No Longer Green?

Whoa, a lot had happened this week! 

So lets just dive right in! I have hit my six month mark, which makes me officially no longer a greenie so that is pretty cool. 

Also we had zone conference, That was pretty rad, we had some super cool presentations and lessons and stuff. But the most stressful part about it for me was that the AP'S called us the night before at 9:45 and told me that president just decided that he wants me to give a fifteen minute talk at the conference in the morning. The stressful thing was that i was already asleep and lights out is at 10. Also they generally give this assignments a week or two before. But none the less i think i pulled off a pretty successful talk as i saw people taking notes and even the mission presidents wife said she loved it. Job well done? 

Black Friday happened.... We went to get lunch after district meeting on Friday and it ended up taking five hours.... Wow, frustrating! 

We played some football Saturday morning which was pretty fun, it was raining a lot and we got totally soaked! But it was fun anyway, i much prefer playing in the rain than in the sun. 

Saturday night we got transfer news, Now my companion and i were pretty sure that we would stay together because we are both fairly new in the area and there is less elders coming in than there are leaving so we thought the odds were stacked in our favor that we would stay together. (Actually everyone thought we would. ) But it turns out we were wrong! My companion is headed to mamelodi! (in Pretoria, it's similar to his first area.)

It turns out that the reason for Elder Çoka leaving is because president wanted me to train a new elder in Polokwane! So my new companion will be Elder Spence, I'm not sure where he is from but i will be sure to let you guys know next week, for sure though he is from The USA. (Also my first american companion except elder Hillyer who i had for two weeks.) 

Not only am i training however but all three Americans from my mtc group are training, thats Elder Harms(i predicted that) and elder Spencer (he wanted to train elder Spence very bad.) Not only them either but also two elders who are younger than us! Wow, the mission is being trained by young people this transfer! Oh! And i found out who the Elder from ak is, its elder Palmer he is coming in a couple days from eagle river. 

Anyway, come Sunday and elder Çoka gives his farewell testimony and i am asked to give a talk in church. People liked my talk, job well done? Also they were super upset to see Elder Çoka leaving.

Went around saying goodbye to people and ended up with two dinner appointments. I cannot say i am happy to see Elder Çoka go either, i have had a wonderful time with him and sure will miss him. He made several people cry because he is leaving.  But i am excited to meet my new elder and bring him up to speed on the ins and outs of missionary work. 

In other smaller news we have a wonderful new investigator named Silentino he came to church with us on Sunday and said that he only got three hours of sleep because he was so excited to go to church. 

The work is coming along in Polokwane and if i do say so myself it is developing into one of the best areas in the mission! 

The scripture for this week is 1 timothy 4:12 Remember that no matter what people say or do they cannot change you actions. Stand strong and be an example of Christ in everything you do. 

Love Elder Smith! 

Taaaacos!

Not too much to write about this week but we have been working hard! 

We had tacos for the first time in a long time (there is no Mexican food in Africa) It was super sweet! The mission couple made us tacos when we helped them clean out one of the missionary flats. That was super sweet and awesome, cause i have been missing tacos soooo much! 

Other things that happened is we found out that only 7 of the 12 missionaries that are supposed to come in this transfer are going to make it because of visa issues, which is a problem because we already dont have enough missionaries in the mission for all of the areas and we are losing eight missionary this transfer. 

So the other Polokwane area is almost certainly not going to open up again, which is both awesome and not awesome. Because i love the area being put in to one but there is also just way too much work for us to do here and we cant get to all of it ourselves. 

The best and most exciting part of the week is that we had a baptism! We started teaching Goldie seven weeks ago and he progressed wonderfully and loves the Gospel and the church. It was so awesome to see her following Jesus Christ and being baptized! 

Otherwise there is not much else to share from this week other than the fact that every \thing is going well and i know the lord truly does answer prayers.

Remember to pray always and trust in the Lord! 

Love Elder Smith! 

Another week goes by

Ladies and gentleman! Here we goooo, on another adventure through my past week! 

