Happy Thanksgiving 11-24-14

One of our main fellowshippers, Bonga, got his mission call this week!  He is going to the England London South Mission

Elder Truscott with Bonga

As for me this week.....nothing new really. Life in Sada is honestly pretty boring. We just go out there and work/teach lessons...most of which are translated by our fellowshippers, and then come home for dinner after our day....and there were no exchanges this week to break things up.

Last P Day we ended up playing sports with the Queenstown Elders. It was pretty fun, we just played football with them, like 5 on 5, and had a nice time.....everyone says that sports is pretty much what they do here since there isn’t much around....so I'm guessing in my stay here you'll hear that I played sports a few times. Ha ha.

Well this week I was really focusing on learning my area....we learned this week that Elder Swacina is going to be leaving a week or two early so he can be home for family things, so he'll leave maybe this Saturday, and I'm guessing that Elder Chaparadza will leave at the end of this transfer, so I'm really just trying to learn the area. Not super easy since the streets don’t have names and are all dirt so they look close to the same. Ha ha. But I’m getting there for sure.

The tripanionship is alright I guess....but It’s still not too fun sleeping on the floor....but at least it’s only for about a week more.

This week on Tuesday we did have a really powerful lesson ....we saw a guy named Akhona, and he is one of their progressing investigators. Well we got there and we were teaching him the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we taught faith and repentance, and really talked about repentance and stuff, and then asked him to make the changes in his life to help him be more like the Savior. He started crying and told us that he is trying but the one thing holding him back is smoking weed, and that he wants our help to quit. It was pretty cool, we bore testimony that he can stop and that as he lives the gospel he'll be happy. We told him we would be there for him and if he ever needed anything, or got tempted, to send us a message and we'd call him to give him stuff to do or just talk until he felt stronger. Well Thursday we were supposed to see him, and we got a please call from him, I thought he was going to reschedule; Chapradza called and it was him saying he was being tempted and wanted to smoke and wanted help. So we gave him a chapter from the BOM to read and told him to do that and pray, and he said that it helped and he didn’t smoke that day! Pretty cool. We still need to see him to make another appt. for this week though.

Every Wednesday here we go to a place called "the village". It’s like a rural part outside of the rural area. Ha ha. And it’s super far from everything....but there is a member family that stays there so we go there Wednesdays. They are a nice family as well, and it is a good appt every Wednesday it seems like.

I guess another thing I can report on this week was that one of our main fellowshippers, Bonga, got his mission call this week! he was super pumped about that. The Stake President gave it to the Bishop, who brought it to Sada and Bonga opened it on Friday. He is going to the England London South Mission. Pretty cool for him! he's excited and it will be a big change from living in and seeing Sada every day.

This Sunday it was a special Stake Conference...so church was in Queenstown. Sada brought a bus down, and we heard from the Stake President that was broadcast from East London, and then a special DVD with Elder Bednar, President Uchtdorf, some other guy, and a lady that always speaks in conference. They pretty much just cracked down hard on Labola, which is the bride price culture here....Uchtdorf just straight up said "discontinue this practice" and the people were like laughing a bit,  It’s a huge tradition here....but the First Presidency and the Apostles frown upon it I would say.
We had a good turnout...and we had 2 baptism interviews, one for a girl named Nokotula, and one for a 16 year old boy named Mihlale, who is a stud. He's really cool and they are both ready! Again, I didn’t teach them that much, so it’s kinda like I'm just here for them, but it’s still cool for them :)

This week is Thanksgiving! I don’t know what I'll do...since neither of my comps are American...hahaha. But I haven’t really heard anything either, so we will see how the plans turn out!

I love you so much and miss you like crazy. Honestly more than you even know.

