Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines day! :) Write someone a letter, buy someone chocolates, give someone a hug, smile at someone, tell someone that those shoes look nice, spread the love because love is the best thing that we can give! :) Other than the gospel...psych because the gospel IS LOVE!! ;)

We had a ton of meetings this week! One of which was Zone Conference! The main topic of the whole thing was to Preach Repentance and Baptize Converts. The first presidency reeaaally wants missionaries to focus on new people instead of so much less active work. Sometimes that can be hard becuase we want to strengthen the branch before we bring in new people but we have a loooot of part member families in our branch so we are going to see if we can teach some of the nonmembers in the families! Pray for us! :)

This random little girl on the streets ran at me and head butted me in the legs and started punching me so that happened.

Our tire went flat after zone conference so that happened.

I lost my backpack and I was so sad but then I found it so that happened.

It's been SOOOO foggy here lately which is way cool! But it's suuuper creepy at night driving through foggy forests and whatnot...so that happened.

Every one calls me Mulungu which is white person so I learned umuntu mnyama which means black person and they laugh so hard! ;) So that happened :)

So a lot happened this week but that's the most part of it! :) 

Something really cool that I like about this district is that we have nightly devotional together every night and we go around and share a tender mercy that the lord has shown us that day! it's really nice! You start seeing the hand of the lord in your day sooo much! But something that I want to share with you guys this week is that I'm so grateful that the Lord keeps me safe. This area can be pretty dangerous with crime and also the roads and everything like that but the lord knows that us as missionaries are on his errand and as long as we are doing what we are supposed to, he will keep us safe! and if not that MMA fighter showed us some self defense moves that we can use.... ;) I'm just kidding mom I won't do that ;)

But I love you all so much and I hope that you have a lekker week! :)

Stay safe, stay smart, stay swell! :)

Love you!

-E.E-

In the heart of the jungle

Good morning good morning good morning!! I hope that you are all just staying swell! :)

Transfers went perfect! :) Again I'm really really sad to say goodbye to my first area and all of the people that I've just grown so deeply attached to buuuut the lord wants me in Molweni! So here I am! :)

My Companion is Elder Waeni! He's from Zim and he's a really cool guy! He likes to talk a lloooot so that's a good thing! 

The area is the prettiest place I've ever seen in my entire life. Pictures seem to not be working today but I'll try again next week. We live literally like in the mountains. And there is just jungle allll around us. When I thought of coming to africa, this was it. Every road is like driving through the canyon. and everywhere you look is a new spectacular view. If i'm ever to shoot a movie in South Africa, it will be here. But yeah it's just amazing. The roads are sooooo small though and the people like to drive really fast so those things normaly shouldn't go together! hahaha but it's super fun!

This week we've just been going around mostly to members houses and meeting with them so that I can get to know them! I love them already! We went to this one less active guy's house. His name is Sne. Yes I know there was a girl sne in my last area but this is a guy. His name is Sne. He's 18 years old and hes really cool. We just went over there and met him and just sat and laaughed with him for awhile! It was way fun. He was even asking us some stuff about marriage and stuff like that! pretty cool. But then on sunday he went up and he bore his testimony that he was having a really rough day that day and when he saw the missionaries coming he wasn't happy cause he thought that we were just going to come in and be so serious with him and stuff. But when we came in and just got to know him he really enjoyed it and he said it turned his whole day around! And elder Waeni has said that they never have been that close with him! So that was just really really cool! I have a strong testimony that sometimes the best missionary work is just getting to know somebody!

We meet for church in a school! It's actually really really nice! It's a lot cooler in here than in my last area so that's a huuuuge blessing! The branch is pretty small but everyone is way cool an seem like they really really want to work with us! Which is such a blessing! I'm so excited to be here! I think good things will happen! :)

I love you all so much and I'm so grateful for the love and support that you give me each and every day! :) 

Stay smart, stay safe, stay swell.

