Black Christmas

How we doin?

We had zone conference this week and at the end, president told us that soon, all the cars are going to be taken out of the mission hahaha ouch.  Good thing I'm almost outta here.  I could honestly walk to Sweden and chill with Uncle Matt right now if I wanted to stressed about no more cars. 

Elder Kabuya continues to make me laugh every day.  We had a 3 peat of rejections and he just laughs as we walk away and says, "Eish companion we are washing our hands.  Jesus Christ is coming soon" hahahaha I was dying.  Keeps me feelin good even when no one wants to here from us.  Also, this week we were teaching a Congolese guy and Kabuya decided to pray in French and a couple times during the prayer he was struggling to speak his language and was pausing to think of the words to say and then afterwards he's like, "My heart is wanting to speak English" hahaha so sick.  Send your regards to yours truly for being the most sought after English tutor in the world. 

One day we were walking to an appointment and I'm like, "Alright, Kabuya I want you to listen to the spirit and pick a house to go talk to people" and he accepted and we walked for a while and then saw this big family sitting outside of their house and he's like, "This one." so I follow him and he contacts this family and we teach them something small and as we teach,  These two women walk by and ask what is going on and we told them to come and join us so we taught everybody a short restoration lesson as we stood there and the two women that joined us were very interested and we scheduled a followup appointment.  When we went back we taught them (their names are Chipo and Jane) and Chipo was super interested and is way intelligent and works in.....wait for it... Dubai.  Soooo sick. She loved the message and she brought her whole family to church!  Even one of the girls we initially contacted came!  Awesome.  Haven't met people to willing to come to church since I got to this area so it was refreshing.  Don't know when she'll go back to Dubai but at least we will have planted a seed. 

We also teach this couple, Otis and Benhilda and they wanna be baptized after we marry them.  They were being taught before I got here so I'm just international harvester.  They're awesome tho.  Benhilda is the one I talked about last week whose family was baptized in Botswana.  

So my district is made up of 4 elders and 4 sisters and the sisters combined had 11 baptisms on Sunday...... I had to do all those interviews on Saturday and it was awesome.  Lot of really cool people.  Their areas are like bush.  Go google search Epworth, Harare Zimbabwe and maybe you'll see where I was haha. Kabuya was spittin mad game tryna flirt with one of the sisters in our district and its hilarious because his English is super broken and he's just a slow guy all around and its so funny.  Love the guy.  

Recently I have heard the word temple so many times, either at church or during personal study and it makes me miss the temple so much.  Day 1 activity when I take off this nametag. 

Its been freaking cold here this week. Thus the unitentionally racist title Black Christmas. Feel like listening to Michael Buble christmas album when I wake up in the morning. I don't know what temperature exactly but to me it feels soooo cold.  Shivering.  Tango with the weather every day, by the time we start our day the sun is shining and I go to proselyte in my short sleeved shirt and then when the sun goes down, I'm expecting to see a Mammoth and a sloth and a saber tooth tiger walk around the corner.  Zim ice age.  I will suffer when I get home in November.  

I've been looking for an SD card reader for the longest time but I guess Zimbabwe stopped buying them from China. I think i have a solution but the last few weeks worth of pictures I have, you wont see until I come home but all the ones I will take starting tomorrow, I'll send them. 

No worries

Stay Steady Grindin'

Vallet Parking

Yours Truly,

Elder Anderson

Mama's Day

Tried to find something to use to upload my pictures today.  Swing and a miss, sorry guys. 

Week was alright. 

We met these guys at a barber shop who are all from Congo and speak French so my comp loves going there and we taught them a lesson but they all don't hear a lick of english so Elder Kabuya taught the whole lesson in french. it was so cool.  i almost fell asleep a couple times but it was dope. 

Also with kabuya, the other day out of nowhere he flips me off and says, "what this mean?" hahaha i'm like wooooaaaahhh dude put that down and he just stares at me with a blank face and still flipping me off and im like, "dude dont do that" hahaha and still holding it up he's like, "why?" hahah so i explain it to him and while still holding it up he replies, "ohhh" and then keeps flipping me off and then theres silence and i'm like, so yeah dude put it down and finally he stops hahaha it was so funny. 

Walking home one night and we pass by this supermarket and theres this drunk guy standing out front and he stops us and is like, "yes thank you men of god can you please help me?" and then he shows us this broken cardboard box with 3 live chickens in it and some other trash and he explains his box broke and he has to find another one to hold the chickens and he asks us to watch his chickens while he goes to find another box hahahaha so we just stand there waiting and then the passers by start looking at us super weird and some ask to help us and we're like, no we are helping someone right now hahaha and then he comes back with a new box, praises god and sends us on our way. 

