Week 17: MERRY CHRISTMAS from Africa

Well this week has been crazy! Looking back it feels like last Tuesday was a year ago.

So last Monday we went and played laser tag and drove go carts. Then during the week we went and did service for a member who fed us scopo and magodu for lunch. Scopo is the meat on the head of a cow and magodu is the intestines of the cow. It wasn't that bad to be honest.

Sunday was Christmas Eve and I got to Skype home. It was so good to see and hear from you all. It feels like I just saw you guys though lol. Mother's Day may be a little different.

So following skyping home we headed back to our flat and our whole district took our mattress' and put them in one of the flats. We had a giant sleep over for Christmas. That night we stayed up kind of late playing games, including ping pong, and sting pong. It was a lot of fun and left a lot of welts. We even played connect the dots with the welts on my back. We then woke up at 6 am Christmas morning because the Boyers, Elder Blackburn's grandparents, arrived at our flat complex. While the other missionaries skyped on their laptops, Sis. Boyer began preparing lunch. She prepared the best meal I have ever had in South Africa! We had gammon (ham), mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, and so much more! It was great having the Boyers over for Christmas. Following lunch we opened up presents. Elder Reynolds ended up having me for the Secret Santa and he got me a speedo and swim cap! It was hilarious. We may have had a little fun with it that day lol. Also I opened my gift from mom and dad. Thank you so much for the ASU shirt! I needed a new one bad. I also got a "soda pong" set from the white elephant gift exchange. Let's just say we had a lot of fun and had quite the Christmas hangover that night. Everyone that has been on mission for more than 1 Christmas said that this Christmas has felt the most like Christmas. Our district is amazing and so close. With transfers coming soon it'll be sad if one of us leave.

Well I love you all and know this gospel is true. Talk to you next week. 

Laser Tag

Rumikub on Christmas Eve....Nanny would be so proud

Sting Pong....

District Christmas Eve sleep over

Merry Christmas from the Rash Family (Tobie and Austin had early morning church)

Little Sister was so happy to visit with Devon

Week 16: Meeting new friends and running into old ones

Hello friends and family!

Looking back on this week it has flown by and we were so busy.

So last Monday we went to the home of a member in our stake and our whole zone had a braai. That giant steak you see was mine and Elder Blows. It was nice! This member is quite wealthy and has two giant rooms of old vintage cars! They gave us a tour of them. He also had another giant building full of hot wheels in their packages still. That was a lot of fun.

Also this week we had interviews on Wednesday. It was so good to see Pres. and Sis. Leavitt and get to talk with President Leavitt one on one. He truly loves all of the missionaries individually and gets to know each and every one of us.

We also had a temple trip this week on Friday. I knew the Koch's lived in the same compound as the temple so I brought along with me Ryland and Raelee's wedding invitation. Following the session we headed over to the other buildings within the compound where area offices, the distribution center, cafeteria, and many other offices are found. We had lunch and district meeting. While we were there Sis. Radebe, a member from Protea Glen who works at the temple, walked in. I ran over to greet her. It was so good to see her. She had a very shocked and happy look on her face. Elder Blow had mentioned to me that Elder Broadbent, the one who helped me get here sooner, that he knew where his office was. It was in a building that required an electronic key to get in the building and in and out of every door within the building. I almost just said oh well and left to go to our area but we decided to ask a worker to let us in. She did and we went to Elder Broadbent's office. He wasn't there... A Sister asked us who we were looking for so we told her and she proceeded to tell us that Sis. Broadbent was upstairs. As she began to take us up there I asked if she knew where Pres. Koch's office was as well. It happened to be upstairs as well. Pres. and Sis. Koch weren't there so Sis. Broadbent tried their home phone but no luck. However she told us that Elder Broadbent was back. We ran back downstairs to his office. When I walked in he gave me the biggest hug. He then grabbed me by the side of the head with both hands like a father or grandfather would and told me he was so happy to have me back. I thanked him so much for helping me get back as soon as possible and he just told me that I did the right thing and that it was time for me to come back. After we talked for a bit I asked him if he had Pres. Koch's personal number, thinking he could call it for me and see where they might be, instead he wrote it down for me and told me I could call him. I did and it turned out they were only 10 mins away. We met them outside the white house, the home where the Area seventy live, Pres. Koch then invited Elder Blow and I into the home to visit with Sis. Koch and him for a bit. It was wonderful being able to talk to them and talk about the differences between here and Mozambique and talk about our families. Yes, I gave them the announcement mom. After taking some pictures, as we were leaving Sis. Koch said she had something for us. She came back out with 2 big chocolate Santa's!!! Let me tell you. Chocolate to missionaries is like gold!! It's kind of expensive for missionary budgets so we rarely get it. It was so nice to be able to meet them and get to know them. We will probably be seeing them more often now.

