Week 47: We have our work cut out for us!

This week has been good. It has been a huge change from Phokeng. A little bit about Elder Blow and I's areas. Elder Blow and I cover two areas and two wards. The Rynfield Ward and the Northmead Ward. Rynfield is a white and black ward. Northmead is an all white and very wealthy ward and area. We have been spending most of our time in a small township that is part of the Rynfield area. Previous missionaries have neglected the Northmead ward since it is an all white area with high walls and gates so you don't even have access to their front door, which is obviously not the easiest area to find investigators. However, Elder Blow and I are really going to focus on Northmead and building a relationship with the Northmead Ward members. Before Elder Blow got here members in Northmead didn't even know they had missionaries because the missionaries would never attend Northmead. So we are going to focus a lot on the members in Northmead. We need to regain their trust. We already have 2 potential investigators in the Northmead Ward this week. They have not had a baptism in over 2 years. We have our work cut out for us. We have quite a few investigators in the Rynfield Ward. We had 5 on date this week and 5 at sacrament meeting. Could have had more though. We are just really going to work with the members here. The two wards meet in the same building and the areas are right next to each other but are both huge. They are the two biggest areas in our zone. Rynfield contains wealthy white areas, somewhat wealthy black areas, and a little bit of township. The ward is comprised of approximately 70% black and 30% white.

I've always had a fear and weakness of talking with white people so I know I have been sent here to get over that weakness.

Also this week the entire mission will be a car free mission. All of the missionaries have been required to not use their car the entire week. This is all part of an ongoing project to dramatically reduce the number of cars used by missionaries in the South Africa East area. This will only be for a week as an experiment so we can see what changes still need to be made. So we will be using taxis to get to and from our areas. Taxis here are different from back home. Taxis are the main source of transportation here, among the black people at least. So they are literally everywhere. They have places called Taxi ranks where you go and there are a ton of taxis that are going to different areas. Also there are different hand signs for different areas that you can do when you are on the side of the road to tell passing by taxis where you are wanting to go. Then you hop on and basically tell them to stop whenever you are close to where you want to be. It's really fun and interesting. Taking a taxi is pretty cheap too. For a one way trip from our flat to our chapel, which is like a 15 min. drive, costs about 13 Rand which is about $1. We will be walking everywhere within our area, as well as relying on members for rides. This is going to be a very interesting week and a huge learning experience for our mission.

Also this week we participated in a Mormon Helping Hands project with the Northmead Ward. We packaged 50 food parcels and then delivered them to a care facility for those less fortunate. It was amazing to see the smiles on their faces. And how much gratitude they showed.

Well I'm excited for the journey and task I have ahead of me. I know the gospel is true.

Love Elder Rash