March 30, 2015

Elder Prisbrey, Elder Truscott, Elder Pahulu, and Elder Mendenhall.with the Kruger family.
Rayno, Sis Kruger, Bro. Kruger and  Kari

My week here in Bellville....I don’t even know what to say about this week.
This week in terms of lessons taught was better than last week...but it is probably hard to get worse. hahaha. But it was a bit better. I am hoping to just keep improving and improving each week until we get to where I want the area to be. But it was a good one I guess, we did lots of finding this week and we keep testing the promises....it’s funny. Here we start out every time getting rejected like crazy, and then we start having a  bit of success right as we are about to finish.
Like I will talk about a few times this week that were kinda cool for me! So we have been trying to do a 1-1-1 each day...so we teach one investigator, get one new investigator, and teach one member. Well on Wednesday we had two lessons scheduled with new investigators and then a member we had planned to visit that night. First thing the two appts drop, and we hit the streets. Ended up teaching and getting a new investigator to meet the goal we had, and then as we walked back to the car, the phone rings and the member dropped. Flip it was like 7 and we had to teach a member cause we promised Heavenly Father.....so we got the ward list and started making call after call trying to get an appt. We drove all over the area we were in, but everyone kept saying it was too late and they had kids and whatever....we were pretty discouraged cause it was about 7:45 at this point, so we decided to say one last prayer. As we prayed the phone rang.....so we hurried and ended the prayer, and I answered the phone.....the guy was a member that we had called, but he missed our call. He reminded me his name, and I asked if we would be able to come and see him for only about 10 minutes since it was late.....and nope. he was in Joburg. But a crazy thought came to my mind, and I was like "hey, I'm going to ask you something super wierd" and he was like "ok" and I asked him if we would be able to share  a message with him over the phone for his travels. He was totally cool and said he had pulled over the car to talk to us so he was fine. We opened with a prayer and taught the dude over the phone. hahahaha. I have never done that one before, but I thought it was crazy how we had promised Heavenly Father, and then He made it happen, even if it wasn’t how it usually does or I thought it would! I thought it was cool. haha. But we had a few cool experiences this week just finding and being led to people!
On Wednesday morning we had a little meeting thing with Elder Branch. He is a District Leader in Milnerton ward, and this is his first transfer as a DL so we just went over and did a little thing to answer his questions and help him the best we could be a district leader. It was a cool idea I guess, nobody did that for me....haha. Then on Thursday we had a meeting with the Assistants to talk about the zone...it was pretty much a 2 hour discussion on exactly what we talked about as a zone on top of Lions Head, but they weren’t there so they didn’t know....We just talked about the zone's stats and how we can improve and stuff.
Saturday we were on exchanges/splits in Paarl. We drove up there Saturday morning early so we could be there for studies, and then I went with an Elder Si'ufanua and Elder Prisbrey went with an Elder Rasmussen. It was a sweet exchange. Si'ufanua and I got straight to work. We prayed and set the goal to teach 2 member presents and a total of 6 lessons. We did it and we found some super sweet people in Paarl! I really liked that area honestly, it was a great area and a nice day, plus Elder Si'ufanua is a super funny guy. He's from American Samoa and he's pretty buff of course, he's a polynesian, and he's a funny dude. Loves the word "powerful". hahahaha.
Then Sunday at church...it was my first Sunday in Bellville ward since last Sunday was Stake Conference. It was wierd seeing so many white faces while I introduced myself. hahaha. But it was a good Sunday!
Church was good, and then Elder Prisbrey and I got to go to Khayletsha (sp?), one of Prisbrey's old areas, cause he was asked to baptize someone he found there! It was really nice for him, and it made for a good Sunday!
Then every Sunday we go to the Krugers for dinner, and they had a little surprise Birthday thing for me :) It was suuuuper flipping nice since I've only met them like twice and last week was my first week ever at their house! I was super grateful and it was fun :) I love them already and I just got here. haha. But it was a good week overall...we just need to keep improving like I said! But Bellville will be good!
I Love and miss you guys,
Elder Truscott

March 23, 2015

Sibu and his family. The woman in the green
sweater zip up is Sibu's mom, and then Sibu is the one in the
cardigan, Mihlali wanted to come with us (the kid in the blue shirt in
many of the pics), and Sibu's little bro. Mihlali in the purplish
shirt who's standing in his moms arm in the family pic.

