May 9, 2016

So it will be a short group email today caaaauuuussseee not a lot of $ or Time!

It was obviously AMAZING TO SKYPE MY FAMILY YESTERDAY! Shout out to mothers EVERYWHERE! Without you, none of us would be here. Literally. So thank you all! Especially to my beautiful amazing mother! I LOVE YOU <3

This week was, do I even have to say it??? AMAZING. Sister Muhle and Sister Joice were confirmed members and given the gift of the holy ghost and that was just awesome to watch! :)

We Had A zone conference. The LAST zone conference with President Zackrison! I can't believe he's already leaving! Time just moves soooo quickly! But it was wonderful! We talked about revelation!

And LIKE ALL OF MY BEST FRIENDS GAVE THEIR LAST TESTIMONIES!!! Elder Aygeman (my baba) is going home this transfer and I think I'm going to cry, Elder Kaitoo Is going home next transfer and elder Gumbo Is going home in 2 transfers! It's soooo sad but it's also really exciting! I love those guys and they have all taught me soooo much! :)

ummmmmmmmmmmmm Yeah that's the biggest points of this week. I only ate rice like 6 times so that's a record ;) hahaha

I love you all sooo much! Obviously thank you for all of the support and love you give me! I couldn't do it without all of you!

Loves

Elder Eastmond

I'm Alive, May 3, 2016

Yes mom i'm still alive, i couldn't email yesterday cause it was a holiday and all internet cafes were closed but noooooow it;s tuesday morning and i wanted to at least get a quick email in!!

ps Ezakheni is pronounced Ez-ah-ken-ee h's are almost always silent over here.

So obviously this has been another fantabulous week! We baptized 2 more ladies on sunday and they were both just sooo cute and it was amazing! :) We are preparing a 16 year old girl named sne and some of her younger siblings for baptism sometime late this month so that's exciting! We also found 2 more men at church this week who want to be taught. It's just sooo nice here! :)

So my favorite family in this area is the Zwani family. Mama Zwani is a single mother of 9 children!!! There father passed away awhile ago. And mama Zwani is one of the most faithful members i've ever seen in my entire life. Always the first at church and the last to leave. And she works sooo hard so that she can support her family and take them to nice schools and everything like that and they drive this small little beat up car (a lot like my car back home haha) that the ma just loves. Well on Saturday night Me and Elder Gumbo we about to head home for the night but then we both felt the impression to go to the chapel before. There had been an activity there earlier and we want to check and see if anyone was still there. When we got there On of mama zwanis sons was pilling people in the car to take them home. There wasnt enough space so we waited with some of the people for the car to come back....and we waited and waited and waited. Then one of the kids got a text that there was something wrong with the car so we thought the battery had just died or something so we decided just to get those kids into our car and take them home. As we were driving along we saw a reaaaally bad car accident and as we passed we realized that it was Mama Zwanis car!We quickly pulled over to see what was going on. Apparently a drunk driver smashed into the front of the Zwanis car and the Son wasn't wearing a seatbelt so his head smashed the windshield and he was bleeding reeeeaaally bad. Luckily he had already finished taking everyone else home so it was only him in the car but he is pretty beat up. Mama Zwani was there when we got there and she jsut looked so sad and it hurt me so much to see her like that. So we asked what we could do and she said "Can you just pray for us?" It really made me cry a little bit how much faith she had and everything! She's just the best! So we rushed the son to the hospital os he could get stiched up and then we brought him home and they asked me to pray for the family. So in that living room we were all standing there together and as i prayed i felt the holy ghost just soooo incredibly strong. Then we thought on sunday they might not be there at church just cause they needed to take care of the son but do you want to know who was in the Chapel by 8 oclock in the morning???? That's right, Mama Zwani and almost all of her children! Wow. They didn't even have a car and they live soooo far away from the chapel and they still made the means to come and clean the chapel early. They almost made me cry again. Man i love this family! 

That's the biggest thing that happened this week! I wish that i had 7 hours to sit here and tell you all of the miracles that have been happening but alas... i don't ;)

I love you all so much and I am thanking you for all of the love and support that you give me! I couldn't do it without all of you! :)

Ngikhuthanda!

Elder Eastmond

Elder Lubamba (he was in my MTC group and is Elder Frederick's son) 

This is the view off into the valley from where the temple will be

Me and Elder Frederick by the picture of what the Durban Temple is going to look like!! <3

This shows how many people were there but it doesn't even show all of them and there were even more people behind me and it was just CRAZY

Me breaking ground 

This is going to be added to my "Random freaking cute african kid picture collection"

This is some DELICIOUS LASAGNA that elder Frederick made! 

(And I can't believe I just heard Parker say 'lasagna' and 'delicious' in the same sentence)

Whilst we were watching conference in our branch on sunday! Elder Uchdorf saying chewbacca was probably the funniest thing that I've ever heard.