January 30, 2017

I hope you get all my pics.

1)    theres a generation picture

2)    pictures of Fishhook

3)    me and my comp and

4)    Hough Bay or however its spelled. 

Spencer, oh man i miss him and would absolutely love to be his companion! it sounded like he did a great job. And nick going to Malan! So cool, is tanner moss there?

The first week of training i had some anxiety and i hated it. i just got overwhelmed but its a lot better now. The first few days were rough cause i had to do everything but im fine now! First week of training was awesome and he’s learned so much! The thing is, he’s not very teachable. He’s 24 and thinks he knows everything cause hes older than me but hahah he will learn by council or consequence (messing up in lessons) lol but hes awesome!  Oh man this week we worked really hard. We had 54 hours in our area and got a lot of new investigators. We have 3 really good bapt dates and i hope and pray for them, richard, nelly and avela! Avela is such a stud!! He’s 17 years old and he read the beginning to 2 nephi 14 in 2 days and then after, when we came to visit he told us about what he learned!! ah i love him so much and just want him to realize that he will be happy and blessed as he becomes baptized!! Pray for him! i dont think he has enough faith to come to church but we are working on that. Hopefully we can get him to come this week! I love teaching him and watching him grow.

Im reading in Mosiah right now and just finished when King Benjamin gave his address. He was such a bomb king! He considered himself lower then the people and worked just like everyone else. He is a good example of a leader that i hope i can be to my son. (comp)

Love you,

Elder Shaw

January 23, 2017

Wow thanks for the confidence in my driving. im sure i would have managed but definitely would have gotten into some ditches a few times due to drifting hahaha. It sounds like braiden is getting a lot more playing time. I was talking to the president about him and he said hes doing well but fighting hard for his position. who is he battling for his position?

I love receiving physical letters, hint hint.

First week of training was a learning experience hahaha i really hope i wasn’t that bad when i came in haha but Elder Sibiya is amazing. He is soo good at talking to people. He talks to everyone and anyone. He’s good at talking to people and building the relationship of trust and then i teach. We’ve got a really good combo going but my throat hurts cause i pretty much have to teach the whole lesson. He is only a year convert to the church so he doesn’t know a lot but hes learning a ton!! hes originally from south africa but moved to ireland when he was 8 and lived there since but a year ago he got a contract to play rugby at a semi professional team in england and that was where he was converted. hes the only member in his family but hes awesome. im learning a lot from him on humility and patience but all is well. We were about to drop this investigator named Avela because he wasnt progressing but Elder Sibiya came in and he just got to know him super well and now he is progressing again and we have really good hopes for him! keep him in your prayers!!! We want to get 2 baptisms this transfer and going to work very hard to get it. Oh and hes a very hard worker!! its great. and it pushes me even more. We have another mother whose name is Nelly another super sweet lady and we really have good hopes for her too! Imagine me, Elder Shaw answering all the deep doctrine questions investigators ask us. hahaha it amazes me how much i actually know! i have learned so much this past 3 months its incredible

He wants to go to a rugby practice and give some tips and we dont even know the people. i was like so you want to coach the coach on how to coach and he was like ya we will get so many investigators!! hahah i will tell you how it goes next week.

Had to say goodbye to my father wednesday and it was sad. i really enjoyed him and learned so much from him

Yes i will be in sommerset for 6 months which is weird to think about cause thats already a fourth of my missioin!!! wow it has gone by so fast.

Its going to be a fun, hard, learning 3 months

Elder Shaw

January 16, 2017

This week was an average teaching week but it felt slow. Since my comp is going home all of the members wanted to say goodbye and feed us sooo that really nice! The members are awesome! i love them soo much, i didnt know how much of an impart the members have on a missionary. The other day i read the whole February liahona and there was a really good quote from Elder Hamilton who is over us and it said something along the lines of, " if you cant sacrifice everything you have then you dont have enough faith for you salvation" it was something like that but you can read it and it might make more sense. i love the liahona and they have such good lessons to teach members and less actives.

