February 23, 2015

 I gave Bro. Badi those gushers and sour patch you sent...he was very grateful :)

Iviwe did great on his interview, and Elder Ratema got to baptize his first person this week!

Elder Truscott and Sis. Xalabile.

The highlight of my week, of course was Wednesday night when I woke up at 1 a.m. to a crack....and I was back to hillbilly Truscott. hahaha. 

Well this week was a bit of a slower one in Sada.
This transfer is going kind of slow...but with that being said it’s already week 4 of week 6....so I guess it will be over soon!
Last Monday we just went and did some shopping and then I tried to get a nap in before we had to get up to plan for the next week....it didn’t work too well. I mostly just laid there in the heat and had a nice rest, but unfortunately there was no sleeping involved...I did get to go to bed earlier that night though and it felt nice.
Grant and Shanice's news is awesome!! Talking to them was awesome, and when Shanice told me that they were engaged I was super excited, and then of course when she said that they were waiting for us to be there for the wedding I was so happy, not only for them but that I got to see that! Man I love them :)
The highlight of my week, of course was Wednesday night when I woke up at 1 a.m. to a crack....and I was back to hillbilly Truscott. hahaha. I was pretty nervous....but afterwards I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal. I just chalked it up to the fact that I was preaching too much fire and my teeth couldn’t handle it.
This week in terms of lessons was a bit slower. We are doing some finding, this week not as much, but it just feels like everyone we find doesn’t progress that far. I guess it’s a numbers game though. I gave Bro. Badi those gushers and sour patch you sent...he was very grateful :) I will upload a pic for you! But thank you very much for sending those.
Our shining points of the week were that Iviwe did great on his interview, and Elder Ratema got to baptize his first person this week! He is funny. He was always saying how he wasn’t going to baptize anyone in his 2 years, and how he didn’t want to. Well I told him to ask Iviwe who should baptize him, and Iviwe said "you"....he said he wasn’t excited, but I’m pretty sure he was. The baptism went great though!
Sunday was a good day, not for lessons, it sucked for those, but for church itself. We had 8 investigators at sacrament meeting, and then the baptism afterwards went great :) I also gave a talk in sacrament meeting this week. It was my first one since I got here to Sada....so I was joking that they had forgotten about me and how I was just trying to stay under the radar...but nope. Ha ha. I spoke on missionary work for members and how as they reach out to their friends and family to hear the Gospel Sada will have more success. I used 1 Ne. 8 and a few other stories and stuff. It went good I think.
Our other stud investigator is Sibu. Well this week we learned that we can’t take him fellowshipping cause he's not a member yet. Dumb. But we explained it to him and he said he didn’t want to wait to be baptized, so either the 8th or 15th he will be baptized, depending on when his dad's in town. And also we have been seeing him Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and this week he said he wanted to add Friday. Dang. Seeing an investigator 4 times a week is super awesome...I don’t think I've had someone want to sit and have a lesson 4 times a week my whole mission! But Sibu is sweet and he's progressing so fast! I'm really excited about him :)
Hopefully this next week will be better in terms of people taught....but either way, the people we want to focus on are our recent converts, less actives, and a few really progressing people....so hopefully we find more who want to progress!
But it was a pretty boring week for the most part! Next week I will be on exchanges with Ilinge and then with the zone leaders...so there will be some changing up a bit which should be nice!
I Miss you guys!
Love,
Elder Truscott

Feb. 16, 2015

Rhinos at a game preserve in Queenstown, SA

Elder Kjeldsen, Elder Ratema, Elder Williams and Elder Truscott
having a Valentines Candlelit spaghetti dinner

