Merry Christmas

Christmas is here everyone! 

Yesterday we had a babptism for our investigator Brother Pencil. He is super awesome and such a wonderful addition to the branch here! He is the first person that i have personally baptized and that was super awesome as well! 

We also did exchanges with the zone leaders and the district leader this week so i got some pictures of the ZCC (Zion christian church) city on the way to the zone leaders area! ZCC is one of the biggest churches here in south Africa. Especially here in Limpopo because this is where they started, it is kind of like the Mormon utah, just not as big. Also i sent some pictures from the barbecue we had with  member while we were doing service the other day.  

We have had a wonderful but slow week here,in Polokwane! There is no snow but i have a little bit of Christmas music, aaaaaand i managed to get hold of a small tree for our flat!  

I dont have too much to say, but i just want to wish everyone a merry Christmas! I love you all and wish you the best! 

Love you! 

Elder Smith!

No need to cry over spilled milk

A week full of excitement! 

fun stuff. I am kinda lazy today, and low on time so how about just a short fail story? 

I was trying to make custard this morning and so i left some milk (all of our milk) on the stove to come to a boil, i came back a short while later to check on it and the pot was empty with the milk all over the stove, i guess it all boiled out... so much for that custard... 

The rest of the week was pretty cool! We are going to have a baptism next week, of brother pencil, i dont know if i have talked about him before but he is super awesome, he was taught by missionaries two years ago, and we found some old records and started teaching him again. Now he is going to be baptized! Which is way awesome. Also one of the missionaries that started teaching him is serving in seshego, but he stays in polokwane so he is going to come to the baptism. 

I got a super dope sword from a member, and an awesome chess set(the pieces all together are quite "heavy metal" HAH! ;) )

Anyway, i am out of time so i gotta go! Talk to you all later! Have a good Christmas! 

Love Elder Smith! 

"You're now on the stage of a Sister Missionary"

Elder Spence and i are enjoying life together as missionaries! We are working hard and making everything fun! 

During a conversation we had, he said to me "you are now on the stage of a sister missionary." This being in reference to me only having eighteen months left on mission now. I found this quite amusing so i though i would share it with you guys. And ha! Any of my sister friends leaving on missions will now get home after me! 

This week has been fun and enjoyable but sadly we have had a lot of people leaving on holidays or constantly working. It is either one or the other. So the work is slow, but we do the best we can.

On Friday we had to help the other elders move out of their flat into a new one. Those elders were the ones that lived next to Louise (one of our investigators) Louise loves having the missionaries next door. And she loves to feed them, so she was very sad to see them go. So sad that she was even joking about breaking the flats windows just so that the church had to bring some other missionaries to stay in that flat.  She gave us a delicious meal the night before. And when we were moving the Owens (senior couple) also fed us some awesome pulled pork. So yay for food! 

We had a super fun branch Christmas party on Saturday and that was pretty great! We had lots of food! (yay food) and games and stuff, they had the missionaries come and share a spiritual thought as well. And we had some fun dancing at the party as well. I got to show them my strange mix between white guy dancing and African dancing. 

I am low on time so i just want to share one of my favorite scriptures from this week. 

1 nephi 7:12 Remember that with God all is possible as long as we exercise faith in him! 

Have a good week everybody! 

Love Elder Smith! 

Whoopee Cushion Wars?

Alright! This week has been great, though it was quite slow. On Tuesday Elder Çoka and i went into Pretoria to drop him off and pick up my Greenie. That drive is about three hours and by the time we got to Pretoria my car was super upset and would hardly accelerate anymore. So that was fun, the same thing happened on the way back to Polokwane.  The car does not like long drives. 

But yes! A new companion! My New companion is Elder Spence, he is from Montana USA! He is way cool and we have been having a blast and getting along very well. I recently acquired a whoopee cushion and we have been passing that back and forth trying to trick each other all week. Sadly i accidentally stepped on it when it was hidden under my kneeling cushion and i got frustrated that he caught me so i jumped and landed on it (on accident)... i popped it in the progress, but i think i have managed to fix it, so we will let the games continue! 

Being around new missionaries is always fun, but training a new one is even more so! I took him to a member that we visit(Lionel) But i told elder Spence that he was an investigator. Lionel did a great acting job and even convinced Elder Spence that some guy had just stolen his bed and tv (Lionel is moving to Tonga so he just sold his bed and tv) Lionel played a really angry guy who would hardly let us speak as we attempted to teach him the message of the restoration. Elder Spence went away from that lesson with determination and excitement to come back again and help Lionel overcome his struggles ( true missionary material, it made me feel a little bad that Lionel was only part of training.) 

We returned to visit Lionel on Saturday, but revealed that Lionel was actually a member, Elder Spence was in shock for quite a while after that, but we let him know how great of a job he did and how impressed we were. At his wonderful missionary work. He really did a great job and i am proud to have such a wonderful companion at my side. 

The scripture that i want to share with you this week is John 21:25

Jesus did so many wonderful things that we could not even have a full record of them here upon this earth. But there is one thing that i know he did, and that is called the atonement. Jesus Christ suffered everything that we ever have in our lives, he has gone through everything and knows everything that we have faced or will face. Because of this he has complete empathy for us, he cares for us and loves us, he is there for us no matter what it is that we are facing in our life. 

Jesus Christ is one person that is always there, prepared to listen to us and support us through all of our trials in life, and i have seen him do that for me, So i want to encourage all of you, let him lift you up as well. 

Life might be tough bit keep Pressing forward! 

Love Elder Smith.