Lockdown

Welcome one and all. 

I'm sure a lot of you heard about the ma funnies going on over here in this beloved country.  So yeah, basically the military put the president on house arrest on Tuesday hahahahha hilarious.  The streets of Harare were crazy from what we heard but there were also marches by the people here in Bulawayo and in other cities haha. A lot of people don't like this president. Because of the political unrest, we spent Wednesday in the house. It was honestly refreshing to just relax for a day. Played baseball and watched the best two years. Solid day.  But for the past week its all been up in the air because the president still hasn't stepped down and even last night we were eating dinner with some members and the word got out that he was going to give a public address so we turned on the radio and listened and it sounded like he was insinuating that he wouldn't step down.  Hearing him speak honestly was the creepiest thing ever.  This guy is seriously corrupt and the whole nation doesn't really like him. So we will see what happens with that.  We can only hope that having his own military surround his house and put him on house arrest, and having his whole country march the streets saying he should step down, would make him rethink some things. hahahaha  Crazy times here in Zim. Also elections are coming early next year and that's when supposedly things get crazy here. But worry not, we'll be safe haha.  We saw something pretty cool yesterday, we were driving to Pumula to teach someone and on the way there, these two huge trucks full of soldiers passed us coming the other way and as they passed, the cars would honk and everybody on the streets would cheer for them so we did the same hahaha everyone was giving props to the military for what they did. So sick.

Also this week I hit my year mark out here! What the heck.  Last year on November 16th I entered the MTC. Seems like an eternity ago but also like it was last week. Weird feeling. As cliche and repeated as it is, time really does fly out here. Some days move slower than the DMV when its hotter than what-what and every appointment falls thru but looking back it flies.  1 year..... in Zimbabwe. What in the world. So cool. We celebrated obviously.  Had a bonfire at our house and I got this super jing ice cream at the store down the street and we lit off a firework.  Doesn't sound that cool after typing it out but I enjoyed. haha  Also having the whole political unrest thing at my year mark was cool too. Maybe I'll spend the next year with a new president in Zim. Who knows.

We had the craziest storm Zimbabwe has seen in a long time this week.  Man. This sucker was wicked.  I think it was the night of our lockdown day but we started to hear the thunder and we could see lightning a little bit and then we went outside and the clouds were moving super fast it was so cool. So we get inside and then the clouds just start dumping rain and it was loud against our lame excuse of a roof.  And then out of nowhere the coolest thing happened. We see this huge flash of lightning and it lights up the house and as the flash was there, the whole power cut out and right as the flash ended, the phattest crack of thunder ever goes off right above our house hahaha legit shook my body it was so sick. After the heat of the storm passed us we watched it from our house and the lightning was so cool. Apparently the storm tore off the roofs of a couple houses in our area so we helped a member family clean up their house but mostly everyone had it fixed pretty quick. It was cool to see some young men and older guys going around helping people with their houses.  Love these people.

Obviously a lot of excitement this week with other things but also with our investigators! We met this guy named Nqo (the q is one of the clicks so its hard to say).  He is a friend of this family we started teaching a while ago and he just moved here for school. He's like 19 years old and a super smart guy. Said that the church he had in South Africa isn't here in Zim so he is currently looking for a church. Powerful. So we taught him the restoration and talked to him about some things in the church and he was excited to come and join us this Sunday. And he came and brought his friend Nduduzi who i spoke of a while ago and he finally came. And the cool thing is that they stay in Pumula and came all the way to Nkulumane 5 to our stake center! You can look on a map but its a long ways away.  We had this stake conference meeting for a southeast Africa area broadcast thing and Nqo and Nduduzi enjoyed it and are excited to come again! So sick. Even our other investigators had a good time! There were soooo many people there! It was awesome to be among all of those saints.  

So we played "statue-free" this week again with that crazy family and it was so fun. We met the parents this week and found out they aren't members but like all of the kids are.  Recently they've been less active and we told them about the conference on Sunday but they stay in Pumula also so it would be a long way for a bunch of kids to go and hard to find a taxi for them. But right before the meeting started they walked in!!! It was awesome. We stopped by their house later in the day and they taught us this street game called "R" haha pretty cool. Got some pictures with the young one that is my best friend now. I'll attach those. I love this family hahaha we think we might be able to teach the parents too although they are super active in their own churches.