Met the weirdest dude in my life on Sunday. out of nowhere, half way thru sacrament meeting this rhasta dude walks in with torn street clothes, holding a hymn book and sits down in the congregation.  then during someones talk he walks to the sacrament table and sits there. after a few minutes, he stands up and bows (still during someones talk) and then sits in the choir seats for the rest of the meeting... then afterwards we go to meet him and he introduces himself as James, later i ask for his address and he tells me to write "91823426723821"..... i'm like okay thats not a house number, where do you stay, he's like, "in town" (which is like a 30 minute drive from our area...still not sure how he got to the chapel) and I look down and see the hymn book he is holding has "glenview 2nd ward" written on it  (that ward is on the other side of harare, not even close to town or our area) hahahahaha so then nothing is adding up and im like, alright just write down your information and he takes me planner and writes the following:

Ezra Taft Benson

house number 9182

glenora c extension       (never heard of this place)

ID 65166432742       (yes his ID number)

seeguid        (no idea what this means)

Then after a long silence he's like, "okay lets go to sunday school" and then he leads us to the investigators class as if he's been there before.  he sits next to me and he starts flipping thru his hymnbook and i see torn out pictures from other church manuals inserted within the pages of his hymnbook and all of them are pictures of Ezra Taft Benson........... then his drivers license falls out of the book and i see all the information and the picture had been scratched out with a rock........ and then he was laughing at random times during the lesson and then during priesthood he puts his arm around me and kinda grabs my back and im thinking to myself like, "why in the world is this happening"  and then finally he gets up and walks up front to the teacher, whispers something in his ear and then he walks out and left the building and we never saw him again.  

Easily the creepiest and most bizarre thing i have experienced. 

We met an awesome woman this week.  Walking down this street and two mamas whistle to us and call us over so we walk in there gate and talk to them and they said they want to join our church so then i start thinking there gonna say something about wanting to go to America with me but they actually had concerns about their church and wanted us to teach them.  So we explained a little bit and set a return appointment and came back to find one of them, Teresa, and we taught the whole restoration to her and she loved it and asked us about marriage in the church because she wants to be married to her husband but the catholic church told them they had to pay a ton of money to do it there.  She was really excited to come to church but then on Sunday we didn't see her.  But i think in the future she'll progress. 

We also met this woman after kabuya taught the lesson in french at the barber shop that was interesting.  we met her right as we were leaving and she's like, "wow im happy to see you guys.".... haha we are like, oh okay cool and ask her why and she says, "i saw both of you in a dream the other day, and you were teaching me the gospel" (and she looks at our nametags and points at them saying) "yeah yeah i remember these black nametags". we were like, "........that is awesome so when can we make your dream come true?" haha and we set an appointment.  then we went there and the family was like, "yeah she doesnt stay here"....... pretty anticlimactic story. 

Skyping on mothers day was awesome.  Last call until i come home. Time is flying. 

Started teaching a cool family after church on Sunday.  The mama's family was baptized (except her) in Botswana an eternity ago and now she wants to join the church with her husband! Niiiiiiice. 

Couple times this week where we were meeting people and it felt like the Lord was leading us and we were walking in the way He prepared for us. Really cool. 

Mbare still ghetto as ever. Love it. 

Hope you all enjoyed your week and Happy Mother's Day! 

Stay Steady Grindin'

Sharp,

Elder Anderson

Ghetto....

Pictures still not gonna come thru. Sorry.

I was told this week, that if you haven't been to Mbare, you haven't been to Zimbabwe. Which I later realized is basically true.  We went to the most ghetto parts of our ghetto area and it was crazy.  Volumes could not depict the things you see.   Walkin thru dirt roads with a wide variety of trash scattered all over the place, a stream of sewage running along the road cascading thru potholes and peoples front "yards". Everyone staring at me, yelling "murungu", chickens wandering around like they own the place, kombis and taxis flying thru the road splashing the sewage and driving with 15 more people than the capacity.  Mamas cooking sadza or washing their screaming children and drunkards singing and dancing to zim dance music in the streets and wanting to talk to us and ask us for money.  hahaha all of this just happening at the same time and we just casually walk thru like theirs no problem.  I walked into this set of super old flats the other day and as we walk up the stairs this group of kids starts forming behind us compiled of all those who saw me and then they follow us chanting, "murewa murewa murewa" haha which means "Baboon, baboon, baboon" (for some reason thats what they call white people lol.)