Elder Truscott and the Xalabile family 

Mihlali and Elder Truscott

Elder Truscott with Sibu

Elder Truscott with Bonga

Elder Truscott with Elder Ratema

Elder Truscott and Elder Kivley

Final goodbye pics
with the District in Sada/Ilinge. Williams, Ratema, Kjeldsen,
and Elder Truscott.

Elder Truscott at the top of Lions Head

Elder Kupka and Elder Truscott at Lions Head

Elder Truscott with Elder Prisbrey, his new companion, at the top of Lions Head

This week for me....geez where do I even start.....
I guess I will start with this morning, and the reason I'm e-mailing  a bit later than usual.
We decided that we wanted to go and do something with the whole zone (Cape North is the biggest zone in the mission) that we could get everyone together, build unity, and then talk about goals and stuff that we can set for the rest of the transfer to get the zone out of the slump of sorts that it’s in. We decided to go and hike Lions Head today as a zone. It was pretty fun! We hiked, started around 10, and when we got to the top we talked about goals that we could set as a zone and as districts and companionships that would strengthen us....came up with a few that hopefully will help us all get on the same page and work really hard. The zone has been lacking in terms of stats...and regardless of the fact that we have some of the nicest areas in the mission so work is hard, we can do better. So I’m super sunburned now....but finally emailing :) ha ha.

Last Monday I finished up my packing and went to say some goodbyes in Sada! Geez it seems like forever ago now! But it was good. Saying goodbyes wasn’t too hard honestly. It was probably one of the easiest times of saying goodbyes. The one that was really cool was Sibu. He started crying when I said goodbye and it was just really cool to feel the love that he has for me and how much his family has grown just since I've been there. It is awesome. But after I said all my goodbyes, we went back to the boarding and Williams and Kjeldsen had a surprise milk tart there for us, so we split it and had a nice night together :)

Tuesday was a crazy day as well....man, we were running all over. I had to be in East London by 7 to meet up with everyone else, and Elder Stapley wanted us to switch around the tires on the cars cause the Sada car was supposed to be taken to East London and sold. So we did, and while the guys at the shop were putting the tires back on the Sada car (our car), they said that the one tire's lug nuts weren’t going on right and that he was nervous they would break....well in time he came back and said it was done, but that we shouldn’t go over 80ish K's an hour.....well it was wobbly we could feel while driving home...so I told Elder Stapley and he said that he wanted it to be fixed (makes sense) and so they called Hi Q (the tire shop) and told them what happened and whatever. Well we went back in, and at this point I had all my bags in the car cause we needed to get going, and they told us that 3 of the 4 tire screws that hold on the tire were stripped, and that we shouldn’t drive it to East London...then they told us they didn’t have the parts to fix it then. Ha ha ha. flip. We called Ilinge and had to have them stay at the boarding the next few days, so we could take their car and drive to East London! But we did it, and we finally got there! And it was cool, cause Stratton, Chamberlain, and Sanders are all ZL's in that area, so we all went out to dinner that night and I stayed with Stratton and Chamberlain. It was tons of fun to be around those guys again :)
Then Wednesday morning EARLY I had to be at the chapel to go to the airport....and flew to Cape Town. It makes me really really sad to think that it might be the last time I ever fly IN to Cape Town. It’s been really wierd for me here. It is sooo flipping different. Bellville is a really nice area and we have lots of modern things all around and white people....its muuuch different. Culture shock to the max. I don’t think anyone we teach speaks Xhosa and its really wierd to me. haha. Elder Prisbrey is really cool too. I have really liked it so far. It’s been a flipping looong week though for some reason.

