20

So yeah now I'm 20.

My birthday here was soooo sick.  Started off by buying 4 kgs of pork and beef and some drinks and then we took them to Mom and Wayne and then we had some powerful lessons and then we did some baptismal interviews and then returned to moms house with the ZLs and had a braai.  And it was the best thing ever.  We ate so much pork hahahaha.  Wayne is a master of braai.  Afterwards the ZLs brought in a cake and they all sang happy birthday to me the zimbabwean way.  Its the same as we all normally sing it but after they add a lot, they sing another verse where they say, "How old are you now?" and then after that verse, I have to sing back, "I'm 20 years old now" for the 3rd verse.  And then the next verse they sing, "WHo is your girlfriend?" and then I replied "Rejoice Makore" (mom's daughter) hahahahaha man we were all laughing so hard.  the funny thing is they sing all verses with the same tune that we all know but they just add a lot more. We all call Rejoice, "sisi" which means "sister" so when I called her out as my girlfriend, mom was like, "Iwe fut seki!" which is like a curse word in shona hahahaha. Man it was funny.  Also, mom was telling me throughout the day that in their culture, the people throw dirt/sadza and water on you if its your birthday..... So the whole day I was making sure nothing happened and then right as we were leaving, my comp and one of the ZLs each had huge buckets of water and just soaked me on my way out of moms house hahahahahahahaha and then mom was like, "Okay NOW you are 20 years old" hahahaha.  Then after we returned home we bought a bottle of this non-alcoholic wine stuff and then I got to pop it, it was so sick.  So yeah that was how my last birthday in Africa was....truly dope.

 Finally had another baptism! We baptized Stephen, the one-armed guy.  Man he is powerful.  In his testimony after the baptism, he said, "I want to testify to you that I really feel that I am in the right path now".  Touching.  I'll attach the pictures. 

We met with Keshias again this week and his wife was still being nonsense,  we could tell that she told her kids to tell us that no one was home but luckily we saw the husband and he gladly welcomed us in.  We kind of reviewed some of the things which we have taught them and Keshias started saying how he wanted to be baptized.  We never even invited him hahaha he's so dope.  And then we talked about how they need to be legally married first and talked about how we could do it thru the church and the wife's heart was softened when we talked about that and her countenance changed and she seemed more willing to listen to us and come to church.  We invited them to come to Stephen's baptism and they came! Unfortunately they couldn't come to church this week but hapana worries they still solid. 

Met a few new investigators this week who seem powerful.  Hopefully they don't disappoint. 

One of them is this guy named Wezo and he's awesome.  He has never tasted alcohol and he's never smoked and he's like 30 something.  He has two kids who used to come to our church and the wife is outta the picture so no marriage problems.  He is best friends with a member and he's very smart.  When we taught him the restoration this week, it answered so many of his questions and it was awesome.  The spirit was strong in that lesson, I hope he progresses.  Solid dude.

Well everybody, Thank you so much for all the emails and birthday wishes.  Love you all and I'm so grateful for all the support that you've given me throughout my mission. 

Stay Steady Grindin'

Sharp fede

-Elder Anderson

(so now the computer isn't letting me send pictures.  comin atchya next week no worries)

Miracle

Ladies....and gentlemen whats up?

This week started off super lame because we had fall thru after fall thru.  And even with the people we thought were progressing but now we are considering dropping them. Darn. Life goes on.

So I had quite a brilliant idea this week. Recently I have been getting super pissed whenever people call me "murungu" or "white man" and sometimes even just "white".  So I decided to start telling everybody what my name is.  So like when a group of 20+ kids start screaming "MURUNGU HOW ARE YOU!?!?" I'm like, "ah iwe! Uya pano." which means "come here" and then I tell them my name is Anderson and get them to say it with me and then as I walk away they say "Anderson! Anderson!" hahahaha. Started doing this last week and now there are some streets that we walk down and I start hearing the kids say, "ANDERSON!" hahahaha which is infinitely better than getting called white man haha. Soon, the whole of Chegutu will be calling the missionaries Anderson instead of Murungu lol.

