December 18, 2017

This week was super crazy. We started out going on exchanges to Cape Town which was great but i swear every time i fly that flight gets delayed. I  waited in the airport for about 6 hours by myself because of transfers.... not gonna lie. it felt weird but kinda nice hahaha.

Next is we had an awesome baptismal service! Everything went smoothly and then when they got up to bear their testimony afterwards, it was the best part!! I’ll give you some quotes of what they said;

Hugo – I’m grateful for the opportunity to meet the elders. They really changed my life for the better.

Chantelle – I’ve decided from this day on I’m going to follow Jesus Christ and I’m never going to look back. (really rough background)

Yonella – I’m happy to be part of a new family. This is the right thing for me... (then just start balling her eyes out) 

It was the best!

Next my comp and i sang together in sacrament meeting. It was his last Sunday here. Elder Greengrass is super good at singing and then there is me but i thought it was pretty good. Right after i had an impromptu talk and complemented myself on the singing hahaha.

Transfer news came and I’ll be staying and receiving Elder Kyles, who is awesome!!! He’s from Utah and I’m super excited to be with him. I hope i get to spend 2 transfers with him!!!! My comp will be leaving to white wash train in Cape Town which is exciting. Scary place so pray for him. I have really learned a lot from him and I’m grateful!!!!

i loved studying that talk! yo it has some really good principles taught in it. i have never studied or even paid attention to conference like i have this time. They are great! What have i been missing out on? Are they always this good? haha i feel bad now.

Alma 13 is the bomb! if you want to learn how to be a good leader read the chapter! It pretty much sums up that Melchezidek was a legend! 

love you

elder shaw

December 11, 2017

Yes, my companion writes like a journalist lol so much detail... sorry not doing that. hahaha But i think we have learned a lot from each other.

Yes i would love that history of Elder Walker and can show my president. He would be interested in that. The senior couple here would also be interested... their surname is Stevenson. His great grandpa or something like that was also the first missionary here. soo they were comps! hahaha

This week was great! super super busy with everything and zone conference went well. Our President talked out D&C 20:37 which is about qualifications for baptism. It was truly inspired cause we had some questions about some investigators when we should baptize them. We decided to postpone after that talk and let me tell ya, she was not happy!!! It’s sad  because she has such a strong desire but i don’t think it was for the right reason so we are postponing it to jan 21. (she is going to the villages for a while) We are going to have a few baptisms this coming week. I think 3 which is nice. I’ll send you a picture next week of it but really excited. 2 of them are former investigators who kinda disappeared for a while but then realized what they have been missing and now desire to be baptized which is awesome! It’s kinda true from that one conference talk that said, if you leave where will you go? This email is really jumbled sorry hahah but the other thing our president talked about was budgeting hahaha. It was really interesting. I’m pretty sure he was a financial advisor back home and he was tell us how when he went on a date with who is now his wife, at dinner or something he just said lets talk about the budget and then after they agreed he then asked to marry her hahaha it was really funny but smart!

Well Christmas is on pday (Monday) so I can call pretty much any time. We have a family that has already offered to have us and we can skype there soooo now just gotta see a time when we can because I’m way ahead of you. Also i will get a new comp right before Christmas like 5 days before (sad for him) so i don’t know when he will be able to.

The number of youth coming to church is increasing. i really try to focus on the youth cause that is who i get along with the most and I teach them a lot! Some of them go on missions but its almost like it’s not really a necessity here. They go if they want and are really strong!

i haven’t contacted door to door in a long time. If we don’t have anything to do, we go to members and ask who haven’t you seen in church in a long time. We go and visit the less actives and then get new investigators through them. It’s pretty much all referral finding and also walking to appointments talking to people and setting times.

The Madagascar missionaries are still here. i don’t know when they go back. I’m not sure of the situation.

I would like to study the beatitudes, wasn’t there a talk on that just a little while ago? Or Jeffery R Holland’s talk was kinda on that. I think it was about trying to be perfect but i will look into it more. I have loved studying the talks when they come out!!! Man they are so good. i cut some out and put them in my Book of Mormon. haha Like the one about the sacrament, so i can read it during church to keep my mind focused.

