Short but sweet

Hello family!!!! :) I love you all soooo much! :) This email might be a little short because we have to pay for emailing and I have like no money left until Wednesday... soooooo I have like no time but I will type fast! :) Grandma I got your package and I've already eaten like all of it...the food not the box...thank you soooo much! :) Tyler and Mandy I also got your package! Thank you soooo much! :) I just love elmo...also that piggy bank....didn't survive the trip.... hahaha I'll send a picture...hahaha 

So the highlight of this week was the baptism that we had yesterday!! :) We cleaned the font on saturday and it literally took allllll day! I'll tell you more about that adventure next week! And Aygeman has all of the pictures so I'll also have to get them from him later! But trust me, it was quite a feat! HAhaha But we finally got it all cleaned up and ready for The baptism! We were able to baptize sne and the 3 sithole kids! I baptized the 8 year old and the 10 year old and they are just the cuuuutest little kids ever! :) The water was sooooo cold and sne screamed when she was going down into the water! Hahaha it was really really funny! :) I'm sorry that i can't talk more but I'll tell you everything next week! I love you all! I'm glad that thanksgiving was awesome! :) I love you all so much! :)

So this was another pretty rainy and slow week but it was good none the less!!! :)

I got my haircut by this MASSIVE guy from Ghana! He didn't take it easy on my head at all. He would just jab me so hard with the razor! hahaha but the haircut turned out pretty sweet so I'm happy ;)

We weren't actually able to have the baptism this week.... We needed to drain the nasty water out of the font with a pump but we weren't able to because the electricity has been out at our chapel for the past week... So we are going to try and fix the problem this week and have the baptism this sunday! If worse comes to worse than we are going to drain the WHOOOOLE thing with just buckets! That will be fun! ;) 

So Elder Aygeman has taken on the habit of making me laugh every single time I take a drink so I've spit juice out of my mouth in pretty much every lesson and once it went out my nose...not very nice of him huh?

One time we had to walk from one end of our area to the other so we started walking and the rain came down and the floods came up and by the time we got to the members house we looked like we had just gotten out of the shower...hahahahaha

This week during a lesson something hit me pretty hard. We were with this family called the Enzama family. They are in Port Dunford area not ours so we don't usually go there but they invited us over for sunday lunch. And we were just sitting there and laughing with them and having a great time and it just hit me so hard that that's the reason that I'm here. Like obviously we are here to teach of Christ and our church but it hit me that I'm also here to leave people a little bit happier than when we found them.! :) 

One of my favorite things that happened this week was on Thursday we decided to go around to a bunch of members houses and showed them a mormon message with Elder holland talking about the book of mormon. And it was such a humbling experience to hear all the the members testimonies about it. You can see that the book of mormon has truly changed their lives and they know without a doubt that it's true. It was just very humbling and it made me really happy! :)

I love you all so much and I'm praying for y'all! :)

Live long and prosper.

OOOOOh also we found out this week that on December 5th we are having a District conference and the saturday session is going to be held in our Chapel and there is an Apostle coming!! I don't know who but I'm really excited about that! :)

Okay I Love you bye!

Elder Eastmond <3 B)

Rain, rain go away

Heeeeyyyyy family!!! I love you!! And we all know that the Gender of the baby will be announced this Thursday so I just want to publicly state that it's a BOY. So that when I'm right, you will all know that I'm brilliant. ;) Okay now that that is out of the way, back to the normal schedule.

This week was WET! Honestly every single day has just been POURING RAIN! I found out what a real thunderstorm is...we will be driving at night and the sky just looks like fireworks. The lightning is craaaazy here! Suuuper loud! It's way cool! But rain makes it reaaaally hard to get to appointments! Especially cause we are in a walking area. It pours monkeys and elephants on us. (people don't say that here by the way I just wanted to say it hahahaha) So we sprint to a members house and wait out the rain! 

