Week #25 Another Week In Paradise

Hallo almal, hoe gaan dit?

I hope you're all doing well. This week was nothing crazy but we got a few surprises which spiced it up a bit. I won't bore you with much of a preamble today… However, I will quickly add that I’ll only be including the highlights of each day this week as opposed to my usual rundown of each and every day.

Tuesday:

Our first lesson today, following a forever-long weekly planning session was with an inactive member. He was baptized in Zimbabwe when he was 11 in 2002. Sometime between then and now he moved to Swakopmund Namibia and went inactive. We found him last week when we went to meet a concierge at a hotel that requested a Book of Mormon through a facebook add. He approached us since he was also a concierge and we exchanged contact info. We had a nice lesson with him today and he even showed us his baptismal certificate that he kept which was so cool! The Lord works in mysterious ways.

We then went to one of our friends homes and played some “cookies” (where you try to kick the ball between each other's legs), and some monkey in the middle with a soccer ball. It was her birthday so we wanted to go say hi and have some fun for her birthday.

We had 8 lessons today and ended the night by making some burgers from scratch.

Wednesday:

We had a decent amount of lessons today but nothing crazy happened.

We had Chicken wraps this morning at fork n nice, always the best way to start the morning. A fresh chicken wrap and a walk on the beach, no complaints there.

We had a dinner appointment with the Katjojo’s (branch president). We had Pap and fish which was bomb but unfortunately, it was our last member meal. Due to our new mission rule we can no longer eat street food, food from friends, or food from members. This is because many missionaries have been getting very sick. The rule is tough but the AP’s were sure to message me right after informing us of the new rule and told me that Fork n Nice was still game. Needless to say, I’ll make it work.

Lastly, our final lesson today canceled so we took Elder Karp for the night walk along the beach by the Strand Hotel. It is so nice at night because the palm trees have white lights around the trunks that are lit up and the waves are gently crashing… it makes me want to fall asleep.

Thursday:

Our first lesson today was with an older man who came up to us in public a couple of weeks ago and said he wanted to meet with us. He met with missionaries pre-covid but then stopped during covid and never resumed. He seems very nice and he even has his own street named after him so that’s pretty baller. We had two more lessons, Siegfried joined for the second as a translator and then we went back to his place with him. We opened his call with him which was so fun!!! He got called to the Kumasi Ghana mission, same as Johanna and Norman Daniels, so crazy! And he joins the MTC same time as Norman which is hype. (video attached in link of Siegfried opening his call)

Later on we had a lesson with a very awesome family that we found through Facebook. They seem very interested in the Gospel and it is always so heartwarming when you get to teach a family the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Lastly, we taught Sister Maria and her family which was a good lesson and we put her niece, Eviste, on date!

Friday:

I called the fam this morning for an early birthday call for Fraser which was nice.

I led the district council this morning seeing as I’m still the district leader in the Swakediva district. No longer over all of Namibia because we have some more missionaries here. So now I’m district leader over Swakopmund which is just us two and then Ongwediva which is another two. This has been effective since a few weeks ago but I think I forgot to update it. 

We moved some things around in the sister's flat because there are two sisters coming to Swak on Wednesday! My district will grow to 6 people now haha. 

I ended the night by doing three baptismal interviews for some friends in Ongwediva while my companions met with a member family.

Right before the end of the night, the office elders called us and we got the news that Elder Machisu is going back to Bots this Monday (today) to be the new office Elder. He is excited because he loves IT but he’s also sad to leave Swak so soon.

We taught like 7 lessons today.

Saturday:

We taught 9 lessons today plus mission prep so we kept nice and busy.

There was a lesson today that we were nervous about and put a lot of prep into but the (older) sister ended up loving it. She told us how much she loves each of us and is sad to see Machisu leave so soon. She wants to join the church but just needs a bit more time to keep learning.

Our last lesson today ended in a very long bible bash which me and Machisu were slinging bible verses back and forth with this one gentleman we’ve been teaching for a while. Machisu started popping off so I sat back and watched him in his element. He knows a lot more about the Bible than myself so I really enjoyed watching.

Sunday:

That awesome family that I was talking about on Thursday, well the father made it to church today! Even though we talked about some pretty deep doctrine he told us after how amazing it was and how he felt so comfortable and peaceful. The Church is true. 

We went back to the flat after church and a branch council meeting and whipped up some venison on rice. It was aight but the venison here is really mid.

Our next few lessons canceled so we contacted some friends in DRC. There was a fire church blasting their service outside on some amplifiers so we walked in and they tried to keep us in so we had to make a quick escape. It was actually crazy crazy. 

We were going around Swak so Machisu could say his goodbyes and we saw a car being pushed by some kids, a husband and a wife. We hopped out and helped them push the car uphill for a kilometer to its destination, It was very fun. But shoooo, I’ve got some bad cardio and quad strength now.

We were prompted to go visit a member nearby and he said that he actually really needed a blessing so we gave him one and the spirit was so strong. Obeying the council and guidance of the Spirit leads to miracles and blessings.

Our final lesson was with that awesome family again! They’re growing so rapidly and it was only our second visit and the third time seeing the father.

We got home a bit early so I whipped up some fried chicken for us.

Monday:

This morning started off with a call to the fam of course since it's P-Day. Next, I got my haircut this morning and then we headed to the “Random Cafe”. We got some bomb brunch and quickly saw the Windhoek Zone Leaders who got here for exchanges today and tomorrow. They didn’t have time to eat so they left to do a bunch of fun Swak stuff that I’ve already done a few times and we did some shopping in the mall.

We dropped our groceries off and then we started the 40 min drive to Walvis Bay with Elder Machisu. We checked his bags, we said bye, and that was that. We’ll miss his ridiculous laugh and funny Kenyan humor but I’ll be back in Botswana soon enough. 

We went to the bigger mall in Walvis Bay while we were there and I got some sick Street Clothing from a brand called RedBat that’s based out of South Africa I believe. 

We got back to the flat and chilled for a bit and then we headed out so Elder Karp could Check out some German stores that he wanted to see. 

Afterwards we met up with the ZL’s and got organized and went out for dinner. We got some pretty NXA brick oven, wood fired pizzas and then split for exchanges. I was with Elder Lymphane and Karp was with Steimle. We had a nice lesson and some contacts and then our last lesson canceled so I got started on this email.

Spiritual Thought:

Moroni 8:16

“...and I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear.”

Conclusion:

I apologize for this ridiculously long email and I sincerely congratulate you if you’ve made it this far. Despite my best efforts to leave out any unnecessary info, it is still very long. Anyways, I hope you all have an amazing week and as usual I love and appreciate you all and everything you do for me!!

Goodnight from Africa :)

My hair seems to be a hit. And no, I haven't frosted my tips. This is all thanks to the Namibian sun.

The little kids are the best here.

This is us after church with one of our friends. We met him on Facebook and he is awesome.

The kids always keep church entertaining.

Our awesome breakfast this morning.