Great week, good energy this week

Elder Shaw

December 4, 2017

Ya waking up that early mom is exactly what i did when i worked at the temple! Do they have a cafeteria in this temple? 

 I’m sorry that I didn’t get to be apart of the ward missionary videos. I can’t send a video haha. It takes like 20 min to upload a picture but ill see you for Christmas so no worries!

I loved the tie you sent!!! American ties are all good looking haha at least the ones you send me are good looking! i was doing service though and i snagged one of them and was really sad cause its my favorite one.

You did such a good job of parenting and teaching about gospel principles to me. I definitely feel super blessed to have you guys as parents. But I got on my mission and figured out some gospel principles that i had no idea about like every time you take the sacrament your sins are washed away? Who knew mom haha i think i did know it but it didn’t come into play until my mission hahah pretty bad right?

Sad news, August is out of town this week and next but I talked to Joline, his wife over the phone and yo she is cruising through the Book of Mormon!! She is already in Mosiah but i asked her how she feels and how it makes a difference in her life and she gave the best response, and i quote... "I think I’m happy because i feel that i can change and walk the right path and i know the Holy Ghost is working inside of me." Man i was so happy when she said that!!!! Wow the Book of Mormon is true and it changes lives! fo realz! haha

We preparing for zone conference this week and our president only gave us one paragraph in PMG to give a hour training hahaha so it will be interesting to see how that goes My comp is a super deep thinker and does all this pondering stuff hahah when i just make up my mind quickly and do. So I’m glad he is my comp. We are learning from each other. He gives some good trainings!! twas a good fast fast week.

I’m singing with my comp in two weeks in sacrament meeting. We are singing Oh Come Oh Come Emanuel. Thanks for the encouragment.

love you miss you

elder shaw

November 27, 2017

Man if you read Peyton’s email this last week, my area is super similar!! haha We eat the same food and the weather is the same. One day it is super super hot like on Monday last week it was 43 which i think is around 110. When it is super hot then you know it is going to rain. Super weird but nice. hahah Last week we were playing soccer out in 43 degree weather and some of the elders got heat stroke.... but not i ;) still got a little pride but hey a little is always nice or else Braiden and Jamo are just going to step on me. hahaha

This week was a hectic week! We were running around a ton! We went to the airport 6 times cause of elders flying out and the AP exchanges so we had to be in a triconpanionship for a little but here is the highlight! So August a Joline who we have been teaching, man they have just lit up! Especially August, he has struggled with some substance abuse in the past but he says the Book of Mormon helps him overcome his addictions and his countenance has just lit up! You know our jobs as missionaries is to invite people to come unto Christ by faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost, and endure to the end, but man let me tell ya August has definitely conquered the first 2. Even though they are not baptized, that’s ok because not everyone chooses to be baptized but i still know we have fulfilled our purpose in helping him repent and develop faith.

Thank you for your prayers. I can feel it! Man prayers are awesome. I have never really felt the power of prayer like the past 3 months. I have felt super blessed and the Lords hand in my life often. I thank my comp partially for that cause he is awesome and very spiritual. I felt healthier this week. I am eating healthy and exercising a lot! i just don’t know why I’m so tired all the time.

Yes, they do the self reliance course here, but its not year round just for a little bit. I think it helps to give them tips but in the long run not really.

Members, man that’s a good question what they do for work.... mostly manual labor jobs. If they don’t do manual labor they are lucky and have an education. Kinda cool thing that i realized as i read Mosiah chapter 1 today..... the Nephites where so much more industrious then the Lamenites cause they had the plates. It taught people the correct language that didn’t become corrupted which in the long run helped them "prosper in the land" physically and spiritually.

Rugby vs. Soccer: they are both big but in eastern cape where I’m at right now its soccer. In Durban i would say cricket or rugby, just depends. Overall probably soccer.

