Pink eye

Hi family

This one is going to be a little shorter today cause I spent more time on personal emails! BUT it was still a reaaaally good week!!! 

So we met a family that just moved in called the Sitole's! They Lived here 5 years ago and then moved but now they are back! The mom is a single mother of 8 kids and 4 of them are old enough to be baptized...soooo we are preparing them for the 22nd of November!!!

She isn't being baptized this week! Someone died in her family so she had to go out of town but we are going to baptize her on the 22nd as well! But Sister Zime is all ready to go and I am giving a talk during church about baptism and Elder Aygeman is baptizing her! 

We talked to Brother Zwelli and he had a black eye and stuff and he said that a gang is like after him...sooo he's probably moving to Durban...so I don't think we are going to get to baptize him but we will see! I'm praying for him! 

So the coolest thing this week was on thursday. I woke up and I looked in the mirror and my right eye was all red and puffy and I could tell that it was pink eye. And I was SO sad cause I wouldn't be able to work for like a week at least and pinkeye is the WORST! So I went and prayed and just asked if I could be healed...then I went to the mirror and it was gone. My eye was completely fine....MIRACLES ARE AMAZING. Seriously this church is so true. A real faith builder right there! :)

This Sunday was AMAZING!! We had 66 people there! the chapel was completely full!!!! It was a record breaker for this branch! :) I was really happy about that! :)

This week was great and I'm so grateful for all of your prayers and I love you all!!! I'm learning so much and I know without a shadow of a doubt that this church is true. I don't know what I would do without it! :)

Love you all!!!

Love Elder Eastmond

BUG OF THE WEEK

So I don't have a picture...but remember last week's bug of the week? The moth?? Well this week's bug of the week is the ants that live in my house....they literally ate the entire moth in a single day. So the moth died inside our house and was just laying in a corner when we left the house. Then we came back and the ants had completely taken it apart. It was completely gone...yeah that's crazy.

This concludes another BUG OF THE WEEK

This is what happens when a boy with a bright yellow personality is sent to Africa.

Springbox
 

BUG OF THE WEEK

This moth is literally the size of my fist.

The picture doesn't do it justice but yeah that's HUGE!

African Safari

Hello fammmmmmmmmmmmmmmily! <3 you guys! :) You all sound amazing and the halloween decorations are looking faaaabulous! :) and a special shoutout to dad. Happy Birthday Pops! :)

This week seriously flewwww by! A lot has been going on and keeping me super busy so I think that's why! :) 

So first of all I just want to let you all know how insane our house is. First of all it's haunted. The alarm system just goes off allllll the time and we don't know the password so we just have to sit there and try to read our scriptures as the alarm is turning our brains to mush. So that's good :) And then the doors always just fly open and slam shut which is suuuper freaky. And yeah we are just infested with poltergeists. But that's not all that we are infested with...ANTS. Literally there are ants everywhere. I am so tired of them. I had a whole bottle of honey and they managed to get inside it. Like 200 of them were just inside my honey. No i did not still eat it.

So on Tuesday last week was like the hottest day i've ever experienced in my life. Even the people here said that they had never experienced that heat before. And we got to bike around in it! :) So ya know how sometimes sweat drips off of your face? Yeah this time it was a steady stream. I'm not lying. It was disgusting. So that's when I decided who needs hair anyways?? Yep I shaved my head and It's the best decision i've ever made. So much cooler now! But yeah, right after I did that, the next day was actually cold and rainy and it even started to hail...like sooooo hard! They were HUGE hail peices too! Like the size of quarters!! So cray cray! The people have no idea what the weather is doing. Pretty sure I brought the crazy utah weather with me...woops...

