Blockin in a Blinter Blongerland

Went to KFC 4 times this week. Once on the 4th, feel me? Walk into that place like I own it, they got "Gravity" from Wicked on the speakers.  Order the fattest stack of food. I'm with Jayson on that 1 Nephi 13.

I legit heard the song Gravity every time I went there this week.  Still know the words.

Rick Lantz weather report was correct this week. They were sayin it was gonna be cold for the whole week.  Spot on.  Last Monday it was hot and today its warm but everything in between was Michael Buble Christmas Album. One of the biggest struggle of my mission was waking up on time this week.  I'll admit it I'll admit it.

Stunted my suit coat to church for the first time in a coons age. 

We met President Makasi on Tuesday.  He's just a jolly guy.  Wife is the same and they have 3 children all younger than 15.  Got this little kid named Tino who was running around during the meeting. Hilarious. Funny seeing our president tryna chill his little kid because President Mkhabela's kids were all married and moved to their own places so we never met them.  But yeah Makasi is from Zimbabwe and he actually served a mission in Zim too.  He even was in Mbare for a while.  Pretty cool. He's awesome.  No complaints.

We met this guy named Ashley this week.  Has the deepest voice I have ever heard. Somethin around 25 years old and lives with his 5 brothers so we taught them the restoration and they seemed pretty hooked. Hopefully we can see somethin there.

Had some more progress with Mai Tawira. We showed up later than we said we would and she was like, "today you guys are late" And I was thinking she was upset and I asked if we could schedule another time and then she's like, "No. you cant leave without teaching me something." haha so we go inside and she told us she wanted to understand more about prayer and she showed us her notes she had taken with scriptures from the Bible and Book or Mormon about prayer. (She is too awesome) and then we taught her some more things and she was content.  Then her husband showed up for our next appointment and we finally got to teach him.  He's a sincere guy. Not like these other baba's who unload their wallets on the beer hall. After our lesson we asked him if he had any Qs and he said no but he held up the book or mormon we gave him and was like, "I'm really interested to read this book"  Pretty somethin.

This Sunday during church I had the biggest desire to keep the Sabbath day holy for my whole life.  It was kinda weird.  Never felt that way but this week I saw some families who are less active and you could just see how unhappy they were and it was only because they hadn't gone to church in so long.  They pray and read the scriptures but haven't come to church in a long time.  So yeah I'm tryna be happy so no way I'm breaking that commandment. Hope you all feel the same. God used to kill people who worked on Sunday. Let that one sink in.

Anywho. We tryna make things happen here but things are still low low. Found some new families, then for our followup appointment we see them running away from us hahaha. Ouch.  Oh well tho. Still out here. Trying somethin new this week.

We get transfer calls this Saturday so next Monday I'll let you know what the deal.

Love you all!

Stay Steady Grindin'

Elder Anderson

My G Huffaker from Colorado

This kids name is Miles lol and he's dope. Always hittin them folks and reversin together.

Split

Met another family that heavyweight believes in mermaids. 100%. Like no questions asked.  It was hilarious.  They have no proof, no 2nd hand witnesses or anything. Just a myth and they are hooked. Too funny. We try to convince them otherwise and they wont have it.  Didn't think I would ever have that conversation with a grown person. 

Saw a shirt and a hat this week, both of which I was certain they were for Meridian High School..... Crazy.  Saw some BSU stuff the other day too. 

Weighed myself today because I saw a scale for the first time in like a year. 90kgs. How much is that in pounds? 

Speaking of kgs, we bought 5.50 kgs of pork on Saturday and braai'd with some members. Sooooo good. 

We went to a wedding on Saturday for some members in our stake and it was at our chapel.  It was crazy.  Like they blasted music and when Kabuya and I left to teach people, we could hear it from down the street hahahaha. People walk by and hear Zim dance comin from the true church. Classic. 

We've been working with this less active family and they all came to church this week and the father even came early and brought his friend who is also less active so that was dope.  We had like 5 less active people come back to church yesterday so that was good.  We basically had 0 investigators.  Just 2 people who are visiting their families.  Darn.  

We had a pretty boring week.  Just one of those weeks where you have fall thru after fall thru and not much was working out haha.  But we will make things happen this week. 

We had a good lesson with the police officer we are teaching.  We taught him about the Book of Mormon and he was super interested and said as we taught him about the restoration he felt something inside him.  Powerful.  Met some of his buddies and contacted like 4 more police officers. Some of them were jokers tryna waste our time but who knows.  Plantin seeds i guess.