Alright so we had a miracle happen this week.  We found this guy a couple weeks ago and his name is Keshias and he is a super timid and humble baba.  When we started teaching him and he was agreeing with everything we said and he seemed super promising and even committed to come to church but recently he dropped off the face of the earth and we can never see him.  But... on sunday we walked into church and we were early by a few minutes and we saw Keshias sitting there with the Book of Mormon we gave him.  He had to run home after sacrament meeting so we didn't get to talk to him right then but then after church we walked over to his house and he was there and was super happy to see us and we asked him about church and he loved sacrament meeting.  He said he learned a lot from the speakers about love and forgiveness and the life after death, which is amazing because this guy barely speaks english and all our meetings are in english.  And he even said when he took the sacrament he felt "Ndakachena" which means "clean".  Amazing.  So we shared a small message and reviewed the restoration very slowly and simply with him and then asked him what he understood about our message.  His response was something like this, "For many years I didn't know which church was true,  but now I know this is the TRUE church.".... This guy is so ready for our message its awesome.  The only problem is that his wife is nonsense and thinks she knows everything and is trying to pull him to her church... but we blasted her with the husband and told her the truth and she was like, "ohhhh okayyyy." hahaha so minor roadblock but no worries.  Keshias is powerful.

Also, we met this girl the other day named Belinda and she introduced herself to us one day on the street and told us she was a member who was working in Chegutu temporarily but is from Harare.  We told her where the church was and came and visited her at the hospital she works at and taught her and she is powerful. We told her even tho it was far, to invite some of her colleagues to church and she said she would and on Sunday she showed up to church with 3 of her friends...... and they walked freaking far to come it was so sick.  Hopefully we can teach them before they all return back to Harare.

Steven also came to church again.  He's basically a member now.  Participates in every class.  Mom told us she talked to him at church about him bringing his family with him to church and he told her, "I'm working on it. One day they'll come." Sooo sick. Steven is getting baptized this Saturday.  He's honestly someone you could see being the branch president. He's awesome.  One of the most prepared people I have met.

Including those ones, we had 10 investigators at church....niiiiicccceee.

Touching moment this week.  One day in the area we got a call from the elders in Marimba Park (my first area) and I answered and Elder Khumalo was like, "Yeah so elder Anderson, theres someone here that wants to talk to you" And then I heard my man Shawn! the first kid i baptized!  It was so nice to talk to him haha he's like 13 and he's powerful. Going to be a missionary one day.  Got to talk to him and his family for a few minutes it was awesome. 

We work with this member a lot named Blessing and she told us that people call her "B".... and I was like, "No way.... thats what people call me too" and now we call each other "B" hahaha.

So obviously we had a dope week.  Hope you guys did too.

Stay Steady Grindin'

Sharp fede,

-Elder Anderson

from left to right, Elder Mwamba from Congo, funniest dude ever. Then Elder Ntshangase, my companion, chillest dude ever, Then me. 

My breakfast this morning.....

I would also send you a video of the crazy rainstorm we had this morning but it would probably finish uploading when I step off the plane in Boise.

Pachi Pamwe

First of all, I'm sad that the Patriots lost the super bowl but hapana worries.  Brady still a legend. 

Also, I want to help you all to be able to say my companions name. So its Ntshangase.  nnh-chahn-gah-say.  thats how your pronounce it. I hope that helps.  Even the shona people find it hard to say and I just blast them like, "C'mon, even a white guy can read that and you cant?" hahaha

So yeah Elder Ntshangase is from Durban, South Africa and he's super chill.  Different from Elder Mokoena but still chill.  He comes from a huge family and he is the only member!  And he's 25 years old.  Listens to house music and loves eating so we basically best friends already hahaha. Nah but he's a cool guy and he actually served for a transfer in Capetown waiting for his visa so he's already a powerful missionary.  And he speaks Zulu so I can talk to him in his language a little bit from what Mokoena taught me.