The broadcast was super good. Elder Andersen spoke and some other seventies and all the talks were really good. Super inspiring and exactly what the people here needed to hear. 

We had a super interesting experience this week.  We had one of those mornings where we actually had to do some door/gate knocking and we weren't finding anyone and everyone we tried, no one was home and then we stopped at this one house and there was Shona writing on their car outside so I'm like, hey... shona.... lets knock hahaha just for kicks and giggles. And this lady comes out and we introduce ourselves and she gladly lets us in to teach her and her father. When we get inside, the father was sitting there and we're like, "hey baba how are you?" and he's like,  "uhhh not good. I'm very sick guys" and we get closer we see his legs are just......wow. Looked like he had this flesh eating virus or something like there were just huge holes in his legs and he told us he had suffered with this for like 7 months. man.  We ended up teaching them the restoration and we explained about priesthood blessings.  It was cool to testify that we have the same authority that Jesus and his disciples had that they used to heal the sick.  He told us he wanted a blessing so we gave him one and then left them for the day.  We're seeing them on tomorrow maybe but man. I felt so bad for this baba. Has like 9 kids and cant work to provide for them so his wife has been working.  Rough time.

Sidenote, We found this vanilla stuff so now whenever we get pepsi, or coke or anything we just throw that stuff in there. Amazing. 

So that was my week.

Just all sorts of things going on.

Excited to be on the downhill for my mission. Still hasn't hit me yet.

Love you all and hope you had just a splendid week.  Church is true.   No doubt.

Stay Steady Grindin'

-Elder Anderson

My new best friends. Just chillin under a mango tree while they taught us how to play "R" haha

So we were in town and there was this picture on the outside of some building and we walked by it not noticing much and then McDougal was like, wait.... and we go back and look and its a fetching 1A license plate hahahahaha what in the world. Out of all the pictures, it was this one hahaha 

shout out to Boise thats what I'm sayin

 these huge beetle things fly around everywhere. They are legit huge. And when they fly, their wings make this deep buzz sound haha

 bonfire and ice cream

apple and or grape and or pear....... what? super good juice tho.

Outta Here...

Alright well sadly this was my last week in Nkulumane.  Gonna miss that place so much. I grew to love those members a lot.  Getting transferred sucks sometimes haha oh well.  So yeah now I'm serving in a small town called Chegutu.  If you can find it on a map I will be impressed.  I am back in Shona land so I'm no longer speaking the clicking language haha.  And my new comp is Elder Mokoena from South Africa. Dope lil guy.  I'll let you know more about him next week. I literally just met him 20 minutes ago after the bus dropped me off and then we went straight to the internet cafe.  He also is only on his 3rd transfer so he's pretty fresh still. The other guys in my district are young on mission too. So I'm the oldest in this district by almost a year hahaha so weird.  But yeah now I live in a super nice house apparently. Which is soooooo refreshing after living in the two worst houses in this mission haha so excited. Also I've heard this area is super productive!  So thats my transfer news.

My last week in Nkulumane was awesome though.  We baptized the Tandire family and it was so awesome! Man I love those guys.  They were so happy after the baptism and yesterday at church! It was so cool.  Sis Tandire bore her testimony after the baptism and said that she had been waiting for this moment for a long time and was very happy to finally be baptized into the true church.  Powerful.  They had been looking long and hard for a good church for the family and thats when we came in.  So awesome.  So yeah in the past emails I spelt their name "Thandile" because that's how we thought they said it but its been "Tandire" this whole time and we didn't know until we started to fill out the baptismal record with them. I'll add some pictures of them! Sis Tandire is so funny. The other day she was asking about if she could send her husband to be a missionary after they were baptized lol so we kind of explained how it goes and then she started talking about making her children to be missionaries.  And Elder McDougal was like, "Well ultimately its their choice" and Sis Tandire said, "Umm well as long as he is still eating MY sadza, he will do what I say" hahahahahaha and then we all just started laughing so hard. Its so cool to see how they already want to be missionaries and share our message with others. Even the last appointment we had with them, her sister joined us and we taught her the first lesson and she was super interested! Awesome.

