Another very interesting week, but loooonnngggg. I was looking through my planner earlier and found that someone we talked to 2 weeks ago, but it felt more like 2 months! So this week has been long
One of the main things this week is that Elder Samuel got sick. On Tuesday he went to Roodeport to the hospital where he has an infection, and so he's on antibiotics and they will operate, then irradiate it to fix it, in 5 weeks time. Which sounds exciting, but on Wednesday morning, when he came through to the living area he was very ill! So we stayed in the flat for the day. Then on Friday I got sick (and still am!)
It started with a sore throat and now has developed into a cough, blocked nose and a sore neck. So i feel a little under the weather, but that hasn't stopped me. I'm still up at 6:30 and we work as hard as ever to preach the gospel :P As i tell myself, the kingdom of heaven will wait for no man. I find a unique sense of joy and peace in doing missionary work, so when we're out teaching i don't feel so sick. It's just walking between the appointments.
So the past couple of days as well have been cold and rainy :( The temperature is down to like 12 degrees, which doesn't sound cold, but after a 42 degree summer it feels very cold. I'm wearing my sweater almost every day and yesterday even wore my hat and scarf! I never thought i would have to but there you go! I am so grateful for them in keeping me warm.
One of the other disasters this week was when decided to walk to church with our investigators, meaning a 40 minute walk. Now this seemed like a good idea but it went terribly wrong. Out of the 5 we were planning, one took a taxi and never found the place, one wasn't there, and then the other 3, instead of picking them up we were waking them up. So we had to wait for all of them and we ended up being 50 minutes late to church! So we will NOT be doing that again... But at least they know where it is now.
So an eventful Sunday, but at the lunch appointment there were some RMs there and we had a good talk about mission life, and they loved talking about their missions!
This week i also found the true meaning of goals and why we have them. We set some awesome goals for Saturday (8 inv lessons) And I used it as my motivation but not my reason. What resulted is that although we didn't meet our goals, I motivated me to work as hard as I could and try to achieve or as close to my goals as possible. So that day we really worked as hard as we could!
One of the most exciting things this week is that we put 2 people on date. The person we are most excited about is Tsepang. He's the brother of a less active and started teaching him. He has really felt the spirit and believes that it is all true! He reads and prays every day which is great, and has even started changing his life, before we've invited him, and he says that he feels greater peace and happiness in life. When he attended a baptismal service on Sunday he said that he couldn't wait to be baptised! So we are really excited for him and he love him!
Another investigator family that we saw, the Mlambo's who are Zulu, we went and saw on Sunday night. They were having a tough
time because a Sangoma (witch doctor) had came to her sisters family and said some things that had distraught them mentally (basically that the mother of that family (not the one we teach) had gone out to calm down and to refrain from arguing, but the Sangoma had said that she'd gone to kill herself because she hated her son for living in his aunt's (the one we teach) house. As it turns out the mother hadn't done that but it had left them all really messed up) So we gave them some counsel, we are going to fast with them on Wednesday and are sending the other Elders to the sisters house to give those affected a blessing (they live in Soweto) and answered the question of where Sangomas get their powers (Satan).
But after it all the mother said to us that she felt really at peace and that a weight had been lifted, the Spirit was there very strong, and she is reading the Book of Mormon and was accepting everything we teach so hopefully all will go well there!
Not much else this week. Last week we went to Bounce! A big trampoling place which was awesome! I didn't ruin my back but my legs were very sore afterwads for a couple of days :P
And i got a picture of a rat. There are quite a few here. We mainly see them completely squished because they've been run over. A bit like with rabbits back home :P
That's it for me this week really :)
Love Elder Jack Jorgensen :)xx
This week has gone fast and slow.
Fast because it always does but then slow because i was waiting for Sunday evening to Skype everyone. The family there were really nice. And it was wonderful to see you all
So the interviews on Wednesday were actually really good. I had a nice time talking to President Dunn and there wasn't anything major in the interview. I just need to make sure that I get my morning schedule on point which I am working on and it is going quite well. I have refined my breakfast schedule, Cornflakes! I was able to get a special deal for cornflakes where i got like 1.5kg of Cornflakes for actually quite cheap so that was nice! Dinner, if i'm not too tired is almost always fish fingers as I told you, but sometimes I have fried egg sandwiches for dinner, which is nice :P
But the rest of the interviews went fine. Something that I am learning more and more is to not worry too much about things. Obviously to be anxiously engaged in the work but not to worry too much about things, because then there is just too much stress and that isn't good.
Otherwise..... we also had zone meeting on Friday, which was actually really good and quite enjoyable. The zone leaders here are really nice and we get along well with them, they did a powerful zone meeting which really helped in terms of staying motivated and being happy on mission because sometimes it can get a bit overwhelming with so much to organise.
No mail letters from home this time, they must come in a batch later then. I was a little disappointed but the postal service here is on a different planet. Thankfully they did give us the proselyting supplies that we needed which was good because we had very few left, now we have lots. Although for the other elders there was a bit of a mix up, they ordered some pamphlets, but there are two types, ones with white people in the pictures and ones with black people in the pictures, now when they ordered it they didn't specify which ones they wanted and so they got white ones, which is a problem because the entire area is all black people... he he he, luckily we avoided that problem.
While at church yesterday this white guy and his daughter walked in, my first thought was "are you lost?" he he, turns out he was from the stake high council :P
We also went to a service project on Saturday. I was really happy that we made the decision to go because it was awesome. It was a service project for like 3 wards and it was for a non LDS charity called Stop Hunger Now. What we did was we packed meals for people to be able to boil into a soup and eat. It was actually really fun. Helping unload and then going to a station. I poured rice into the packets and then gave them to the next person to weigh and seal.
It took a little less than 2 hours, but with everyone there we were able to pack 20000 meals for starving kids in the Gauteeng province. It was really nice to do some service and I really enjoyed it, plus they put on some music which was nice to listen to, a good excuse :P
The weather here is getting colder, it's winter now :/
Love Jack :)