The highlight of this week was that this Sunday here was stake conference!! It was so amazing....cause guess what. I got to see the Sibotoboto family!! Remember them from the Gugs days! They live in Panorama now and attend at the same building that Bellville does, and on Saturday night I walked into Stake Conference and saw Sis. Eunice sitting there! It was soo awesome! Then Sunday they brought their super awesome kids and it just made me so happy to see that family again, and made me miss them tons!! Gosh Bro. and Sis. Sibotoboto are awesome! And get this, the ward mission leader here in Bellville is Gertzen! hahahaha. He's back here studying so he's at Bellville ward now and is our ward mission leader, so I get to be around him again, but lots of the ward I haven’t really met cause it was conference. But I am glad it was :)
Stake Conference was really good though! Saw people from Table View as well, and some of the speakers were pretty cool. So it was good. Pres. Merrill spoke and he is always really good at speaking.

Like I said, it was a long week, but it’s been nice. The area is a lot slower in terms of work than Sada was...but that is because the area here is  TOTALLY different than anything I've ever worked in before...it’s really nice here honestly. Ha ha. It’s wierd!

I left lots out, it was a crazy one! I love you and miss you so much mom! And I know that I'm down to about 4 months now, and it really freaks me out!

I love you tons!
Love,
Elder Truscott

March 16, 2015

The highlight of this week was Sibu's baptism for sure

 The Miselo family

 The Jaantjie family.

So I guess I’ll get right into it and tell you about my week!
Monday we did another zone finding activity, this time at the main round about in Queenstown which always has tons of people. it was pretty good. I was tired, and I was with an elder Moffet, but we accomplished our goals again and hopefully I can take some of those things to the new zone in Bellville!
Last week in Sada, officially. I am going to be in Bellville now, I'll be a zone leader there.
Tuesday was Zone conference, so early in the morning we had to be there, and it was actually pretty good. We learned some new ways to teach lessons using the pictures in the pamphlets that have helped, especially with those that don't speak English very well....and then we watched "Meet the Mormons", which is just like a little movie about like 6 different people and it just talks about the church and members and stuff. It was a good conference over all for sure! After the conference, Pres. just called me into a room and interviewed me telling me that I'd be leaving, and it was pretty exciting! I waited until Saturday to find out where, when the Zone Leaders came and told me that I'd be going back to Cape Town! Which is exactly what I wanted, finish off in Cape Town :)
So we are still on freaking fire here. Even though we had zone conference on Tuesday which took up lots of the day, we had the goal as a district to each teach 30 discussions....and we did. Boom. After Zone conference on Tuesday Elder Malpage and I went to Sada cause he had to do the baptismal interview for Sibu (I'll talk more about his baptism), but we did it like exchanges, so Malpage and I were together for the rest of the day. It was awesome, we taught 5 discussions in that day and we only had like 2 and a half hours! We used what we learned at zone conference, and even though it will take perfecting, it was really good. And then to top it off Sibu's interview went great and he was totally ready.
So we just taught up a storm all week in Sada, and then on Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Williams in Ilinge. They were struggling and didn't look like they were going to make the 30 lesson bar, so I decided to go there again. We set the goal of teaching 8 discussions that day, which would put them back on track....and we did! Man we worked, and when an appt. dropped, we just got right to it and found someone else and taught them. It was super awesome, and it turned their week right around, cause the next day they taught 8 again, and then they hit 30 lessons on Sunday!
The highlight of this week was Sibu's baptism for sure!  So this week we got a message from Sibu telling us to call him, and when we did, he told us that the bad news was that his dad wasn't going to come down for his baptism, but he still wanted to be baptized. He asked me to baptize him! So it was a great way to end my time here in Sada...got to baptize Sibusiso Bika,and it was amazing to see the whole process again from start to finish. I love it when that happens. Everyone was really supportive on Sunday at church, his mom and siblings were there to watch, and we had 5 other investigators there to see! Sibu is a stud though, and he was really nervous, but very very happy :)
Like I said, it was an amazing week here in Sada to finish off. We ended up teaching 33 discussions, I  don't know how we did it, but even with Zone conference we hit a new personal high. It was awesome!
But today will be full of packing and getting rid of things, cause the weight limit on planes went down so I have to rid myself of some excess baggage. hahaha. But it’s all good, I will just get ready, and then Elder Ratema and I will drive to East London tomorrow, and I'll fly out Wednesday morning for Cape Town!
Love, Elder Truscott

