3rd Dec 2012 In the city Knysna, South Africa

Hi Mom and Dad  

 

Time is just flying by! Transfers are in 2 days, so Wednesday, but we won't find out what our transfer news is until tonight! Arg! That is always poopy... so I'll let you know next Monday what happened to me and what’s going on with the Christmas call.

 

 

 So Riley ended up settling for a small one eh... It's good to see that the family is doing well though! Just mentioning fish'n chips is making my mouth water! All the food from back home I just miss so much! I am managing to make my eating habits more like home though. I have a good method of frying burgers in the oven, and then I get all the fixings and I have burgers! They are pretty good actually! And here and there I'll have smokeys aswell, but the smokeys and burgers here aren't as good as home... It's honestly like I'm living off of dollar store food...

 

I attached a whole bunch of pictures and I'm going to send another email with a series of pictures that if possible you should put into a panorama or just look at them consecutively and see what we were seeing! My camera doesn't have the panorama feature.

 

We haven’t seen the Christmas Devotional yet... I don't even know if we ever will... This part of the world is way out of the loop! We are so blessed to live in Canada Serving here has given me a huge appreciation for the country which I call home! I love you both! Not much time today to respond. Yet another week! How crazy! I bet it's getting old hearing me start out my blogs the same way every time, but honestly, the time is flying by!

 

Transfers are this week and I won't know until tonight what my transfer news is, so I'll keep ya updated next week. It should be time for me to go though... I've only had 2 areas and it's been a year! I've only had 5 companions and it's been a year! Time for a change I think! But I really really love Knysna! It's an incredible place! Literally the most beautiful area in the mission and I was lucky enough to be here for 6 months! Not to mention the work is great here! If I get transferred, I will miss 3 baptisms that we have set for the 16th of December... this week we were able to give out 5 Baptism Dates. 3 for the 16th of December, and 2 for the 20th of January.

 

 

There's good stuff happening here! I love it! One of the most successful areas in the mission. The Zone Leaders were telling me that Knysna is leading the mission in stats. So that's pretty cool! But I can't just sit in this area my whole mission... I need to have challenges and to be tested! I need to grow, and it’s hard to grow when the area goes so well.

 Anyways... This week it was raining alot but we had some awesome experiences! We had exchanges with the Zone Leaders too, and Elder Critchfield and I had some powerful lessons! One lesson with a less active, who has been a member for 11 years, opened up after sharing most of the lesson and shared how he doesn't think he has ever tried getting a spiritual confirmation that the Book of Mormon was true and now he was willing to read ponder and pray about it to get a testimony for himself. He had always just believed it, but now he wanted to KNOW for himself! That was sweet! 

 

Also we went tracting in town and got a couple potential white investigators, which is awesome! One had a GIANT dog in its front yard and we almost died! but not really... we were fine... then we shared a powerful lesson on eternal families with the Myingwa family and the spirit was so strong and we committed them to prepare for the temple, even though 2 of them aren't baptized yet.

 

 

We also had one of the worst days yet this week. On Saturday, the senior couple from Cape Town, Elder and Sister Oldham, came to inspect our flat. Well it was raining and they took us out for dinner after, which was nice, and then we were planning on having them join us in a couple appointments afterwards. Well our appointments all dropped us then we tried our backup plans, and they all didn't work out. So we tried our double backups, and they didn't work out either... That was crazy! I have never had an experience like that here in Knysna before! We always have someone to teach, for the most part, and for a backup then a double backup to fall through is insane! So that was a bummer... and the Oldhams ended up just taking a tour of the township, and we popped in on Sister Yoliswa to say hi and then they left... Oh well... sometimes it happeneds.. 

 

. Yesterday at church we only had 7 investigators this time. But that's pretty much it for the update this week. Today we are going to the Heads (place again) with the George Elders. They have never been before and they wanted to do a joint P-Day. We were going to go to an animal sancuary or something, but It didn't end up happening... so the Heads instead...

 

Thanks for all of the support! I love you all so much! Take luck!

 

-Elder Jones