Light The World...pffff

These days its just hilarious when these new missionaries ask me how long I've been out. lol. 

We had a zone conference this week and President Makasi was introducing light the world this year to everyone and I was just sittin there letting everything go out my other ear.  Already done two of those in Zim. Round 3 with the fam. Stay tuned.  

Woke up at 3 am to get fuel in town.  And we had to wait in a queue for like 30 mins.  Hahaha gonna have to do that every couple of days. 

Driving home one night and I look out across the city and every light is off.... pitch black. Huge power outage for like an hour then it came back.  Spooked me for a while. 

Drunk dude starts yelling at us calling me white man and other things the other day and my comp rips at him in Ndebele.  To our surprise this drunkard not only speaks Shona but also speaks Ndebele so he heard my comps insult and then got pissed off and started yelling at us following us to the car and we were just laughing hahahahaha. Love my comp. Got my back. 

Stumbled across the war chapters in my daily feasting of the word lol.  Read something I feel like sharing.  Helaman being chased by the lamanites stops and asks the 2000 if they want to go to battle and they tell him that they know God is with them and if they trust in him, he would deliver them.  Also they shout out the mothers.  And then the best part of this is how later on it talks about how those soldiers were all saved but all of them had wounds from the battle.  I stopped reading and thought about what it must have been like, having faith in God that he would protect you and then you get wounded or some lamanite cuts you with his sword.  How easy would it be to start to doubt God. RELATE that to us today when something small goes bad even though God promises to deliver us.  Like those soldiers, just keep fighting and you'll see God keep his promise.  

I feel like Zimbabweans are really good at this.  We visited the mother of Mufakose, Gogo Zimunya, and just talked for a while about things and she said something awesome. "People are panicking because of the situation but if you really have faith in God, there is no need to panic."  Write that down. lol. Even Sister Mahuni, our mom in this area, the other day when inflation started and prices shot up, she noticed some electrical workers outside and she cooked sadza for them and fed them.  I was surprised she gave up the food but she just told us, "Everything will be okay."  I've learned a lot about patience, faith, and not thinking about yourself from these people.  

"Turning outward when the natural man would turn in." Bednar. Character of Christ. 

Finally met with Richard again and he is almost done reading the gospel principles book hahahaha man I love this guy. We talked with him a long time and I'm pretty sure he'll be baptized shortly after I leave. 

That is all. 

Stay Steady Grindin'

Elder Ander$on

Snodia the singer haha

Waiting in line for fuel. Bought a dope zim scarf

outskirts of our area. 

 Gogo Zimunya's house.  garden of eden. 

 wicked storm cloud

 Shalom. She makes jewelry and gave me something for free to give to you mom.  So sick. 

some dope elders in my zone. 

Black Friday

Not in anyway is that title trying to make a racial joke or anything.  I'll explain the title in a few moments. Well, could be a lot of a few depends on how fast you are reading.

General Conference was sweet! Although all of us watching had no idea about the natural disasters that kept being mentioned because Zim is having its own disaster.  Not sure if its natural or not but a disaster nonetheless.  I'll get to that later. Conference taught me a lot. Was quite inspired.  Made some plans to apply some things and took a surplus of notes. Also the Prophet made a shout out to Harare! Sick. Blessed day.

That just reminded me, almost 100% of the time when you meet a pastor or the wife of a pastor here, and ask them, "how are you?" they will always say, "I'm blessed and you?" kid you not evveerrryy time hahah its hilarious. Then my reply is always, "I'm blessed as well" because if I dont say it then I'm not and then I get caught into there trap. hahahahaha just joking but yeah thats just something funny I've noticed.  When people are religious, they reeeaaallly act religious. Which is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time.

Alright so the things i mentioned at the end of my last email escalated and it got to the point where the currency inflated to 400% and fuel was harder and harder to find, smaller shops started to shut down and major ones started closing at like 5pm each night, the lines were suuuper long black friday type and they were running out of bread, oil, sugar, mealie meal (the only ingredient in the staple food, sadza....), even drinks started disappearing and prices started going super high (a 2 liter thing of oil went up to $22....) and it was getting intense hahaha.  We spent a whole day as a mission buying food storage things just in case but as the week went on, things started to stabilize again and now everything is better but still not back to normal.  Its super exciting living in this situation.  Didn't affect us that bad. Even the people here are all okay nothing really bad happened. Just kinda worrisome for a couple days. Like I said, now everything is getting better so that's good.

My elephant shoes are done.  Be jealous. 

We met this guy named Organize this week! Its actually his stage name, because he is a Zim dance hall music producer..... sooo sick. He said that everyone in Zim knows him. He showed us one of his songs and it sounded like I've heard it before so he seems legit. So cool. Maybe something will happen there.

So in our small area, we have this one street that we always walk down and now eeevvery kid knows my name on that street. So sick. We pull up and when the kids see the car they start yelling, "Elder Anderson!!!" or sometimes they mess it up and say something like, Andaton or eldason or something but its a million times better then getting called white man. I love it. 

We're teaching this YSA girl named Snodia and she came to watch one of the sessions of general conference this weekend! And she can sing suuuper well so we made a plan to make a video with me playing guitar and she's going to sing haha. Making it at our next appointment. 

