January 27, 2014

Elder Truscott and his new Comp. Elder Ramosoeu at the Internet Cafe

Elder Truscott and a local township artist that told the Elders he's an Artist from Paris, France

Ok....so let me tell you about my week :)

Well geez, a couple things happened this week! For one thing though, I am officially 6 MONTHS out here in SA :) I burned a tie for the ceremony and everything :) AAAANNNDDDD it was transfer week, so I will tell you all about it.
So Monday we got the transfer news that Elder Graydon was going to East London, and that I would be staying in Grahamstown with a new Companion,  Elder Ramosoeu. Usually you leave on Wednesdays for transfers, but because we had to drive to Port Elizabeth (for Graydon to get the bus and me to pick up Ramosoeu from the airport) we had to drive to Port Elizabeth Tuesday night. That pretty much crammed everything into one day .....

So Tuesday Graydon said his goodbyes and packed, and we FINALLY got on the road to Port Elizabeth  at like 9:30. Hahaha. So we drove there and slept at the Zone Leaders boarding there, and in the morning EARLY Graydon had to be at the bus stop. Graydon would get on the bus at 6, and then my comp wasn't going to be there until 2:30 from the plane. So I was with other kids who were waiting for their new comp's.  It was kinda cool to see Elder Creech again :) I saw him at the bus stop! But anyways,  We had time to kill, so we went to a place called boardwalk. It's kind of like the Grand West place that I went to in Cape Town.....so that killed our time and then off to the airport to pick up companions :) I saw Hlophe and Cobabe at the airport and I was super happy to talk to them and catch up!

I am with Elder Ramosoeu, he is from a place called Bloemfontein, South Africa.

It was a pretty boring week besides transfers to be honest with you. Not tons of lessons and stuff....but Saturday was my 6 month mark!!! 1/4 of the way done with my mission! I went to the little china shop here, and bought a 35 Rand tie, and burnt it for the occasion :) haha.

As far as the people go, we have been spending lots of time with Grant and Shanice. We just go and read the Book of Mormon and hang out with them! Like Saturday we went and watched the neighborhood rugby game, bought some drinks, and chilled and then read some Book of Mormon, it is super cool. They are super cool people, and I think Grant is getting closer and closer to ready! He didn't come to church this week cause he had work, but we walked with Shanice.The Sinama's are still amazing! they are such cool people! Emerald we didn't get a chance to see this week.....she got held up at work or something for our appointment, so we are going to be seeing her tonight!

Things are moving right along here in Grahamstown though.

Love,

Elder Truscott

6 Months Down...But who's counting ???

Alright, so as far as my week goes, it was a decent week here in SA! I can't complain!
This morning we did another one of our "Nature Walks with Breakfast" with Bro. Alan, and we got out of there later than we thought, had to have our boarding inspection, and then the quest for internet
came.....

We have been getting so many flat tires! I told you that we got all of the tires fixed, but this week again the back tire went flat when we were driving home one night! Ha ha ha, it's the first tire that I've had to change personally though, cause usually people run up to help us! Not this time, so we have problems with tires here in township driving around ;)

Ok so since our transfers are over, we had to have our boarding inspection on Tuesday...well lets just say that we failed, so the Chases said that we needed to clean, and they would come back. We actually cleaned really well, and now we just had our re-inspection this morning, and we passed!
 
Wednesday, we went out to the Thomas's farm all day long to help and do service there. It was probably one of the hottest days I've experienced in SA so far...it was up to 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit)  so it was pretty hot. We helped them load and unload their buckey (what they call trucks over here) and take the stuff to a storage place they had. It was actually a really fun day, and I liked the little change it gave me :)

Yesterday was an interesting day! It was Sunday so we went to church of course, but after church we went to the Sinama's (Sibu's family) cause it was the moms birthday :) I already knew, so Saturday I bought a big cake, and we took it to them yesterday and sang, and sat and had a great lesson :)

So from there we went to Elizabeth, one of our investigators, cause Graydon had agreed to go to her church with her yesterday. We went to the Old Apostolic church, which was in ALL Afrikaans and was pretty weird for me. There were parts that were different, and strange.
 
