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