FOOD: Sooooo I haven't eaten too much weird food! Apparently they LOVE KFC here because it is everywhere! hahaha who knew?? But yeah mostly it's just rice and chicken which is awesome! BUT the other day I had something that was pretty interesting....Pretty sure that it was cow intestines.... it was horrible.... I can still remember the taste....yuck. I just would take a bite and then drink juice and swallow it like a pill! Brilliant! :) But at our house literally all I eat is peanut butter. Okay I eat other things too but I have developed the biggest love for peanut butter <3

On Friday we had exchanges! So I went with Elder Nkomo to his area! Annnnd I got to drive the Bakki (truck) and it was soooooo sick! :) I was afraid to drive it because Elder Pinkston has just been having the biiiiiiggest trouble driving it! But when I drove it it was actually suuuper easy! :) I realized that if I could handle driving my car at home then I could handle anything ;) Geez that thing was craaaazy! :) 

But exchanges were pretty fun! :) It was cool to see a new teaching perspective. But the only thing is that Elder Nkomo speaks Zulu so in some lessons he would just be speaking Zulu with the people and I would just kind of be sitting there and then Nkomo would just look at me like it was my turn to talk and I would just be like,"Well I don't speak Zulu but....." and then just say some bogus thing. Hahaha it was pretty funny! :) 

We haven't been able to meet Zwelli at all this week cause he's been sick but we will see how that goes! Sister Sne and Sister Zime are both being interviewed for baptism on friday so I'm really stoked about that! :) Also one of the highlights this week was teaching this 17 year old kid named Quiniso. He's really good friends with some members but he's not a member! We taught him about faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, and enduring to the end and then I challenged him to baptism on the22nd of november and he accepted! So now we have 4 people on baptism dates! :) We are also reaaaally close to getting this family I think so I'll keep you updated on that! It would be so amazing to help an entire family! :)

So this week has been amazing but one of the best things we did was today: WE WENT ON A SAFARI!!! We woke up at 4:30this morning and drove like 2 hours to this game park and you can just drive through it yourself! It was seriously the coolest thing i've ever done! We saw a toooon of animals! The best ones we saw were Zebras, Rhinos, Warthogs, Wildabeast, this weird freaky bird that looked like an ostrich but it was like bright blue and kind of looked like Kevin from up, and AN ELEPHANT!! They say that it is super rare to see and Elephant but we saw one on our way out of the park! Literally I could have walked 5 steps and touched it...SO SICK! 

But when we first went into the park we drove for like 20 minutes and then we saw some zebra so we jumped out of the car to take pictures of them! And then we saw some rhinos so we took pictures of them too! Then we got back in the car and a little while later some rangers came and had us all get out of the car and they searched us and the car and everything and they said that we werent allowed to get out of the car because they've had problems with people killing rhinos in the park...which I think is insane because there are people all around,,,,I don't know how you could shoot a rhino and get away with it...hahaha but yeah so then we continued on our way and then later when we were leaving the park rangers pulled us over again and this time there were like 10 of them and they all had HUGE guns and they pulled us out of the cars again and were just questioning us about everything, especially the white guys! Hahaha they were asking us why we were even in Africa and stuff like that and they like deeeep search our car like pulled up carpet and took everything out of it and stuff it was seriously so crazy. I still don't even understand what gave them the right to do that buuuut it's a cool story! Hahaha then they followed us all the way out of the park! Hahaha it was really funny! But yeah the Safari was siiiick and I can't wait to see a lion sometime! :)

I'm loving mission so much right now and I'm so grateful for everyone that has made it possible for me to be out here! :) I love you all and I'm so grateful for all that you guys do for me! :) Sending sooooo many prayers your way and I"m grateful for all your prayers as well! :) 

With an extensive amount of love_Elder_Eastmond_

This is Elder Clayton fishing last P-day! The beach is amaaaaazing here!

This is our Chapel! It's a bunch of trailers! So coooool!