We also had zone conference on Thursday and it was awesome, we watched the Christmas Devotional and then they was like a talent show and a ping pong tourney (in which I lost the first game 11-0 and was thus eliminated. low key embarassing hahaha) and then we played football and soccer and other stuff. Kind of felt like recess in elementary school lol but still fun.  The winner of the ping pong tourney was Elder Fili, one of my previous companions and it was so sick  He is too good and was just messing with everyone he played against. So funny. Love that guy. I took a lot of pictures at zone conference so I'll attach those as well. 

T'was quite sad leaving my area. When I told people I was leaving a lot of them were really upset and it was hard to leave all my friends but I'll still be able to stay in touch with them.  And I left the area with 11 people on baptismal date so I hope they all go through! I took so many pictures on Sunday when I went around saying goodbye to everyone haha so I'll see how many i can send. 

Anywho. I'm excited for this new transfer.  No longer the district leader, just the senior companion so thats dope.  Also, I wont be able to email next Monday because it is Christmas and I will be skyping my family. Still feel free to email me but I wont be able to respond until the week after next. Love you all and I know this church is true.

Stay Steady Grindin'

Oh and Merry Christmas!

-Elder Anderson

 The Tandire's baptism

 My Friend Meloney

 The Ndlovu family.  One of my favorites.  Regina is the one next to me and I call her sisiwami which means my sister and she calls me bhudiwami which means my brother haha. The mother said that I was part of her family now and that it was going to be hard to say bye to one of her children. Gonna miss these guys.

 Kudzi, this guy always worked with us and he's only 17. 

 The Ndlovu's, the crazy children I always talk about. When I told them I was leaving, they got mad, especially the one wearing the pink dress, her names Mbali and she's crazy. She said, pointing to McDougal, "This one should leave! He isn't fun!" hahahaha it was so funny I was dying. Love these kids. 

Tandire's. Bro Tandire wasn't there when i went to say goodbye 

 Future, the most powerful kid every. we baptized him when i first got here and he's already brought 3 friends to church and had us start teaching them. He's awesome.

 Buisile on the left, and Marvellous on the right. Marvellous is one of our recent converts.  

 Ashylene and Ashton. Ashton is my bro hahaha he was so sad when i told him I was leaving. 

I dont know the surname of this family but they stay in the other elders' area and we always went to dinner with them. Nozithelo is the name of the one in the bottom picture and she's the funniest person I have met here. Chillest family ever.

White People Are Wierd

So I'm gonna start off with some weird experiences we had this week with white people.  

So after emailing last Monday, we went shopping at the rich part of Blues where all the white people shop and we tried to pull money at the atm but there was no cash.  This white mama saw us trying to get money and she's like, "is there anything today" we told her no and she asked how much we tried to pull and we told her $10 and she just whips out a crisp US 10 and gives it to us...... hahahaha I just froze and stared at her while holding her $10 bill and she's like, "What? You said you needed $10 right?" and then she walked away and we never saw her again...... one of the 3 Nephites? I dont know. hahaha but yeah so that was weird.  But we got money so I'm not complaining. 

So then the next day we had to take our car into the shop to get some work done on it and as we were walking to the kombi park after, we ran into this 60 year old white dude wearing board shorts, and a Trump hat. hahahah I was like, "..... hey!" hahahaa and then he was like, "Hey guys whats up?" and I just told him I liked his hat and he started telling us how much he loves Trump and how much he hates Hillary and my comp and I were just laughing the whole time and he kept talking like a total bro, saying "dude" and "man" all the time haha and then my comp got a picture with him and then we parted ways. It was so funny, he said he grew up in the states and then moved to Zim.  And at that time, he was going to meet his friend at the community swimming pool. Didn't even know we had one of those here hahaha 

Thus, white people are weird. 

So yeah since we took the car in, we are walking again..... i hope you can feel my excitement thru the computer. 