Love,

Elder Truscott

November 17, 2014

Elder Truscott and Elder Welsh with the Kumaria Family

Eldridge and Elder Truscott

The Beast, Elder Truscott and Mama Frans

Loading onto the bus on transfer day. Elder Truscott is headed to  East London
Elder Kupa, Elder Truscott, Elder Welsh and Elder Decebal Cuza

Elder Chaparadza, Elder Truscott and Elder Swacina in a tripanionship in Sada 

So let’s see...this week was a tougher one.....
I had to say all my goodbyes in Uitenhage,which seems like a long time ago now....this week dragged.

Saying goodbyes was pretty tough. It sucked saying goodbye to Beast (I won’t ever have a cooler fellow shipper/ward mission leader I'm pretty sure) and Mamma Frans. I printed some pics of us and gave them to them when I said goodbye. It’s amazing to me how much I just grow to LOVE the people, and it’s a weird kind of love too...it’s hard to explain. I'll tell you what, the hardest goodbye to say was to the Big 5.  I printed out their baptism pics and they really loved them. Honestly seeing their excitement about the gospel and their baptism is still so amazing to me. So we showed them those, and then I started saying goodbye and thank you for all they've done for me, and it wasn’t too bad....they were saying how much they are going to miss me and everything, the usual....and started getting a bit emotional. Then they asked me to say one last prayer before I left, and as I prayed I just heard them start crying. I still get emotional thinking about it. It was tough. But their confirmation went well I heard and I'm excited for them.
Then I said goodbye to Mamma Frans she cried, the Mendu's made us a dinner and was really nice. And then I packed until late......

I woke up early and we were off to PE, where I got on a bus to East London...pretty long but whatever...and then from East London I got to hang out there with Carnieletto for a bit! It was cool to see him again and talk about things! Then we all met up at the chapel, the new Elders came, and me, and 3 other Elders serving in Queenstown drove to Queenstown where when we got there (like 8) the senior couple had dinner for us.
Sada is a pretty weird place. Super rural....nobody speaks English and so far honestly it’s been tough. Of course I miss Uitenhage so that doesn’t help...and since it’s a Tripanionship, I’m sleeping on the floor. But this is only a 4 week transfer.  All of our lessons so far have had to be translated.....and church is done in lots of Xhosa....which is fine except I can’t understand it.
But I guess things will get better.
But I’m here in Sada now! Serving here, and it should be alright, they have a few baptism dates so at least the work seems to be going good!
Love,
Elder Truscott

November 10, 2014 -The highlight of the week was obviously the baptisms this Sunday!!

Elder Welsh, Elder Decebal Cuza, Elder Truscott and Elder Kupka in front of the home of
Claudia, Zandi, Phelicia, Princess

Elder Kupka, Elder Truscott and Elder Decebal Cuza

Elder Welsh, Elder Truscott, Claudia, Zandi, Phelicia, Princess, Elder Decabal Cuza and Elder Kupka

Well my last week here in Uitenhage is over! Already been here 4 ½ months! Time flies. But now, according to the missionary board that was sent out....I am going to Sada to be with Elder Swacina and Elder Chaparadza in a tripanionship.
It was a decent week this week, just a completely average one. No exchanges, no conferences, just Elder Welsh and I doing missionary work!  We had a nice week of missionary work.
We moved boardings this week on Thursday....which is a huge pain to be honest. Our new boarding is a big house with us in the back, the Kwano guys in the front of the house, and the zone leaders on a side house. It is fun to be with others, but boy was it a huge pain to move, and our new flat isn’t very big or nice...kind of a pain.
The highlight of the week was obviously the baptisms this Sunday!! Claudia and Phelicia were baptized and it was a great service :) I got to baptize both of them, and it was a great way to end my time here in Uitenhage! They were so excited and happy! It was awesome to see! Especially Claudia, she didn't stop smiling the whole week and on Sunday she was totally excited! Phelicia too, but for some reason she seemed down after the baptism a bit. We still have to figure out why. Their family, for the most part, came to see them get baptized at church, and it was really nice. Total highlight of my time here. Sacrament meeting was good, we had a nice turnout! There were 8 people there from our side, and 8 from the other guys as well, so we had a total of 16 investigators at sacrament meeting this week! We had Claudia, Phelicia (who are still investigators until they are confirmed next week), Christina, Mama Juda's granddaughter, Busi, Motlalepula, a member named Lebo's little sister, and a new investigator named Babalwa. It was a nice way to end the week. It was a super hot week....with a nice ending :)
Now i'm going to have to get all ready for transfers, going off to Sada, so still in the Eastern Cape....
Love,
Elder Truscott

