Week 4 begins

Elder Jena and Elder North and their new car.

Area: Kimberly, South Africa

Companion: Elder Jena

July 20, 2015

Week:4

So some clarification on my last email, I talked about yobo gobo and that was wrong its actually yebo gogo. Yebo means yes. I also said that baba means dude, but it actually means father. Which makes sense because we call our trainers baba.  

In mission life your father is the person who trains you.  A son is a person you train.  

I can't remember if I talked about the babies on backs or not so Ill just say it again if I did. Just like you see in the movies the women here do put their babies on their back they just tie them there with blankets haha its pretty funny. and people do carry stuff on their heads. 

We got a different car this week because apparently we had the wrong one so we have a manual now, which is pretty cool because I'll get some practice. My companion doesn't like driving that much so I do most of it which scared me when we got the manual. It's not bad and I've gotten pretty good. Its a lot easier than Haileys car haha :) Every now and then I forget that they drive on the left and I'll make a turn and be on the right and everyone yells at me haha so hopefully that stops happening.

On the weekends here people go nuts they all drink and smoke like crazy and by the end of the night everyone is drunk and its pretty funny but sucks too because its hard to find people to teach.

Check out the brick on the white line, if you hit it down you score!

I get to play soccer at least once a week which is fun, I'm the only white guy usually. Here in Kimberly there are no white guys that play soccer. Umlungu is the zulu word for white boy its pronounced like oomloongu. in some places you will hear the kids say that but I call myself umlungu. 

We work with the youth a lot but since there aren't many we work with a kid named Smallz just about every day, its cool because there is no way I would want to spend all day every day with the missionaries but he does.

Taxis here are nuts!  They are like mini vans and will just stop whenever they want so you have to be careful if you are behind one. The roads seem to all be one lane unless you are downtown so you just cross to the other side of the road and pass people all the time.

We do a lot of less active work in Kimberly so we don't have a lot of people we are teaching at the moment but one of them is Erikar, she is a member of another church but is really nice and seems to be receptive. When she prays she begins every sentence with My Father, which I thought was strange until I went to church and a lot of people do that.

Another person we are teaching is Dean he is Afrikaans and plays rugby, it was really cool following up with him because he told us he had a bad week but for some reason it didn't bother him. He had a new out look on life after we taught the plan of salvation to him and he said that's what helped his week. He seems to be really receptive and likes the message we share, he told us we answered a lot of questions he has struggled with since he was a kid. So we had a great lesson with him and he walked us out and while doing so pulled out a pack of cigarettes which sucks because it means its going to be a long road a head of us.

All the door keys look like this here.

We like to decorate our planners with pictures.

Cutting down a lemon tree for service.  When somone dies
they put this huge tent up over their yard so we had to
cut this tree down to make room for the tent to go.
A Gobo died.

It is funny to me ho wmuch they lock the things up.  The
best part is the library is actually
a vault.  I'll have to get a picture of it sometime.

Elder Jena and a lemon tree we are cutting down.

The lemons are HUGE

Elder Jena looking on as Elder North pretends to eat a lemon.

The garden we work in on Saturday's
for Mormon Helping Hands

Twonship Bingo.  We also call the
township the Kasi

A Wood Pecker

I can't remember if I told you about Martha so I will again. Martha is a less active and hasn't been coming to church so we visited her and talked for a while, she had some questions and we had a really powerful lesson. After which she asked for a blessing which I gave, It was rough because her full name is Tswana (a nationality) and so it's a different language and impossible to pronounce. I felt the spirit so strongly in that blessing and that helped me to know there is where I am supposed to be.

I do run into a lot of people that I don't understand because they either speak Afrikaans, Tswana, Zulu, Xhosa, Shona and I think there's another I cant think of right now.

I love you all and miss you like crazy so write me, it helps to know you all didnt forget about me! haha but really I do love mail and hand written letters make you feel really cool out here. 

I recieved two letters from mah, one form Taylynne, and one from Gobo Marry.

God is good, all the time

Love

Elder North

Looks like he is getting mail so please take the time to write him.  You can use international stamps or you can do what I do and just put three regular stamps on it.  Missionaries don't have a lot of time for e-mail and they don't get to keep those and carry them around so if you hand write him he has time to savor it.

Elder Mikel North

South Africa Durban Mission

PO Box 1741

Wandsbeck 3631

South Africa