Well this week wasn’t the best one. We taught a good amount of lessons and everything...it just wasn’t a very good one for me. I struggled lots this week it was flipping hot, and I've been really really tired all week. I think that and other things contributed to a mentally tiring week.....but it’s alright I guess.
We set some goals for the rest of this transfer....President Merrill mentioned that during his mission he had a "faith extension" thing...where they just set goals, and each week of the month they did something different...so we took that and made one for the rest of this transfer....the first week we decided we would start just by getting up, going to bed, and getting out of the boarding on time, then we will be talking to 3 new people and placing 2 pamphlets every day the next week, then the next we will be getting one new investigator each day, and then the last week of the transfer we decided that we would each teach 30 lessons! They will be good goals, so this morning we officially started it with a  prayer and we are looking forward to the rest of this transfer! 4 weeks left pretty much (including this week).
Most of this week we did normal missionary work. We were just out trying to teach and find people. Another cool experience with that "testing" thing though. We prayed specifically to teach a discussion to someone who could progress, and the first house we went to, there was a makulu (grandma) who spoke perfect English.....that never happens....and then a younger guy. We taught the plan of salvation and they were very interested, and we mentioned the authority of Christ, and the guy was like "when can you come back and talk more about that authority?" so we had another appt. for yesterday, but he wasn’t there.....but it could be good if we follow up to find him who knows though, but it was a great lesson.
Valentines was on Saturday...but we celebrated it on Sunday. We had stake conference this  week....which was supposed (key word) to be broadcasted from East London to the Queenstown chapel. Well we got there, and the power in East London was off, so it couldn’t be broadcasted....so we sang hymns for an hour while we waited...and then they just turned it into another hour of testimony meeting...pretty much a fail.
For Valentines though, every Sunday we eat together as a district, something we started last transfer, so we had a valentines dinner. hahahaha. I made spaghetti and we had a candle lit dinner. It was pretty funny. Valentines on mission.
In terms of investigators, we are still working hard with Sibu. We had a great lesson with him this week, and we are trying to prepare him as quickly as possible cause once he learns and keeps all the commandments, he's ready. He's a total stud. Iviwe is supposed to be baptized this coming Sunday, but we still have to do the interview....and the Makulu and he were out of town for a funeral this weekend, so we haven’t been able to see him, but we have our fingers crossed that he'll do good and be ready, he's only 11, so it should be easy.
Also something really cool....I found out this morning that Sihle Sinama (the young really cute girl if you remember) must be 8 now because she's going to be baptized this week! So awesome :)
But hopefully this next week won’t be so hard for me.....I don’t know
I love you and miss you so much!
Love, Elder Truscott

Feb 9, 2015

Back: Elder Ratema, Elder Black, Elder Mariner and Elder Truscott
Front: Elder Malpage and Elder Williams

Elder Mariner and Elder Truscott

Elder Malpage, Elder Mariner, Elder Ratema, Elder Truscott, Elder Williams and Elder Black

This week, transfer week. It was a sad day to see Elder Mariner leave.....I miss him already. Ha ha. He is an awesome guy.
So Tuesday the Elders who were leaving Queenstown drove to East London, and it was Elder Ratema and I with Elder Williams for Tuesday and Wednesday working in Sada. It was a sad transfer day like I said but we saw them off on Tuesday, and then went out to work in Sada.
Then on Wednesday night the new Elders came in. Elder Kjeldsen is Elder Williams' new companion, and he's a pretty cool guy. He's from Denmark, and is kind of quiet so far, but he's really nice and it seems like it should be  good transfer!
It was pretty much an average week of missionary work....our lessons were a bit lower this week than before...we'll blame transfer week, but lots of our appts just dropped all week. I guess I can’t complain though, we still taught 25 lessons this week, which isn’t too bad. Among our many lessons we taught an unusually high amount of less active lessons....we taught 10 less actives this week! Which was great, cause it was ward conference this week, so the Stake Presidency was there and we had 7 less actives at church!
We also had a lesson that was super difficult. Man, we followed up on a referral, and we got there and he lied to us about who he was (he was the guy we were looking for, but he said his friend was, and after interpreting their Xhosa conversation we knew it was him we were looking for), so he told us to come back tomorrow. Well we did, and the appt. was terrible. He was like picking at us, trying to make us get caught up on ourselves, asking stupid questions and he and his friend were just being dumb trying to make us look stupid. I got pretty mad in that one....haha. But besides that appt. the week went well in terms of teaching!
So Sibu is still doing super well. I love this guy. He's progressing, and still fellowshipping. He came with us yesterday after church as well. We taught his mom this week as well, and she came to church yesterday, so it was awesome! Like I said, yesterday was Ward conference, which was pretty much normal church but we had people from East London here....but it was good. We didn’t have a lot of investigators there, but less actives came so it was good! We've been having success with less actives here!
After church, we went out and taught a lot! We had 8 lessons on Sunday, which was good cause it helped us get lots closer to our goals than we were! We also did more of that "testing the promises" thing, and we had 30 min, and ended up going on splits. Me, Bonga, and Sibu went one way, while Elder Ratema, sihle, and Athi went another, and we both ended up teaching a lesson and it was great! I'm excited cause we have a few progressing investigators and then our others suck, so we need to filter them right out. haha.
Oh, and last week  also lost my MSF card...but I forgot to tell you. haha. The electricity in QT is terrible, and it was off one night, and right when it came back on we ran to the ATM, and I decided that before putting in my home account card, I should test it with my MSF...I’m so glad. After I put it in the ATM, it restarted, and boom...card was never seen again. Ha ha. So if you see a few more charges than normal its my groceries while I wait for a new MSF card from the mission :)
But I'm looking forward to the transfer, it should be good and I'm keeping my fingers crossed it goes quick and we do some good work!
I love you so much, and miss you like crazy!
Love,
Elder Truscott