November 3, 2014

Elder Kupka and Elder Welsh

Elder Decebal Cuza (Kupka's son) with Elder Truscott

This week wasn't as bad as last week, that's for sure....it was just an average week. Not too great and not too bad I guess. Just a normal week of doing missionary work.
So guess what.... Last Monday was one year since I baptized Sibu! That's crazy huh!? I was looking through some of my old planners and saw that, it's pretty cool!

This week Tuesday pretty much sucked. Ha ha. I don't know why but people just drop our appointments and it's making me mad! Out of the 7 appts we had scheduled (which would have been an awesome day).....we taught 2 lessons. Super frustrating.

Wednesday was a bit better, and Thursday wasn't too bad either. Friday was actually a great day. I was on exchanges with Elder Kupka, and since neither of the other Elders can drive we were in my area. We had a super good day! Brother Effenaar had given us a referral, and we went and saw him. He's a 20 year old guy who is super interested in the gospel and wants to get his life back on track. Kupka and I had a great lesson with him and he accepted baptism when he comes to find out if it's true, so it was good!! Kupka is a super cool guy and we get along great. So it was a powerful exchange, besides that guy we taught other lessons that were great as well.

Saturday was a weird day. We had correlation with Beast in the morning, where we talk about the missionary work going on and stuff for him to report, and then we went out for our day. We stopped by Eldridge cause he wasn't home for our appt on Friday, and he was there.....but he was acting strange, so I don't know what's going on there.....then we had a kinda frustrating lesson with some new people we started teaching. We've been going through the lists of people missionaries used to visit, seeing if they still want to sit with us and stuff, and we found this family named the Ndyaneli family. Well they wanted us to come back and we tried teaching the restoration, but the dad was just dwelling on the fact that "we think the bible is wrong" and I was getting heated cause he wasn't listening when we said "no we don't".....ha ha. It was tough. I think when he UNDERSTANDS the Book of Mormon he'll be better, it's just hard trying to explain it. Teaching the born again Christian type people is hard..... But we left them with a restoration pamphlet and they said to come back next Saturday.

So that afternoon Kupka sent an SMS asking what President wanted, and apparently he called them looking for me. So I called him back and he asked me questions to see if I'm able to be a district leader, and pretty much told me I'm leaving. I just don't know where to. So that is exciting as well.

Sunday was an alright day. It was drizzling and sorta stormy.....so our turnout at sacrament wasn't good at all. Phelicia came, and the KwaMagkaki Elders told me Motlalepula was there.....so only 2 people in sacrament meeting. It's just getting me down that the people here don't have much commitment. After church we gave Bro. Booyens a blessing. He's super sick. And then we had lunch at mama Hilda's home. She doesn't speak English very well so it's always funny, but it was really nice of her. Then we sat with that referral from Effenaar, taught the restoration and it was great, then saw why Claudia wasn't at church, and had a DA at the Tschibos! So we were pretty much stuffed full of food. We came back and started packing up our boarding, cause we were supposed to move boardings today, but this morning the zone leaders told us that we aren't actually moving until next week now.....
Most likely my last week here in Uitenhage! Hopefully it's a good one full of progressing people and the baptism of Claudia and Phelicia next week! The interviews still need to be done but right now we're planning on them! Should be a good one....hopefully. Ha ha.
Love, Elder Truscott