But we were able to have some good lessons despite the rain this week! :) Some of my favorite people to teach is the Sitole family! This is the single mother of 8 kids! 3 of them are getting baptized this Sunday along with Sister Sne!! So I'm suuuper pumped about that! :) They are the CUTEST kids of all time! :) When we show up they all just suround us and shake our hands and then they all grab a big huge blanket and sit on it while we teach them! :) Suuper cute! There is one kid and his name is the Zulu word for "Star" So I just call him star. He's 3 years old and him and me are just BEST friends! Every time we see eachother we both just light up and play with eachother! Hahaha he's waaaay to cute! Even during lessons sometimes Elder Aygeman will be talking and we'll just make faces at him and then all the kids laugh and then it takes all of us forever to get composed again! hahaha it's super funny! :) In fact teaching little kids have been some of my favorite moments! Like on Thursdays we always go over to the Buthelezis for a family home evening and dinner and there is this little 4 year old girl there who just loves me and she always sits on my lap during the lessons! Suuuper duper cute! :) 

This is the first week of a new transfer! There are 4 Elders that came to our zone! One is Elder Donney from america and Elder Odiambo and I think he's a south african! Both are really really cool! :) There is also Elder Gumbo and a Greenie from Idaho that are whitewashing and area together! Whitewash training sounds pretty crazy to me!! 

Something fun that we have been doing is having members teach us the missionary lessons. We pretend to be investigators and they have to teach us! It's been awesome and it's teaching them a lot I think! If you want to learn something, then go teach it. You'll learn so much! Hahaha but it's been fun cause now we get to ask OTHER people all the crazy questions that WE have to answer! We are really mean investigators! Hahaha! :) I had one member say that we would be thrust down to hell if you didn't repent! Hahahaha That was funny! :)

We saw some Dolphins at the Beach last PDay!!! I'll send some pictures! They were jumping out of the water! They are alway just so freaking happy! If I was an animal I would want to be a dolphin. Or a Raptor but that's not what we are talking about right now...so a dolphin.

I ate spicy chicken that made me cry.

I miss snow so soso so bad. I heard christmas music today in the grocery store and it was talking about a sleigh ride and I don't think that people even understand what that means here. I took snow for granted. I love Snow.

I'm Eating Cadbury chocolate right now.

it's caramel filled.

I love you all and I'm praying for you! :):):)<3

Love Elder Eastmond

Zimes' Baptism

Guenias, Pirates and Dead Bodies

Hey family! I love you all so much and I think about you every day! I was actually pretty homesick this week but that just means that I have a good home with people who love me! :)

So this week has been pretty slow going but still really really fun! :) Elder Aygeman showed me this thing called a Guenia. It's basically like a super scone! It's just a huuuuge ball of fried dough! It's amazing! And so good for you ;) You can buy them at like any tuck shop (which is just little shops that are EVERYWHERE) So I buy them all the time...I need to stop....Also the ice cream here is SO much better than home...man it's so good.

So on wednesday the craziest thing happened....So we were walking past this school and there were all these people and cops everywhere. And we were like...wuuuut the heck....so we got closer and we saw this huge white tarp on the grass and I was like what is that. And then i saw a hand sticking out of it and I was like...oh my gosh that is a dead body....so later we found out that these 2 kids had fought and a 14 year old stabbed and killed a 17 year old...it's just SO crazy to see a dead body...like that kid is now in the spirit world getting orientation.

On Saturday there was a HUGE soccer match against 2 south african teams, the Chiefs and the Pirates. (pirates are the best) and so no one wanted to meet with us...they just wanted to watch the game.

On Thursday we taught Tutugo. He's the one who is usually high when we teach him but he is doing better at that now and I actually challenged him to baptism and he said yes!! So we are shooting for the 22nd of December with him! :) That was really cool and I'm getting a lot better at listening to the spirit and being bold! It seems to be going well! :)

Transfers were this week but we are all just staying in the same place! 2 Elders just went home from our district though so we have some elders coming in to whitewash the area! Also one of the elders is brand new and he's from Idaho. I haven't met him yet, but it's nice to not be the new guy anymore! hahaha! 