We had a good amount of lessons and stuff to do this week! Grant is moving along. He wants to be baptized but there are some things that are stopping him from being able to. Smoking is one...but he wants to quit, and he's getting there, he has already quit drinking!

The Sinama's are amazing! I look forward to their lessons every time cause they are so much fun :) They are a great family!

Emerald is having a real tough time right now with things going on in her life. Her boyfriend had his ID stolen, and now they are in a real tough financial thing with the fraud going on, and its really wearing her down. But she keeps having appointments, and loves it when we are there, so I'm happy for that! :)

Now we are just waiting for transfer news tonight! I am thinking that Graydon is leaving, I'm staying, and Ramoshaba and Bell are staying the same....but we will see!

Love,

Elder Truscott

Well another week down!

Elder Truscott with Garth, or G-Man

Elder Truscott and Elder Graydon having a lesson with Grant and Shanice 

Alright so about my week!

Well another week down! This week was a long one for me....I don't know why. Monday we emailed and then started off for East London where our Zone training and interviews were! We were supposed to drive with Elder Ramoshaba and Elder Bell, but Elder Bell got food poisoning,
apparently from a chicken pie he bought at a gas station.....hahaha, ya that will do it! ;) so me and Graydon drove down there Monday afternoon and Bell and Ramoshaba came down with the Chase's on Tuesday morning.

Tuesday we had our training and interviews, and we were the morning session, so we had to be at the chapel there at about 8:30. We got there fine, and while the Zone Leaders were doing their training President Wood pulled us out and we all had our interviews, and then President Wood gave us a training and we ate some lunch :) It was alright I suppose! Nothing too exciting, just trainings on companionship study and stuff like that, apparently all over the world its a problem that Elders either aren't doing it, or doing it wrong....

Wednesday I had my exchanges with Elder Bell. He was still sick from his food poisoning...so he was pretty quiet and stuff, haha. We had a full day pretty much, from like 2 on, and ended with a dinner appointment with brother Alan's place.

This weekend, on Saturday, we were driving around, and we came out from something, and boom....flat tire. Our spare tire was flat too....so we went to the gas station, pumped it up, and then just drove to our next appointment, which was with Grant and Shanice. Of course it was flat within 30 minutes again....and Grahamstown, for some reason everything closes EARLY. So on Saturday at 5ish, everything is closed. Well good old township! Grant and Shanice knew a place in township that would do it....so me, Graydon, Grant, and a guy named Alex rolled the tires down to this place, and they fixed them, and then we rolled them back and stuck one on :) then Grant and I got up onto his roof with a bucket of cement and I helped him fix his roof cause when it rained it would leak. It was pretty cool :) Grant is a super cool guy, and they are all so nice.

So ya in terms of people....things kinda sucked and things went well this week, hahaha, if you can get that!

Sharon, pretty much the person we thought was progressing the most, we haven't been able to see. We went there, and her kid was like "my mom said you can take your book back", well of course we were like craaaap! So we called her at work and she told us that she's sorry for wasting our time, she's giving us back the Book of Mormon, and she doesn't believe what we have been saying but it's opened her eyes a bit. Dang it!! So we are trying to just catch her home one last time to talk about it....but that put a damper on things!

On the other hand, we started really teaching Sibu's family this week! Oh my gosh they are SOO cool! Like even his mom (his aunt) is super nice and funny. And they are really progressing! Like she said that after one of our lessons, they set time aside and read the Book of Mormon together and prayed about it...like wow. That's what we are constantly trying to get people to do! And they did it after our first lesson! And the mom said that she feels like she just wants to read more and more!

Also, a lady named Emerald that we met, we saw her a few times this week and she is super awesome! Like she was worried about us going to East London, and as we read with her she told us that she has no doubt that what we say is true, and that she will come to church when she feels
ready, so that was good!

So there's been good and bad this week I guess! But the transfer is almost over! This coming week is the last week of the transfer!

The time of the week has come, where I have to get off the computer now, but know that I love you, and I really appreciate everyone's love and support.

