MERRY DECEMBER!!!!!

It's been very festive here in the SADM. 

Our mission president gave us a challenge: on the first of december, talk to 40 people on the streets and give them pass along cards! So we did it! We went around and in like an hour we had talked to over 60 people. And throughout the week we got like a total of 90 people that we talked to! It was pretty fun!

We also had interviews with President on Wednesday and boy oh boy do I love this guy! He is just sooooo amazing! I can really really feel the love that he has for me and for the entire mission! This mission has seriously been on Fire lately and it's all because of him. And this is what he said about that to me, "I'm going to use a real classy term to describe what's happening in the mission right now: You ain't seen nothin' yet!" hahaha I freaking died! Plus he fist bumps me like all the time! He's sooo awesome! 

Another thing that he was telling everyone in interviews is to get to know everybodies stories. All the members, all the people that you teach. Learn where they have come from. Learn their life stories. He says that if you do that, you will be amazed every single time.

I totally believe that. Every person that i meet has a story that good fill books and books and books. I'm going to tell you a couple stories of some members that have happened in this branch lately.

So the first story is about Nolwazi (who you know) And her family. There is the Ma her name is amanda. Then there is amanda's daughter Nolwazi who just had her baby. And nolwazi's sister, Spindille. They are all recent converts. They are such an amazing family! So 2 weeks ago was when we took Nolwazi to the hospital and she had her baby and all that jazz. And then last week was sundayand Nolwazi and the family were at church at they looked suuuper tired so I asked them what was up. So they told me that that night they hadn't slept at all. Their next door neighbor's husband came home that night suuuper drunk and attacked his family. Then he went over to nolwazi's house, punched through the back door window and chased Nolwazi and her family out. They ran to another neighbors house and locked themselves in there to hide from them. Then come sunday morning and THEY WERE AT CHURCH!!!! Like...i would never be at church after something like that. It must have been soooo scary and they didn't get any sleep and yet they still came to church. It reaaaally touched my heart. Honestly i almost started crying right there when they were telling me they story.

Now the next one is about another family called the Ngcobo family. (i don't expect you to know how to pronounce that...the c is a click) hahaha but they have been members for a while there is a mother and father and they have 2 girls and a boy. (one of the girls was struck by lightning a year ago and survived...but that's another story haha) They feed us every saturday. I loooove them so much! The ma and baba are both school teachers and they are the funniest family ever. Well they got sealed in the temple recently and everyone says that it was the most beautiful thing that they've ever seen! Sooo sweet! :) Well ever since then the family has had a lot of trials. First of all the baba lost his job so they were reaaally tight on money. Because of that, the bank took their car away. They live super far from the school where we meet for church. And that car was the only way that they could get there so last week they weren't able to come to church. So we were there this past saturday for our usual appointment. It was getting late and Baba wasn't home from work yet. Ma was extremely worried. He should have been home around 5 and it was past 8 now. She was crying and it was really really scary. In South africa if you're out past 7 then it can get pretty dangerous... So we offered a prayer for the family and prayed that everything would be alright and that baba would return safely. We had to leave and go back to our appartment. I was planning on calling the family after church and making sure that everything was okay cause i wasn't expecting to see them at church (due to the car issue and now this issue of baba) So when I first pull into church, guess who the first person that I see was??? BABA NGCOBO!!! The entire family came to church!! They somehow managed to find a way to church and I ran up to ma and asked if everything was okay and she said, "yes. Baba came home at like 10 last night. He almost died. but everything's okay" Before i could ask what happened with him other members came rushing up to her and were talking to her in zulu sooo i don't quite know the full story but regardless, they freaking came to church with no car, and after the husband almost died. THESE PEOPLE ARE SO FAITHFUL! Just incredible.

And just to add to that, it was fast and testimony meeting this week. So EVERYONE wanted to bear their testimonys. In fact it lasted 2 hours cause everyone wanted to go up there! It was so funny! Branch president kept standing up to close and another person would run up there and bear their testimony! It was powerful! In Utah we sit there for like 20 minutes just waiting for people to get up...yet there are hundreds of us...but here there were 40 of us and I don't think there was 5 seconds were someone wasn't saying something! AMAZING!

So obviously an amazing week! My testimony has been strengthened like craaaazzzzyyyy!!! :) 

thank you for all of your love and support! Send me pictures of the best decorated christmas house that you can find! :) MMMMEEEERRRRRYYYYY CHRISTMASSSSSSS

Elfer Eastmond