I'll start out with his mass email from last week, he had a lot of cool stories in it! "Elder woodland and I are doing well, and trying our best to find people to teach. We just had interviews with our mission president and he really wants the work here in Lesotho to pick up so there is a lot on our shoulders. We just hope we can hold it up, but we know we can with the Lords help. This was my last interview with our mission president, he goes home at the end of june and we get a new mission president. It was really weird thinking of it that way. I sure will miss President Z. I had exchanges with Elder VanWinkle this week and that was awesome, he is such a great missionary, I look up to him a lot and we had a power day. He goes home in June but he hasn't died yet, he is still going strong which you don't always see, so I definitely want to be like that when I am left with a few months. as for Woodland and I, we are doing grand. We have loved teaching at the EMT college once a week. we teach a two hour morals class full of about 60 women and 20 guys ages 18-26 so they are a blast. last week we taught them about the plan of salvation and how it helps to know where we came from, why we are here, and where we go after we die, especially when working in the medical field where you encounter many casualties.
we also teach a family home evening with the senior couple at a gogos house and 10-20 kidos join us and they are fun as well. we taught them about honesty this week. it can be hard because they don't really know English so we rely on a lot of translation help from the adults."
EMT Class Staff
EMT class they teach
"On Sunday we had a great day, we didn't have any appointments at all, which is normal but oh well. but the great part was that we didn't go tracting like we do most days. instead we found many opportunities to do service. we helped some ladies carry a bunch of giant tent polls up a mountain, carried a young girls bag of rice to her house and helped take water from the pump up the mountain as well. It was really fun and we got a bunch of little kids playing and following us the whole time. sadly no pictures because it is a sketchy part of town and I dont want to get robbed. oh well. funny story actually, we were walking back to our car at night and it was dark, again this is a shady place of town. while walking to our car two guys were following us so I went around our car not opening it because I don't want to get hijacked, they then followed me around the car so I was just like, crap ima get robbed real quick.... so I put the keys in my fist and got ready.... they came up to us then just walked past haha. they were just pranking us but it wasn't to funny for me... well maybe it is now.... but ya I thought I was going to get stabbed so I am glad that didn't happen.
again we have just been knocking doors this week, not much has happens. we are trying to work with members but the problem is we don't know where any live so we are getting a list of people in our are soon I hope."
His tag is getting full!
I asked him about Lesotho and if the culture there was much different than South Africa, and he said in some ways it is. They are a shepherding culture that shepherd cattle a lot. They have some common South African traditions like greeting everyone in a room, shaking hands with women with both hands to show respect. He said people are nice for the most part but you still encounter lots of racism. He also said that there are a lot of Asians there, which seems kind of strange..
"so story for this week. my companion got deer johned I think.... It has been rough to say the least, it made me realize how lucky I really am, like really. I am blessed beyond measure! I talked with him about his girlfriend and stuff and theyre relationship dosnt even compare to ours. I love how we ended up falling in love and you are my best friend in the whole world and I just love you and I feel like I know who you are and I dont know what I would do without you. I hope he is okay, they only dated like 6 months, but eish it hit him hard. anyways just made me think about how much I love you and I have taken it for granted that past little while. I just always expect you to be there without a thought or anything and thats not right. I just need you to know I love you so bad!!!!! and that will never change, not even for a second!
I hope you have a power week full of smiles and thought of me ;)"
Handmade Lesotho tapestry
"Not sure what these are called but I like them"
So I had a cool little experience with a little girl who plays for the club that I used to play for. We had our AGM, which is a yearly club-wide meeting where we have speakers come and talk to us and watch inspirational videos. I sat next to a girl that I didn't recognize at first, but I asked her name and she told me and said that she was the one who came up to me at last year's AGM after I won Player of the Year and told me I was really good and that she saw me score an awesome goal in one of my games. Immediately I remembered her and it was so fun to sit by her! The next day she followed me on Instagram and sent me this message:
It made me smile so big! Cutest thing ever. It was such a big reminder that even if I don't think anyone is watching, they are and it's so important to always be the best example you can be. I told Mikel about it and this is what he said about it:
"AHHH!!!! I love this, Ah I love you, Ah I love whoever sent this! ah I love God for ansering my prayers. (be sure to thank Him tonight)
I cant help but notice how she said she was freaking out inside, like so many people do when they are around you but are to shy to say or do something so we just go without knowing. I have learned on mission that we rarely if hardly ever get to see the benefit or effect we actually have on someone and when we are blessed to see, it is a direct blessing from Heavenly Father, I am telling you this was not coincidence, there is a reason why she sent this to you and the answer is because God LOVES his children, that means YOU!!! :)"
And then he told me a really cool story about having his prayer answered and about recognizing and being grateful when our prayers are answered:
