Tuesday, October 25, 2016

October 25, 2016



We didn't get a letter from Caleb, but his mission president emailed us and said that he made it safely to the mission home in CapeTown. He will write next week.

Pres. Steven Merrill




Signal Hill


Tuesday, October 18, 2016

October 18th, 2016

This week has been crazy!! So many emotional up and downs but the spirit in the MTC is incredible. I forgot to tell you a lot of things last week like my flight. So we got delayed like 2 hours because the plane was missing some piece. Like seriously we were going to die, how does a plane miss a peace but anyways on the 16 hour flight there I leaned how to do a rubix cube and I can do one in one minute and 52 seconds now, pretty impressive if you ask me. The first night we were in our room the room flooded. So we all just grabbed and empty bed and some slept on the floor so that was fun. Oh and I also had a potato for like the first time here and I’m pretty sure I cried it tasted so good! We have a lot of po’p which is like this doughy sticky rice that looks like mushed oatmeal.  It has no taste but you dip it in whatever sauce you can find here. We had transfers halfway through the MTC and so i got a new companion. His name is elder Monoalibe and you pronounce the L as a D but its crazy. He teaches me Xhosa which ill be learning in the field and it took me just about 3 days to figure out how to pronounce one word. try making a clicking sound like you would make to call a horse while saying the letter K, nearly impossible. but I got it now and I can say how are you and I’m good.  its going to be so hard learning cause i cant pronounce them!! But when Elder Peyton Jeppson talked about going through a whole lesson with out know what they said (Elder Jeppson is in Ghana) then when got out of the lesson he asked his companion what native language the were speaking and he said English i laughed so hard but now i know what he means!!! wow sometimes when my companion talks to me i don’t know if he’s yelling at me in Xhosa of talking to me in English.  They have such a strong accent. I am getting the hang of it pretty well. My comp and i get along great and teach with really good unity but we still got roasted by an investigator one time and we walked out of the lesson in aw cause we had no idea what happened. We pretty much bible bashed the whole time and the spirit was not with. Its so important to teach with spirit or else you are going to go nowhere!! i wish i could tell you more but i don’t have much time but it sounds like all is well back home. I wont write next week cause ill be transferring to the field.  Maybe they will give me time to write

Elder Shaw



PS sorry for the grammar but don’t have time to correct

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

October 11, 2016

Oh my lanta its only been a week and i swear it has been a year. This week seriously feels like the longest day of my life. So the flight there was 16 hours due to setbacks cause they were missing some piece to the plane, like how in the world do they miss a piece?! hahaha oh well we made it safely. In Atlanta i met all the missionaries going to the same MTC as me and there was like 21 of us. I now know why they say everybody is mormon in UTAH. i was one of 2 people not from utah. But they are soooo cool we all get along great and have so much fun, maybe a little to much. trying to tone it down but its hard to study ALL DAY like if you kids in seminary think an hour is hard, try 9 hours. But honestly i love it so much! i dont ever get bored studying about the gospel. there is so much to learn. Ive come to a realization of how much i dont know. But throughtout the week ive learnded more than i have in my life. I taught a legit investigator my 3 day here and i was so nervous, but when you get into the lesson its not hard. But the door aproach and getting to know them is rough.  i have so many funny stories about it but i dont have time to tell them. One story is Elder mortezezadeh (who is someone in my district that i really like) goes up to the door with his comp and start to carry on a conversation (At this time the whole district is watching cause were practicing with our teacher) anyways he trys to carry on a conversation and asks where he lives even though hes at his door. OH MY GOODNESS i dont think ive laughed that hard in such a long time. Seriously we laugh about the silliest things. My comp is Elder Horlacher and hes is awesome, we get along great but hes kinda shy though so i feel like i overwhelm him. oh well he can deal with it. The MTC here only holds 35 people and so you get to know everyone. There are about 6 native Elders from all around africa and they're so funny. they try to mess with us cause we dont know anything but we mess with them back cause they dont know english that well hahahaha. Over the past week we practice teaching investigators and its awesome, like the real deal. Yesterday i gave away my first BoM after reciting the First Vision from memory. it was so cool and you could feel the Spirit so strongly! sorry i dont have a lot of time and they wont let me upload pictures but things ive learned this week

1) You look forward to that hour of physical activity everyday of the week
2) The gift of tongues is real, even though im not learning a longuage the Holy Ghost seriously puts words into your mouth that i never thought i knew
3) the food here wow its different so lets just say it doesnt digest well HAHA
4) im actually good a futbol, who knew HA

Love Elder Shaw

Airport Goodbyes


Friends and family at Caleb's farewell