4th Nov 2013, Distric Leader, Mdanstane South Africa

HAHA!!!

 I like How the Christmas lights are up! I think that's a nice feature to add to the Halloween spirit!  275 kids, still isn't too bad... I like the decorations though, you did a good job! Even got the big pumpkin out too! It was too bad that I couldn't be there for Halloween. They don't celebrate Halloween here... probably for good reasons.

 

 

You wanted to know about my companion eh? He is from the Kiribati Islands, you might have to Google that... His English is decent right now. He's been out for 4.5 months now, so I'm getting him in the state where he understands most things I say, and he responds decently, but just needs a larger vocabulary and better pronunciations. So it's not too bad.

It's just kind of weird though because in lessons he isn't very comfortable teaching in English, so I find myself teaching pretty much all of the lessons, but it's ok. I'm working with him on that.

  I love him! He's so kind and loving and he serves me so much! He makes me food every day! Breakfast, lunch, and dinner he is cooking for me and making me big meals! I'll send you a pic of one meal. He said that in his culture, the men cook, not the women. I'm not complaining!

 

 

 

Also I'm exercising like a maniac every morning and Elder Warantino is my trainer. I'm going to be ripped! He is a professional boxer! He's been boxing since he was 8 yrs old! Also He loves to work hard and his last companion didn't like to work at all... so he's really happy to be with me so that we can both work really hard looking for those ready to hear the Gospel! I haven't been this happy and this full of the spirit in a long time, so I'm really enjoying myself!

 I made those pancakes from the mix you sent me for my birthday. That was glorious!!!! Especially the 100% pure maple syrup!!! SO AWESOME!!!

 I forgot what I was missing! Elder Warantino said he had never tasted something like that before! All they have for syrup here is corn syrup with different flavours... not so great... so the real maple syrup was really nice THANKS!

 

 

As for how my new area is doing right now... well the missionary I replaced was not that dedicated to the work, so the area needs a lot of work... so this week I have been going around meeting people and setting appointments and we are already pretty full. We are going to be focusing on working with members as much as possible to get the work just pumping here!  Also we have 4 young men we are teaching who should be ready for baptism at the end of this month, hopefully! So good things are happening!!!!!

Right now I am in a place where they speak predominantly Xhosa so I will try hard to learn it as best as I can so that when I come home I can share my testimony in that language.

 Haha! As for that missionary we picked up from the airport from Raymond, Kash Ellingson, his mom should know that there are predominantly 3 languages here that he will encounter... there are a lot more, but there are 3 main ones. Xhosa, Afrikaans, and English. Thankfully for the most part, everyone knows English... So he won't be fluent in any new language, but he will learn the greetings and basic things from a few languages.

 Well I'm having a hard time focusing in this email shop from all the noise around me so I’m sorry about this email being lame... I am doing great though and hopefully I'll be able to write a better letter next week. Thanks for all of the support!

 If there were any questions I didn't answer, just re-ask for next time...

  I love you all!

 -Elder Jones