March 9, 2015

Elder Tennent, Elder Truscott, Elder Black, Elder Ratema, Elder Kjeldsen

This week was a really good one for missionary work this week. Dang. I think the best on my whole mission.
The story of this week was exchanges exchanges, exchanges, but it was really nice.
So this transfer President Merrill has chosen 4 elders who just travel the whole mission and go on exchanges with everyone. They have no boarding and they just get a car and go. Its super sweet for them! But for our area its Elder Tennant and Elder Black. They were here in Queenstown this week, so on Monday we had another zone finding thing with them. We went to an area in Queenstown called Mlungisi, and we just split off into different companionships and set some goals. We each had a goal of teaching 3 people the first vision, placing 2 restoration pamphlets, getting 2 return appts with a father led family, and placing a Book of Mormon. I was with Elder Winebrenner, and we did it. We worked for that night and got all the goals. Some funny things happened. So we started walking up to a house, and a lady and guy were coming out, the lady stayed there, and the guy drove away. We started talking to the woman, and she was like "teta isiXhosa qa" which is like "i only speak xhosa".....well she asked us what we do in Xhosa, and we taught about Joseph Smith, and miraculously the gift of tongues was poured out ;) hahaha. She spoke perfect English and we talked with her for the next like 15 minutes and she invited us back and wanted to keep the Book of Mormon we had. Ha ha ha ha. Then we needed one more first vision, and I just pointed to a house at the end of the street. We went there, and ended up teaching a woman who is from East London, and is a young married couple trying for kids. We talked about the restoration and eternal families, and she wants missionaries to visit her and her husband in East London. It was pretty cool.
So on Tuesday we were with Elder Black in Sada. He came with us and Elder Tennant went with Ilinge. With Elder Black we had the goal that day of teaching 5 discussions and getting 3 referrals from people. It was a really good day! We met all our goals, and I learned a lot from Elder Black. He made some hilarious comments in the lessons, and he's pretty much fluent in Xhosa (he's had Xhosa township areas in the Eastern cape for 21 months straight). So he's amazing at it. He just talks to the people and they love it. But we had a great day with him. Ended up teaching 5 lessons and getting I think 6 referrals!
Then the next day we got to be with Elder Tennant. They just switched. So with Elder Tennant he wanted to stop 5 cars on the road and talk to them, and then our goal I said was to get a new investigator. We accomplished all the goals. And learned that stopping cars is very uneffective. Ha ha. But we ended up teaching 9 discussions on Wednesday so it was awesome! Elder Tennant is very cool, I like him a lot.
Then Thursday Black and Tennant were going back to East London before heading to Cape Town to finish there (it’s both of their last transfers). We had lunch one last time with them and we all went off to our areas! We had a really great week in terms of lessons. Wow. In our district total we had 30 member presents alone! It was crazy. We had 17 ourselves in Sada! Total in Sada we taught 32 lessons! Super good and I think that is the highest I've ever had on my mission so far.
Had some great experiences this week. One that I'll talk about was on Saturday we were teaching a guy named Godfrey. He is a cool guy, and he came to church last week. We had planned to talk to him about the restoration focusing on the authority. In the opening prayer I just had the feeling to ask him about if he's prayed about these things. I asked him after the prayer, and he told us that he had, and that he asked God if the church he went to was true and about Joseph Smith. I asked him after that if he's received and answer, he said he didn’t think so. Then we asked and found out he didn’t really know what to look for as an answer. So we ended up teaching him about how the spirit will talk to us and how we can feel answers. We committed him to be baptized on May 10, and it was really what he needed to hear I think. It was a great lesson.
Then I got to go on exchanges AGAIN on Sunday. I have never done exchanges on Sunday before on my whole mission, but it was awesome. I got to see Ilinge ward. It’s something I wanted to do last transfer too, but this transfer they needed a baptism interview and Sunday was the day to do it, so I got to do exchanges then! Sunday was a great day too! We needed a new investigator for both areas, and Sada needed 4 lessons to hit 30, and Ilinge needed 6. Man we worked so hard. Elder Kjeldsen and I were in Ilinge, and I had the goal of getting them 30 lessons. And we did it! Ended up teaching 7 lessons so we both hit over 30 this week!
So this week was great. I'm really tired, I want to nap today. Cause we worked hard, it’s been hot.....my eyes have been hurting, probably from exhaustion. Ha ha. But it was a good week. Hopefully this next week, the last one of the transfer, is good as well! We are planning for Sibu to be baptized next week, and the zone leaders are coming to do his interview tomorrow after zone conference!
Hoping to finish this transfer on a good week.
Oh, and my tooth is still holding up. I pray every night that it won’t fall out again. So far it’s worked!
Love you and Miss you,
Elder Truscott