Why dont we start this one of with the scripture eh?

1 John 4:7-9

Love is extremely important especial in the kingdom of God, If we desire to follow Christ and become like him there is little more important than having true love one for another.

Now other than that there are quite a few things that have happened this week! 

1. I held a snake for the first time, that was pretty sick, BTW i hate snakes. Man it was such a sweet thing, we have and awesome district and we all went to the snake park. I cant say i was not a little scared when the snake was slithering around my neck. 

2. We got to say goodbye to some of the university students who are leaving! Sad day! We also celebrated one of their birthdays, I made them brownies but they don't know brownies here so we just call it cake. 

3.I guess today is going to talk about food a couple times. This week i had Indian food for the first time in my life from a really sweet family we have been meeting with, they are members that moved up from Durban a couple months back. They had their parents over and so we were invited for dinner. I thoroughly enjoyed this meal, it was spicy but great! However my companion was about ready to die!  I guess this is one point for elder smith and 0 for Elder Çoka.

4. We had Mogodu for the first time this week, for those of you who do not know what that is it's tripe, or cow intestines. Yay! Or not, though the cook is one of the sweetest ladies ever and one of the best cooks i have ever met i cannot say that i thoroughly enjoyed that meal. In fact i was hardly able to swallow four pieces before they took it away and brought me chicken instead. :/ My stomach may have gotten a lot stronger but i guess i am not completely African yet. And that brings the companionship to a 1-1 score in the food department as elder Çoka loved the meal. 

5. Also this week i had one of the fanciest meals in my life. Scratch that, the fanciest meal i have ever had. Remember last time i mentioned the sweet old lady we are teaching? She invited the four missionaries over for dinner and it was just beautiful, and wonderful food as well. She also came to church on Sunday and she enjoyed it! So yes, we are moving forward. 

Other than all of that the missionary work is doing wonderfully! We had our second PEC meeting Sunday morning and we are getting together a branch mission plan. Yesterday we also jumped from having 1-2 investigators at church to 7! 

This just shows he power of hard work, prayer and obedience! 

I just want to leave with a short testimony. I know that our savior Jesus Christ lives. I know God is constantly looking out for us and there to guide us if we just listen. The book of Mormon is Gods word, and we have a living prophet upon the earth to guide us and teach us the way if we but choose to follow. 

Elder Smith.

Another pair bites the dust

"did you just rip your pants?" - Elder Çoka - Elder Smith's Companion.

So this week a ripped my second pair of pants since i got to Africa, which is pretty cool. If i continue at this rate i might have one pair of pants left by the time i go home. 

Wow, these weeks with Elder Çoka have been just breezing past, he is super awesome and we dont go a day without having lots of fun and working hard. 

This week has been pretty sweet, we got to go to Tzaneen which i have heard missionaries talking about since i got into the field. Tzaneen is a place in my zone, but about an hour away, 100 Kilometers. So the only people that go there are the elders that serve that side. However we had our zone activity over there, and man, that was awesome. The drive is beautiful and it does not look like you're in Africa at all. I will see what i can send, i have one good video but the it's too long to send. 

Otherwise this week we also had exchanges and i got to go over to Mokopane with elder Spencer (he is from my mtc group and was in Botswana same time as me.) That was super sick and it was awesome to not have to worry about leading my area for a day. My companion only got lost once while i was gone so that is good. 

On the subject of the lords work we have also been progressing very well. We just got a new branch mission leader as the old one had too much on his plate being also the elders quorum president and the institute teacher. So that is super good.

We have also been working with some super awesome people. And are teaching a wonderful old lady who loves the missionaries. She stays right next door to the Seshego elders, but is in our area. She feeds those elders all the time and has invited all four of us over for a feast this Wednesday. It seems that if a missionary flat is right next to an old lady they are in for a treat because i had the same thing in Botswana. 

Anyway, life is going great! I love this area and all of the people here are great, the branch is growing very well and i have seen awesome improvement since my first week here.

That is it for today!  Have a good week everyone! 

Love Elder Smith!