Week #23 I Went To Dune 2 (Kind Of)

Hello everyone, as usual I'm writing this right before bed and rarely do I let something keep me from my precious 8 hours so I'll begin…

Tuesday:

We kicked off the morning with some Mopane worms 🪱.  You can see the video in the link at the end of this email. Elder Karp didn't hate them and Elder Machisu almost puked, he said people in East Africa are horrified of them. We put a friend on baptismal date for later this month. We had about 7-8 lessons today. It was a pretty good day.

Wednesday:

Our first lesson today was at 11am with Siegfried. He's waiting for his mission calling so we helped him teach by doing a role play. After that lesson we had to take Elder Karp to our favorite donut bar on the pier (jetty). We had about 5 more lessons with dinner at the Katjojo's home in between. The food was great as usual and their family is amazing! We also helped a few of our friends continue to prepare for their baptisms this Saturday. In one of our lessons, Queeny told us that one of her classmates “puffed” in class and got the whole row on cleaning duty because the person wouldn't fess up.

Thursday:

We had a bunch of lessons today and helped a couple of our friends continue to prepare for their baptisms. Queeny's little sister Grace told me she's ready for baptism now and wants me to do it so that was amazing!! She already knows everything since she joins other lessons anyways so she'll be baptized this month! We got Kapana and Fat Cakes on our way home and it was the first time for both of my companions to have Kapana. Obviously, they loved it! Also 2/4 of our friends today were cleared for their baptisms this Saturday so that was awesome!

Friday:

We had district council this morning led by yours truly. It's only us and the elders in Ongwediva now so it's quite easy but also quite boring. We grabbed some chicken wraps from Fork n Nice and then taught a few lessons. We had youth activity at the beach (which we always run) so we went there and played on the swings, four square, and soccer for 30 minutes while we waited for everyone but no one showed up so we left haha. It was a nice little break though. We taught some more lessons and put another friend on date for this month! And then we cleared our other 2 friends for their baptisms tomorrow!

Saturday:

We went to our friend Sarafina's home at 6:30am so her uncle could sign her baptismal form, consenting that he was OK with it. It was a little stressful trying to plan it since he was just getting off his night shift and she was supposed to be baptized in a few hours but it all worked out well. We met everyone at the chapel at 9 and then walked to the beach together. We had some talks and hymns and then we proceeded to the baptism. I baptized Sarafina (14) first, then Brother Pepcy baptized Lilie-Angela(14), then I baptized Emma(10), and finally Brother Jeremiah baptized Karel (34). It was a very nice service and they're all such awesome people! Afterwards, we went to the flat and got some KFC and then back to the chapel for a lesson with Grace. It’s basically just a review because she knows everything since her family are all members. They had a YSA activity and watched Moana at the chapel. Missionaries aren't allowed to watch movies but since it's an activity it was OK and we had to capitalize on it. I miss movies so much. We had to move a bed from our flat to the sister's flat and so we raided their flat while we were there since there are no sisters anymore. We taught a few more lessons to end the night.

Sunday:

We walked to church today with a friend and a few members like Queeny who stay near her. Church was nice and all of our friends who were baptized were confirmed and received the Holy Ghost, the meeting was very peaceful. We walked back from church with them and then stopped at a member's home to give them some keys, they gave us some brownies to go while we were there. We got home, demolished some chicken and rice and then the brownies. We were famished because we had a mission-wide fast and so the food was much needed. We followed it up with a 20-minute nap. We had a lot of nice lessons today. One lesson was very disruptive though because a drunk man joined and wouldn't stop talking and arguing and wouldn't listen, the worst part was there was a prospective missionary who joined us! Our last lesson of the night was very nice and then gave us Malva pudding which we messed up. It was so good. Today was our day I guess.

Monday:

We began our day by calling home and sleeping a bit. Then we went to the mall and walked around a bit, I got a Nike hat and a new proselyting bag. We got some fire breakfast food too at some Cafe and we will be returning for sure. We did our grocery shopping and then dropped them at the flat and headed to the dunes. We did some hiking and tried to slide on cardboard. It was pretty fun. (video attached in the link below) We ended the night with a lesson and a mission-wide devotional. We have a new rule now where we can't have member meals or buy street food because too many missionaries are getting sick. It sucks but I don't think it includes fat cakes so I'll survive. 

Conclusion:

It was a good week and we crushed all of our goals by far. We're starting to grow as a companionship now which is nice but I still need to work a bit on my patience with adjusting to a trio.

Hope you all had a good week and we’ll talk next week.

My best, Elder Miller.

P.S. Sorry for not getting back to all of your emails, I have read them all and appreciate them. I'll try to respond next week.

My family went to Dune 2 this week. I went to these Dunes. Can you see me? 

The trio.

Ocean baptisms.