Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Out with the Old, In with the New (Mission President)

I'm emailing on a Tuesday this week because yesterday, we had a zone meeting with president, and goodbye interviews. The Zackrison's are leaving! It came so quick, I remember thinking that when they leave, it will only be a short season before I joined them. I am excited, however, that the Thompson's are coming. It will be quite wonderful to see a new perspective on missionary work, and to get to know someone the way I knew President Zackrison.  #changeistheonlyconstant

One thing President told me in our interview was that I shouldn't get my masters from BYU but that I should go to a big technical school. So, yeah. It doesn't change my immediate plan of BYUI and maybe transferring into Provo, but after that, I'll head off hopefully to one of those big schools! I'll try and pay for it too don't worry.

Also this week, a missionary came back to marry a girl...we went to the wedding. #interesting

Anyway, the work is going, love you all!!
Elder Preator








Monday, June 13, 2016

Last Few Weeks in Kwamashu

May 23rd

My new area is fantastic! Although the most interesting thing we did this week took us out of the area. I finally had the opportunity to go to a rugby game!!! It was awesome. The KZD sharks up against the Kings from Idon’t know where. We won 58 to 0. Kind of difficult, they had the upper hand for most of the game, as you can tell from the score. I did manage to bring my cord with me:) 

Also, at the Sharks game, we went and parked and because we were late, we parked a bit out of the way. When we got back, the GPS was stolen (in the other kwamashu’s car) and Elder Agabu’s camera was stolen. #Don'tLeaveValuablesInTheCar-DUH!

Ok, love you all! I hope you haven’t changed too much. Everyone looks way bigger. Katherine looks like mom. See you in a few months!

Elder Preator



May 30th

This week has been eventful. It's the week of transfers, and it turns out, that I will be staying with Tan another transfer!! We did take sweet pictures because we thought for sure we were separating. Anyway, we received a lot of referrals, either from the church, or from members, or missionaries. We have a lot of work to do! Its amazing that the church has all these “traps” set up that if someone presses this button on the internet, it takes them to a page, where if they want to learn more, they put down their address and stuff, and then they send us there. We visited one, but theres a lot more to go!

We also got tons of McDonalds. #It'sGoodForYou-Really

We saw some missionaries off, (the picture of me with the guy at the beach) Elder Jacobsen and some others. That was sad. They were going home, and it makes it seem so much further for us. Oh well.  #CanWeSayTrunky?

Love you guys. 
Elder Preator




June 6

Hey guys!! So, this week was interesting, on the spiritual and not so spiritual side. We’ll start with spiritual. :)

One of our investigators, Ma Cleopatra (sweet name right?) well, we have been struggling to see her, because she works a lot, but she has been coming to church, and on Saturday when we went, she told us all about how at church she received her witness that these things are true, and that this is the truth that she has been looking for all of her life. So obviously we committed her to baptism. Hopefully she will progress, and we will be able to teach everything to her! :)  #CleopatraMovedToDurban?

So, this week was very hectic as well, because: RIOTS. On wednesday last week and thursday, and a lot this morning, people have been violently protesting against...Umm. I’m not sure, but ya know, neither are they. Most people, come up with this idea that they don’t want this or that, (normally trivial things) and they protest, and then tons of people see it, and go protest for the fun of it. Because, who doesn’t want to burn tires and get shot right? Well, anyway, we drive up to Kwamashu on wednesday, only to see people parked on the side of the road, and police everywhere, and people turning back saying theres no way through. When we get closer we see burnt tires in the road and the police are trying to keep people back, so they can shovel off the refuse. They also knocked down all the barriers and put rocks and bricks in the streets, sooooooo. Yeah. Pretty difficult to get through, but it wasn’t so bad. Later that day, on our way OUT of Kwamashu, we find that after the police left, they set ablaze more tires, and this time, they were still burning, and it was so cool looking. After that we found another route home, and the next day it was cleared up, but then this morning, the other missionaries told us their landlord told them that it was happening again today, but worse. Apparently police were shooting, and there were burning tires again, and this time it was talked about on the radio. Today they were protesting someone in government. But they said there was like 500 people involved making a human barricade so no one could get in.

Yeah, other than that, our week has been pretty good. Getting some investigators going. We also found out that we are now responsible for Pheonix, the neighbouring indian area, because the missionaries got taken out. We are going to attend there once a month.

But anyway, love you all! Thanks for your support:)

Elder Preator




June 13th

Well, this week, there weren’t any more riots other than Monday, which I told you about last time. Apparently some terrorists threatened any Americans living in SA though. Thats fun!

In an alert issued on Saturday, the US government said it had “received information that terrorist groups are planning to carry out near-term attacks against places where US citizens congregate in South Africa, such as upscale shopping areas and malls in Johannesburg and Cape Town”. 

so yeah. Other than that, we went to all the big malls this week, and contacted some terrorists. And it got cold this week. Like, really cold. Everybody started cancelling on us this week because its cold. It even rained a bit on Sunday, so not many people came to church. Its kind of a weather dependent thing here. Too Hot=sleep all day Too cold=sleep all day Rain=don’t risk it, sleep all day. But, we did have some good appointments. Cleopatra, sick, but she insisted we teach her anyway, and then she proceeded to go to work the next day. Still sick. #IWantThatLifestyle

Love you all, tell Shad I say hello


Elder Preator