I haven’t quite gotten the Christmas package yet but i did get notified that i am receiving one. I have to go to the bank and pay for the package and then the mission office will deliver it to me (sadly i still had to pay for it but it wasn’t a lot of money). i will usually receive packages but they take forever!! i haven’t quite spent my Christmas money yet and i dont know what i should get, i think I’ll get some new slacks and socks but im just to lazy and i just want to save it. Also when i use my card its going to get denied, or every time after its going to get denied so i can only use it once then im going to have to call the bank and fix it.

While we were saying goodbye my comp, Elder Fonua said goodbye to his recent convert he converted and baptized and it was really sad. She was just crying the whole time and she didnt come to church cause she didnt want to listen and cry during church which is so sad. To see the impact that we have on people lives its incredible. It really strengthen my testimony on mission work and motivated me to be the best person i can be. I just hope i will be a good example for my son (Elder Sebeuh). I found a really good scripture in 2 Nephi 4, i dont know the verse but when you flip to the page its on the first column like 3/4 the ways down and it talks about not drooping hahah hopefully you find it. I REALLY like and compare it to a basketball standard not letting your standards down. Such a good scripture.

Kinda a funny experience is we were teaching this guy who lives in a room smaller than my  bedroom and its really messy anyways we were teaching and a rat seriously a rat crawls down the wire of his tv which is behind him so he doesnt see it and me and my comp just look at each other in the middle of the lesson and just start busting up laughing!! he was like oh dont worry about them there music is always this loud cause next door they were blaring music hahah we just laughed hard. Well there went the spirit but we couldnt hold it in. We had to finish lesson knowing there is a rat somewhere in this tiny room ahhh it was gnarly but sooooo funny!!

I hope all is well back home and i miss you very much and love you all

Elder Shaw

January 9, 2017

Ahh this week has been crazy, it has either been a really good day full of appointments (and when i say full like 3) or absolutely nothing and we either tract or check up on people. I had my first hard day Saturday. i didnt feel good and i was super tired and almost fell asleep driving and every appointment fell through until the last one at 7 which was good. Thankfully we went to go see our last appointment and they weren’t there so we went to their neighbor and taught them. He was a less active. it went really well.

We got a new schedule this week, which is different from the past. From 6:30 till 10 we workout, personal study, plan, get ready, and breakfast. From 10am-7 or 8pm we are out of the flat proselyting and within that time you can do comp study, train, or language study. The president wants us to get out early but we can take breaks in the day to do that stuff and we dont plan at night anymore we plan in the morning which is nice.

So i had an interview with President and its near transfers and he asked me if there was anything that would be stopping me from a leadership position and i said no but right then KNEW he was going to call me as a trainer. Then he was like well your name has come up and YOU WILL BE TRAINING THIS NEXT TRANSFER. Training, like serious? I still don’t know what I’m doing here! hahaha It’s gonna be a mess but really fun. I’m really scared cause i just finished training. oh well i have really learned to trust in God’s will and just go with the flow. im really going to miss my companion but excited to have a greeny with me so i can see what i was like haha. Hes from Ireland but born is South Africa so im pretty curious what hes going to be like.

Our Sundays go thus: we go to church all 3 hours and we teach gospel doctrine then after we go to a member’s house for lunch. Usually have appointments after that and then hopefully another DA at 6. This Sunday we went to a members house and cooked dinner for them haha cause they are pretty poor, a single white mom with 4 kids. Her husband died of cancer a few years ago and she works full time with 4 kids no older than 13. The 13 year old thinks hes getting abused by his mom, went to a professional and found out it was him. Now he is deciding if he wants to leave home and live somewhere else. He’s an idiot, his mom loves him and gives all that she can he just cant see it and is the total opposite of humble. i kinda hope he chooses to move away so he will realize how much he has but it would be very sad. Sundays are a pretty relaxed day. Everything in pmg where it says  Sunday is the best time to teach cause families are together and stuff like that, its totally opposite here and so its hard to find things to do. i have learned this past week that even though president is from the military he is relatively relaxed. i was surprised cause i would think he would be very strict. Great man though. I love you.

Elder Shaw

December 19, 2016

Hello,

5 degrees?! Wow that is soooooo cold! Its soo hot here. i guess it’s my first time being hot on a Christmas. I don’t know if i like it yet. Our 2 investigators are awesome and we got another really good one this week who has really good potential.