Love,

Elder Truscott

We are now into 2014 :)

Sibu and Elder Truscott in Grahamstown

 

Elder Truscott at an Animal Reserve in Port Alfred

We are now into 2014 :)  I'll tell you about my week here, which by the way is SOOO hot right now....like sweating weather at 9 in the morning!

Monday we drove down to Port Alfred to do a giraffe park thing! I didn't know what to expect, but lots of missionaries that are around that area do it. So we went there and it was like a big animal park thing we could drive through. We saw some deer things, some zebra, and some giraffes :) the cool thing though was that one of the giraffes they have there has been raised around people I guess, so he is in this area you can go and pet him! :) it was super cool!! The thing is huge of course so you are just petting it's leg and then all of a sudden it will just bend it's neck down and be in your face! Haha, it was really fun though, and made for a nice PDay :)

Tuesday was New Year's Eve, but the rule came out that on New Year's Eve we had to be home at 6. Well we stopped working at 6, but we went to pick up the other guys and they said that they were hungry too, so we went to a nice place called Gino's and ate some Italian food for New Years :)

Wednesday was New Year's Day, and the rules on it were pretty strict. We couldn't go out unless we had an appointment, and we weren't able to go into the township at all, even if we had appointments. Well since most of our work is in the township we had no appointments in town! We sat at the boarding most the day, but the Chase's invited us to their place to make pizzas and relax for a bit, so we did that and then went back to the other guys place and played games, hahaha. It wasn't bad.

 The biggest highlight from Thursday was the terrible news that Sibu was leaving Grahamstown and going back to Gugs. He called and told us his travel plans, so Thursday at 2 we went and chilled with him, and hung out with him until he had to catch his bus at 3:30. It was so cool to be able to meet up with him here! I'm so glad how things worked out like that, it was awesome to be around him during the holidays :) so we saw Sibu off and then went out to work!

Friday we had exchanges with the zone leaders. They came in from east London, and I was with Elder Nkosi. 

But I realized I haven't talked tons about the people here in Grahamstown. So I will tell a bit about the ones that I'm getting to know better.

So first off there is Grant and Shanice. Grant is an investigator and Shanice is a member. We are seeing them all the time. It was funny kinda, when I first got here they weren't really lively to missionaries and stuff, but lately they have loved having us around and I've gotten to really like them
 

Sister Amanda Boesak  is Shanice's mom. We visit her a lot too, and we have been trying to walk with her and Shanice and Grant to church every week so that they will come!

 

We've been teaching Isabelle, Sharon, Sharon's daughter usually sits in, and trying to get Sharon's brother Malachi to join us too. They are doing good! This week was kinda crazy for appointments with New Years and stuff so we haven't seen them and had a lesson since last Sunday, but we will be seeing them this week.

Another family that we are teaching is a lady named Emerald. She lives with her boyfriend, which we've never met, but we were tracting an area and found her and her 2 daughters, Kaylin and Keisha. They have been doing super good too. Always listening in lessons and she even read part of the Book of Mormon when we left it, the introduction and the testimonies! It was pretty cool! So we've been seeing them and Kaylins boyfriend is usually there too.

We're teaching others, but those are the main ones right now that we are trying to focus on, cause like I said, there hasn't been a baptism here for a LONG time, and besides Grant and the Boesak's everyone I talked about we found this transfer, so we are hoping the new people progress! :)

 

But that's about it in terms of news from over here in S.A. And my week!

 

We are driving back to East London today for interviews and training which are tomorrow.

I love you!

 

Elder Truscott

My first Christmas away from home!

Well my first Christmas away from home.....so obviously that was my main focus this week ;)

Monday was our PDay and we didn't really do anything at all.....just emailed and then did some shopping. There isn't much to do when we are here in Grahamstown!

Tuesday was Christmas Eve so I was kinda checked out a bit. I didn't really want to do anything but we had a few appointments. I was just excited/dreading Christmas in S.A.

