Tuesday was the big 2-0! April 6, 2015

Tuesday was the big 2-0! 

Elder Prisbey, Elder Fonua, Elder Mendenhall, Elder Truscott

Elder Truscott, Elder Mchunu, Elder Prisbrey, and Elder Malpage

Well this week for me....there was lots I guess...it was a looong week this one. Dang.
Monday last week we ended up getting done with the emailing pretty late, so we just hung out at the chapel here and played ping pong at the chapel. I have grown to love ping pong....haha.
Tuesday was the big 2-0! hahaha. It was a nice day. I started the morning by opening the gifts :) the I-owe-you's are pretty funny and good :) I like them a lot, and don’t worry, that was the best possible thing to send me right now. Anything else I would only enjoy for about 3 months and then have to leave it. But I love all of them really. You already know I'll need new clothes and a new suit, I especially love the one with the I phone! I took a pic so you can see the evolution I'll be going through, Nokia to Iphone. hahaha. I also like the jeep one...but I didn’t know if you were being serious so I took a pic with a straight face cause I just told the other guys you were joking (but I kept all of them). haha. Then after that  Prisbrey took me to Cinnabon in Tigervalley mall! It was pretty nice in the morning :) The other guys were on exchanges, so it was Elder Mendenhall and Elder Fonua, and they came with us so it was a really nice morning :) The rest of the day we had no appointments, so we hit the streets. We had the goal to find a prepared father led family...and I figured the Lord would bless me more because it was my birthday. hahaha, I don’t know why I was kind of disappointed, I envisioned us sitting with this dad and mom and kids teaching them a solid discussion...that didn’t happen, but we did get 3 return appts. with father led families (we've taught one already) and it was pretty nice I guess. I figured I shouldn’t have been disappointed, cause we did find them....and hopefully something comes from one of them! I have faith. haha.
Then Wednesday this week we were on exchanges with the Assistants. I was with Elder Mchuhu, he's an Elder from Durban SA. It was a really good day. We had the goal to teach 6 lessons...which was way more than any I had taught in a day since I’ve been to Bellville. But we got right to work, and we did it! The first house we knocked on the woman invited us right  in, we taught the Restoration, and she  seemed super interested. Then we got caught up with a Chinese preacher from the Church of God who just wasted tons of our time, and then we needed to do some serious teaching if we were going to do it! We went into town to try and see people there, we ended up getting called over by a less active guy named Norman who wants to get back on his feet and asked for a Book of Mormon! We taught him and another guy in town, and then we went to a different area. There we had a sweet experience. We were driving, and we saw a younger looking dad and his little son, so we pulled over and walked up to them. On the way to them this family in a nearby house was just watching us....but we just went and talked to the guy, he was super cool and we gave him a pamphlet and talked to him a bit, then on the way back to our car, I saw that 2 of the guys from that other family were still watching us. I knew the other elders had been in that area earlier, so I thought maybe they had seen them, so right as I got in the car I just felt like talking to them. I was like "Hey, (and they were just looking right at me so it was easy) have you seen elders like us here today?" and they were just like "are you Jehova's?" hahaha. like Jehova's witnesses? And we said no and went over and talked to them. Turned out to be a retired dude named Leon and his son who's in his 30's probably, and they were SUPER interested! They invited us right in and we had one of the most powerful lessons I've had in Bellville with them. They totally understood what we were saying, and wanted a Book of Mormon, I have some high hopes! But it was cool! Then we needed 2 more lessons so we went to the mall cause it was kind of dark outside, and taught 2 lessons in the mall. haha. But in all Bellville had 10 lessons that day, it was super powerful! Definitely a highlight of the week!
I think because I've been working so hard and just going hard all the time, my body was kind of  dying....so I got pretty sick Saturday....I was really cold, my stomach hurt a lot, and I had a headache....it was bad. I didn’t feel good at all, so we did some service in the morning, we painted some members' garage with them, and then I kind of rested until our lunch appt, and then general conference. It was cool though, I haven’t been fed breakfast in a home since I got here....until Saturday ;) hahaha. it was really nice.
General conference was good though. There was some nice talks from what I saw....we only saw up to the Sunday morning session, cause past that it was really late here. haha. But there were some good talks and it was a nice time! Unfortunately though after conference it was late last night, so we didn’t go to the Krugers, to answer your question about that. For some reason this week seemed super long, but it was a good one I guess. It’s been up and down and really exhausting!
We are emailing and then the Krugers want to go to Grand West and go ice skating with us, so we will be doing that and it should be really fun :)
I love you and miss you!
Love,
Elder Truscott