October 18, 2009

Well it’s good to hear from you all. It is so good to get emails. This week has gone by really fast. I turned 8 months today. It’s really hot around here but thankfully we have had a little bit of rain. It’s really hard to get people to come to church. I don’t know why. Everyone promises to come but then for some reason or another they never show up.
We are staying really busy too. We come back to the flat every night totally bushed. It is so hard to get anything done at the post office. When you’re standing in line people just walk to the front and get what they want done. The people in line don’t care either. Finally I couldn’t stand it and told one guy “Hey the end of the line is over there” This was his reply, “Akasibe Selungu” (I don’t know English) what a liar, lol. Oh well I dealt with it and got out of there. I'm trying not to complain. So somewhere in our flat is a cockroach nest. It is probably somewhere in our room. Because every once and awhile we find a huge 2-3 inches long crawling around. The other day when we got back to our flat I saw one. And we were trying to decide how to kill it. It was on top of Elder Ehrenzellers laundry bag. He decided to shoot it with his wrist rocket. I’m not exaggerating when I say it exploded. Pieces flew everywhere. It was pretty awesome.
We taught a lesson to a guy named Jeffery on Thursday. He was pretty much crazy. But he said a phrase like 5 or 6 times and to this day I don’t know what it means. “We’ll see what fries the fish, if not oil.” It was so funny to hear him say. During the lesson he asked us to explain the word restoration to some other people that were there. He knew what it meant but he was sure no one else there did. So we asked him to explain the meaning. “I can’t because I don’t want them to think that I’m better than them so you have to do it.” That was fun.
Yesterday at our cottage meeting in motupa, we were going to pick someone up for church, I mean walk with someone. They didn’t show and we started back towards the house. And we realized that we were going to be late. So we started to run. Now if you’re an African living in a village far away from town, and you see 2 white guys in suits running through your village something is wrong, lol. We got all kinds of strange looks.
Anyway thanks for the prayers and the emails. I love you all, Benjamin

October 11, 2009

Another week of emailing. I love hearing from everybody. Its good to hear that everyone is doing so good. Everthing id fine over here on my side. So I guess my b day is coming up. First of all I want to wish Pattie a happy birthday. Shes what 18. Oh man everyone is leaving me behind. lol. Anyway first of money would be nice. But Music is always nice. The one motab that i do have is reqium by mack wilberg. I would like consider the lillies. I think the other one is called showtime, or something like that. Some classical cds would be really cool. I want the at one of Bach where he pounds away on the organ. That one song that is on fantasia. That would be pretty cool. Music is always good to have. If it is possible some shoes would be nice. Like p day shoes. I have those ones i brought but they are almost done. And they dont make my size anywhere in Tzaneen. I have literally looked everywhere. I need size 13 wide or 15. But only if its possible if not its okay. I cant really think of anything else at the moment but i will tell you some more next week. Things are going good. We had 2 confirmations yesterday. We have just had a good time. There is a sangoma ( a sangoma is a traditional healer ) they belive in ancestors and where crazy stuff, Ill send a picture sometime. There is one named rainbow. He is a famous one around Tzaneen. Anyway elder couch wanted to go see him before he left. He is one interesting character. What he says makes absolutly no sense. But anyway he has some really weird stuff. He has a goat purse. A gout that he killed and took all the suff out but made him a purse. Head tail legs and stuff is still on there. He even sewed a zipper into it. He also has a monkey head on the end of one of his staves. He is weird. He has a gun that is made out of wood that will take peoples power. Anyway, we found this tailor whos makes really nice suits. He is like the best tailor is SA or something like that. But they are exspensive. Like 300 to 400 dollars for a nice 3 peice suit. I want one really bad. If i had the money I would get one. Elder Ehrenzeller wants to get a zebra print 3 peice suit. So he is going to see how much it will be. Other than that stuff everything is going good. Time is flying by. I love you all thanks for everything. Benjamin

October 5, 2009

How's it every body? things are going great over here in the African Jungle. Thankfully we have a satellite to watch conference. It's broadcast live so we miss the last session but don't worry I saw Mom. I made sure everyone else knew it. Whenever I pointed her out everyone says in unison,"Oh earls gettin trunky" for a second I get trunky but then I snap out of it. Everything is going great. Last Saturday we went to a funeral. Oh man that was really interesting. It is so different from your usual funeral. There was never any silence. Not for the whole 3 hours we were there. Even between speakers there are people singing. How it works is if some one knows a song they just start singing then everyone else joins in. So it starts to turn in to a competition. Walking around, between every speaker. Whenever someone gets a chance they start singing. It was really weird. I enjoyed it though. we were the only white people so we were treated like kings. It was nice. Taking to the front of the food lines and everything. They spoke in sotho so I couldn't understand anything they said. And there was even a pastor who preached a little.