Also this week we had a few activities at the malls in our zone. Saturday we had a booth set up at the mall and we handed out calendars for Light the World. It was pretty successful. Following our shift we ran over to the chapel to start setting up for our movie night for Light the World. We popped popcorn and watched Mr. Krueger's Christmas. I forgot how short the movie was so following a spiritual thought after the movie we played Cokeville Miracle for everyone. We had a pretty good turnout considering it was Reconciliation Day, a holiday for South Africans where people usually have work off and go out and party/drink. Also the biggest pub/club in our district is right next to our chapel so our small little speaker had to compete with the loud party going on next door. It was pretty hard to hear the movie but oh well. WE had about 50 people there and got about 5 referrals from it.

That night I got a message from bishop asking me to speak the next day. I used to freak out when I would have to give a talk and I'd stress out the entire time but being a missionary talks are easy. The next morning I prepared a talk and gave a 15-20 min talk on Jesus Christ and his gospel.

After church we went to another mall where our stake choir was singing. As they sang in the middle of the mall, us missionaries talked to people and handed out more calendars. This activity was a huge success. Got many referrals for our zone.

Well I heard a lot has happened back at home. Congratulations Caleb and Brittany. Also I heard dad is now in the Bishopric. You're going to do great dad. Just think, Bishop Sandstrom has been bishop for a while now... Maybe you'll be bishop when I come home.

Also about skyping. We talked with our bishop and he said that we could come to his home to Skype but his Wi-Fi is currently down but he's hoping it'll be back up this week. He will let us know. If we do Skype at his home it'll probably be around 4 or 5 pm on Sunday/Christmas eve our time so Sunday morning your time. If his Wi-Fi isn't up then we'll be skyping with a senior couples laptops Monday morning so Sunday night really late your time. Like 12 or 1 am your time. We got permission from our mission president to email you during the week to inform you of the exact plan when we find out.

Well I believe I covered everything. I love you all. This week was a little slow when it comes to lessons and people being at church because everyone goes away for the holidays and we were just so busy with all of our activities.

I love you all. Talk to you "face to face" on Sunday or Monday. Love you all.

Light the World in the mall

Elder Broadbent welcomed Devon back with opened arms

Devon's District

Cool cars

That's a LOT of meat!

Light the World movie night

Mission Tour with Elder Palmer from the Seventy

Lunch during Elder Palmer's visit

Sis. Koch gave these two a wonderful treat....CHOCOLATE!

Elder and Sis. Koch were so happy to meet the OTHER Elder Rash

So grateful for wonderful leaders that truly love our missionaries

 

Week 15: Baptism and so much more

This week has been so good for Elder Blow and I. We accomplished a lot and discovered a lot as a companionship. So to start off, on Tuesday we had companionship study and somehow got onto the topic of teaching about the Book of Mormon. We started analyzing how many investigators we had given the Book of Mormon to or even talked about it with. Even going back to when it was Elder Soglohoun and Elder Blow. We started to see that we hadn't taught many if any about the Book of Mormon. Elder Soglohoun was all about teaching the restoration in order and spending a whole lesson on each point of the restoration. After discussing this and realizing that when one gains a testimony of the Book of Mormon then they will come to know the gospel and church to be true we both expressed how we were nervous about the area. We had both been analyzing our area and the people we were teaching. We hadn't been having new people at church, it had been the same people week after week. The only investigators that were truly progressing were the ones that were on date. After this discussion we realized that the Lord had been trying to get us to emphasize the Book of Mormon in our teaching. We made a plan to introduce the Book of Mormon to all of our investigators immediately. As we left the chapel I expressed to Elder Blow that I was starting to have some self doubt. I was starting to doubt if I was truly teaching with the spirit because none of our investigators were progressing or keeping commitments. He then told me he had felt the same way. We came to the conclusion that we just weren't teaching what we needed to. we had fallen into the rhythm of teaching the restoration point by point. We both were so relieved to have realized what the problem was. We handed out probably 7 Books of Mormon this week. Whereas we only handed out 2 the other 3 weeks I've been here. Every single investigator we introduced it to was super excited to read it and very interested. We immediately could see the change in our teaching as well as the spirit that was in our lessons. We are excited to follow up with people and see if they kept the commitment to read, ponder, and pray about it. On top of this we put 3 people on date this week as well as invited 3 others to be baptized. I truly know that the Book of Mormon is the cornerstone of our religion. When we obtain a testimony of the Book of Mormon then we will gain a testimony that Christ is our Savior, Joseph Smith truly was called as a prophet to restore the gospel, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints truly is the Lord's kingdom on the earth today.