Taught this other baba Sakwa about the Book of Mormon and he loved it. He was telling us how he was going to read a lot in it and he was really excited to read it.  T'was awesome. 

The other day I was studying in the morning and I got to Jacob 5.  Gathering of Israel is something else.  We talked as a house for like 2 hours about it hahaha.

Church is true. Same with the Book of Mormon.  Y'already know that tho. 

This week is the 4th of July.  Sooo happy.  Last time I had a bonfire and this time I think I'm gonna go to KFC for lunch and braai some pork for dinner. Enjoying that day.  Love Zim but..... Proud american. Tryna find fireworks too. 

Today we played soccer with like 20 elders at this country club and it was dope.  I been feelin soccer becaue of the World Cup.  Didn't do that bad today.  Progressively less and less terrible each time I play.  We also played a skelly game of football and it was dope.  Throwin it deep hittin someone screamin down the side. Brought me back hahaha. Made me remember going 1-8 senior year hahahahaha

Oh yeah and the mission split today! So I'm still apart of the Zimbabwe Harare Mission and our president is President Makazi from Bulawayo.  YEAH. Not really a mountain moving thing.  Woke up, our alottment cards and airtime refill and we have a new president.  Still haven't met the guy. I'll keep you posted twhen that happens. 

Also, we met this mama at OK "where the nation shops for less" (yes there is legit a WalMart type store chain here called "OK".... hilarious.  

New mission president and potentially a new president of Zimbabwe.... In the same month.  and US Independence day.... My goodness.  

There were some diamonds in the rough of this week.  Lookin forward to teach all the people we couldn't see this week. Hopefully I'll have more people to talk about next week. 

Love you all. Really felt all the support and prayers comin my way.  Can't thank you enough for that.  Have a stellar week. 

Stay Steady Grindin

Elder Anderson

Brai!

Bomb

Someone tried to kill the president of Zim this week. Set off a bomb on the stage where he was speaking in Bulawayo.  President got out without a scratch but it injured like 50 people.  Pretty crazy.  Elections comin in hot July 31st.  Don't know what kinda stuff is gonna go down.  We just chillin as missionaries tho.  No one messes with us so I'm not scared.  Anxious to see what goes down as we get closer to elections tho.

Even the other day this drunk dude was callin us satanists and telling us to go back to our countries and was using the f word quite a bit.  We just turn to him and greet him in shona and then he cowers away from us still tryna talk hard hahaha. Stupid. No backbone.

Also, everyday we walk by this guy on the street and he's gotta have like 50 years under his belt and he always looks at me and salutes me and says something like, "Afternoon, chief" or "how are you captain." Sometimes even goes out of his way to put down what he's holding and salute me.....

We've been keeping up with the world cup because that's all anyone ever talks about and every member is always watching it.  People get crazy too haha. Its awesome.  We played soccer in the streets with these kids the other day. Love doing that.  Makes me feel like I know how to play haha. Never had a thing for soccer back home but now its so sick.  Those games get crazy. This one mama we visited was sooo into the game and was acting like mom watching BSU play hahahaha. Felt like I was home.

We found 8 new investigators this week and most of them are awesome! 

One family is just two sisters that live together with their gogo and we contacted them and they seemed not really serious but we followed up with them and they were super prepared for our message and it was a super good lesson!  One of them came to church this week too!

Also, met this baba named Sakwa a couple weeks ago but this week decided to follow up with him and we passed by his place and he was waiting outside for something and he remembered us and gladly let us in and we had a dope lesson with him.  It answered a lot of his questions and he told us as we were walking out that he was about to go to visit his friends but then something told him to wait and he was happy he waited.  So sick.

Also having continued progress with Mai Tawira.  She is one of the best investigators i have ever taught.  She's been speaking with her husband about our lessons and apparently he agrees with our message.  So sick. (we havent met him because he always comes home late but i think we will see him this week) 

Finally things are starting to look good in the area.  Been happy about that lately. Our schedule this week was super busy. 

Also got a call this week that was more than awesome. The elders in Chegutu called me and they gave the phone to one of my old investigators and she told me she got baptized!!  I was so happy! haha Made my day.

Printing out a picture of President Mkhabela and me and then taping that thing on my planner in remembrance. 

Tying a bow on this email.  My week was good. Hope you guys enjoyed yourselfs. 

Shout out Trump. Make America Great Again. lol

Stay Steady Grindin'

Love you guys

Warmest Regards,

Elder Anderson

lunch venue for this week. Dhana's dolla dealz.

Last Words....