Also, the bishop gave us a ride to this one area and he's like, Okay guys so never come here after 6:00 hahahhaa 

So thats ghetto life for you. lol.

Just hilarious the different things that happen in a day.

We had to do a lot of contacting this week which allowed me to meet a wide array of strange people.  Met like 3 people that belong to a CHRISTIAN faith that doesnt.....wait for it....read the bible........ how can one believe in the Savior and not read the Bible hilarious conversations.  I'm like so where do you learn about Jesus Christ if you dont read the bible?  he says, "Our prophet teaches us"  Im like okay what does he teach you about. "Jesus Christ" That is great so where does your prophet learn about Jesus? ".... he reads the bible and then tells us"  Ohhh...so wait, he reads the bible, and then tells you not to read the bible? "Yes" hahahahaha okay cool man we'll see you around.

Just nonsense.  To each his own but sometimes it surprises me what people are teaching.

Not only making people look silly with the gospel but also at the gym.  The other day when we went, the guys were benching this weight and I was doing other things but one of them was like, "Anderson, can you do this weight?" im like "Man you know I can do this" and then he's like, "Ohhhh okay prove it" hahaha so I push him aside and crank out like 6 reps and they were all doing like 2 or 3. hahaha I stand up and look at him. he's like, "okay okay okay" hahahahahaha

There's a sister in my district named Sister Keck and I found out she went to Madison and was at the game when Centennial lost to Madison because of a last second shot. hahaha small world.

Seems like right as i got here, all the progressing investigators stopped progressing. Don't know how my presence couldve changes that hahaha pretty lame.  No worries tho. 

We getta skype next week... thats weird. My last skype.  So yeah we will do that this coming Sunday at around 4 pm here.

Thats all she wrote. 

Stay tuned for the next episode. 

Tune in each Monday at 1pm Zimbabwean Standard Time

Stay Steady Grindin'

Cordially,

Elder Anderson

Slums

Mbare is pretty dope.

Its a lot like my first area, Mufakose.  Just a ghetto on the outskirts of Harare town. Normal Zimbabwean scenery and goings on.  The added feature of this area is the flats....these things are just nasty. No other word to describe them.  Suuuuuper ghetto hahaha.  There are a lot of bars here and therefore a lot of drunk guys.  Yesterday after church, we start walking thru the area and this guy runs up to me with his daughter and yells, "Hey YOU! Take your daughter!! This is your daughter!" hahahaha just thinking to myself, "what in the world"  and then he just wanted his daughter to shake a white guys hand and then he ran away laughing, taking his stench of alcohol with him.  Drunk people do some stupid things.  Saw another guy that wet himself while talking to us lol.  I never have been even remotely tempted to partake of alcoholic beverages but now I know I will never do that.  hahaha.  The ward is awesome tho and super organized which is refreshing.  The bishopric is powerful and they are helping us a lot.  The members are great.  All is well.

My comp is hilarious.

He is insanely in to karate hahahahaha. Like religiously into it. He practices in the mornings for like an hour haha its so sick.  His last comp bought him this karate outfit and its awesome. He has these videos that he watches and then he copies it and its crazy hahaha.  And his English is very broken so the way he talks is hilarious.  And the words he uses are just funny. I'm helping him tho and he told me he wants to speak like me so I'm teaching him a lot of slang English haha. He's awesome tho. Always happy.

We gym every morning as a district because one of the other elder's investigators has a bench and some bars and plates in his front yard so we just lift with them....for free. so sick.  

The flats we stay in are awesome.  Good view from the windows of our place.  The other elders in the district stay in the same complex but in a different apartment and every night we chill.  Also one of the other guys is Elder Lin from Taiwan and he is soooo chill. Showing me how to cook so its dope. 

Walking is surprisingly not too hard to get used to again.  I for real feel like I can walk until the second coming.  Doesn't even tire me anymore.  These sandals treatin' me right.

So my flash thing that converts my SD to the USB is not working anymore so for the meantime I cant sent pictures.  I'll see what i can do this week.

If my computer was working I'd send you this cool picture of all of us with the prophet but i guess you'll have to wait for that. Or maybe you've seen it already. 

Anywho. Love you all. Mad respect for all you that read my letters and write me.  Other elders here have no one to talk to on Mondays so its a huge blessing that i get to hear from all of you every week.

Stay Steady Grindin'

Cheers,

Elder Anderson