Also, the other new missionary in our house is Elder Mwamba from DRC. He's learning how to speak english right now and he speaks french so his accent is dope.  He's a funny dude. We are going to have fun this transfer.

Due to our weird schedule this week, we didn't have a lot of time to proselyte but we still had success.  At church we had 6 people come! Sooo sick.  Steven came with his two sons and it was awesome.  We also had this girl Chipo come to church which surprised us because we thought she was starting to be a joker but now she proved us wrong and we are probably going to baptize her on the 17th, along with two others!  Finally going to baptize in this area!

In other news, I finished Jesus the Christ this week. 

So on Thursday and Friday, we had the training meetings in Harare with our sons and it was so cool to be back.  I hadn't been to Harare or the mission office in almost a year hahaha. so weird.  But the food that we had was amazing. The American senior couple cooked breakfast for us.... need I say more? And Sister Mkhabela made an amazing dinner for us.  She's too good at cooking.  We met a lot of the new missionaries and there were a lot of sisters fresh out of the states and man....white girls are weird.  hahaha.  I got to see Elder Fili and Elder Parco again tho so I was super happy.  The 3 of us lived together in Masvingo for a long time and it was good to hang out with those guys again and talk about all the weird stuff that happened in Masvingo. 

Our water pressure is super low so today we were back to bucket baths... So sick. 

Last thing.  One day we were leaving mom's house and she was like, "Anderson, you're looking bigger" in shona and I was like."....thank you so much" hahaha so hats off to me guys, I'm gaining weight in Africa.

Oh yeah and "pachi pamwe" is the equivalent of "nice to see you again"

Solid week. No complaints.

Love you all!

Stay Steady Grindin'

Cordially,

Elder Anderson

Me and Parco

Cooking chicken with Mom and Wayne

 this is moms daughter Rejoice. She's dope

 pulled up to moms house one day and Wayne had on this jacket, so i tried it on and we took mean pictures. 

Another Son

So transfers happened and Elder Mokoena is leaving me....... I am going to miss that guy so much hahaha.  But now I'll be the district leader and I'm going to train a new missionary again.  So now I'm having another son. I dont know much about him but his name is Elder Ntshangase and he's from South Africa I think. And he wont get here until Thursday so that means from now until then, I'll be with Elder Morrison (from California) because he is also training and waiting for his son.  Also.... I'm driving again! soooo happy, but its automatic so I'm kinda upset about that. No worries tho, a car is a car. 

This last week was dope tho. We had 9 investigators at church.... and like 7 of them came for the first time. It was awesome!  We also had a braii on sunday after church with mom and Wayne and it was dope. I'll send some pictures. I was so happy after that meal.  

Cholera is mostly gone. Nobody else died so that's good. 

So today is the start of my 11th transfer on mission........wow.

I now know like 20 songs on the guitar thanks to Elder Morrison.

There were a couple times this week were I had a fluent and extensive conversation in Shona with someone. So sick.

As far as investigators go, the same people I talked about last week are progressing still and they are awesome.  Might have to drop a few of our investigators so that's sad. Sorry I dont have much to say about the week, haha I'm still upset about Elder Mokoena leaving. 

While we went around saying bye to people with Elder Mokoena, he shared a message with one of his recent convert family and it was so powerful.  HEwas really sad to leave them because he helped them so much and got them married and baptized and he saw them grow so much and he told them to endure to the end so they could see each other again in the celestial kingdom and while he was talking I felt the spirit so strong and I just knew that the plan of salvation is real and we will see each other gain.  It was amazing. 

Well guys I love this church.  Love you all have a great week

Stay Steady Grindin'

Be Happy

Sharp,

Elder Anderson

Sadza and chicken. my favorite meal in the world

Us with Elder Silotile. Another dope south african that just went home. 

Me and Mokoena

Sunday braii with mom and wayne