We had zone conference this week.  Pretty good. President gave the most powerful talk. He spoke about how sometimes we say things that we don't really think or feel in our hearts and how we sometimes don't understand the value of scriptures to correct us and bring us closer to the Savior.  It was so cool. And his last words to us (this being his last zone conference before he gets released) were, "Try to do everything that you think is impossible. And you will see miracles." and "See what others don't see."  Just profound. I loved that. said we should remember both these things in our missions and for the rest of our life.  Man I love President Mkhabela.  That guy is something else.  No doubt in my mind he'll be sitting next to Elder Holland in some future general conference haha. Another thing he said was "We fail because we do not believe."  Felt the spirit so strong there. We also had our last interview with President this week and it was awesome.  I took a picture with him and snuck in a hang loose on em. Got it.!

We met this less active last week named Brother Fernando.  No clue how he got that name. Prolly from Mozambique or somethin' but when we met him he was smoking and drinking haha. He ended up coming to church that week we met him and then next time we visited the family, he gave us 2 referrals and the wife gave us another! So sick. The husband told us we need to help him by visiting him every other day and now we're gonna do that. 

Met this guy named Uncle Bravo. lol.  He's an eternal investigator and for whatever reason won't join the church but he has a son on a mission and a daughter who is an active member.  So Uncle Bravo is a music teacher and has a studio at his house with all sorts of instruments so one night we were coming home from KFC and stopped by his house and he was mid jam sesh and was super happy to see us and lets us in and tells his students to step aside and Elder Lin hops on the drums (background info: Lin is part of a up and coming band in Taiwan and is the drummer. He's freaking good too)  Then Elder Ogidi grabs the mic to sing and Uncle Bravo gives the rest of us these maracas to shake to act like we are included lol and then he starts playing Bob Marley songs and we all start singin' with him in there and it was so sick.  Stayed for like an hour.  Going back to play his guitar next week.

So in our flats we are 8 living together right now.  4 in our apartment and 4 in Elder Lins apartment. There were 4 elders who had a lot of problems at their house so now they stay with us. Among them are Elder Mokoena..... Man i was so happy to hear he was bout to stay with us. Also Elder Wheeler, from Boise. Went to Rocky and played football. Chill dude. And Elder Huffaker, one of my bros out here that lived with me when I was in Nkulumane.  Having these guys around is too fun.

The other day we had this open house to have investigators come and see and it was a total fail, hahaha, like no one came.  But before, in the morning I got to toss a rock around for the first time in forever and it felt too good.  I hope you all understood "rock" as "football".  We also played basketball with some people that showed up after the open house thing and it was dope.  Finally able to play two sports I'm actually confident in hahahaha.  Then to top that all off we hit up KFC for dinner.

Got the filthiest haircut this morning.  Went to the only person in town who knows how to cut white people hair and he killed it.   His name is Mr. Law and he cuts President Mkhabela's hair haha. Talked to him and he said one day like 5 years ago, this American guy came in and needed a haircut but no one knew how so he taught Mr. Law how to do it and now every white guy knows Mr. Law hahaha.

We didn't have a lot of time in the area but we thru up a baptismal date on one of our investigators so I'm not complaining.

You know we on that 

Stay Steady Grindin'

Cordially,

B

Classic Man?

Sister Mchabela

President Mchabela

At the Studio

The man himself, Uncle Bravo! 

24/7 Special

Welcome back. 

Drunk guy stopped us this week asking us to "share the word" with him lol. I humor him and go over to him, he asks me, "Whats the word for today guys? what advice can you give me?"  I look at his beer bottle in his hand and I'm like, "You shouldn't drink that." Gives me this weird look and we walk away.  He was asking for it tho. hahaha. 

Freezing cold this week.  Sun goes down at like 5:30 and then all the heat disappears.  I'm not even mad just amazed at how cold Africa can get. 

We have this investigator that made us super happy this week. She's called Mai Tawira and we contacted her one day because someone gave us a wrong address and she was the one living at the fake address haha.  Mysterious ways. So we didn't think she'd be interested because she quickly mentioned she was Roman Catholic. So we give her a plan of salvation pamphlet and when we came back she had read it and had tons of questions so we answered them and then started teaching her.  We recently taught her about the Book of Mormon and committed her to read 3 Nephi 11 and when we came back she had read it, and even Moroni 9 and 10 and took notes and wrote questions and then used the Book of Mormon to answer her questions and she showed us all her notes. It was impressive.  Then she talked about how the Book of Mormon is so clear to her and it answered all her questions and how she likes reading it more than the Bible.  Then we talked about baptism as outlined in 3 Ne. 11 and she realized her baptism wasn't correct and now she wants to be baptized!  We just have to talk to the husband and right now she's in the process of moving so hopefully everything will settle down quick so we can get her dunked. She's awesome. 