It is starting to get really hot. Lately it's been raining and it has been nice. But when the sun is out, in 5 minutes your sweating. The mango's are almost ready. In some of the villages the only trees around are mango trees, just hundreds of them that are natural. Ill get a picture one of these days. But anyway I love you all. Thanks for your prayers. and everything else.
Benjamin

September 27, 2009

Hey everyone, how is everything going over there? From what it sounds like things are good. I'm doing great. Things are looking good up here in Tzaneen. We had 2 baptisms yesterday and i got to do the honors. First time baptizing someone that was really cool. I love the spirit while you are in the water. It was scary because that morning we got a text from one of them saying that they weren't ready. So we dropped everything and went to talk to her. She was in tears, but she said she would come. After the baptisms she bore her testimony and she said that she was so dumb for being scared. The spirit is definitely real and its only in our church. That much i know.
This week was Zone Conference, and it was really cool. Before that we went to a cheese farm. That was really interesting. We learnde how to make cheese. And it is so easy. Pretty much you mix bacteria and milk and yogurt then heat it then let it dry. Depending on how long you let it sit makes the type of cheese. It was interesting. We are staying really busy. Our days are always full which is different than from a few weeks ago. Its very interesting how things around here have changed. Me and Elder Ehrenzeller are getting along great. We work well together and have fun as well. Transfers are coming up and we will see if I go anywhere I don't think so but you never know with Pres Poulsen.
We are kind of running out of things to do on p day so we are coming up with some interesting things. Like today we are going to try a bicycle super-cross. There is a little track in one of the parks around here and we are going to do some time trials. That should be a lot of fun. Anyway thanks for everything. Keep the commandments and all that stuff. Heavenly Father will continue to bless you.

Benjamin

September 20, 2009

Well its great to hear from everyone. I'm glad that everything is going well back home. Everything is going great up here. I'm so stinky busy. I'm so bushed when we get back to the flat. Recently our numbers haven't been that great but that doesn't really matter right. We are working very hard. Elder Ehrenzeller and I are deciding to live the Law of Consecration with our food next transfer so we will see how that goes. The biggest problem we have been having is that our investigators don't come to church. A thing I've noticed about this country is every one is really good at promising, then just as good at breaking that promise. " Oh don't worry you will see me there please don't worry I'll be there". Then no one at church. " Oh sorry I was at a funeral". That is the biggest excuse for anything. People will drive like 3 hours to a funeral for a person they don't even know just because of the free food. It's so annoying. So people every weekend have little vacations from going to peoples funerals. Any way another thing is that it is so hot over here. I've never been this hot in my entire life. It's over 100 degrees and I'm wearing a white shirt and tie. Ive lost some weight i think in sweating all day. Mom can you send me your brownie recipe. The branch president had some American brownies once and absolutely loved them so maybe Ill make them for him or something they are freakin demonati, (delicious in sepedi). Any way I love you all. Thanks for all the prayers.
Benjamin

September 13, 2009

Hey everyone, It's good to hear that everything is going good. Its about time you got those pictures. I was starting to worry. I’m actually very excited to make dinner for you guys. The cool thing about dinner here is that you eat it with your hands. Don’t worry I’ll teach you the techniques and stuff.
The week has been really good. Elder Ehrenzeller is helping me out a lot. He is a really good guy. We are doing a lot better in this area. We just have full days now lots of appointments. It’s so great. We have some baptisms coming up on the 27th. So I’m pretty excited for those. We also had 4 people to church the past 2 weeks. That hasn’t happened in a long time here in Tzaneen.
Mom thank you for the recipe I'm going to try it today I hope I can find all the stuff. I also would like your universal bread recipe, the one that you make breadsticks out of. That would be awesome. We had a few experiments the last couple of weeks. When we are bored on p days we always think of something interesting to cook. The first thing is we tried to make a cake from papaya. That was okay then we tried papaya cookies not so good. The other day I just got done making some fries. And Elder Ehrenzeller asked if I was done with the oil. “Hey lets fry some stuff”. So we did. We fried some bread which was really good. Then we sprinkled some garlic salt then it was even better. The other thing we fried was an apple. It was okay. I bet if we cover it with some kind of breading it would be better.
That would be really awesome if you could send me some motab choir cds. Or classical ones they are both good. Its hard to get music that is okay to listen to over here.
We got some free paintings from one of our investigators. She is a really old lonely Afrikaner. She really just wants someone to talk to. We couldn’t even get thru the first lesson but we ended up with some free paintings that are really good. One of them is a huge rhino that is running another is some kind of bird in the water. But they are really good. People love giving stuff to the missionaries.
We are currently driving a Toyota Yaris that is a terrible car. Don’t ever buy one. All it does is fall apart. All is does is give us trouble. It wastes a lot of our time and the lords money. Now the Chevrolet Aveo is a nice reliable car. If you ever need to buy a cheap car the Aveo is the way to go.
I cant remember If I told you this already or not I cant remember but last week we went to a place called strydom tunnel it’s a cool place where you can buy African stuff. I bought an eternal family Its six people holding hands its really cool. I cant wait to put that on the piano. Another thing was a walking stick with a lion head on it. It had all kinds of cool stuff. I hope that I can bring a lot of this stuff home. Well I love you all very much I miss you but not too bad. Keep up the good work.
Benjamin