Wednesday was Christmas :) I woke up, opened up the packages that you sent me, and then we had to go to the chapel to get the Skype set up for a branch member to Skype her brother. Well after that we were invited over to a less active members house for lunch. Buuut she wanted us to prepare the food too. Haha. Well I've never BBQ'd.....especially over a camp fire thing....so we started the fire  and they got the meat on there....but we couldn't stay there to eat with them because Sibu invited us up to his place for Christmas lunch :) we had to be there at 2 so we left Amanda's place  and went to Sibu!

It was so cool to be able to spend Christmas with that dude! I'm super glad he was here, haha. So we ate at his house, and chilled with him for a bit. Then, at 4 we had another family to go to....to eat. Haha. So we drove to the Johnson's place in town and ate there too.

After that it was time to go to the chapel and Skype home :) I had a plan.....it didn't work....but I had planned that I was going to Skype home last so that nobody was waiting on me. Well it would have been great except the Internet at the chapel went out after 2 people skyped! Haha. So we sat there trying hard to get the Internet going....ya it's safe to say none of us are  technology wizards. Haha, so that's when I had to call and say not to wait by the computer....and that I was going to go home and sleep, and come back in the morning to Skype. Well we did just that....but of course in the morning the Internet still wasn't working. Luckily the Senior couple, the Chase's, let me go to their place and Skype off of their stuff :) I actually ended up skyping Thursday morning! But it was amazing :) I loved chatting, made me pretty homesick afterwards.....haha.

After that on Thursday we had just a normal day of appointments, which most of them dropped....shocker ;)

Friday around 3 we drove up to a members house....and she lives FAR. Like 45 minutes out of Grahamstown! They live on a farm type place, and they are called the Thomas's. They wanted it to be like our Christmas dinner from them, so all 4 of us and the Chase's went up there and they had a Brie (BBQ) for us! Well it was super good. The husband isn't a member and is a super funny guy! He said that he feeds people's animals and stuff, like buffalo, kudu, and that kind of stuff! It would be pretty cool! He said that buffalo sell for millions of Rand. Like one that is on the farm was sold for something like 45 million! What the heck!? But it's cool, I didn't know you could buy them!
Well he bried for us, and he made us warthog. Haha. It was actually delicious! He made warthog sausage, warthog steaks, and then chicken and sausage and stuff! It was super good! We came home stuffed and started exchanges :)

I got to be with Elder Ramoshaba on Saturday. It was a nice day, just changing things up a bit! He's a really funny kid, and we get along really well so it was a nice day :)

Sunday was just church and appointments as usual. The best thing though was that we had investigators at sacrament for the first time since I've been here! It was a lady named Sharon and another lady named Isabelle. We found them like late in week 1 of the transfer, and we have just been seeing them, and Sharon came to church with Isabelle this week, and enjoyed it! We asked her her thoughts and she just said that she needs to read the Book of Mormon, so we read the introduction
of it with her and answered any questions that she had :)

Nothing too exciting. Grahamstown is a pretty boring place to be honest with you.
I love you so, so much. Seeing you was the BEST thing ever :) and I miss you like crazy....almost 1/4 through! Jan. 25 is my quarter mark and then I have to burn a tie!!!
(Tradition ;) )
Love you and miss you more than you can even imagine :)

Love,

Elder Truscott

Christmas Week

Elder Truscott and Elder Graydon (His new Comp)

Elder Erickson and Elder Truscott at the Christmas Zone Conference

Elder Ndlovu and Elder Truscott at the Christmas Zone Conference

 

My week this week, I will tell you all about it :)

Monday we decided to drive to East London in the morning because on Tuesday we had our Christmas Zone Conference there. We thought we would just go a bit earlier and spend our P Day there. Well we just ended up chilling with other Elders, playing some sport, and messing around. Then we stayed with other Elders for the night!

Tuesday we had to be at the chapel at 8 in the morning, and the beginning was just a normal Zone Conference. We had training from the AP's and President Wood, then had everyone bear their testimony. We had a nice lunch that all the senior couples made, and then had our Zone Reports.  Then we had our little white elephant present exchange (it's white elephant because you can only spend 20 rand, this is equal to $2.00) After that we watched our movie, we watched Ephraim's Rescue. The conference was a good time, it was just fun to see a bunch of  Elders. Especially to see Elder Erickson again, haha. It felt good :)
We had a good time there, and then we drove back to Grahamstown Wednesday morning. Boy was I tired on Wednesday! I had a headache after the drive and we still had to go out and do work.....