BUG OF THE WEEK

This bug of the week is a big nasty cockroach that was outside of our boarding! It should have been this huuuuuuge black wasp that I saw but I just ran away from that one.... It was honestly the size of my pointer finger....like it could have eaten my whole hand... but yeah here's this. But I'm getting super used to spiders now...they are all over. I just grab them and kill them with my hand now. Never thought that I would get the courage to do that...hahahaha 

Zwelli, Heat Wave and Machetes

Hello family!! You all sound so good so I'm happy about that! :) I'm really good as well! This week flew by super fast cause we are working soooo hard! I'm definitely getting lost in the work! :)

GEEEEEZ! That is so crazy that the house flooded!! That picture that dad sent me is freaking craaaazy!! I hope that everything is okay! For me I still feel like I'm at home because our washing machine sounds like it's gonna take off too!!! hahaha :)

A typical day for me is to wake up, shower, study, do training with my companion cause I'm still a noob, and then we eat lunch and head to the area. A ton of the work we do is with less active members. The branch can be pretty weak so we are just trying to strengthen it. But my favorite lessons are when we teach investigators! The guy that we challenged to baptism is named Zwelli! And I know that I probably shouldn't have a favorite investigator...hahaha but he is definitely my favorite investigator! He's a waaaaay cool guy! He's around 23 years old and he's friends with a less active member who is also 23 named thabani! I loooove teaching Zwelli cause he is just suuuper smart and he picks up on things so easily! I feel like I really connect with him really well too! And he came to church this Sunday which was like the highlight of my week!!! We scheduled him to get baptized on the 1st of November with another girl Called Sne! So I hope that those both work out! :) 

Something interesting that i've experienced is that we will be teaching people and they say that they don't believe what we are teaching, and then we ask if we can at least leave them with a prayer and they say yes and then they are like hey will you pray for me and help me get a job? And it's just interesting that they think that we aren't preaching the truth, yet they have faith that our prayers could help them...hahaha just kinda funny!!

So pretty sure that I'm gonna shave my head this week. This is the hottest place in the entire mission and we just found out thtat we are about to have a huuuuuge heat wave...so that's just great. Don't be suprised if you get pictures of me next week and I"m bald. 

So like I've said a lot, we have been working sooooooo hard! We worked a total of like 51 hours this week. An average for this mission is like 40. So we are killing it! One day we worked a 13 hour day! In the morning we got to help this Gogo (grandma) With her HUGE garden! She gave us machetes and I was just like, "ooooohhhh yeeeeeaaaahhhh" She had us ninja slice these huge bushes and it was so freaking sweet! Best gardening ever! I was better at it than Elder Aygeman cause my tennis muscles were helping me swing! ;) So for once I beat him at something! ;) He played soccer for university so he kicks my butt at biking and stuff....But geeeez we were tired that day! It feels good to work this hard! And we definitely got rewarded for all of the work on Sunday!

On Sunday we had 54 people there! Which is waaaay better than last week! The Chapel was almost completely full!! Of those people, 12 of them were less actives or investigators that we were working with! So that was seriously amazing! :) It's so good to get them to church! :) And I was just so stoked that Zwelli and Thabani were there! They both are just helping eachother out and it's been so neat to see how far that they have come! 

Fun fact: Did you know that Ether 12 says the word Faith 37 times???? I got a tiny book of mormon and I call it my Faith Book of Mormon. I go through and mark every single time it says the word faith and that chapter is just crazy! So yeah there's that.

We've been chased by a couple dogs but if you just step at them like you are going to fight them back then they run away so that's really cool. I haven't had to kick one yet! ;) 

So anyways I've just been good as ever! :) Thanks for all of your prayers and I hope that you can feel all of my prayers as well! :) I'm learning so much and It's amazing to be able to bring the gospel to other people. I've definitely taken this gospel for granted and I will never make that mistake again. It can change lives. The gospel can do anything. I have the biggest testimony of that! :) Love you all so much! :)

Love Elder Eastmond <3

First week in Esikahwini Oct. 5, 2015

Sweeeeeeet soccer field! These are all over.

This is my companion Elder Avgeman 

This was when Elder Pinkston crashed the Bakki into the garage...oh btw they call trucks Bakki's here so I will now be calling them that for the rest of my life! hahaha :)

MONKEEEEEEEES!!!

This is probably my most favorite picture of all time! These guys are
always just outside our boarding and they always want to kick the 

basketball around and they kick my butt at soccer so that's cool!

