25th Feb 2013 Zone Leader in Cape Town, South Africa

Good Morning!

Thanks for the support! And for the update on everything! Sounds like you had fun in the snow too! Those were cool pictures! It great to hear about what is happening at home! Well this past week has seemed like it has taken forever! A lot has happened!

 First I will start with the events that happened after I emailed last time, so last pday. We went Croc hunting again and this time we went to the bottom of a Dam that is by our area. So we drove to it and then parked at the bottom of the dam and got out and went to the river to search for crocodiles. Well that was probably the dumbest place to go, at the bottom of the dam, because there are no croc's there. What we did find though was a bunch of Xhosa kids! They were swimming in the water and cliff jumping and stuff! It was really cool! I got some videos of them doing flips and stuff!

Then since they said there were no crocs, we decided to just have fun and explore around the river. So we go exploring and we crossed the river over a bunch of rocks. When we got to the other side we walked around and looked at all the cool stuff by the river. We decided it was time to go back to the car. So we went back to the place where we crossed the river, but this time there wasn't a pathway of rocks to get across, it was a raging river! We were stuck... Luckily all of these Xhosa kids told us they had a way to get across. They said we needed to climb up and go across the dam. So we start following them. They brought us to this cliff face and then started climbing up the side of it! Not expecting that, but not having much choice, we followed. Luckily we were all able to scale the wall safely and everything was ok! We climbed up and crossed over the dam and got to our car and went to our appointment... an hour late... I learned a valuable lesson from all of that. Heed the warning signs!!!

 

As we got out of the car and went to the river side, there was a sign that said, "Warning: random flooding occurs due to automatic flood gates." I read it but just shrugged it off not thinking much of it... Well we suffered the consequences for not heeding the warning sign! reminds me of the warning signs that the prophets and apostles and scriptures give us, and how if we listen to their counsel, we won’t get caught on the other side of the river with the only way back being a long and dangerous journey, but we will be able to avoid those dangers and make it safe and on time. I can't lie though, that was a fun adventure! But being spiritually caught on the other side of the river is not a fun adventure...

The next day I left to East London and spent the night there, then in the morning I flew out for Cape Town! It was nice to be home in Cape Town again! I'm now with Elder Twitchell and I'm loving it! He's from Utah! He's very diligent with the work and very obedient and I'm loving it! My Zone Leader duties are still somewhat unknown to me. I know what they are, but I don't know how to do them all yet, so Elder Twitchell is teaching me these things. Right now I'm kind of just riding along, I feel like a greeny again just learning everything over again, but I'm slowly starting to get into the rhythm of things. It's only been 5 days... It's coming.

Also this weekend was Stake Conference! It was awesome! And I got to see some people from Khayelitsha! That was cool! They all thought I was home already! I was so spiritually edified and uplifted by Stake Conference! It was awesome! There was an area authority there and he had some powerful talks! One particular one stuck out to me about Pornography! He spoke so passionately about how destroying pornography is! He spoke about how he knows 7 families that have been destroyed because of the stuff and he said that the amount of members of the church who are tampering with the stuff is astounding. He spoke of how pornography is a big stumbling block to the growth of the church and how it is affecting the worthiness of a lot of the priesthood holders in the church. He also spoke of how that is the tool that satan is using to destroy God's children. He was very bold and passionate about this topic and I loved it! I wish I could portray the spirit that I felt when I was listening to him speak! There is also a cool Mormon message that he showed that shows about the impact of pornography. "A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, so watch your step." -an old proverb.

Well my time is spent! I love you all! thanks for the support! Take luck!

-Elder Jones