Feb. 2, 2015

Elder Truscott - Burns his pants for his 18 month mark!

This week in Sada as far as missionary work was a good one. I still can’t complain about that much.
It was a pretty much average week to be honest....we taught, found, and tried to see investigators and less actives.
Last week the motto was sweat, this week it’s wet. It rained a lot this week! But I was super happy for that, cause the heat was killing me. The over castness of this week was much appreciated. Ha ha, and then it sucks cause I know it’s still summer and as soon as this ends its back to blistering heat, but I'll take what I can get ;)
So on Wednesday, we had our normal appt. with the Miselo family, the family that stays in that village a ways away. Well at the end of our appt, the one guy, Sipinathi, wanted to play that hand slapping game, where you just slap the other persons hand until you miss, and then you switch...so I agreed thinking it was just going to be a fun small game....flip! He hit freakin hard! My hand was completely numb and purple....and then he missed, and a bit later he quit. hahaha. so that was funny. And my hand is pretty much better now.
On a totally different topic, Friday I was on exchanges with Elder Williams in Ilinge. He is awesome, and I wanted to work in Ilinge again cause I wanted to do that "testing the promises" thing there to keep the area going strong. Well I did a few baptismal interviews for people there, a guy named Wonga, and a younger kid named Lindokuhle, and then we did that testing thing. We set the goal for a lesson taught from finding and a return appt. separate from the lesson. Well the first house we went to, taught a great lesson, and then we ended up getting 2 return appts, and a less active appt! It was a great exchange, we did lots of work and helped the area, so I was glad about that.
In Sada, we taught a good amount of lessons this week again, a bit less than last week, but we are going to exceed last week this coming week, that is my goal. But we are teaching this one kid, named Sibu. He is 16 turning 17, and a super stud. We gave him a baptism date of March 22nd this week, and he came fellowshipping with us on Saturday. Well he really loved it, so when we got to church with him on Sunday, he was like "who are going to see today?" and came with us all day on Sunday, and then wants to come with us today again. He bore testimony, translated with Bonga, and he's learning a lot and is progressing really well. It was awesome. He came home from his dad's village, and told us last week he'd read some of the Book of Mormon while he was there, and felt like the desire he had to learn more was his answer! So we are excited about that one :)
Sunday we had a good day. We only had Sibu and Iviwe in terms of investigators at church, but we had 7 less actives we've been working with come to church! So that was a great turn out!! I was happy about that :)
Then all week I have been trying to burn those pants, but the one night it wasn’t raining, I had a headache....hahaha, so last night I did it cause I knew you guys wanted pics :) I don’t know...but I think those pants we got at Men’s Warehouse are flipping flame resistant ;) haha. It took a looong time to catch those things on fire, but I got it!
Not a bad week! Transfer week though, Elder Mariner is going to Cape Town, and we are getting a new elder here that I don’t know! So it should be good! I'm thinking my last 6 weeks in Sada starts now....so fingers crossed it will be a good one!

January 26, 2015 - 6 Months to Go!!!

Elders headed into the Mall in Queenstown

My weekly report for you :) :

I'm officially not a sister missionary anymore! Yesterday I hit 18 months on mission Its crazy. It feels like I’ve been out forever...ha ha. I have to burn my pants tonight!

This week, was soooo flipping hot! I was sweating all week long. But we had a pretty good week! Our districts stats this week were better than they have ever been, between the two of us we taught 30 member present lessons! Elder Ratema and I taught 28 lessons this week, and Ilinge had 26! Pretty good, and this week seems like it went fast...not as fast as last week (which flew by for me), but still fast.

