Monday, July 24, 2017

July 24, 2017



I was just thinking and i couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have an ipad with gospel library. I could study sooo much easier and faster! kinda jealous but oh wells gotta love my scriptures.

I don’t even know what to say about my week cause it just flew buy. We taught a lot of lessons and a lot of people committed to come to church like 13 and only 8 showed up which was still good but if they would have come they would have made their bapt goal. After church we went and saw them to see what was up.

This week we are preparing to have zone conference with our new mission president and I’m excited to have an interview with him and, to sit down and talk and get to know him. I loved interviews with our last president cause its really is the only time you get to know him. Our mission is so spread out that you only see him like once a transfer and get to talk to him other than that your stranded on your own. We have to teach the missionaries while president interviews which will be exciting. During our last zone conference, we did it on sacrifices and what can we sacrifice to receive more blessings.

I’ve loss a lot of weight and I’m back to what i was before i left but i think I’m healthy. I’m not quite sure but I trying. I buy bananas every 2 weeks, usually last me like 2 days but oh well still love them. i mostly eat past like noodles with mince or hot dogs or just roman. i don’t know why but i love noodles and its easy to cook.

Usually the ward has 1 or 2 temple trips a year here and that’s like it. The temple has hotel rooms they can stay in for 100 rand a night (best deal ever) its like 7 dollars and its very nice!

I haven’t got my card yet but hopefully this week cause i want to buy a sweater, it got pretty cold this week. (His debit card was stolen.)

Ok on our senior couple, I’ve got to tell you about them. They are from Pocatello Idaho and they have a kid who just moved into our stake. i don’t know where or what ward but i know their son was the gatorade player of the year a few years ago for football. His name is treyton bell or something like that. You should meet the family. i love the Bells soooo much!! They are such a help to us! Senior missionaries make such an impact. I can’t wait to you guys serve! 


love you elder shaw

Monday, July 17, 2017

July 17, 2017

So something interesting about South Africa, people just light fields on fire so the green grass will grow next season. They end up burning like a whole mountain and the fire brigade here does nothing and they respond like an hour later. haha Its kinda funny.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every animal but an elephant now. i want to ride an elephant haha. My mission is huge geography wise so we have to fly everywhere sooo only 3 zones met president. He’s kinda on a tour.

I love driving here hahaha its like your always driving on an autobon or whatever its called but we have a driving speed limit at 100 ks but i think that’s like 70mph maybe 60.

I got my birthday package this week and it was amazing!!! i loved the ties and the candy. Thank tiffany as well! it was only like 100 rand which is around 7 dollars so not bad at all! i love packages, whenever you get bored you can always send e some! hahaha thank you sooo much!

I got to play with monkeys last week and i attached some pictures. Hopefully they work but oh man they’re super fun to play with! They were just climbing all over me and it stole my planner and started to eat it. haha They are really smart like really smart its weird!

The most spiritual experience this week was awesome. It’s one that i wont forget. So the other day we were driving and we drove past this house with a guy outside on crutches with one leg trying to rake his dirt. It was kinda funny seeing this guy hoping around trying to rake his dirt but at the same time i felt bad cause he was struggling. Anyways we turned around and helped him out and when we were done it seemed like his son came home (looked like he was 40s) anyways we talked to him cause the dad didn’t know English super well. We started talking and set up a time to come meet his family...turned out he wasn’t even related to that older man. Fast forward to when we go to meet the 40 year old. He gave us his address to meet him at his house but he didn’t have a phone. In South Africa the addresses are so messed up and they don’t even have street names. The signs are like buried on the ground cause people hit them with there cars, don’t ask hahaha. Anyways it took us a super long time to find his house and we almost gave up but we found it! Well we taught his whole family which consisted of his wife and 3 kids, the oldest being 14. They were having problems in their marriage and we just testified about families and taught about Lehi and his family and gave them a Book of Mormon to read as a family. During the lesson i remembered that at our stake conference, president hamilton said the gospel can fix any problem whether it be family, social, or government and it is totally true!!! It was a super spiritual lessons and i can’t wait to go back and teach them and see how their faith has grown reading the Book of Mormon!!

We met our new president this week and it was awesome!!! From the start everybody loves him! He is such a great guy. i love president lebethoa! He and his wife are from Johannesburg and they have 4 kids that he brought along to cape town. He is a young dad, he just has so much energy and always happy.  He’s the best. i cant wait to work with him and get to know him more.

love you all elder shaw





Monday, July 10, 2017

July 10, 2017

So this week we had a special stake conference for splitting the stake! We got to drive down to east London for the conference. Yo it was a lot of driving... like 6 there and back just to see be at the conference and they didn’t even have any talks prepared, just testimonies the whole time. President Hamilton was there which was cool, he reminds me of elder Bednar.