A few days later we had a mission tour with Elder Palmer. It was all about our purpose as a missionary. And how our purpose is to teach others the gospel of Jesus Christ. That starts with the Book of Mormon. This was another witness to Elder Blow and I that we were finally on the right path and were following the spirit. The mission tour was very uplifting and motivating. We discussed how we can set effective goals and how we can achieve them as well as how to get referrals and work with members.

Also this week I was able to get in contact with 2 investigators from Protea Glen that were baptized 2 weeks after I went home. It was so good to hear from them and to just hear the joy in their voice when they heard it was me. They are both doing very well and very strong in the gospel to this day. I also contacted the Phanyphanya's who were members that fed us every Tuesday when I was in Protea Glen. They were so happy to hear I was back and I was so happy to hear from them. They all asked when I will be back in Protea Glen. I hope I will be able to visit them all soon.

Also this week we had the baptism of Phumi and Sibongile. It was such an amazing service. When they came into the room after being baptized they were just smile from ear to ear. The spirit was so strong as they bore their testimony. They know this gospel is true.

We also had 4 investigators at the baptism. As well as 8 at sacrament 4 of which it was their first time and were 4 of the investigators that we finally introduced the Book of Mormon to.  I know this gospel is true. I know the Book of Mormon is true and contains the fullness of the everlasting gospel. My testimony of the Book of Mormon has been strengthened immensely after this week.

I love you all and love hearing from you guys. Talk to you next week!

 

Baptism of Phumi (14 year old boy) and Sibongile (his mom)

Ward Missionary that baptized Sibongile and Phumi

Week 14: Lighting the World in Africa!

Hello Friends and Family! 

This week has been good but also exhausting. Well... every day is exhausting on mission. So this week was wonderful. It consisted of preparing activities for Light the World, teaching investigators, finding new investigators, baptismal interviews, and a whole lot more.  

This week started off with transfers. It was so good to see all of my friends and Elder Thompson, my previous trainer. Many of the pictures with other missionaries that I sent home are missionaries I was in the MTC with or served with/around.   Elder Cox, the one in the black suit, was in the same district as me in the MTC and we always talked about serving as companions one day. Well he was just made AP!  Crazy.  He is such a powerful missionary.  

This week we made plans for Light the World. We came up with some activities to do with the ward and just people in the community.  We plan on having a movie night and watching "Mr. Kruger's Christmas" with the ward and invite them to bring non-members. Also part of Light the World is the calendar that gives us ideas as to how we can serve others as Christ would and to share that light of Christ. On Saturday the theme was "I was thirsty, and you gave me drink." So Saturday night after we had finished all of our appointments our district went and bought bottles of water and chips and then split off into groups and went and found as many homeless people as we could and gave them a bottle of water and chips. At first it was a little nerve racking with us being in the city, at night about 8-9 pm, where crime is big. But as we began to see the smile that came to these people's faces and how grateful they were we completely forgot about our surroundings and the possible danger. We began to see each and every one of these people as children of God.   

This week we had a mother and her son interviewed for baptism. The boy Phumi is 14 and has been ready for baptism for a while, before I was even here. His mother, Sibongile, just within the past few weeks has truly come to be prepared for baptism. They both know the gospel is true. They will be baptized this Sunday.  

So earlier in the week some missionaries in our district found a dead cat. They decided to play a prank and put it in our zone leaders flat! So long story short, the zone leaders came home to a dead cat in a plastic bag in their bath tub! It was pretty nasty but hilarious!! Also I gave everyone in our district haircuts this week! I think I do a pretty good job! Dustie would be proud.  

Well our stake had a Stake Choir Christmas devotional this last Sunday. Let's just say although I am serving in a black area, a lot of our stake is white. Our stake covers some townships as well as some towns. It was so weird having so many white Mormons around us! It was a bit uncomfortable. We didn't really know how to act around white people anymore.  

Well we had about 10 investigators at sacrament this week! That was awesome. But this week has flown by. With this Christmas season upon us remember the true reason for Christmas. To remember our Savior and all the things he did when he was on earth. Christmas in Africa is a lot different than in the States. Unless you're white here you don't really have much of a Christmas. It's more of just a time to get together with family and have food. You don't hear Christmas music being played everywhere, or Christmas adds and decorations in every store.

 I love you all and will talk to you all soon.  

Love, Elder Rash

Elder Cox (AP) and Elder Rash...MTC buddies

Elder's that were in the MTC with Elder Rash last year

Elder Thompson with his two "sons" Elder Rash and Elder Blow

Elder Rash is now the mission barber

Devon loves hanging with the kids

This little girl climbed onto their car and started messing with the wipers!