We've been waking up early every other day to go and play basketball with the zone leaders at the Queenstown chapel. That has been really good. Makes sure everyone is up and its’ a better way to get some exercise! Nice and cooler in the mornings so it’s the best time :) And plus now  I’ve got my 6 months to sexy so  I need those mornings ;) ha ha.

Well I had a few cool experiences this week with that whole "testing the promises" thing. We were working on Tuesday with 2 fellowshippers, a young man named Sihle, and Bonga.  Well we had a few appts. drop in a row, and we had about 45 minutes until our next appt. so we decided to split up, me and Sihle would go down one street, and they would go down another, and we set the goal that collectively we would teach at least one discussion. Well we prayed and then went to work. Sihle and I walked, and we decided we weren’t feeling the first house cause it was just full of grannys, so we went to the second, knocked, the guy let us in, he had sat with missionaries before and disagreed with the apostasy, but wondered why we were called "mormons". We opened with a prayer and explained the Book of Mormon to him a bit. He argued lots (like prophets) but we taught a discussion and at the end he was getting pretty argumental and I bore testimony pretty Holland style, and he was silenced, and we closed with a prayer and left. Hahaha. Kinda cool, Sihle said it was powerful. Then we met another guy who as we talked with him said he didn’t believe in life after death. I told him about how he could see his children after he died and he was just like "you believe that?" super sincerely, and we explained the plan of salvation, and taught him yesterday, it was pretty cool!

Friday I was on exchanges with Elder Mariner in Ilinge. Ilinge had been struggling, and for some reason they weren’t having success doing the "testing" thing...they would make goals and never achieve them. Well I wanted to go there and boost morale. So we had a district meeting on it that morning that kinda got everyone excited, and then Elder Mariner and I went out to Ilinge! We had a few set appts. But had about 2 1/2 hours of free time, so we set the goal that we would have 2 discussions and find an unrelated return appt! Well the first house we went to, return appt. Then 5 minutes later, we taught a discussion to a guy about the Book of Mormon! After that morale was high and we went to our set  appts, and then ended up teaching 3 other unplanned discussions! So we made our goal for sure! I was super happy, cause I had been hyping up the exchange all week with Mariner to get him excited about having success and it worked again! I was super happy, and I think it boosted faith in all of us, and we ended up having the best week we have had in terms of lessons taught!

Sunday was a normal day, church (not a huge turnout...we had more less actives come than investigators but I guess it’s all the same) and then we taught a good amount of lessons afterwards! It was a pretty good one.

This is the last week of the mega transfer! I'm excited to move into next transfer, but it should be another good week!

Jan. 19, 2015

Elder Truscott and Elder Mariner

Bro. Badi and his daughter "Nana"

Elder Truscott in the Xalabile's family room

Baby "Nana"

Bongo - a ward member in Sada

This week in Sada was a pretty good one for Elder Ratema and I!  It was just a pretty average week of missionary work honestly.....we have been doing lots of finding, and with that new "testing the promises of God" thing that the mission is into right now it’s been cool. Honestly I had big doubts the first time we did it with Elder Manzini last week, but it worked, and Elder Ratema and I have been setting goals in our free time, like maybe seeing a less active (we did that yesterday, said a specific prayer and the first less active we tried was home and had us right in) or getting 2 return appts, or teaching a discussion, and so far we haven’t ever set a goal and prayed specifically and failed. We have always reached our goals. It’s been pretty good and it’s made the work lots better!

So it was a normal week of missionary work, and then we had zone training and interviews on Thursday. The training from the zone leaders was nice, it was about retaining recent converts, and then how to rely and recognize the spirit. We pretty much decided that recognizing the spirit was the hardest thing and that it was one of the reasons we were even on earth....still looking for someone who can give me a solid answer on that one. And while the zone leaders were doing their training President Merrill took us out to do our interviews. He told me that Elder Ratema and I were staying together, which I was assuming so it wasn’t much news....and then just said how I'm doing a good job. Basic stuff honestly. And then President gave his training, where we listened to a talk by Pres. Uchtdorf about hope, faith,  and diligence type of thing. It was super powerful, he explained the morning of Christ's resurrection super well and it was pretty good....and then we ate....and back to missionary work! haha.

