbrush and saw this giant thing just sitting on our window, I had no idea what it was. However when we tried to get it to go out the window and it refused my companion went to war with a broom.... There is a video that i'll send separately... you can hear a thunk when the broom hits the thing, that tells you how big it is...

Hey! I don't have many pictures this week but I am going paintballing today so hopefully I can send some nice pictures from that!

So, the pictures, are from soccer last p-day, the view from the balcony of our flat (so far I have had two of the best flats in the mission.)  Just a random picture while we were driving, and the giant moth.

The scripture i want to leave with you this week is Alma 31:5. the thought that goes along with it is to imagine if you ever had to fight for your life, and how much of an impact that would make on who you are. Then think of how it said that the word of God has more of an impact than that of the sword, and all you have to do is try your very best to do as God asks. Just go ahead, give it a try and see the difference that will happen in your life.

Have a good week all!

Love Elder Smith.