I wanna write about this one night i had this week that made me laugh way too hard.  So we start walking home thru this ghetto industrial and bush part of our area and its super late like 8:00 and super cold and we get around this corner and see this HUGE fire in the bush and its like right in the way off the path and as we get closer, we see this suuuper old sekuru leaning on his cane and staring at the fire.  That made me laugh super hard.  then we had to run thru the smoke and when we get to the other side, someone yells at us and we turn and on theres this wwwwwasted guy staring at the other side of the fire and we stared each other down and then I'm like, "Ehh sei sei baba (Whats up man)" (he makes a 180 turn to the chillest dude ever) and he says, "Ah bho mukoma maswera here? (I'm good, how was your day?)"  I'm like, "Mushe!(Great!)" and we keep going hahaha.  Funny thing is they prolly made the fire to keep them warm. Then we get into the neighborhood and I see this other drunk guy with his shirt ripped off and he was barely able to walk and then he starts throwing stones at this group of kids and they start throwin stuff back at him and me and kabuya just tryna walk by without getting hit hahaha it was the funniest thing ever. Something I would have done with Jayson Ty and Jacob if we lived in Mbare hahaha.  I love the things you see every day here. Wouldn't trade this mission for anything else. 

Passed by this lil girl and greeted her in Shona and she's like, "Uri ma colored here?" she was asking if i was a "colored"  thats what they call lightskin africans...not sure why. and then I was like "Wati chii?(what did you say?)" and she's like, "Uri Murungu here?(are you white?)" hahahahahah man I was laughing so hard.  

We were walking to this appointment one day and we passed the police station and this baba inside called us over so we went inside the compound thinking he was gonna get mad at us for being racist or some nonsense. But...he was actually a pretty sincere guy.  Told us he never went to church and that day some mama at the station told him he should find a church and then they saw us walking so he called us over.... The timing on that one my goodness. So we talk to him and teach him the restoration and he loved it and he's like, "I like how yours is the same and Jesus' church because none of these churches are even close" hahaha twas awesome. 

Elder Mokoena is in my zone!  Man we had a stake conference and he came and spent the day with us in Mbare and it was awesome.  I love that guy. Stake conference was good too. Elder Joni L. Koch came to speak to us and it was powerful. Something i loved was he said, "You will not be happy in someone elses calling, that's why you dont' have it right now" hahah it was powerful. Talked a lot about the joy of the gospel and it was sick. 

We had dinner with some members, the Gavaza family,  last night and it was so funny. The family loves singing so we sang hymns and shona gospel songs for like an hour hahahah left the house at like 9:30 hahaha Love the members here. 

all i got. 

Have a good one. 

Stay Steady Grindin'

Elder Anderson

This was one of my friends in Masvingo and he moved to Harare and was at stake conference yesterday.  

This guy is legit.

14

Thus begins my 14th transfer. 

Some drunk guy kissed my hand this week. Not sure how I feel about that.

Another drunk guy said my hair is beautiful.... Probably not gonna walk down that street anymore hahaha.

Also there's this one drunk woman that we always see.  Like in completely different parts of the area we just see her everywhere.  Super weird.

There are so many drunk people here hahaha its hilarious. Sometimes it makes me think the second coming is very soon. 

We got transfer news this week.  My district is staying the same except now it's split so its just the 4 of us elders now without the sisters.  My whole mission has been in districts with only 4 elders hahaha. Love it.

Bought a bag of shrimp at a chinese supermarket last week. Freaking expensive but worth it.

Tailor Gang hookin me up real nice.

Benhilda made a come back in overtime.  She came to church with her husband and the husband left before her and she stayed and told us that he was still being nonsense.  After she left my comp and I both felt like we needed to go visit them.  We go there, talk with them, the truth comes out.  Basically a misunderstanding. Wife thinks husband is cheating on her but he says he's not.  Who knows whats going on.  Husband asks us to council their marriage haha. Follow the spirit teaching that lesson my goodness. Overall it was a good lesson we didnt really council them but taught them about god and families and stuff. The visit ended with us making plans for a marriage and a baptism so that was a success.  Glad we followed the spirit that day.  Its impossible to find them both at home together because they are always busy so that was awesome. 