Elder Eastmond

Molweni Durban

My precious family! :) Everyone sounds wonderful! Please stay that way. ;) 

So this email will be pretty quick because we are running around a ton today and packing and stuff and it's just hectic with transfers! But tomorrow I'm going to my new area! It's a township called Molweni in Durban! I've heard they have church at a school and everything so that will be pretty interesting! :) My new companion is Elder Waeni. I haven't met him before but I'm sure that he is just Lekker! :) 

I'm sad to leave this area. You always have a special attachment to your first area! I love love love all of the members here and our converts especially but I know that I'm going where the lord wants me! :) And Elder Grange is coming to replace me! For those of you who don't know he was in my MTC group and like my best friend out here so I'm waaaayyy stoked about that! I know my people are in good hands! :)

I love you all so much and I ask for your prayers during this transfer! :) Thanks for all of your amazing support and love that you show me! Remember that i love you so much but more importantly your heavenly father loves you. He reeeeaally truly knows us better than we know ourselves and he loves everything about us!

I love you all! 

Elder Eastmond_e_e_

top of the Mornin to ya

I don't know why I capitilized mornin and nothing else in the letter heading...also I don't know how to spell capitilized either....and it's too hard to right click on the word and fix it so there ya go. capitilized.

This week has just been swell! :) Typically it should be the last week of the transfer but because of weird things that I don't understand, this transfer is 7 weeks long. So 1 more week! 

So first things first, we had interviews with mission President! That went really really well! It's always great to see President cause he doesn't come to Richards Bay that much! The interview just went so swell and something we talked about was if he thought that I was ready to leave this area. Sooo most likely I will be going to a new area at the end of this transfer! Which is good and bad! It's my first area so obviously I will ALWAYS love it! I love the members so much here and I'm going to miss them like CRAZY! However I'm SO ready to start in a new area and see what it has for me! :) Change is always good! It keeps you on your toes! I've realized that problems always seem to come up when a missionary gets to comfortable! So by next monday I will know if/where I am going and next tuesday is when I roll out! 

So something pretty scary happened to one of our members this week. It was Tuesday and we got a call from Sazi Mthalani (an RM whos waaaay cool) and he said that his mom had been having seizures and asked us to come give her a blessing. We were not around the area at the time so we couldn't make it at the time but the next day we went over to see what was happening. Sazi said that His mother was taken to the hospital. She had 8 seizures in the course of the day. She's okay but now her memory is suuuper fuzzy. She couldn't even remember who my companion was and he's been her for 6 months now...so we gave her a blessing and we are praying that she will be able to recover. She's the sweetest lady in the world and always takes care of us. She feeds us every week and is just the nicest lady ever. If I can ask for all of your prayers for Ma Mthalani that would be wonderful! It will help so much! :)

So i don't know if any of you remember Quiniso. Me and Elder Aygeman were teaching him and we even had him a baptisimal date but then he had to leave for a loooong time for the holidays so we thought that it was just not going to happen...however he just came back and me and Elder Chitate have been teaching him and I just challenged him to baptism again! He said yes! He will be baptized on the 14th of Feb. So I might now be around to see it but it's just nice to see hard work pay off! :) 

One of the biggest things that I've learned on my mission so far is to just completely rely on the lord. I think it's just really really come into perspective for me that everything truely is in God's hands. I think giving blessings and stuff like that has just helped me so much. It's amazing to see the miracles that come from blessings. I've literally seen pain stopped INSTANTLY because of blessings. God really does know us and care for each and everyone of us and knows exactly what we are going through! But anyways just thought that I would share that! :)

I love you all so much! I'm having the time of my life and mission is just swell! :)

Love Elder Eastmond

Elephant flu

So the christmas package just got here!!! Thank you all so much for your letters and all of the amazing presents! I loved them so so much! :)

Eeish this week has been HECTIC!! I'm still happy though because it's literally impossible to be sad when you are surrounded by Africans 24/7. I'll say is now and I'll say it again, these people know how to LIVE! But yeah I've been suuuuper duper sick this entire week. I think it's the Elephant flu! ;) But yeah on Wednesday as soon as we went to the area I just started feeling suuuper light headed and frrreeeezing even though it was like 90 degrees outside...so that was pretty crazy. On thursday was supposed to do exchanges with the zone leaders but i was suuuper duper sick so we just had to sit in the boarding the entire daaaayyyyyy.... which is such a drag. I just want to be out there working now sitting at home. But there are some sweeeet medicines here that work miracles and I'm feeling a whoooole lot better now. But yeah...there wasn't that many lessons or experiences that happened this week cause i was just taking it easy trying to get better!

