June 4, 2018

Man it gets cold cause we are right next to the ocean. I would say like 10 degrees Celsius which you probably think is warm but man it’s cold sometimes!

Combined elder’s quorum is great cause there are no high priests in the masi branch but then we don’t go to fish hoek priesthood cause that’s when masi branch starts sooo i haven’t really seen any difference.

And no, we do not teach gospel principles cause the masi branch doesn’t have Sunday school yet haha. It’s only 2 hours and will be for a while i think cause we only have like 12 adults that come to church. It was fast and testimony meeting and everyone had to bear their testimony to past the whole hour hahah. It was kinda funny!

Yesterday was fast Sunday and usually we start our fast at lunch Saturday so we have energy through the rest of our day but i forgot to start and ate dinner on Saturday and then started my fast but my companion remembered to start after lunch on Saturday. Now fast forward to Sunday lunch time and he broke his fast but now I’m still fasting. We are going through our day finding people to teach and we get into a house and as we do so they pull food off of the stove. They speak shona which is a language from Zimbabwe and i started speaking it a little to make them laugh cause it’s funny for a white guy to speak their language and its super rare. hahha Anyways they love me and tell us to sit down with them and eat before we share something. So he’s looking at me to see what I’m going to do. i kinda hesitate and look at the time to see if it’s mealish time and so i just go with it.... now I’m thinking how am i going to break my fast hahaha. were about to dig in when i ask if i can bless the food and they say of course! now in my prayer i start by blessing the food and then i start to break my fast and the investigators have no idea what I’m saying and why it is taking so long because they don’t understand English very well. My comp is dying laughing in the prayer. It was super smooth. i say amen and everyone just digs.

As far as this week, we dropped a bunch of our investigators and just have been finding new ones. But we’re doing it a little differently now. When we find someone to teach, instead of starting with the restoration, which half of the time they don’t understand, we just get to know them really well and usually they bring up a problem or a question they have which we will then answer or help them by using the Book of Mormon. We then give them the Book of Mormon and tell them to read the intro and if they do then we will continue to teach them and if not then we will drop them. So hopefully this way we will find the elect who will read and gain a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and restoration. They have a hard time grasping that concept.

I’m currently reading The Miracle of Forgiveness.... if you think your righteous, just read that book and it makes you feel like you’re an awful person and are never going to get into heaven hahaha but i love it. Especially the chapter, As a Man Thinketh. It’s so powerful and it motivates you to be the master of your own self! it kinda goes along with what I’m reading in the Book of Mormon right now where Moroni is chewing out Pahoran for not supporting the armies of Heleman and tells them that they need to first cleanse the inner vessel before the outer vessel. Similar concept.  Amen. Hallelujah. 

Love Yall

Elder Shaw