We actually had a super good week though. first thing i gotta talk about is this new family we started teaching called the Thandile's. So we were referred to them by another member family and when we met them they told us their whole story with church and said that they had gone to a couple different churches but they would teach things that were different from the Bible and they couldn't agree with it but they went because they didn't know what to do.  Then one day they overheard a conversation between a member and a non member in a kombi and the member was talking about the church and just a little bit about the history thereof and it sparked a ton of interest in the Thandile's.  Sadly the member got off at a stop before them so they didn't get to speak with him anymore.  So since then, they had been talking and asking around about the church and they found out they live just down the street from our Nkulumane 3rd ward meeting house! And then they met some members and thats where we came in.  We taught them the restoration on Wednesday this week and man.... I have never met anyone who has been more prepared by the Lord for the message of the restoration.  The whole lesson was led by the spirit and I could just feel how many questions we were answering with the lesson and it was so powerful. Mid way thru, i felt the impression to invite them to be baptized but I also felt like it might be too soon until Sister Thandile, at the end was like, "So how do you guys do baptism?" hahaha so we taught her about it and I asked if her and her husband would be baptized and they said Yes! maaannn it was so sick.  And then my comp asked them if they were legally married yet and they said, "Well yeah we live together and we have 2 kids haha of course we are married."  Which was so powerful for a Zimbabwean family to say because the whole bride price part of the culture prevents soooo many families from getting legally married but we can tell this family has standards which is amazing.  They even came to church yesterday and it was awesome! They got there before us too! We've only taught them twice but they are preparing to be baptized in December and we are super excited for them. gonna be awesome

So the Thandile's was pretty much the highlight of the week. We found 7 new investigators this week so that was dope. Gift the rapper introduced us to his other friend named Afroman hahaha and he wanted a Book of Mormon from us and we taught him a little bit about it and he is interested in learning more.  They even did a street cypher for us and it was dope.  I got a dope video of them freestyling and man they are good. 

We also had a blast with some different member families this week. We met some members surnamed Ndlovu and they are so funny.  the parents are never around and there are like 57 kids at their tiny house.  Now we love going there hahah last time right before we left, one of the younger girls came up to me and just points at my face and says "STATCH!"..... it gets quite in the room and I was sooo confused. so then she says it again followed by a long pause and i was like what the heck is this girl trying to say to me and finally I figured out she's tryna say "statue" hahahaha so the next time she said it, I just freeze... and then after a couple seconds she said, "free" hahahah so we played "statue-free" for like 30 minutes with all the kids in that house and it was hilarious.  Even after we walked away one of the older kids from down the street we just hear. "STATUE!!!" and I stop walking and then I hear "free!!" hhahahaahaha man it was so much fun.  

So then the other day we were with some recent convert kids, Liboni and Blessing and we were trying to teach them something but they are just the craziest kids so we ended up just playing games with them and at one point, Blessing was like, "Liboni your name is like dirt, people step on you" And then Liboni comes firing back, "you name is like the garbage, people throw you out!" and then Blessing again, "your name is like a chair, people sit on you." hahahaha and they go back and forth and then McDougal and I jump in with a few occasionally and we went on for a long time with that and we were just dying at how savage these kids were with some of them hahahahha they are like 10. too funny. 

Last week my comp and I found tortillas at the store....... we had breakfast burritos and tacos almost every night this week hahaha. 

Oh yeah. We had a baptism yesterday too hahaha for Marvellous! We had to do it on Sunday because the mom works on Saturdays and she wanted to come but it was super good! She's awesome. I'll attach some pictures. 

Also this week, one night at like 9:00 we found out that Elder Fili and his companion got lost coming home from town and they ended up in our area! My old comp Elder Fili is now in our zone and he's new this week so thats how they got lost but man it was so good to see that dude again.  We picked them up and walked them back to our place and they spent the night with us because the ZL's were already asleep.  but man I stayed up with Fili until like 1:00 just talking and laughin and stuff it was so dope. I love that guy. 

Well thats all for this week. Love you guys. I hope you are all just loving life.  Life is so cool. So is this church.  I cannot say how much my testimony has been strengthened since I came out here.  Even tho the people aren't always true, the church is still led by Jesus Christ, our Master.  I know it is.  

Stay Steady Gridin'

Yeet,

Elder Anderson

Gift on the left and Ashton on the right. The two chillest members out here. 

Afroman on the left and Gift on the right. Marshal in the back. This is when Afroman and Gift were freestyling hahaha

Baptism!

