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

Nov 28

MANA ONAAAAAAA!!!! That means good morning in malagasy and I still remember that from the mtc when elder Malala taught us.

But good morning Family!! :) 

I hope that you had a wonderful thanksgiving.../my birthday ;) 

Thank you for all of the birthday wishes! It means the world to me! And thank you for the package! It contained some much needed sweets <3 I might have opened it a lil early...tehee i couldn't wait for those cosmic brownies.

Our thanksgiving was actually really good! Usually people don't celebrate it here buuuut there is this family in the other missionaries area called the Reise family, we always go over there every monday night for family home evening, but they invited us over for a huuuuuge thanksgiving feast! There were like 5 turkeys....They even had jello! (it wasn't nearly as good as our 7 layer jello though...don't tell them) They even had apple pie! (again wasn't nearly as good as ours buuut nobodys is soooo) I was really missin the pumpkin pie...next year ;) But all in all it was really good! Felt a little taste of home. 

I have waaaaaayyy too many things that i'm thankful for. (however i'm not thankful for this huuuuge bug buzzing in the curtains right next to me though....) But I am just soooooooo lucky to have such an amazing family. Some people don't have the blessing of having such a close and loving family to support them and be with them forever. But I do :) and i will be grateful for that for the rest of eternity! I'm grateful for all of the amazing friends that I have as well! You guys are also my family! I'm grateful to be in this beautiful country of South Africa, serving some of the most amazing people on planet earth. And i'm grateful for Heavenly Father. His love for me, his patience for me, and his wonderful plan of happiness. That we can all live together for ETERNITY in eternal happiness. And i'm grateful for Jesus Chirst. For him to do what he did, it just truely amazes me. I Stand All Amazed has become my favorite hymn on mission. And it just perfectly sums up my feelings about Jesus Christ and his atonement! 

Weeeelllll now that thanksgiving is over, it's begining to look a lot like CHRISTMASSSSSS!!!! We set up all of the christmas decorations that you sent me (thank you so much) The boarding is looking very festive! The christmas lights were a perfect touch! Pick & Pay (our local grocery store) has had their christmas decor up since like october...seems a lot like home...Now the only thing that i'm missing is some snow... I doubt that we are going to get any of that....maybe a light drizzle or something... We've been screaming "MERRY CHRISTMAS" Out the car windows at people walking by. I think it really gets people in the christmas spirit ;)

On Wednesday we had a meeting as a zone and our mission president has some new goals for us! First of all he says that on the 1st of December that everyone should contact 40 people and give them pass along cards! So everyone is just going to be running around EVERYWHERE talking to EVERYONE! I think it's actually gonna be pretty fun! And then another goal he set for us is by the end of this year the mission needs to have 300 baptisms! That's a huuuge goal! It ends up being around 6 baptisms per companionship. It's not going to be easy but I think that we can do it! We might have 3 coming up on the 17th of December! So pray for that! I'll tell you about them!

The first one is Nomphilo who you already know! We didn't see her all last week. She was suuuper busy and then she got sick and couldn't come to church! But we saw her this week and taught her about the word of wisdom. She says that she really likes her coffee but she is completely willing to stop! So that was really really awesome! She is progressing so well and I hope that she continues! 

The next one is a 10 year old boy named Wandile. He has been taught the lessons before and we are working on helping his father stop smoking. We were going to wait to baptize the whole family all at once but it's taking to long and I think that we are just going to baptize Wandile so that he can be a good example for his father! When we asked him if he was ready to be baptized do you know what he said to us??? He said and I quote, "I'm damn ready" Hahahaha....we are gonna have to work on that ;)

Then the last one is a brother's daughter in the ward. So the brother is brother Nelsen. He's a really good guy and he walks soooo far to church every week! He even crosses a river! He's really power and his daughter is like 9 or 10 and he's started to bring her. We are teaching her after church every sunday so hopefully that we can get her ready in time as well! 

So if you can pray for them I think that would help them soooo much! That would mean the world to me! :)

Well I love you guys soooo much! Thanks for just being the coolest family of all time <3 Until next week, Be safe, hug your mom, and only get into a little bit of trouble. ;)

_Elder_Eastmond_

NGIYAKUTHANDA KAKHULU! I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!  Nov 21

I feel cool speaking zulu now because elder Nielsen can't understand me! It's like when i was a little kid and my parents would spell things out so that i didn't know what they were saying! Wow it's fun to be a parent ;)

Yo i'm so tired. We are working like never before! I want to start of Elder Nielsens mission nicely so we are working like crazy! We found a lot of new people and things are going so well!

Elder Nielsen asks a loooooot of questions hahaha it's kinda funny. But i was probably the same way when i first came out so it's cool! But he's a really good kid and he's a hard worker so that's great. 

Update on Nolwazi's baby! Everything went fine and the baby is beautiful!! She's suuuper cute and she named her Anathi which means "god with us" so that's super cute. Eastmond would have been better but Anathi is a close second ;) 

We taught a guy that sounded exactly like Mike Tyson yesterday so that was cool! ;)

haha but he was acually a realllly nice guy and it's not easy to find men that are interested and lately we've been finding them like craaazzy so that's suuuper cool! 

Elder Merritt burned my leg with a match. That wasn't fun but it left a cool scare so yeah.

there is a family in the toti ward that owns a fish shop and they needed help moving to a bigger shop down the street so all of friday and saturday we helped them move huuuge tanks and shelves and the entire store and it was haaaard work! It was super fun though and that family is just hilarious so we had a really fun time. They love to yell in africaans so it's just a bunch of huuuge guys screaming at eachother in foreign languages and it was super funny. They had some craaaazy fish too. 

I've found that every single time i bear my testimony to someone, everytime i share the gospel and every time that i have to defend my faith, that my testimony grows like crazy! I'm so grateful to know the truth and to have the opportunity to share it with my brothers and sisters! :)

I really really really really really really really really really love all of you soooo much! :) Thanks for being the bestest human beings on this planet! :)

Anathi--not very fond of pix 

My friend Carl

A new family that we are teaching 

This is a very big snail

Friends, family, and penguins.    Nov 7, 2016

WHAT IS UUUUUPPPPPPP???????

No one uses the phrase "what's up" hear so every time i say it people jsut get so confused and don't konw how to respond so i really really like doing it ;)

Nompilo is doing great! We were only able to see her once this week! She's been pretty busy! But we taught her about the restoration and it was a really good lesson. Her friend was there as well and her friend is a member so it was cool to have here bear her testimony as well! 

The coolest thing that happened this week was that we had stake conference. It had to be held in the Durban city hall because there were too many people to fit in a chapel. The city hall is HUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEEEEE! And it was soooo full! I'll send some pics. But there were soooo many people there and it was really really cool to see everyone. I saw some people from Esikhawini and from Ezakheni as well so that was pretty gnarly! 

All of the missionaries around the area came early and we stood outside the hall and sang hymns and handed out copies of the book of mormon and pass along cards and stuff and when we were singing people were filming us and taking pictures and it  was just a lot of fun...i usually don't like singing but we made it super fun! 

We went bowling last p day....i don't wanna brag or anything buuuut i won <3

I've just been having the time of my life lately and i've really come to know that every little effort that we make torwards spreading the gospel is so so critical. The small things matter sooo much and maybe we wont see anything happen all at once but i promise you that you will eventualy see miracles happen! I can promise that because i've seen it in my own life!

Thanks for everything family friends and penguins!

Until next week, stay chill <3

Elder Eastmond