The Best Mothers Day EVER!

Dumelang (Hello) FAMILY!!

      All is well here.  The cold has come in, but some people say that it hasn’t even started.  Ha-ha, we blast the heaters and shower often.

      I’m super glad you are all healthy :)  I don’t have any more worries thanks to some Divine help.

      AHHHHH!   I feel lost in the work.  Well, not lost cause things are all going in the right direction but so consumed.  It’s going to be terrible not being a missionary anymore when the time comes (still 21 months away).  I have a story regarding 3 investigators that could just be titled something about serving two masters.  It’s a very sad and personal story so I wont write it here, but you can read it in my journal in 21 months.  I say that because the picture I’ll post below makes me think about what team we are playing for.  Are we playing on the winning team, or the loosing team?  I often think about us who are fighting for God’s army: are we giving it our everything? Sometimes as a missionary I wonder about myself. Elder Holland has said that we should have worked so hard during our mission that at the end, we have to be rolled out on a stretcher!  Not literally, but it drives the point well.

      So Dad, I realized this last week that I didn’t even say happy birthday on your birthday, or when I called.  So, I’m wishing you the best year this year.  I'll see if I can find you a cool African cane so you can ditch the stereotypical aluminum ones.  I can also send you the recipe for pap, that soft gooey corn meal stuff so you can take out your teeth and still enjoy your food :p Just messin.

       Pictures are broken and I’m sad.  That’s why I was only able to send the one of at the soccer game. I had some really sweet ones as well. Oh well.

I love you guys heaps as always. Fight the good fight that side and I will do so this side.

With Love,

Elder GOLD!!!!!

P.S.

      In a very brief email last Monday Landon wrote,  “ As we speak a computer man is trying to recover my photos, and I’m praying desperately that he can. If not, oh well I still have 21 more months of photos :)” Apparently, the computer they have been using to email had a virus and corrupted his SD card; erasing all of the images he has taken this far on his mission.  I couldn’t believe how well he seemed to be taking it.

      He also wrote:  "That was my best mothers day too :) I balled like a baby and Elder Ncube was all over it.  Taking pictures of me and laughing.  I guess it's an American thing to get all emotional when you call home.  Infact, he talked to his dad for a total of 1 minute and 48 seconds!!  And that was all they needed!  They have a strong relationship too.  Must be an African thing." :p

Sunday, May 13^th, 2012

      This morning at 7:30 am we got to talk to our missionary son for a few precious minutes.  It is the only time, other than at Christmas that we actually get to hear his voice.  The intent of limited phone conversations is to help keep the missionary's mind on his work rather than the concerns and worries of what goes on at home.  In knowing that we would actually be speaking to him this weekend the decision was made to wait until this phone call to let him know of a ‘hiccup’ his father had experienced this past week.  We could have called the mission home at anytime to have the mission president break the news to Landon that his father had a mild heart attach on Wednesday, but there really were ‘No Worries!’  A minor surgery to place two stents in and a few days in ICU made Steve almost as good as new.  He even drove his motorbike home from the hospital.  Yes, we really do look at this as a simple pebble in the road and not a roadblock.   Had it truly been a roadblock Landon would have been contacted immediately.  Sometimes we worry when worry will do no good, except cause anxiety.   So truthfully, all is well.  The following dialogue was summarized from the conversation after this news was detailed and all concerns put aside.

The Best Mothers Day EVER!

Q:  Grandma asked, “Landon, Do you go out and play with the giraffes?”

A:  I chase around zebras, springboks and impalas.  The area that I’m in is called Qwa   Qwa.  The “Q” makes a click sound.  We are just on the other side of ‘LeSotho,’ which is the only landlocked country in South Africa.  The border is caused by the Drakensberg Mountains.  We are in the valley they call Qwa Qwa.  You know what the cool thing about here is?  There is so much open land, so much space.  It is just absolutely insane!  There is a place called the Golden Gate on the other side of the mountains where all the animals are.

Q:  Can you go there?

A:  Yeah, we can’t drive through it because missionaries have had too many accidents there.  It is a pretty crazy place.  They get distracted from the beauty and they’ve already rolled two ‘Bakkies’ (a small truck), and the story goes that there was even a head-on collision.

Q:  Do you guys drive at all?

A:  We do have access to a Bakkie if we need to go somewhere further than the walking area Elder Ncube and I are in.  I will drive because I’m the only one with the license.  There are two other missionaries here as well and so it is used only when needed.  Basically, we walk a lot.

Q:  How are your shoes holding out?

A:  Man, they’re trashed!  The toe on my right shoe is coming off and I’ve punched holes in the bottom already.  The brown pair of shoes, which have rubber soles, well they have pretty much disappeared.  They are such a joke.  I’ll be getting more shoes in the near future.

Q:  In walking everywhere do you see any unusual animals?