Twas a jolly good week! Love,

Elder Shaw

November 20- 2017

Wow, schools are closed this week and that means everyone goes to the rurals and no one is home! It’s a shame but we have planned some unique finding activities for the holiday season in everyone’s area and so we will get to go around and do some fun things! I have never had weeks like these past few ones. i just feel like its a blur! i cant even remember, i have to bring my journal to the email shop to remember what to say. I guess to start off we ran out of MSF, ya not fun. hahah We were just constantly praying for people to feed us cause we had no food left plus i was sick so i lost like 6 pounds hahaha but i guess you learn to be better with money. The thing is i am good about money but i don’t know what happened! We had stake conference and it was broadcasted from Salt Lake to all of Africa south east area and it was super good! Man Tad R Callister is a goofy guy let me tell ya but he gives great talks! Guess what i learned? To stop judging people. We strictly only talk to men here when contacting haha i know its bad but, anyways learned that you gotta give women a chance because they open up windows for new people to come into the church! Lol No offense but here it is different. I had another awesome lessons with August and Joline and their son Jayden! Wow they have known about the church for the longest time but missionaries never taught them, God really prepares people for you! We haven’t taught them any of the commandment but we’ve just got to get them to have a strong witness that this it it and then everything will hopefully fall into place! (Their stumbling block is they are not married) pray for them!

 So dad the accent when i first got here was intense! I’m sure the general authority’s accent was tamed because he has been places but i remember  one of my first weeks we were teaching a man and i seriously got 75% of the way through the lesson and figured out they were speaking English the whole! time, i just knew i was suppose to speak when my comp looked at me! yo it was bad hahaha but now I’m use it and can understand everyone.

Love you,

Elder Shaw

November 13, 2017

You know the saying "God is good", its true, not going to lie! Recently i have been writing in my journal every night (first miracle) and i write a tender mercy that i have seen for the day, and after a while I have realized how much God’s hand is in my every day life!!! Man i challenge you all to do that. You will feel Gods love and you will see the Savior’s grace in your life more abundantly!

August, Joline, and Jaden came to church!!!! They only stayed for the first part but that’s ok, at least they made an effort and came!! Yo, I’m super happy for them! This is the white father and his family that we have been teaching. God really does prepare people for us to teach them. If people are not progressing in the first 2 lessons, we usually drop them and find the ones who "will recognize us as the Lord servants" and will "hear our voice".

This transfer, I have the same comp pretty much same zone, nothing changed for us. As a mission we do about 50 baptisms a month, well that’s our goal. We usually hit it but for this zone i would say maybe 7.  It takes time to progress investigators to when they are truly converted so its hard to make goals for a months time period.

Love you!

Elder Shaw

November 6, 2017

Ummm welll, this week was filled with funny and spiritual experiences. It was awesome!! For the funny side, haha I offered to pray for the food in the lesson thinking they were going to feed us and then they got super embarrassed afterwards. They did have any food for us. Then, the sister missionaries from temple square called and my comp started flirting with them through the phone making a fool out of himself!! I was laughing so hard!!!

On the spiritual side, I had a WHITE FATHER LEAD THE FAMILY TO ACCEPT A BAPTISMAL DATE. Also we had another couple move away from each other because of the law of chastity, wanting to be baptized! Then they moved back together because they were having a hard time. We testified of Heleman 5 12 that we need to build our foundation on Christ!!! Then we had an awesome experience of going to the Butterworth cluster group for sacrament meeting on exchanges for a baptism interview and man we met in a hut!! hahaha Super cool!!!! Man it was an awesome week!

We are being really obedient which is awesome. I love it! Umm transfers are Wednesday and nothing is really changing.  I eat a protein shake and oatmeal for breakfast and something big like rice veg and meat for lunch and then random things for dinner whatever we want but usually healthy. We kinda bank on someone feeding us something for dinner. I’ve never been more healthy in my life!

Usually I talk about once a transfer in church, and teach gospel principles every week. Then we have a zone training every transfer as well. When zone conferences come around i don’t know why but we usually don’t teach. Sometimes the president will assign us to teach but usually not. This week elder Koch came from the 70 to do a mission tour.

love,

elder shaw