Last night we had dinner with the elders quorum president and his family and it was awesome.  The wife hates sadza so she cooked us nice food.  At one point they asked us both why we decided to serve our missions and i told them why and then Elder Kabuya struggles to tell them this super long story starting from when he was in primary school hahahahahaha. This story dragged on forever and during his story I look over and the kids are still attentive but elders quorum pres and his wife were both passed out on the couch. They fell asleep during Kabuya's story.  That is seriously something you only see in movies i was trying so hard not to laugh. 

This was my district

 Sister Keck.  She's from Madison.  Josh's family prolly knows her somehow. 

Sister Nakalyowa. Too funny.

MerMaid$

So apparently everyone in Zimbabwe believes in mermaids. Why? Don't even know. Also, why is a mermaid called a "mer-maid"? 

Anyways, This week was something. 

Wednesday we did exchanges within the district so I was with Elder Lin from Taiwan and we enjoyed that day.  His area is rich and low density so we walked the whole day and only taught one lesson.  Murdered my feet haha.  Fun day tho. As we walked people called him "MuChina!" hahahahaha or china man! or they tried to make weird chinese sounds as if they were speaking to him.  Racism is hilarious. 

Friday we did exchanges with the zone leaders and I went with Elder Allen from somewhere in Utah.  Suuuuper small town. Forgot the name.  But man I enjoyed that day.  Felt like I was talking to Austin the whole day.  As we talked we found out we know all the same movies and we did the same stuff back home so like we were just quoting movies the whole day. We drove all over doing baptismal interviews that day and then we finished in their area and taught this family that stays out in the bush.  Piled into their grass hut and taught them about eternal families and taught them how to sing, "Families Can Be Together Forever" Powerful.  They gave us sadza and the other elders were waiting for us to pick them up so we deeeesssstroyed that food.  We raced, I won.  Then the sadza came back after half time and scored 5 touchdowns.  Wrecked my stomach that night. 

So there's this crazy drunk guy that chills near where we gym everyday and he is gonzo.  Absolutely wasted. Like he walks into the gate of the house where we gym and starts yelling at us to give him 10 cents and starts quoting bible verses that have nothing to do with anything hahaha and the way he walks is hilarious and his voice is super hoarse because he's always yelling at people for money while holding a bottle of beer hahaha.  Met a few guys like this.  

The other day I drank this soda and it reminded me of smarties and then the whole day I was just missing smarties.  Gonna eat a ton of those when I get home. 

Elder Lin's son Elder Ogidi is this chill guy from Kenya and he downloaded this talk from like the 1400s (lol just playin) but its an old talk from this guy on the afterlife and he talks about the spirit world and different accounts from members who went there and then came back to their mortal bodies and it was so interesting.  He talked about other things and it really made me think. It was powerful.  We listened to this other talk that Ogidi had another talk about the apostasy and it was crazy. At the end the guy talked about how we were all generals in the armies of God during the war in heaven.  Man Sunday after church we listened to those two talks and it was powerful.  Just sat and pondered the whole day lol. 

Been kinda sick this week. Don't know what hit me.  On the come up tho.  

Had a lesson with Benhilda this week and it was so sad.  Told us how terrible her life is and how her husband recently is going to witch doctors and is probably going to leave her and doesn't want to go to church.  So I guess he was putting on a show for us and acting like he wanted to come and join the church but now things are jack Johnson upside down. Also, she doesn't have any way to make money, she has 2 kids (one with some kind of mental disease, who can't talk or walk) and lives in the smallest house ever and is surviving because he uncle owns the house and isn't making her pay rent.  The whole time she was telling us these things, I had no idea what to say.  One of those things where there's nothing you can do to help them but at the same time you can just see in them how much God loves them and wants them to be happy.  The cool thing was at the end of the lesson she promised to walk all the way to church every week (even without the husband) and said she would hold the diseased child on her shoulders and the other around her back.  Powerful. Something stopped her from coming this week but I know she'll keep coming.  She came the previous 7 weeks. 

So yeah we had 1 investigator at church..... Ouch. hahaha and we only taught like 6 lessons this week in our area because of exchanges and what not. 

I really don't like my area hahaha every time I find one redeeming quality i start to change my mind and then something happens and my mind changes back. Hoping I won't stay here long. 

Anywho. thats my week, we get transfer news this Saturday, 

Stay tuned. 

Stay Steady Grindin'

Cheers,

Elder Anderson

Elder Ogidi, one chill dude 

I really don't know why I took these pictures, but I wanted to send something home, hahaha