The Bird Park

I'm doing great here in Chatsworth. We have several investigators progressing towards baptism. We are now just waiting for the date. 

Today we went to a bird park so I have some pictures of those. 

Love Elder Preator.

Nature Preserve / The Restoration

Last week we went to a nature preserve, and we took tons of cool pictures. We saw zebras and everything!

So I don’t know if you’ve seen on TV or anything, but there's xenophobia threats recently. Meaning the Zulu people have been going crazy about foreigners, so there's been riots and marches in Durban. There's been some deaths and the Mission President asked that we stay away from any locations where there are foreigners. They are only going after the other African people like from Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malouwi and the like. So we as missionaries aren’t in any danger, but its been pretty exciting. Everyone has been talking, and Durban apparently looked like a war zone at one point. Super Fun!

We had a baptism this week. It was the Elders QuorumPresident’s girlfriend. He taught her everything already and we just had to get there for the interview and everything. Super fun again! :) 

We did teach a new family, and they said they will come to church. Hopefully that happens soon. 

Love you guys! Hope everything is ok.

Elder Preator

Also, here are a few pictures of me recreating The Restoration (Praying, First Vision, Receiving the Plates).

Inactives in Chatsworth

Things have been good around here, just the same old same ole. We received a referral for this guy Matthew who fixes cars, and we went over and ended up teaching his whole family the restoration. We have been doing A LOT of less active work so we haven’t taught too many straight up lessons in the recent weeks. Especially around Easter because all of our investigators were away for holiday. 

So every Saturday we go to the market and hand out pass along cards or pamphlets, and this Muslim guy came and talked with us for quite a while about religion in general, and he even started to bash on America. Super funny, and he’s having us over tonight for a curry supper. We actually aren’t allowed to teach Muslims unless we get special permission from the President, because in their society, they will kill each other to “save” them if they convert to something else. Super scary, but they’re nice people. 

Anyway, things are going good here. Elder Halford and I are working hard in Chatsworth. Love you guys!

So last week I used my district leader’s camera so now this is mine. Pictures with me in it! :)

Elder Preator

Run Franky, RUN!

(We asked if the dog he hit was fine and if he got a contact out of it)
No worries, the dog is fine! :) 

So basically Easter was just like back home. I can’t count the number of marshmallow Easter eggs we have eaten ... but, it was really awesome! :) 

(When asked if he had a piano in his new area)
They have one of those pianos that we have in the relief society room, so they play the recorded songs. So far I've gotten out of it and its been really nice.

Today we were at a light and there was traffic ahead, so everyone was just in the intersection and there were cars everywhere and I was right in the middle! Yaaaaaay.  That is basically the drivers here. We saw a body bag on the highway the other day because someone hit someone.  I’ve seen about 1000 people run blatantly red lights. And everyone speeds and there are NO police. Its like the autobahn except we have a tracker so the senior couple can see how fast we are going. I’ve been called once already.

So for Easter we bought a Duck and kept it alive over the weekend (emotionally bonding with it). We named it Franky, and today ... they made me kill him. We plucked and gutted him and then had a barbecue with him and a chicken and we made tons of food. It was awesome. There may or may not be a video.

Love 

Elder Preator

Interesting Week in Chatsworth

So this week got pretty interesting towards the end. 

On the way to one of our appointments, I was driving (Elder Halford doesn’t have a license) and on this narrow road with houses close on both sides, there was much room for error. One of the gates opened about 2 feet and a dog darted out before I could do anything. We hit him and he spun across the street. The owner came out and we stopped and he wasn’t angry or anything, says his dog is stupid (agreeable) and he was only concerned with our car. Nice guy, the dog was ok too so that was nice. :) 

Also this guy in our ward, Stanton (less active), was out drinking Saturday night with his brother (also less active). The two of them were out fighting or something and we were at their parents house just comforting them because they were telling us all that was happening with the sons. As we were there they said the police called and told them they caught the brothers driving and gave them a warning and told them to walk home. We were all kind of relieved so we left to our other appointments. Yesterday, we got a call that one of the brothers, Stanton, was in the hospital because they both went back and carried on driving and rolled the car off the highway. Stanton wasn’t wearing his seatbelt so he was in the hospital with a cracked skull and other injuries. We gave him a blessing and he told us that he was going to change. And I believed him.

After that we went to this less-active’s house, Marcus, and his house is sweet. He installs surveillance cameras for a living, and his house is huge with cameras outside and everything. Electric fence and the usual South African precautions. Anyway, we sat down and he told us all about the reason he went less active. He was offended by several things and then he started encountering anti-Mormon doctrine.  He told us all about how his testimony has deteriorated to the point where he doesn’t believe in God or religion anymore. Despite everything, we listened and didn’t say anything pressing. We kind of just joked about some of the doctrine that he brought up, and he said “you guys are the coolest missionaries I’ve met since a long time ago” so yeah. There’s a high councilor in charge of Chatsworth who was in the Seventy before and he has been meeting with this guy as well. We’re rubbing shoulders with some important people.

Man, it’s crazy being 18 and encountering all of these kinds of things, but I know the Lord sends us where we need to go and my testimony has been strengthened every day. 

I forgot my camera again...But I only had a picture of a snake at the chapel. Other than that we haven’t really taken any pictures. My companion and I have been doing P90X everyday for the past two weeks. Its killer and I can feel myself getting skinnier already!

Thanks for all you guys do, praying for the Hickmans, South Africa is great!

Love Elder Preator

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Here are a couple of photos of the Chatsworth area that I've found online.  One is just a normal Chatsworth neighborhood, and the other is a Hari Krishna temple there.