Thursday was alright :) since Sibu is here, even though he's in the other Elders area we decided we would go teach him :) I pushed for that cause he's awesome and I wanted to! So we went up to his
place in the township and read the BOM with him a bit, and it was super cool to have a lesson with him again!

Well Friday we just had a pretty basic day. It was HOT here....like  sweating all day long HOT....which I hate. But we went about our day, and we had an appointment at like 6 with this guy named Malachi. Well we were there and we met his sister and her ex husband. The guys name
is Douglas and he was from Scotland,  His ex wife named Sharon said she was looking for a
church, so we invited them in on our lesson. We were just teaching the Restoration. Well they sat in, and Douglas was telling us that we were "about 45 degrees off"....haha. Well he sat in on the lesson and was  great until we got to the part about Jesus. He flipped out and disagreed that Jesus was perfect and sinless....he stormed out cause he didn't agree....kinda confused the lesson a bit! Well we just continued and taught Malachi and Sharon, and about 15 minutes later in comes Douglas, he apologized, and said that "I think I'm the one that's 45 degrees off". He then proceeded to listen to the restoration through Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and requested that he got a Book of Mormon, because he was more than interested. Pretty cool turn around! We invited them all to come to church and.....they didn't show up. But we will follow up, and it was still kinda cool :)

Sunday was decent. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting, on the Spirit of Christmas and how we can be in it. Sibu said it was good. Haha. After church we sat with Sibu and read, and then he fellowshipped with us all day! We just visited a few people cause our appointments dropped, but just being with Sibu was awesome :)

Apparently everyone is out of town right now for holiday, and that is why it's been so slow....I hope so cause so far Grahamstown has more dropped appointments and non scheduled time than Gugs.

But that is my week for you!! :) I love you so so much!!

Transfer week :)

Map showing the location of Grahamstown, SA

Ok I will tell you all about my transfer week :) I'm officially in Grahamstown now!!

Last Monday I got my call that I'd  be going to Grahamstown with Elder Graydon as my new companion! I'll  take you through the week of getting here and everything :)

 

So Tuesday was packing and saying goodbyes. I took my member journal around to the members who I wanted to write in it. We had already planned with Bro. Unam and Sis. Renee that we were going to see Zodwa on Tuesday night, and they would take us out as a goodbye thing after :) so around 6:30  we met them at their place and followed them to the hospital again to see Zodwa and find out how she was doing, plus to say my goodbye. It still sucked and she still didn't look very good, but she was doing better than before. After the visit they took Hlophe and I to a mall to eat some pizza and hang out! It was super awesome, and I honestly miss Gugulethu and those people so much.

Wednesday was transfer day, so I had to be at the mission home around 9:30 to get out of there.
I am in the actual town of Grahamstown, and there is a small part of township in my area. 

Grahamstown is just a little old town, and it actually reminds me a lot of the little towns in England! There hasn't been a baptism here for a long long time.....like almost 2 years in my area, and from that I hear the work is super hard, so that sucks. Hahaha. And it's a little bit colder here than it was in Cape Town, at least the last few days have been. The chapel here is just a nice house that they rent out! Ha ha,it has a swimming pool in the middle of it where we do the baptisms if we get any! But the branch is small small small! Even smaller than Gugs!

Something cool did happen though! So Sibu is here in Grahamstown for the holidays, and I gave him a call Saturday night telling him to come to church....we walked in, and there he was :) ohhh I was so happy to see that kid! It was awesome having him there :) Made me realize how much I miss Gugs.....like I would go back so quickly if I could.

Elder Truscott with Sibu at his baptism in Gug's

We visited a few people here this week, but to be honest I can't really report on too much cause I don't know them yet. We just taught about the restoration a few times and stuff like that, but the work is slower than Gugs! I never thought I'd say this my first month out, but boy do I miss Gugulethu!

Love and miss you so so much!

Love,

Elder Truscott