September 25, 2017

Yes I’m leaving Queenstown!!! I’m happy but sad because I am seriously going to miss some of the recent converts and families here!!!! I told them all i would come back and then laughed after. I hope I can some day.

Investigator lessons, ummm, its like 15 a week and then maybe another 15 with RC, LA, and members so i would say around 30ish lessons a week.

Yes, I gave my testimony in xosha in church yesterday. OH man let me tell you it was.... ok i really had to study hard to get down words but the ward loved it. i had to speak slow cause it just takes me forever to process and think what im going to say but its not that hard to speak it. i don’t really have a hard time with the clicks anymore. Everyone came up to me and was proud of me for trying haha.

I was thinking this week actually of mowing our lawn back home and missed it. i was thinking and hoping to be able to when i get home next year haha, think i could in October? Leave it really long for like 3 weeks and ill come and mow it for the last time!

Sad i have to say goodbye to Elder Lane tomorrow. i don’t think i will get to serve around him but i will see him at least one more time i know that! I forgot to say where I’m going... my new comp is Elder Greengrass from England. He has been out for about 15 months and I’m going to East London 2nd ward, which is also a good area so I’m excited!

I’m really excited for conference. I was reading a talk in the liahona (Do you know what that is? It’s just like the ensign but for all age groups lol) but it was talking about conference and how we should go prepared with a question and/or a Christlike attribute we can work on. So i got a few questions! One being, how or where in my life do i need to repent, kinda just looking for something that is rebuking me haha but hey whom the Lord loveth he chaseneth!

I had a pretty cool Spiritual Experience this week. Went on exchanges with Elder Tshwane (Elder Lanes Trainer) and he is such a great missionary. Anyways, we were going into the lesson to a lady and Elder Tshwane was telling me her situation... Roman Catholic, been investigating church for a while and really enjoys it, loves the book of mormon, always takes notes on the liahona. Yo she’s awesome! i just wondered why she hadn’t been baptized yet. Anyways when you are on exchanges you feel like you can be a little bit more blunt than normal cause your only really seeing them for one time so i was just straight up with her. I asked why she wasn’t baptized and all these things and then we decided to kneel down right there and have her pray and ask if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. Man i have never heard such a sincere pray in my life! During the prayer, I’m praying myself have her discern the Spirit!  The Spirit was definitely present!. I don’t know what it is but the hardest thing to do is to help investigators recognize the Spirit! because you can’t just tell them oh this is the Spirit you have to let them decide for themselves! but she sadly said she didn’t know. I don’t know what will happen with her but i was happy for that experience!

love you

elder shaw

September 18, 2017

We are in week 6 right now so transfers will be next week Wednesday.

Members go to the temple usually once a year, at least that is when the ward has a temple trip but not everyone can go of course.

Ya for Mondays we just do FHE with members and then they feed us hahah it’s nice.

Ya I’m keeping a journal but not too well, like a once a week entry. I go on and off. Sometimes I’m really good at it and others I’m awful. Kinda just depends on my companion. J

Well this week was really funny hahah had so many funny experiences and cool ones as well. First of all i got to go on exchanges will Elder Lane and that was a blast!  We were in his area when we got into missionary work we had a lot of fun teaching the people. Let me tell you he is an awesome missionary!!! The ward he is in is struggling and very rural. They have a hard time with the priesthood holders but they are teaching some really good potential priesthood holders.

Funny story this week was actually a story i heard from the senior couples. They were teaching a class in the ward and they got onto a debate about if the pioneers had toilet paper or not. Some said no and others said ya. Finally one girl said no they don’t it even says it in the hymn! Come Come ye saints no toilet paper here... hahahhaha yo i was laughing so hard. (They have a hard time understanding english)!!!

Yesterday was awesome!!!! We had 3 baptisms and they were truly converted. In a lesson to prepare them for the baptism I was just going over what samkelo read and learned. He said i have to get baptized so that i can be forgiven of my sins and make it to heaven! We said, “yup totally true, man”. And then a few months ago we baptized someone called bulelani and he had the chance to bpatize his little sister yesterday and it was really cool cause he just recently received the priesthood. I’m so happy for them!

Next week is going to be my last week playing piano for the ward and I’m going to miss it hahaha hopefully i will get to play again sometime on my mission. Oh and i was called to be a speaker next Sunday and I’m trying to study super hard to bear my testimony in xosha.  i can feel its going to be really slow and rough but ill try. i like getting out of my comfort zone... sometimes.   

Love ya, Elder Shaw

September 11, 2017

Hi mom

Today we are going to east london to pick up another elder to replace the one that went home. But that is OK I always enjoying with my 2 companions. I don’t think i have laughed so much on mission then the last 2 weeks.

This week was kinda hectic. We had Zone Conference and our president came down, I didn’t have to give any training which was nice but after everything was done he came out proselyting with us for the rest of the day which was great. Funny thing happened, well to start let me give you some info to make the story funny. During MLC this last week president was kinda chewing the missionaries out for bad driving in the mission. He said we were the worst in the whole African area. Well here in queenstown we have lots of speed bumps that aren’t even marked. hahah we were just driving along when all of the sudden the president just hit this speed bump going like 60 k's hahah. I look at president Lebethoa just embarrassed and he said i didn’t even see that one, its ok. hahah We just start laughing.  It was really funny!