This is Snyder the Spider. Pretty sure that he bit me the first night that

 I was here. But I don't kill him. He just chills in my room. Also he's the fastest spider

 I've ever seen and he jumps sooooo high! he's seriously like a pet. I see him in 

a new placeevery single day. I hope that my companion doesn't kill him! hahaha

This concludes another 'Bug of the Week'.

Unjani family????? I love you guys so much and I miss you so much and I can feel your prayers and your love every single day so keep em coming cause I need them! :)

But I've made it to Durban now!!!! I have a ton of stuff on my list to write so this might be sooooo out of order but I'm just gonna type it all and hopefully it all makes sense... hahahaha:)

So first of all, I got sick in the MTC which was super lame. I just got like a cold so I could still go to class and stuff but I just had the worst headaches and my nose was like a snoterfall so that was just great! :) But I'm better now!

We got to watch Elder Scott's funeral live which was pretty cool! I'm so glad that he can be reunited with his wife again! He was talking about her for sooooo long and I bet they are just so happy now! :)

So on Tuesday morning we had to wake up at 4 in the morning in order to make our flight. So we piled into these big vans and we started driving. All of a sudden our driver pulled over and mumbled something in Zulu and got out of the car. We didn't know what was going on but then someone looked over at the dashboard and saw that our car was overheating. So the guy poured water in the engine and we started going again but in like 10 minutes it just overheated again. We had to stop at literally 15 gas stations on the way to the airport just so our car wouldn't explode. So we were soooo late for checking in so we were just sprinting through the airport with all our stuff but we made it so that's good!!

 So we flew to Durban and we Met President Zackrison and the AP's at the airport. One of them is Elder Clayton and the other one is Elder Sixaba and that x in his name is a click btw so that's AWESOME!

But yeah then we went to the mission home and had interviews with the president and he's a waaaay cool guy!! He's super nice and you can just tell that he cares so much for us! But then he assigned us to our areas!!

So I'm serving in a tiny little place called Esikahwini. It's up the coast from Durban by a bigger town called Richard's Bay. But Esikahwini is a township so almost everybodies houses are like shacks and made out of cement and stuff! It's suuuuch a cool place! The roads are mostly dirt and it's just so sick!

My companion is Elder Aygeman! He's from Ghana and he's sooooo cool!! Before he came he went to university to play soccer so he's suuuper good! He's gonna teach me! ;) But he's been an awesome trainer and he's already taught me soooo much!

We live in a house in the township with another companionship. Remember Elder Pinkston? My companion from the mtc? Yeah he lives in the same house as me... hahahaha he's companions with a guy named Elder Nkomo. That means Cow in Zulu! hahaha but he's soooo funny! He's the biggest guy ever but he's such a teddy bear! He's super duper quiet but when he talks he's hilarious. He always knocks on our door to our room at night and when we open it he just gives a thumbs up and walks away...hahaha so funny! :) Everyone gives thumbs up here and it's so awesome! Even the gangters give me thumbs up! hahaha

But yeah They live in our house but they work in a different area called Port Dunford. and we only have one car at our house and they get it.... so we bike everywhere which is AWESOME! It's like mountain biking on all these  dirt hills and stuff! But everyone wants to steal our bikes so we ride really really fast! hahahahaha It's suuuuuper hot here too! It's the hottest place in the mission so when we bike we are just soooooaked! It's brutal! But it's so much fun! All the little kids see me biking and they yell "mhtungu" at me....which means white guy....hahahahaha it's funny. I just smile and give them thumbs up! Seriously, I haven't seen a single white person that isn't a missionary. That's not a joke. There are only Africans here and it's the best thing ever! I get the weirdest looks and I love it! hahaha :)

Driving isn't actually that bad here! I got used to it waaaaayyyy fast! BUUUUT Elder Pinkston said that he knew how to drive stick but there is no way that he does.... he kills it every five seconds. Like we will be on the freeway with people flying past us at 150 k's and we are just dead stopped cause he doesn't know how to drive...it's insane! Hahaha but h'es getting a lot better at it now! so that's super good! People can just walk on the freeways here too... there are nooooo rules! hahaha I saw a guy rolling a wheel barrow down the middle of the freeway the other day hahahaha! So crazy! I love it! :)

So I'll go through a normal day of missionary life!