Our ward is pretty nice. They have got something going hahah it just takes forever to get things done cause or bishop oh man hahah love that guy (bishop jabanga) but he just carries things way to long than they need to be! Like getting someone confirmed, he just forgets and we have to wait another week but at least it gets done! We have lots of youth!!! I think bishop said we have like 40 potential missionaries but only like 3 are preparing to go and a lot of young woman. Youth are kinda the target or young families cause older people are just lazy. The youth program is pretty good. i don’t think they have mutual cause it to far for them to travel for an activity but they all like each other and it seems like there is no drama in the ward.

I was pretty homesick this week haha thinking about fourth of July and all the fun we had in college, but its not really a hinder.

I have a thought for you guys, maybe you can look it up hahha....sooo if you have moldy bread and you put it in the toaster all the mold gets burnt off right? I'm going to try it. hahaha

Yesterday when we drove down to east London it was the coolest thing ever. Usually you see a herd of kudu and impala but oh man we say sooo much more. We got to see monkeys playing on the side of the road and 3 zebras and a ton of kudu and some springboks and ostriches. Yo it was super cool!!!! I still have yet to seen a lion, elephant, or rhino but i think we will see them tomorrow when we drive again to east London to meet the mission president and his family.

We taught a lot of investigators this week and even had over 30 lessons in all but we had to push back some baptisms for the special conference this past week. We are preparing like 9 investigators for the 23 of July and 30 which I’m really excited about! We had another miracle this week. Another person named ayanda, after he offered a pray he was super excited and said "I JUST FEEL SUPER GOOD AND I AM DEFINITELY COMING TO YOUR CHURCH THIS WEEK, I PROMISE!"  Sadly we told him church was in east london and he couldn’t come but we are hoping he is still excited for this next week! Miracles are everywhere when you sacrifice and are obedient!

love you, hopefully my card will come soon!!!!


elder shaw
PS. The Sanele family

Monday, July 3, 2017

July 3, 2017

We got our new mission president on Saturday. No one really knows what to expect but he slept a ton these last few days cause of the time difference from salt lake.  I sent him and sms to ask permission for one of our districts to change their pday to another day and he called me back and when i saw his name on my phone i freaked out and was nervous hahaha but i knew it was for permission just didn’t know what to expect when i answered it but he seems really nice and smart. He came into the mission with 4 kids all under the age of 14 which is crazy sooo prayers for that family. His name is president Lebethoa and he’s from the biggest township in south africa called sweto. I think that’s how you spell it, not sure.

It get super cold here dad, luckily I’m now in a car. When we would walk it was sooo cold and people say it gets worse in August so not excited. The houses here don’t have like heaters they just boiler water on a burner to heat things up and that what we do as well haha its real cold at night.

I’m not in a new area really, i just moved flats like 2 min away. I’m in the same town just different township surrounding the town. I just joined area but we mostly play sports....rugby. Yo that sport is sooo much fun! I can’t wait to introduce it to you guys when i come back. I really enjoy watching it the little time we have when we walk past a bar or something hahaha its really fun!!!!

My comp is 3 months older than I am on a mission and he hits a year like next week and i hit 9 months this week so we are close together.

Being zone leaders together is the best because i love him so much but he kinda babies me and does everything, which i don’t like. But it’s getting better. Going on exchanges is always fun. I got to go on one with a greeny of about 3 weeks old and it was really funny to see what he was like. Weird to think i was like that, but hey we all go through that stage.

This week we saw some miracles not just at home! We are sacrificing a lot and trying to be exact in obedient and fasting and things like that so we can hit our baptismal goal. The pday that we start we had a lesson with a former investigator i dropped about a month ago and I told him straight up he needs to get baptized or we not coming back but in a missionary kinda manner. Just try to imagine how i would say that hahaha and we came back 2 days latter and they said, we feel that we need to be baptized, which is awesome!! They always come to church they just don’t read and don’t think they need to be baptized again but it was really nice to see that sacrifices work! That test strengthened my testimony. I think we are going to hit our goal with 11 baptisms this transfer but not sure how our whole zone is buying into the sacrifice challenge because we gave a zone training about it to them (nice way of rebuking them and telling them they need to be obedient). haha. I would say out of the 12 elders 8 of them are working at it. I did reports with the elders that weren’t making an effort last night and i asked them how it was going with the sacrifices and we will see how it goes for them. 

Love you

Elder Shaw
By the way this ostrich that you see bit me right after that picture was taken and it hurt! 
My new companion is the one where we are all sitting down with kids after playing rugby, hes the tongan right next to me.