Creating a system for calling less actives!

Hey howsit for you?  It’s going pretty well for me. Well just now our investigators are getting back, so that's pretty cool! This next week has filled up pretty well, so it should go smoothly, the way it was before the holidays.

We had three investigators at church yesterday, two of them we've been teaching.  The other one is a homeless man, but we really have no idea what his intentions are-- he either wants to learn the gospel or wants us to help fund his business. He's showed us his business plan and certificate like 3 times already and we're just like...okay we'll see you Tuesday at the church. We'll see how it goes haha.

So this last week of the holiday season we were trying to find effective activities, and we had previously asked for an updated ward list, so last Monday morning our ward mission leader comes riding up on his little scooter with the newly printed list, and we realized that we really don't know that many people in the ward. Part of the reason is that there's so many less active members, but basically we just started calling everyone that we didn't know and setting up appointments. It kind of reminded me of working at Verisk Health because I'm calling a lot and I have a system written out on the list, certain symbols mean different things ie checkmarks=we've visited them, x=called didn't get ahold of and so on. So it's been pretty cool, and we've met a few members since.  The coolest thing that's come from it is we visited a guy, Brother Willibroad, and he's from Camaroon (not sure how to spell that, it's a country near Nigeria). He's a member, but his wife and 3 kids are not, and they've been to the church and they've even gone to a sports night that the church had! The oldest son is 12 and he loves the church, so we're really hoping he can motivate the rest of his family to come.  It could turn out to be awesome. We've only met with them once though, so we'll see!

Another cool lesson was with a guy named Cosmos. We've been to his house before, but he's been in Zambia and his sisters are the ones we've visited.  They’re semi active, but we met him because his sister was supposed to be there for a lesson but never pitched. So we started talking and then realized he was a member and that he was even sealed with his wife in the temple, but he told us that he hasn't been to church in 6 months,.  He's not really sure how he's gone down this path, but he asked for our help, so we made a plan for him to pray and study from his scriptures because he obviously hasn't been doing that. So we went to his house again and started in 1 Nephi 1 with him again, we studied it and discussed it with him, which was cool. It's crazy, I've read that chapter so many times by myself and especially with instigators and members, but there's still new things that I pick up on. So it was a cool lesson, and we're glad that we can work with him some more.

Yup, pretty good week altogether.  Oh and really quick before I go, we had a lesson with this old lady who was baptized a few years ago.  Long story short, her daughter lives in Loomis! I was like no way, you are the first person I've talked to in a year (including all the missionaries I've talked to from California) who has heard of Loomis!  Her daughter is not a member, but she lives on King Road haha. I was just like, yeah, I know King Road-- I drove on it every day.  Small world huh. 

Cool, talk to you all soon!

Elder Savage

Parktown Prawns!

Hey everybody! What's up. This week was alright.  We just focused on less actives and members because all of our investigators are still on holiday, but we helped some people out!

We had some fun on New Year's Eve and New Year’s day and just spent it with a lot of other missionaries.  We played sports like crazy haha. I was pretty sore and even a little sunburnt, but it tanned out.

We just had a couple of lessons this week.  One was just helping a kid with his Duty to God lessons, which was fun. And we met a less active guy in our area who we're working with now. And we just got an updated ward list, so we're going to go down the list and try to visit everyone, since there's a lot of ward members I still don't know.  Hopefully we can get some referrals from that-- that'll be our goal!

So this morning we were just chilling in the study room in our flat, and then my companion freaked out and was like "It's a prawn! It's a prawn!” Basically, there are these bugs here called Parktown Prawns. I'm not sure if I've talked about them before.  Basically, just imagine a jerusalem cricket/potato big, but 4x bigger, and they have huge antennas and front legs like a grass hopper. So one had snuck in under our front door last night and chilled in our place, and then gave us a nice little surprise. So I wasn't going to deal with it, so we put a plastic bowl over it and then left for a couple of hours.  We had to take other missionaries emailing, and they're from Tanzania and they're used to these types of things, so they took it outside and we slaughtered it. So yeah, my anxiety was going pretty hard hahaha.  Big bugs make me paranoid, but I guess I survived :)

But yeah, the work should pick up this next week or two and should be good! Thanks again for the Christmas candy-- I now have diabetes.

Talk to you next week!

Elder Savage

Tracting in Randburg!

Wow!  So weird to think that an entire year has gone by since last Christmas! It's gone by pretty fast.

This last week was pretty good.  A lot of people were out of town, so it took like half the time for the sacrament to get passed at church! Since we only had 1 investigator in town and we had already seen all the recent converts we decided to try something we hadn't really done-- tracting. The reason we had never tracted is because it's not really possible in this area.  But in the Randburg CBD (not sure what that stands for, something like central business district, basically where the tall buildings are) there are 2 huge apartment complexes and the security is not that tight.  We have a member in one of them, so we decided to tract it, starting from the 5th/top floor.  It was fun. Unfortunately on the whole 5th floor only 3 people were home because Randburg didn't have water for 3 days, so everyone just bounced haha. But of those 3 people one spoke English, and we had a great lesson with her.  The water is back on now! Luckily we could shower at other missionaries' flats. But yeah, so basically we'll continue to tract it.  Not sure if we'll have time this week, but I'm excited for it. And it's close to the chapel so people inside won't have to pay too much for a taxi, and it's even a walkable distance.

Yesterday we went to a member's house for lunch and her brother and his fiance were there.  They are not members, and they live in a township.  It was awesome because I could speak to them in the little Sotho that I know, and it's just super easy for me to talk to people from townships. Probably because I spent 10 months in them haha. But it was really fun, and we taught them about the Articles of Faith and they're interested in learning more.  We gave their details to the missionaries in their area, and even though we won't be able to continue teaching them, it was a nice lesson. We were able to contribute to someone learning more about the gospel, which is our purpose!

Anyway, talk to you in four days! Sharp!  

Merry Christmas!

Elder Savage

The Relief Society in our ward is amazing!  They gave each me and my companion a shoebox FULL of candy haha, and a little tub of toothpaste, so it's fine if your package is small, because I'm all set!

Okay Grandma & Grandpa Orchard's christmas money went to getting these shoes.  They were only $25!!!  They're vans, because it's my favorite brand.  They are super comfy and will last for years. I was literally obsessed with them when I got them last Monday haha.  I still am. Literally every second Ii was in the flat I had them on, and I would take them off once I had to put my proselyting shoes on to leave. I even fell asleep with them on Tuesday night hahaha.  They're the best!  Thank Grandma & Grandpa again for me!