Rebellious Missionaries--with permission, of course!

Unjani! 

Hello again everyone! And Happy Birthday to Brenner and Jacey! Looks like you had quite the celebrations going on! Glad you all had a good week. This side things were quite fantastic as well! I do have very limited time today because we are going to the Mission Home for an activity so I will just touch on the highlights quickly!

Monday we went bowling with the zone. Hilarious to watch the african elders try it out haha. But they caught on quick and did pretty good! I don't mean to brag but I took 3rd place with a whopping 83 points ;) 

Saturday we had the ward soccer like usual. It was awesome though because a kid that we talked to on the street (white kid by the way) actually came and played with us and brought his mom to watch! They said we could go over whenever so lets see what happens! Talk to everyone, you never know!

Sunday night, last night, we went over to the Riese family and watched the world cup final! Bro Stephen called President Zackrison and just asked if we could watch and he said yes! So we all showed up for the game at 8pm, the game started at 9 which is normally "in and safe", and we watched until past 12! I feel so rebellious but it was approved so its awesome! 

So thats some of the fun things but the teaching this week was awesome too! Yesterday we had the baptism for Mini and he asked me to perform it for him. It was a fantastic service and the talks were perfect. His gran spoke and talked about how she has been praying for a priesthood holder in her home and now he was going to be able to serve that family. It was very very good. 

We have been meeting with Khetiwae still and she is doing awesome! She reads the Book of Mormon more than I do I think and always has questions for us. She came to church and watched the baptism. She even invited her son to come and join lessons! She is doing wonderfully.

Tokoso is still power! We went over again and talked about the Plan of Salvation. He understands well and reads the Book of Mormon. He came to church and brought his cousin with him. They both enjoyed and want to come again. He is doing great, mom is a little bit less interested but always participates in lessons. We are hoping to put him on B-Date this week. 

The Mhlanga family is still doing good too. The one less active brother came to church with the active brother and the investigator sister. We went over after church and talked about Book of Mormon reading. They all read but only the 1 sis comes to church. Gotta work on that but they are doing great! 

Those are our investigators that we are working with. We have fewer numbers, but they are all awesome people with lots of potential! Not only to accept the gospel but even to help the ward. We have been tracting lots, contacting, trying to get into more highrises, just trying to find more quality people. Its been an awesome week and I am looking forward to this week as well! Should be a load of good things happening! Just gotta keep working hard and pushing through the rough finding times. 

But all is well and its been a great week! I look forward to talking to you again next week! I love you all!

Elder Peterson

Moved to the Coast and Must Avoid Attack Dogs

Sawibona! Unjani?

Hello everyone from the land of the Zulu! Oh my goodness I love Zulu eleventy billion times more than Sutu! Mena Kaluma SeZulu!

Anyways, the transfer was awesome! and this new area is awesome! and my new companion is awesome! and Amanzimtoti (Toti) is awesome! Basically so far everything is awesome! (Cue the Lego Movie music now…!)

So first my new companion Elder Gonzales. He is so cool! He is from Boise Idaho, he is 20 and has been on mission for 14 months. He is very talkative and we talk about a lot of random things but its way fun to have someone who can talk about something. He is very into computer/electronic things. We can talk about video games or movies and it all works out fine. He also really enjoys singing so we get into some pretty epic car singing times! Mostly Rolling in the Deep haha. Good guy though and it should be a great transfer!

So the new area is called Amanzimtoti. That is the name of the town. The name of the township is Khamakuta which is also part of our area. We stay in a place called Illovo Beach in the Forest Hills building. Toti is a big city/town right on the beach. Like we run from the boarding to the beach in like 3 mins! The view from our window is right onto the beach! The whole area stretches along the beach which is awesome. The problem with this place is that because of the location it just attracts old rich white people who won't listen to anything... We have been told to focus on town and not in the township so teaching is hard. Elder Gonzales has done some cool things here though. He has gone into all the big apartment buildings/hotels and put cards in all the lobbies since we can't tract there. Also he has set up Family History stands in the city libraries and put articles in the newspaper to get people. We also made a plan to do a car wash in a few weeks where people can come and while we wash the cars they can go into the chapel and watch a short video on the restoration. Gotta think out of the box. We tried tracting the other day. All the houses have huge electric fences and attack dogs. We knock and knock and knock... We went to one house and there was a sign about the dog that was funny and as I was trying to take a pic of it, the dog attacked us haha. I ran like a frightened little girl! But got some funny pic that kind of shows when the dog attacked. We did get to the top of the HighTide building which is the highest point in Toti so that was pretty cool! Should be an awesome area!

The teaching isn't all bad though. We have 2 people on B-Date that will definitely be baptized it sounds like! Mini who is about 20. He has come to church like 11 times in a row and will be baptized on 13 July. And Khitiwae who has come prob 7+ times and loves everything. She is set for the 27 July. There are a couple of families we have been working with and 2 look like they will be baptized sometime. 1 actually comes from Congo where they had found a French BoM. So thats pretty awesome!

But its going to be interesting here. I feel so awkward around white people... Like I don't know what to say to them!! They are some sort of other species and I feel so weird haha! I really forget that I am not black. I just belong with the Africans so much more haha Its so weird I can't even explain it right now! Kind of missing my breadbag soccer playing township kids though...  But Toti will be an awesome place! Just gotta be creative and see what we can do! But my Zulu is coming along slowly. The members are teaching me and I already know more Zulu than I do Sutu! Gonna be fluent soon!

I hope everyone has an awesome week and I look forward to talking to you all again next week! If I left anything out or you wanna know more, let me know! I love you all!

Elder Peterson