This kid we see everyday was chillin with these on so i had to snap a pic wit him

i promise I was not trying to look high in this picture.  

 Bonfire! 

Elder Huffaker, bought this rhasta hat and shades so we were wearing them at this dinner appointment one night hahaha

Got the Nike Python Wallet, haha

Every Day after the area

Transfer N9ne

Hey team.

So transfers happened today but not a lot changed except I'll be the district leader now so thats kinda cool.  I'm excited tho because my trainer, Elder Till, my trainee, Elder Thompson, and my favorite companion Elder Fili will all be in my zone for this transfer so I'll be able to see them a lot!  Also, Thompson is training so now we can take a posterity picture from Till down to the new guy haha. 

This week we did exchanges with the other guys in the district. So on Wednesday I was with Elder Thomas from Utah and then on thursday I was with Elder Huffaker from Colorado.  Both days were so much fun.  I took them both to see Gift, the rapper.  No clue if I've told you guys about him yet hahaha but yeah he is this recent convert in our area and he's dope. And when I was with Elder Thomas, Gift freestyled for us and it was amazing hahaha. Then when I was with Huffaker, we went to Gift and he had this rasta friend there and the guy was too funny. He asked us about Jesus and if he was black or white and we told him it didn't matter and then he's like, "man but if he was black... can you imagine? no one would have taken him seriously" hahahahahahaa i was laughing so hard my goodness. And then I was like, "yeah and what if he had dreads like you?" and he's like, "Ahaaaa everybody would be askin him for weed" hahahahahaha this guy is the funniest dude I've met in Zim.  He's hilarious. He told us he didn't know if he was high when we met him hahaha. 

Marvellous is still prgressing super well and she came to church and even started going to stake choir practice with her friends who are members!  She's awesome! That will be our baptism this week.

This week we also put two more guys on date.  We recently baptized someone named future and now his two friends have baptismal dates and they came to church yesterday! Their names are Junior and Prosper and they are two of the most humble kids ever and they want to follow Future's example. Super cool.

We attended church in Pumula today and when the meeting started there were 11 people there hahahaha ridiculous.  After sacrament meeting it got up to maybe 17. Including all the little kids running around hahaha But we had some investigators show up. Marshal one of the recent converts showed up and for fast and testimony meeting he stood up and bore his testimony and at the end he said that he wanted the congregation to help him sing his favorite song, hahaha so then we all stood and sang angels we have heard on high, and then he finished his testimony.  It was funny but pretty cool too. That dude is powerful!

Had another bonfire this week after we got transfer news.

That's all I got.

Didn't bring my card reader so I can't send pictures this week but next week I'll send a lot!

Hope you all had a dope week.

Stay Steady Grindin'

-Elder Anderson

All Is Well

Time still flyin.

Next week the transfer is over. Thats weird.

Well this was just one of those weeks.  Still walking, and a ton of appointments fell thru.

Nonetheless we still have some success.

We baptized Liboni this week! He was so excited! love that kid. I'll attach the pictures! It was hilarious this week though because we were teaching Liboni with his friend Blessing who is a member and at the end of the lesson I thru this little soccer ball at Blessing and Liboni was like, "What the?" and then Blessing is like, "What the f***?" hahahahaha this kid is 8 years old lol McDougal and I were like woah woah woahhhhh dude what did you say?!! hahaha and then we had a discussion about which english words are not okay to say.  I dont blame them tho, its just like when we say curse words in another language it doesn't really mean anything to us but it was so funny to here that kid say those words. 

We've been teaching this girl named Marvellous (yes with two l's haha) and he is part of a part-member family and has recently been coming to church a lot and we have taught her a few lessons and man she is powerful!  She's accepted a baptismal date and she is super smart. Like even when we dive into deep doctrine, she totally gets it. So cool. She even came to church yesterday and it was super cold so not a lot of people came but she did!