Thats crazy to think how everyone of the year is coming home! Its so exciting to see how they look when they get home. Wow Shannon’s letter was amazing pretty sure i cried a little looking at the picture of you and her and the one of her at the temple she looks soooo happy and a "light to the world" makes me more motivated for missionary work so i can change like her. Tell her i say hi and that i love her and i wanna hear from her.

I haven’t received a package yet or have gotten a notice yet that im getting one. When did you send it? i hope no one stole it ha cause the postal service her in South Africa is awful

ok my suit doesn’t really fit me but dont worry about it cause i only wear it 3 hours a week and that is at church. i can live with that i hope.  i attached a pic of me and one is one with a senior couple named the Tatros. They are amazing! it makes me appreciate they’re service. i love senior couples sooo much! but in the pic i look super chubby and i swear im not that bad. the other picture is of when we had to drive an hour to the mission office to pick up a car cause the other broke so we had to squish so many people into one car and because im the skinniest of the district i sat in the worst spot. hahah but it was soooo funny!

This week there were so ups and down. On the good side, the days are going by so much faster and its awesome. We had an appointment yesterday to go see this family but they were outside having a braii with a lot of family soo it dropped so we decided to go down the street and knock on this one door and found this lady who is awesome. When she opened the door at first she was like ugh its the missionaries and so i was not excited to teach cause its not fun to teach someone that doesnt want to listen but as we taught you could tell her countenance changed and by the end she was crying. She went on to tell us that she was going through a rough time and that she felt prompted not to go to her church today and just take a nap. Apparently we woke her up and was kinda an answer to her prayers. she wants to learn more and agreed to be baptized. I have really good feeling about her and i hope she continues to let us come back. On the downside wow my comp has been a struggling. each week when he doesnt have to do something he just says "i dont know i have 4 weeks left" and its so annoying he doesnt do anything anymore and i have had to have a lot of patience with him. he still works hardish but when it come to other things its really annoying but whatever hes still such a good guy and i just hope he works hard so when he looks back he doesnt regret it.

One question that i have asked myself is why did i get sent to summerset west cause here in summerset, its like the pit of the SACTM mission, no Greenies get sent here. only dying missionaries get sent here and i am the first one in like 7 years i think. But an apostle said you get sent to an area for 3 reasons: your there to meet someone, your there to learn from your companion, or learn from the culture. I cant figure out which one it is or if its all 3 but it just make me curious on why i am the first greenie here in 7 years.

One realization i have had this week is when i bored back home and didnt know what to do, i would turn to my phone, social media, watch tv and the worldly things but here on a mission you turn to the gospel, your scriptures, and conference talks. Not we are bored, just in our free time. It made me realize how much time i have wasted in my life on stuff thats not going to benefit my life and because i turn to the gospel i learn something and it makes me so much happier. We were listening to a talk in the car by John Bytheway, about turning off the tv and doing something useful.  He tell of a personal experience on how when he was young he told himself that he would turn off the tv an hour earlier each night and wake up and hour earlier and read. because of this, he start to write and wrote  his own book and made money and actually learned something. 

Im super excited to skype with you guys i told dad about the details and everything, if anything changes i will try to let you know.

Love you 

Elder Shaw

December 12, 2016

Hello,

As far as ward council and our bishopric this is how it goes, "alright lets get this over with so we can get ice cream after", right then i knew it was going to be rough. we just redid the ward mission plan so hopefully that will get the ward excited about missionary work.

When it comes to Christmas need, I’ve gained 25ish lbs so i might need a new suit haha sorry but i guess i can just suffer through it. the pants are kinda OK but the jacket i can barely drive cause ive gained so much muscle in my shoulders like actually haha. But i wanna buy a new watch and maybe a new pair of pants but ill figure it out. Give the missionaries presents! if i were to receive a present from the member i would cry of happiness! Present that idea to the ward council of getting gifts for the missionaries and not just candy or food although that is good to but they always get fed so not to important to them. Like stuff they would actually use, just an idea. 

The Dunns are home? that is so weird to think about cause it has gone by so fast!! send them my condolences haha. the month of October we had 72 baptisms but this month we had like 32 i think. our mission goal each month is 50 which is around every companionship should get around one a month. Ya summerset ward has gotten 2 this year soo its really slow here but i think we are going to have 2 this transfer if not i know we will have one cause of a crazy story i will tell later. 