Also, lightning struck our electric fence and now our power is being suuper crazy and shutting off and stuff, also our zone got in a total of 3 car accidents in the past 2 weeks.. none of which I was in...so that's good :) and everyone is okay... so that's good :)

We got to go to another game park this morning!! It was waaaayyy better than last time! We saw giraffes, soooo many elephants including baby elephants, hyenas which is suuper duper rare, and what's even more rare, WE SAW A CHEETAH which for those of you who don't konw is my favorite animal in the entire world. Still haven't seen a lion but Cheetahs are way cooler anyways ;)

Sooo yeah that's honestly my week..I'm sorry that this isn't longer but not much happened... hahaha

I LOVE YOU ALL WAY TOOO MUCH!

Love Elder Eastmond :D

    A classic African sunset

A house on fire a couple 

weeks ago. That was sad. Andl

 like 4 houses have burned 

down since then...

The best district picture of all time in front of the Bakki

This iiiissss a skatepark...that said skate 4 jesus...so obviously we took a pic

 Just a grass field. that's all.

These are some sweeeet picutres that we took in a huuuuuge forest in Port Dunford area. It's

 about 30 minutes away from my area but there are trees like this allll over the place. 

SO pretty! :)

Everything is Awesome!

HELLOOOOOOOO FAMILYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYILOVEYOUALL

This week has been wonderful! Festive season is actually starting to wear off and I feel like myself again! Last week was tough I'm not going to lie but things are now back to normal! :) 

I actually taught Lesson one this past week! I honestly can't even remember the last time that I taught lesson one! So it just felt sooooo good! :) The lady wasn't even that interested but I know that she will come along soon enough! She's a suuuper funny lady! I can't remember her name right now but she has 2 kids and the baby is so freaking funny!

We found this AMAZING family but they are going to Joburg for 3 months so i probably won't see them again...that was kinda sad! The gogo is a blind lady and she's sooo great! Then she has a daughter who has 2 kids who are just the funniest ever! one is 11 and talks sooooo much she is so funny! And another is just this little baby who was just soooo facinated by me! She wouldn't stop staring at me! ahhaha it was so funny! Probably cause I'm white! ;) 

So I saw Tanner Clegg! For those of you who don't know him he went to my school, he did film, and he is 1 grade above me. He's serving in Johannesburg. But we went to a funeral of an old lady named Sister Moloi and Elder Clegg was there! Apparently his companion is Elder Moloi and is the grandson to the lady that died. So they had to drive 8 hours from joburg to come to the funeral! But it was just SOOOO sweet to see him and talk to him for awhile! We took pics on his camera and he's going to email them to me so I'll send them! Always good to see an old friend from home though! ESPECIALLY in SOUTH AFRICA!! Small world!

Recently I've just been reading all of the talks from conference! We just got the liahona with all of them so it's been awesome to read them since we didn't get to see most of conference. I actually can't remember any of the talks as of this moment...or else I would share something but yeah... hahaha

Church attendance was AWESOME!! 72! Best it's ever been! But during Gospel Studies class all of a sudden out of nowhere a huuuuuge debate came up of languages. The Zulu culture is VERY prideful of their language so some people were arguing that it should be in all zulu and other people were saying that we should do english and it was just pretty crazy. It went on for like 20 minutes and I was kinda sick of it so I finally just stood up and walked in front of everyone and instantly everyone went silent because I am the only person in the whole branch that doesn't understand Zulu. So then I just sat there and bore my testimony so hard and told them that the holy ghost doesn't speak zulu or english but it speaks to our hearts and i just went on for like 5 minutes and then I sat down and it shut everyone up...ahahahah but that was probably one of the most spiritual moments that I've had on my mission. The spirit was just so strong there! It was awesome! :)

I love you guys all sooooo very much! Thanks for all of the prayers and support. Be sure to like and retweet this email ;)

Love Elder Eastmond