March 2, 2015

Sibu and Elder Truscott, he also has a chipped tooth

 Bro and Sis. Bika, SIbu's mom and dad

Elder Freitas and Elder Truscott

Elder Truscott wearing his new tie

This week was a really long one for me.

So last Monday after emailing nothing sounded good to me to eat, but I ate anyways, and then after that when we got back home I got really weak and tired, so I tried to lay down....but couldnt really sleep. We planned and I slept, but then threw up a couple times that night....really wasn’t feeling well at all. So Tuesday I went into Sada
as usual but I wasn’t feeling well at all....when the Stapley's saw me they told me to go home and rest. So I did. To make matters worse, my flipping tooth came out AGAIN on Tuesday night, so that sucked, since the dentist was booked until Saturday. Wednesday I went to the doctor and he told me to rest and that I’d be like that for a few days. I rested on Wednesday and then Thursday we went to the area again just a bit later and worked but kind of took it easy for the next bit. Of course the people had a good laugh about me going out there with one
front tooth, I looked funny of course.

So the beginning of this week was really really slow. Just me sick and not doing much. Saturday I was on exchanges with Elder Freitas, our Zone Leader, and we were working around Sada. It was a good day I guess. That morning I went in to the dentist, who really made me mad. I told him that I didn’t want any permanent option because I wanted to wait until I got home for that, and then he just stopped talking and was kind of like he didn’t care at all, "built a tooth" for me, which is like a glob of glue, filled in the gaps I had with it and when I asked him about it (cause they were kind of closing naturally) he just said "I think it should stay this way" and left, came back in and said he needed to put someone else in there. I was pretty pissed. They were just rude. I would go 4 months without one before I went back to him. But I guess what he did will do. I had an extreme appreciation for Ryan Mcneil this week. Ha ha ha.

But exchanges were good. We did good work after the dentist and got to the area. We taught, and had a few minutes and did some finding through Sada where hopefully we can get some nice new families!
Sunday at church was ok. We had a good turnout, so that is good, and of course Sibu is super pumped for the 15th. So he's still progressing really quick. Besides him we found a few new people this week we're hopeful for, and one members like 20 year old son came from Cape Town so we are excited to start teaching him!
In all though, it was a slow and hard week for me. Hopefully next week will be better.
I love you and miss you,
Elder Truscott