October 27, 2014 - 9 months to go

Elder Creech, Elder Truscott, Elder Welsh, Elder Decebal Cuza, Elder Kupka,
 Valentine in the sweater, Arthur in the orange shirt,
Nadia in the striped skirt, Elder Tennant, and then kneeling down is
Phiphi in the black dress (that is a nickname, not sure her real name)
and then her daughter mini Phiphi. haha.

Mini Phiphi

This week has been a really hard one for me. I've been waiting for it to end. Ha ha. It just felt like nothing was working out this week! Like I felt I wasn't teaching well, people were dropping....it was just a bad one.

We taught a decent amount of lessons this week, but for some reason I was just super hard on myself all week long. We averaged about 2 or 3 lessons a day, which wouldn't be so bad except on every day we had like 5 or 6 scheduled! People were dropping appointments telling us that "they'll call us when they are free" which basically usually means we'll never hear from them again.

Like the Hendricksa family, that father led family that said they received an answer about Joseph Smith.....they don't really want to sit with us anymore it seems like. The Christofel family, that other father led family that we were excited about, we showed up there for our appt and they were in PE for family things, which we understood, so we went back the next day to see if they were back, and the old lady who was there told us apparently they said we shouldn't come back cause they don't understand that religion of ours.  So we have to go and see what is up with that. Eldridge didn't hold either of his appointments, Melvin (that super sweet guy that works at McDonalds) is being transferred to King Williams Town for sure next month.....things weren't working out for us this week!!

I guess on the bright side the big 5 are still progressing. We talked with Claudia and Phelicia about tithing and fast offerings, and they were excited to pay them! Christina made it 6 days without smoking on her first try, which is good, and now we'll keep building on that. We talked to Claudia and Phelicia about their baptism date. Asked whether they want it moved back to be baptized as a group when Christina is ready, or if they just want to go ahead for the 9th.....they haven't told us yet, but they are cool. Probably the best thing about this week was our one appt with them. We were talking about the 10 commandments, and then in the middle of the lesson Claudia just stopped us and was like "umm guys, we are ready to be baptized". It was pretty cool.

Friday I was on exchanges with elder Decebal-Cuza, Kupka's son. It was a good exchange. We had a nice district meeting, and then had lunch and went out for the day! We taught a few lessons that day and not too much dropped. Decebal-Cuza is a really nice guy too. I like him. He's pretty funny.

This Sunday was a special conference as well. The Presiding Bishop, Gary E. Stevenson was here and spoke to us. So it was a special thing in the PE stake. It was nice, we met at the chapel and then transport took everyone down. We drove ourselves, but we had 5 people come to the conference! Christina, Claudia , Phelicia, Natasha, and Motlalepula all came and it was cool to see them make the effort since we had to be early at the chapel, around 7:30 for the transport. After the conference we had a nice lunch at the big 5 who stay in the other guys area, and then taught some good lessons.....so Sunday was the best day of the week I would say.

I am really hoping for a better week this week.

I can’t wait to hear from you guys.

I love you and miss you,

Elder Truscott