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

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