A:  The birds here are really cool.  There is a big bird that has a huge beak.  I think it is called a Hadida.

Q:  Do you get to climb the mountains there? 

A:  Yeah, last p-day we attempted to climb Sentinel Peak, which happens to be one of the tallest freestanding peaks on this side of the Drakensberg Mountain Range.  A huge storm pushed us back, so we’ll attempt to climb it again this next Monday.

Q:  How long will you and Elder Ncube be companions?

A:  We have been companions for almost three months.  He is my trainer: my Bah Bah, Papa or father.  We are pretty certain that he will be transferred in another two weeks.  I will most likely remain here with a new companion.

Tell Us Some Stories:

      Oh my goodness, so much happens everyday here.  It is absolutely great! Yesterday we went to a professional soccer match.  We were the only white guys there out of eight to ten thousand people.  Yup, three white guys.  After the game everybody wanted to take pictures with us.  It was soooo crazy!  But man, the Africans sure love their soccer.  The game was the Free State Stars against the Chiefs.

Q:  You guys actually have a stadium there that holds that many people?

A:  Yeah, I’m guessing the number, but there really was a substantial number of people there.  The stadium is called the Charles Mopeli Stadium and I’m guessing it holds 10, 000 people.  *(footnote:  I looked up the stadium and it claims to have a capacity of 35,000. Landon and the two other white missionaries would have really been the minority)

     Friday night we got a call from one of our investigators who had hooked us up with the local radio station here in Qwa Qwa.  We knew about the possibility of getting an interview but we were in the early stage of this process.  In preparation for the possibility of this interview happening we previously talked with our church’s Public Relations Director for South Africa and he had been instructing us on how to handle an interview.  Well, this morning we were going there for what we thought was a meeting with the station's manager and not the interview.  When we arrived they informed us that we would be going on the air in 10 minutes.  With little time to prepare we presented a message about what we, as missionaries, were doing in Qwa Qwa, what the church and gospel are all about and ‘what what.’   We spoke for 10 to 15 minutes and it was amazing.

Q:   Did it go out to just the people in the township?

A:  The area is big, so it would have been received by people within a 50 mile radius, at least.

Q:  Tell us a little more about the town you live in and the people who live there (Landon tried to teach us how to say the name of ‘Phuthadijhaba,’ but I failed miserably on how to pronounce it).     

A:  It is all townships.  Townships are the government built housing communities for a lot of the poor people as opposed to a town where a lot of the wealthier white people live.  These people are very poor.  They live all over the place.

      Growing up in the west you don’t see much racial division, but coming here . . . ‘Oh, my gosh, It’s crazy!’  Because the apartheid didn’t happen very long ago you have a lot of people who had to live through it and remember it well.  Many of these people still harbor abrasive feelings towards white people.  I’ve really got to be careful out here at times.

Q:  Have you seen any other white people in the time you’ve lived there?

A:  I have not met any other white people who live here, and I’ve been here for almost three months.  However, I’ve seen two black albinos.  There are white people who may travel here to help out some of the churches, but they are just visiting.

Q:  How dangerous is it there?  Have you had anymore near muggings?

A:  Not yet.  Not yet!  We’ve been pretty good so far.  There are much more dangerous areas in the mission.  You know, the missionaries are really watched over.  We just keep praying for safety.

Q:  Do you only speak English?

A:  We are only suppose to teach in English, but to get along in this area I’ve had to pick up a little bit of Tutu (Sotho?).

      Just being out here, I haven’t forgotten about you guys.  But, before you called; it was like, “Wow, I have a family in America.”  It’s crazy!  My attention is so focused on the people here that this has become my life. 

      The members out here really have it tough.  The ones who seem to do well pray and read the scriptures together daily.  I hope you guys are continuing to do this as well as having Family Home Evening every week.  Everybody needs to be doing that.  It is so important. 

      Guess what I did?  I baked cookies and gave them to my African Mama for Mothers Day.  Her name is Mey ? ? (we couldn’t understand her name but the beginning part is an endearment they give to elderly women.   I just picture a beautiful African momma who has taken my boy under her wing). 

In closing he stated: 

       Being out here on the mission has been the biggest thing ever.  It has been the hardest time of my life, yet I’ve never felt a happier time in my life.  Everything is magnified immensely, and it is the greatest ever.  Day in and day out we try to bring people the true message of the gospel.  We see their struggles and how they have had to live without that spiritual direction, in a sort of spiritual poverty.  With this the hardships of the physical poverty must be just so much more difficult to handle. 

      You all are so blessed.  You absolutely have no idea, you really have no clue just how blessed you all are to have what you have.  I don’t know what more to say to you, other than, ‘You’ve been given so much so don’t take it for granted.’

       I pray for you guys all the time.  I love you all so much.  Awe, I love you guys.