First, as soon as the rooster crows we get up. But literally the people next to us have roosters and they start yelling at 3 in the morning and these roosters sound like they are dying. Hahahaha but at 6:30 we wake up and work out cause I'm NOT getting fat on my mission! Hahaha but then we study and eat breakfast and get ready for the day. Then we do Mission training cause I'm new. Then we go out at work! The people here are soooo awesome! :) They are all so humble and nice! They are hilarious! Like seriously these people know how to have fun! I feel right at home! I thought teaching would be so much harder but seriously all we do it joke and have a good time cause then they trust us. And then we just pound them with the gospel and they love it!

On Thurstday I asked a 13 year old girl named Sne if she would be baptized on the 1st of November and she said yes so we are suuuuper stoked about that! :) The branch is really small here and really weak so a lot of our work is visiting the members and strengthening them! I've been able to bear my testimony so many times about the book of Mormon and it's been AWESOME! I love it! It's super nice to always have the spirit with you and to always teach with it! So fun! But the people here really seem to like me! Maybe it's my accent or something but they always laugh when I make jokes so that must count for something! Some lady the other day in the middle of our discussion stood up and gave me a hug and I just kind of sat there awkwardly....hahahaha it was so funny! :) But it's been so fun to teach and I can't wait to continue to do this for 2 years! It's just the best feeling ever to be making a difference in a person's life.

Yesterday was Sunday and was AWESOME!!! We woke up early and went to the chapel which is actually just a bunch of those portable trailer things! Soooo sick! So it was super duper small and we cleaned it before all the people got there! During church there were only like 40 people there but that's actually a pretty good number so we were happy about it! :) But It was fast and testimony meeting and it was the best one that I've ever been to in my entire life. Like in Utah, you could seriously wait like 10 minutes before someone stands up but not here! Here everyone just jumps up the second that the mic is open! They can't wait to share their testimony! Seriously I felt the spirit so strongly and It was just so humbling! :)

But we were able to see a little bit of Conference yesterday!!! We actually watched the Saturday morning session live which was like 6 at night for us...hahahah but then we also saw sunday morning live as well!! 3 new apostles!! So crazy! I knew that Elder Rasband was going to be one though! I called that one forever ago!! But their all so cool and their talks were so inspiring and you could just tell that they were all called of God!

There have been so many bugs this week it will be so hard to only pick one! While we were watching conference the biggest cockroach ever was just running around everywhere so that was fun! I've also seen lizards everywhere! I SAW MONKEYS TOO!!! I'm just in a little internet café so we'll see if sending pictures works! But I got some sweeeet pictures this week! :)

Oh also....yesterday, Elder Pinkston broke our garage....hahahaha It wasn't up all the way but it looked like it was and he was pulling the truck into the garage and the top of the truck hit the door and pulled it down on top of the car....hahahaha luckily Elder Nkomo is super man and was able to hold the door up and we got the car out but now our garage door is just hanging there. Our house is just sitting there waiting to be robbed....hahahaha but we have an electric fence and everything so that's awesome! :)

But anyways I think I'm gonna end it here! I could talk forever but I don't think my companion wants to sit here forever! hahaha :)

But I seriously love you so much my family! :) This is suuuuper hard. I'm not going to lie. But It wasn't easy for Jesus Christ so why should it be any different for me. I know that this work will change lives and that through me, God can do so many amazing things! All I need to do is live obediently and work with all my heart might mind and strength. I love this work and I know that this is exactly where I need to be. I can already see how the talents that I've been blessed with are being used here! It's just amazing! :) I see miracles every single day and it's just so awesome! :) THE CHURCH IS TRUE!

Love_elder_eAstmond_