We taught a good amount of lessons this week, and Sunday was super good for church attendance! When we walked in there were more people in sacrament than I've ever seen in Sada. We had 9 investigators, and around 5 less actives that we've been working with or trying to work with that came!! And then we had scheduled to do Noluthando's baptism interview with the zone leaders that night. Well after church we decided to go and run through the baptismal questions with Noluthando...she didn’t know them super well, and when we asked her if she was honestly ready to make that promise, she said no...and that she needed to sort some stuff. But we rescheduled it for Feb. 22 (same date we'll try for for Iviwe) and she said she would prepare herself...so it sucked for us but it’s better than being baptized and not being ready.....

I'm glad that things are picking up here....it makes it lots more enjoyable! But I will probably be on exchanges in Ilinge this week cause they haven’t been having the same success we have here....so we'll see what we can do there.

I love and miss you.

Love,

Elder Truscott

January 12, 2015

A Springbok 

hahaha, ya we each got different color of glasses for the different Power Rangers...

red is the leader, so me, and black is Elder Mariner, 

white is Elder Ratema, and yellow is Elder Williams.

Elder Manzini in the PJ's, Elder Truscott and Elder Lund 

So this week in Sada was a pretty good one! Not much to report on early in the week honestly..it was just a completely normal week of missionary work in Sada.
Tuesday morning we had new Elders training for Elder Ratema and I at the zone leaders flat, we basically just went over how everything was going and focused on teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ more effectively. It was good I guess....even though in the past they took the Elders out to lunch, but none of that on Tuesday. haha.
But then we just went out and taught for the week! Thursday morning we had our zone meeting, so we all got together at the Stapleys house and watched the conference from Cape Town where Quinton L. Cook came and spoke to the missionaries. They got a recording of that so that is what we watched. Then after that we went out to lunch the 4 of us in our district, got sandwiches, and then Elder Ratema  started saying his stomach hurt a bit.... Well we went on with our week, on Friday the AP's were in town and went on exchanges with us unexpectedly. It was wierd. They had planned on coming to Queenstown and going with every other companionship besides Elder Ratema and I...and I didn’t know why, but I didn’t really care honestly. So we knew they were going to be with Elder Williams and Elder Mariner, and then when we got home Thursday night they told us they changed the plans and that Elder Manzini was going to come with us.
Well it was actually a really nice exchange! There is this huge "Test the promises of God" Thing in SACTM with the assistants right now....where basically you set goals and then tell them to the Lord and ask Him to help you, then work hard and have faith that the Lord will help you reach them...well I like faithful goal setting better as a name then "testing the promises" Cause I don’t think God ever promised me father led families...but it works whatever you want to call it!
We set the goal to contact a Less active priesthood holder and find some father led families. In the down time we had we prayed and first off found a less active priesthood holder that Bonga led us to. Then later Bonga led us to a father led family! Pretty cool, and we will start teaching that family this week!
But that is a cool thing to use when we are trying to find people, cause we did it Sunday as well and it worked again! So it was a nice exchange, and the AP's ended up sleeping in our flat until Sunday.
Saturday morning as a zone we all went to Ilinge and did finding around that area. It was pretty cool actually. Made for a nice morning, we just all split up and went out to find people and help the Elders there out! Then off to Sada for our day!
Saturday night the AP's had a leadership meeting and just talked about the zone. Queenstown is doing really well which is cool!
Sunday was a good day as well....we had 4 investigators at sacrament meeting. Mfundo (a new guy we found on exchanges with Elder Manzini), Noluthando (who is scheduled to be baptized on the 25th of this month!), Soso, and Ukhona. Then we went out and found lots of people, taught a few lessons, and had a nice night :)
Last night though, Elder Ratema's stomach was hurting so bad that he couldnt sleep! I felt really bad for him, its been hurting since Thursday, so about 1 we went to the doctor cause I figured that there was no point in waiting until morning since he's just sitting in pain. So we went and Elder Stapley met us there, and he saw the doctor and was told to lay off the soda and drink more water. But after an IV for a bit he was better and we went back home and slept!
So it was a decent week this week! This week ahead I will be on exchanges with Ilinge probably on Friday or Sunday, and we have zone training and interviews with President on Thursday, so that is something to look forward to as well!
We are really hoping some of the people we've been finding will start progressing!
I love and Miss you like crazy!
Love,
Elder Truscott