On Sunday we watched Conference with The Branch FINALLY!! We just saw the sunday morning session which I already saw but it was still way good! :) Zime also was given the Gift of The Holy Ghost and that was really really cool! :) So all in all a really good week! :) I'm looking at this second transfer with high hopes! :) 

Love ya'll so much! :) As it's snowing and getting colder for you, it's getting hotter and more humid for me! Hahaha still not over that...

Love, The one and only Elder Eastmond (actually I'm not the one and only...there have been like...a ton before me...and a lot after me...and i'm sure that there are other Elder Eastmond's who aren't even related to me that are serving right now...but yeah...)

First baptism

Family I LOVE YOU!!! How was halloween??? I realized that like all of you have asked me if there is halloween here and I keep forgeting to tell you. No there is not halloween here :'( They think that we are really weird for doing it...but if you think about it, it's a really weird holiday...hahaha but I"ve seriously missed it! It sounds like the house was SICK though! 

Well I'll just get down to the best stuff first, WE HAD A BAPTISM THIS SUNDAY! It was suuuuch an amazing experience! So we baptized sister Zime. She's a 21 year old and she has a little 1 year old that is soooo cute...okay the baby actually isn't little, it's like the fattest baby I've ever seen! Hahahahaha but anyways, I gave a talk on baptism and at the very end I started talking about my baptism and all these memories just came flooding back and I got all emotional and it was really cool! At my baptism I just remember looking down at my hands and It just looked like they were glowing and I just felt soooo clean. Like literally perfect :) So that was cool to give a talk! And then Elder Aygeman Baptized her and when she came out of the water she just couldn't stop smiling! the whole time she was just smiling! It was really really cool! :) And when she went to bare her testimony it was SO cool to hear her bare her testimony on things that we had the privilage of teaching her! It was just amazing to help a sheep back to the fold! :)

We've also been giving a lot of blessings this week because everyone has exams and exams are HUGE here. Like nothing compared to back home. Exams are literally everything here! Haha it's funny! So it's been really cool to give some blessings and see the peoples faith in them! :)

Something funny that happened this week is we were going to a house that we had tracked into earlier that week. But when we got there we saw this HUGE dog just sitting in front of the door and looking at us like we were a piece of meat...soooo we just left...hahahaha I'd rather not get raibies thank you.

Everyone really really likes to talk their native tounge of Zulu here so I'm really trying to learn some things! I have a Zulu Book of Mormon and I'm reading it side by side with my English one and trying to learn! Hahaha we;ll see how that goes! ;) Tandaza means prayer! hahaha

Basically this week has just been trying not to get hit by cars...hahaha first of all it's month end and that's when everyone gets paid sooooo everyone gets drunk and parties. Like literally all day and all night. Apparently Esikhawini is the place to be if you want to party hardy. And it's only gonna get worse...apparently December is just a CRAZY month here! cause it's christmas aaaand it's Summer here..so everyone is just partying SO hard! They say almost everyone just takes the whole month off from work so that they can party! Hahahaha Cars will just be parked in the middle of the road or on peoples front yard and stuff! And when people are drunk they either love me or they hate me! I had one guy come like inches from my face and he was yelling something in Zulu but I could tell that he was asking why white people shoot black people and i was just like uuuuuuuhhhh but then he started just laughing and he hugged me and was like, I"m just kidding brother, this here is a place where we accept everyone! No matter what your color! hahaha sooo it's always entertaining here! :)

Oh and yesterday I heard a total of 4 Gunshots...like literal gunshots. and one was from a car that was literally 20 yards away from me....hahahahahaha yas Esikhawini yaaassss

That's about it for this week! I love you all so much and I can't even tell you how much I appreciate the prayers and support that you guys are giving me! Thanks for everything! :)

Shap shap shap

Elder Eastmond

Ps. Everyone says Shap here for like What's up and goodbye here. So I'm totally hooked on that! Okay love you bye

This computer is also being bogus so I"ll send pics of the baptism next week!!

BUG OF THE WEEK

Again I didn't get a picture...but it was a giant blue and green and yellow metallic armored wasp that could curl up in a ball like an armadillo..I"m not lying it was in our chapel. I'll try to look it up to see what it is...definitely the most terrifying thing I've seen so far!