Which reminds me, It was freaking COLD this week.  Like Thrusday thru Saturday it was the coldest its ever been here for me hahaha.  it was weird tho because monday thru wednesday was suuuuper hot haha what is wrong with this place! Love it tho.  And it rained on Friday and it started pouring right as we got to Liboni's house to do the baptismal interview.   So afterwards we started walking home and the coolest storm ever just came right thru Nkulumane and there was lightning everywhere!  Our DL tho, is scared of lightning so he just started sprinting home so we had to keep up with him it was so funny. I kept thinking what the people here were thinking seeing 4 white dudes looking dapper as ever just sprinting thru their neighborhood. hahaha But yeah one time lightning stuck and it lit up EVERTHING it was so sick! but right as the flash ended, all of Nkulumane blacked out hahaha it was blacker than Obama out there. Absolutely no power anywhere. So we all just booked it home. Luckily the power came on pretty quick tho. Crazy night.

We met this guy named Luther this week who has some buddies who are members in Pumula and he had a ton of deep questions about the gospel so we answered him and he was surprised we had answers haha but it really interested him so we are gonna meet with him again next week. Hope something good comes from that. It was funny tho because he would ask a question and have a super confident look, thinking he would stump us and we would just immediately answer him and quote scripture hahaha it was cool.

So we were told the car was fixed and we went to pick it up and it worked perfectly to take us to our first appointment and then right as we got there, the car completely died again..... So then we had to wait there forever to get another tow truck to come get it haha it was fun tho, at that time a group of boys was walking home from school and we started talking with all of them and one asked for 10 cents and I'm like, "what makes you think i have money?" and the older kids were kinda nervously looking at each other because they were afraid to say it but then one of the young kids in the back steps forward and is like, "Because you are white!!" i lost it it was so funny.  Then I started asking all of them to give me 10 cents and one of them almost did lol. Later in our conversation with them we made fun of the lightest skinned kid and told him he looked like he was from Nigeria and then the kids all made fun of the darkest one out of them and saying he was from Uganda and then I was like, "ah yes the dark one! beat him!"  and all his buddies just started punching him hahaha I was totally kidding and they just start going ham on him and McDougal and i are like no no no no we were joking! hahaha these kids will do what ever they tell you. I joke with them every day.
But after those kids left I started going thru my camera out of boredom and looked thru all the settings. Being the idiot that I am, I saw the format memory card option and thought to myself that it would file all my pictures in a certain order or something and then the next thing I saw was "8 GB free space" And I'm like ohhhh shoot. So yeah all my pictures from the 1st year from my mission are gone now..... Unless anyone knows how to recover them.  Sometimes I think I'm capable of thinking but other times I don't know what happens. Oh well. i sent all the good ones home already so I'm not too mad.

Sidenote, I'm having this guy remake my Nike wallet out of Python skin.... if that isn't cool I dont know what is. And he's going to keep the Nike swoosh in it. I should get it later this week.

We also met this family in our ward this week and they are the most humble people ever.  One of the kids is named Sanchez hahahahahaha and he looks just like J Cole. Google a picture of J Cole and that is basically Sanchez. This kid is super funny too. Loves missionaries. 

We had a cool experience this week. We had some free time one day this week so i had the idea to go to this young family in our ward and when we got there it was just the mama there and she was super happy to see us and let us in and we talked for a while and then my companion shared a scripture with her about how the Lord doesn't only help us with spiritual things but also with temporal things.   And how all we need to do is pray for his help and he will guide us in this life.  And the mama was so happy. She told us she has recently been down because her husband works every day and she feels like she just sits at home all day and does nothing but she wants to help the family and she was inspired by our visit. It was so cool. Before she told us that she was like, "i dont know what sent you here but thank you so much for coming".  So cool.

This week for my studies, I started reading Jesus the Christ again and man.  That book is super good. It has taught me a lot about how perfect He really was.  Everything even the little things He did was all the will of the Father. Definitely love my Savior and I'm so grateful to be a missionary for His church. 

Love you all. Hope you have a stellar week.

Stay Steady Grindin.

Cordially,

Elder Anderson

This is Marshaland his mother, he's a recent covert and the chillest guy hahaha

Just some kids we met the other day while talking to a less active

Liboni's baptism!!! with his buddy Blessing

wearing both watches lol

Balled up with this squigga after the baptismal service. Still dont know his name but i had to get a picture with him because of his shirt hahaha.

This guy in my district has these glasses and I always make fun of him for having them.