I wish i had more time to study the scriptures but im training and i always have to study for the investigator but i think when i am done training i can sit down and read the scriptures which im excited about. There is so much good in each chapter!

This week went by so fast! first transfer done and i am now not the youngest in the mission which is nice ha. We went to this stake Christmas party and we were able to meet other missionaries and the new ones as well and they look so stiff haha i hope i didn’t look like that but i probably did!. This Sunday we had this crazy experience. So this week we had this investigator show up at church the other day so we taught the gospel principles class and we decided to just teach the first lesson to him and when we were explaining the Joseph Smith part he just pulls out james 1;5 before we even talk about it and my comp and I look at each other and were like WOW hahaha. Anyways after the lesson he told us he was taught all the lessons but then moved so i think we might have a baptism sometime soon with him which will be great! Also another cool experience is we had this woman who has cancer and she was actually a referral from a less active couple. Anyways we taught her in the less actives home and you could feel the spirit so strong and she was so humble and willing to do anything we said cause she knew we were men from God. It was so cool and then the less active couple came to church on Sunday!  Im excited to see where it goes.

 It coming close to Christmas time and the Christmas initiative is awesome to focus on the real meaning of Christmas and i love the service cause all day your think of people to serve or go see. Kinda sad i couldn’t call home on day 2 haha but im really excited to see everyone at Christmas.

Last night coming back from the Christmas party the other elders car overheated and shut off so we pulled of to the side of the road in a very sketchy area like i was kinda scared, not really but i was haha. Anyways we called the car elder and told him, anyways he continued to tell us that the area we were in was super dangerous and people get robbed all the time on the side of the road.  So he told us to call the police to protect us so we pretty much had a police escort.

Elder Shaw

December 4, 2016

Questions:

We teach on a good week like 20 lessons, on a rough week 10

Preparation day: we have gone to table mountain, waterfalls, or hikes, and in extreme cases we can go to game reserves to see cool animals but i haven’t done that yet. The last 2 weeks we just played sports though.

We have like 95 missionaries in our mission i think

We have to be out of the township/shanty town at like 7:30 and we”re usually home by like 8:30 cause people dont let you in after 8 or schedule times with you.

My town covers like all of boise valley so theres many towns, but mainly; summerset west, strand, gordons bay, and stellenbosch

Drew lane is in eastern cape which is like 4 hours away from me on a flight. .

Are you doing anything with the 25 days 25 ways? we visit member and emphasize a lot on that initiative! it’s a cool idea but its hard for missionaries to do since we”re limited. I can already tell Christmas is going to be different. ive learned to love serving other people. Every time we get a service opportunity its the best!!!!

I miss mcdonalds sooooo much. i wish we could eat out but we never have enough money. I don’t understand, because some elders get fed so much and we’re starving over here. Tell Elder Brown im sorry i didnt go on splits with them. now seeing how crucial it is to have people to fellowship. our ward here does do much with missionary work. we don’t get referrals from them and there’s so much missionary work to do here. We only go to ward council when we are invited so like once a month maybe im not sure. When you receive a referral study shows in the SACTM mission 50% of them get baptized so they are really useful! but sadly. hopefully the Christmas 25 days 25 ways thing will get some referrals and good investigators!

Man we visited a member family where the dad died because of cancer and the mom is left with 4 kids who are treturous. Like the oldest who is 15 just plays video games allllll day and does nothing. the next is 12 and is a piano genius like truman. the next is 7 and is a girl who hates being a mormon cause she can never hang with her friends on sunday and the youngest has ADHD an ADD and Dyslexia, i dont really know if he does but man i woudnt be suprized cause he is a challenge. Anyways it just made me realize how blessed i was to grow up in such a good home and environment, thank you soooo much. I can’t even fathom.

Tell dad to look up those pictures that we saw of devision between white and black homes and how they live so close but such a difference. if you look at that it is just like that here. Like tin shacks with kids toys and tires on the roof to hold it down so it doesnt blow away and then in the nice white areas you have in 2 Rivers area with REALLY nice houses. its crazy

Love you lots

Elder Shaw

Sorry i tried to load picture but it takes forever to load so ill try next week cause they didnt load in time.