And thus went my week. Hope you enjoyed.  If you have any suggestions, please leave them in the suggestion box on my secretary's desk on the way out. Have a good week. Love you all. 

Stay Steady Grindin' (just realized I forgot to write that last week.)

Elder Anderson

Teaching this team.  from left to right, Blessed, Pretty, Kelvin and Lawrence. Hopefully going to baptize 3 of them.  

Elder Mpofu

The Ele's hahaha 

 Saturday session of conference at the chapel. Noooo one was there and Elder Mpofu's last ward viewed it last week so this was his second time haha

Shawn. My first baptism. Wearing that chain to conference lol. 

Some kids chillin with us at the Sunday sessions. We baptized a couple at the start of my mission and the one wearing the purple hat is their daughter.  fun fact. 

Smooth Sailing

Just got our transfer news. I'm staying in my area and getting a new companion. His name is Elder Mpofu (yes, I went from Mbafu to Mpofu lol) and he's from Bulawayo. I actually served in his home ward and met his sister hahaha. Small world. But he's dope so I'm going to finish my mission in peace. Not with some square that is going to make my life hard.  I'm hyped but that means when I finish my mission, I will have spent 10 1/2 months in the same area.  

We were busy again this week. Only had 1 full day in the area.  Only taught like 5 lessons all week. Lame haha. 

One of those lessons resulted in us giving the Ruzande family a baptismal date for December! Sad i wont be there but I'll stay in touch. 

Just heard that on my last Sunday, Neil L. Andersen. is coming to visit at a stake conference thing. Inspired. 

I heard a good quote this week. "Where there is truth, there is no confusion."  Process that one. 

Well thats all I got for this week. Sorry.  Not too much happened. Only thing crazy happening is in the country like fuel is almost scarce and prices of everything is going up. Inflation is happening again. But we still chillin.  No worries for me. Still anxious to see whats going to happen.  

 My District

My G Elder Baker

Elder Oliphant. Going home. Love this guy. 

 Last day with Mbafu. RIP to the realest companionship you'll ever see.

Footlong Subway Melt, Toasted on Italian Herbs and Cheese

Last Monday after town we were on our way home and my comp saw this baba pushing a dead car with his two little girls so we whipped around and parked and helped the guy. Luckily we had two other elders with us, Elder Mutema and Elder Baker. Dope guys. But yeah we tell the girls to sit inside and we pushed the car for a kilometer until it finally started hahaha. It was uphill for most of the way.  We were dead afterwards, passed out on the floor when we got home haha.

Saw this sign posted that was advertising some church and the name of the church was, "Mufakose Power Packed Kingdom Explosive" hahahahahaha I was dying.

The sisters in our district had a baptism this week and after the service, we were helping them clean everything up and the font started flooding down the hallways and while we were sloving that problem I here this water splashing hard in the bathroom and this pipe thing burst and was spraying water all over the bathroom. So I tried to stop it and it just soaked me and then some member fixed it lol. Spent a good part of the day at that chapel.

This one member brought some neighbor kids to church and they want to be baptized. Sweet. The first girl we met is 14 and her name is Pretty haha.

Friday we had exchanges and I was with this kid named Elder Hamling from Montana. True bro. We ate pizza for lunch and I ate waaaayyy too much. Made me sick for the next day. Worth it.

The Ruzande family is still doing awesome.  The mama called their church her "old church" yesterday hahaha so she's already converted. So sick. They had a funeral in the family and couldn't come this week but they're coming next time.

had a lot of people promise us to come and they had members to help them and stuff but 0 of them came. We had no investigator at church. Slap a big darn on that turnout. Always got next week....6 more times lol. #Nov20th

After church that day we went to chill with this member family, the Mahuni's. She's our mom in this area. Not quite the Sister Makore type but still awesome. While we were talking, it started raining out of nowhere and sister Mahuni ran outside and was like, "Andason! (my name in their accent) Huya! (come)" so I came outside and she had tons of clothes drying on the line so we had to take them in before they got wet.  After typing that out it doesn't really sound interesting but at the time it was exciting

Forgot to mention the night of exchanges with Elder Hamling we noticed a white garment church doing their all night worship prayer ceremony thing near our house so we put on all black clothes and low key spied on those guys. We saw some weird stuff. Gotta commend them for that effort tho. All night worship is next level.

There's a couple random stories that came to pass this week. Hope you enjoyed. Mbafu and I got high hopes for October. Probably going to baptize a few people. 

I saw a calendar at the Mahuni's house and circled the 20th of November and then looked at how close that is and it hit me. Also got my flight plans emailed to me today.  Surreal but now it seems more like its going to happen. Not homesick at all tho. Blessed. Just have the song Finish Line by Chance the Rapper stuck in my head. Still remember the lyrics.

Love you all! God Speed.

Stay Steady Grindin'

Elder Anderson

 Us with Baker and Mutema. Love these guys. Always chilling with them.

I swear these things could have spoken to me

The aftermath of pushing that dudes car. For real that was a work out. 

Felt worse than 2 a days.

This road in town was filled with these purple trees and my comp and I were just perplexed at the beauty thereof.