Safety?--Since we have cars we can be in after dark but we can’t contact after dark soo if we don’t have an appointment its hard but when we were talking, president just tells us to be wise and so we can come in like after an hour when the sun goes down

Zone conference was really good though. President Lebethoa talked about being anxiously engaged. Then he related it to learning, growing, and becoming. If we don’t apply what we learn then we will always be searching but never coming to the knowledge of truth.

love you

elder shaw

September 4, 2017

I’ll definitely keep Baylor in my prayers. I listened to a talk this week called Unbroken by Hank Smith i think or something like that and really I enjoyed it!!! Yo it was good. It talked about prayers and how they need to PASS;

Planned

Aloud

Sincere

Specific 

Ever since I have been really trying better with my prayers. I thought it was really good so i shared it with you all.

We have zone conference this week and it’s hectic for us due to housing and getting all the elders together. The nice thing is that we don’t have to prepare anything this time. President Lebethoa is doing the whole thing! i feel for him though because he has to care for a family first before us and they are all under the age of 16! We send him and sms to call us in his free time, ya its been 3 weeks and have not gotten a call yet but he’s coming and will get to talk to him about some things!

There are16 missionaries in our zone including a senior couple.

We have to travel 3 hours to the furthest elders. Are zone is huge.

We try to have zone conference once a transfer but not always since our mission is one of the few that fly.

Our mission has the goal of 100 baptisms every month but it is usually more like 50. 

Well I’m in a tripanionship now because an elder went home in our zone due to medical reason and oh man they are sooo fun!!! hahah its always nice to have another opinion when discussing about doctrine or investigators.

I’ve done a lot of running around this week because of our elder’s broken ankle. He couldn’t drive so we had to take him to places and then had to also cover another area so that’s like 3 now but its fun to always stay busy!

love you,

elder shaw

August 29, 2017

I’m really trying to learn xosha because the people here get offended if you don’t know it, especially the older generation. I try to use it as much as i can like in church lessons and just talking to people but i still don’t know very much!

I’m going to use my card for a little so don’t freak out I’m just using my birthday money that i didn’t use to get some thing and to make up for the past 2 months.

I exercise almost everyday for about a year now.

 The geography of our zone its like a 4 hour drive from one side to the other.... roughly.

This week was good. We had AP exchanges and that’s always fun. I went with the new ap and he didn’t know to much i could tell that he was nervous about making a good impression. haha i already know he’s awesome, his dad is a 70 lol. We taught a lot of lessons this week and are preparing for a baptism next week. I love my companion, cant get enough of him. I just think why cant i get along with all my companion like this and trying to discern what i can do differently. Love reading the Infinite Atonement. It gives a good analogy about things we learn about with the atonement.... we think that were about to open that last curtain on what we understand but just to find out that there is another curtain. You cant stop learning about the atonement. There is so much to learn and to apply in your life. I’m trying harder to apply the scriptures more into my life cause sometimes i feel that i haven’t even changed enough from what i was in high school haha but love you!!!

elder shaw

August 21, 2017

This letter is going to be short cause i have to drive to East London in a little while. It’s a pday ruiner. This week was short cause of transfers and lots of driving. I didn’t really get to our area till Friday.  Oh let me tell you, elder lane is awesome!!!! Its’ so fun talking to him. When he came through the airport, we gave each other a big hug. It’s really weird to talk about home and stories and things, but so fun.. He even started calling me Caleb and i was weirded out! I haven’t heard that name in a long time

  

Speaking about my comp. He’s from Guatemala and is the humblest guy ever! We get along great. He’s about 14 months on mission so like a transfer before elder lane.

Got my card BTW!!!

We have a few people on date and 3 of them are looking very promising for the 3rd of September. Our goal is 6 for this transfer. Ah its nice being in a good area. i really don’t want to leave this place! Also I’m learning the language a lot more and kinda understand probably 60% at church but can only speak like 20%. ahha It’s fun and hard to get the clicks down.

The members don’t really feed us but they’re are like 2 families who invite us over ever week which is nice. I’m pretty sure my favorite food here is steamed breat of amaguenyas which is like Indian fried bread or sweeter. You just eat it plan or with some mince. It’s really nice. Also I kinda like amaquenya which is chicken feet. hahaha

It was very cold this week and we even got some snow in the hills surrounding the town. I wanted to go play in it this pday but we have to drive to the airport.

love you

elder shaw

August 14, 2017

This week was pretty awesome cause we had another baptism of a family (mama tyulu and siya tyulu) who have been investigating the church for over a year. Oh man we were sooo happy for their baptism because at some points they were like less active who would kinda progress and then we would go back and see them but never really progress.  I don’t know what clicked but I am super glad we never gave up. We were still kinda scared on how they would do in the baptismal interview and Elder Reed said that was one of the best he has ever done. Yo we were sooooo happy! Now to the baptism, haha our ward mission leader wasn’t there, and the auxiliaries were having a meeting so we really didn’t have a presiding person, but all went well. Also I confirmed mihlali landa and mbasa. It is very hard to pronounce people’s names here especially last names. Oh it was a disaster cause there are a few clicks in it and I had to say it in front of the ward. I like practiced the week in advance so I could get it right but elder palavi slaughtered his and i nailed mine hahaha. It was sooooo funny but all went well. The Lord knows who they are. It was the last week with Elder Palavi and im sad he is going but my new comp is elder orosco lopez. He’s from Guatemala, lol i don’t know how to spell that but he’s super humble and way nice. Also Elder Lane is coming to our zone!!!! I’m super excited to serve around him.

This week was really good though. I’m so sad though because my comp said his goodbyes and that means next transfer i will have to say goodbye to this place. It’s going to be really hard, i have a feeling. i love this place!!!

Love ya,

Elder shaw