" I have always struggled realizing answers to my prayers and mistaking them for just thoughts or luck or pure coincidence. for example, there was this one day where I had to send in a baptismal form that day because we were updating the system for church stats and they needed all baptism records immediately. I had filled it out a few weeks earlier and just gotten the bishops to sign it off the previous week. I forgot to send it in on monday so we got a call saying we needed to do it ASAP and it was like a Wednesday or something, I cant remember. so I went to my folder and looked.... it wasnt there.... I went to my binder and checked.... nope nada..... went and looked fetching everywhere and I could not find it, tore up my closet and my bag and desk and dresser and the record could not be found. Now no it was not the end of the world but I hate when I was supposed to get something done and then I failed something completely in my power that now puts others through a head ache so I was quite frustrated to say the least. after looking once, twice and thrice my wonderful comp who had his head square on his shoulder just looked at me and said well.... you know what we have to do right?... pray.... so we knelt down a said a verbal prayer just asking our loving Father to help us find the missing record that we would be able to send it in on time and that everything will work out. now half way through the prayer I remembered that I gave a talk the previous sunday and I brought the record to church. so the thought came to me, maybe I put it in my note book while giving a talk. sure enough it was there and all went well. so I was ready to head to the email shop to send off the record when my comp stopped my and brightly said. " well we have to say thanks now" Now my original instinct was. " this was just my own thought. I remembered where I put it, this wasnt an answer to my prayer." I of course could not have been more wrong. it indeed was an answer to my prayer and pretty clear. the role of the Holy Ghost is partly to bring things to our remembrance. I searched for 20 minutes on my own and could not find or remember by myself where the record was. but as soon as I calmed down and allowed the Holy Ghost to remind me, he surly did. I learned how important it is to recognize the little and great answers we get to our prayers. and We must say thank you. No one likes an unappreciative person. I did in fact feel the warmth of the spirit as we gave thanks to God for taking the time to help us in such a minor thing in the grand scheme of things but so important to us at the time. If it is important to you, it is important to God. How often does a little child bring home some terrible looking painting from school and they are so proud of it and love it and give it to mom and dad. Mom and dad of course take the painting lovingly and hang it on the fridge because it is important to them. why? because it is important to their child. the same goes with our Father in heaven, he is a perfect Father and finds so much joy in our happiness and achievement, no matter how small and insignificant according to the world it may be."
I loved that story because it's so true! The Lord is always there to answer our prayers, we just need to be able to hear the promptings of the spirit. The most important part is showing GRATITUDE after the Lord answers our prayer.
Got his new Lesotho hat!
It was crazy because after I read that little section about his answered prayer, it struck me how mature he seemed. I know he has matured a little since he left but wow it seemed like he as matured a lot just in the last little while! But it all made sense when I read this in his group email: "So a couple weeks ago I was talking with our mission president and we decided that I wanted to work on being more mature, in my conduct, talk, attitude and all. So I'll share a bit about that experience as well. This is what I wrote to my mission president this week....
"What a difference! I decided I should reflect some more about our interview and the topic of maturity. I was honestly shocked to find so many instances throughout the day where I was considerably "immature". I guess it was a bit of a humbling experience. It reminds me of the talk two conferences ago, and the talk entitled, "What lack I yet?" https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/what-lack-i-yet?lang=eng The spirit really does show and tell you what you lack and need to improve on and is not afraid of being blunt about it. I saw that I do indeed need to act more wise and mature in my conduct around other missionaries and even members. I hope realization will be the first step in changing to a more fervent servant. Thank you for your council and guidance. My parents have greatly stressed to me how important it is to follow the direction of our mission president as he is the one who can receive prophetic guidance not only for the work in our area, but I see now also for ourselves and individual missionaries. I am thankful for your persistent communion with the spirit that you can follow His guidance."
It was cool to read that and see what a change it has brought in him in just a short time!
Now he sent a really long mass email this week, and I loved all of it so I'm just going to put it all in here :)
"So this week was pretty normal for the life of missionary work in Lesotho. We did though have one way powerful lesson. We met with a new investigator we tracted into named Ma Thapelo. She is awesome. So we went to her house for our follow up appointment and just started to talk with her. She all the sudden opened up about how her husband just told her he wants a divorce because she has been able to have children for the past four years. This was heartbreaking for us to hear. We have only know this women for a short time but have this incredible love for her and it broke my heart hearing this and other things that have happened in her past that I can't share. So emotions were high and I didn't know what to do. I wanted to just give this women a hug and just cry it out but that wouldn't work. We came to teach the restoration and about Joseph Smith but every time I thought about how I was going to tie her struggles in with it I couldn't. I was blank. I then remembered what Elder Bednar said when we get in a situation we don't know what to do or say. Testify of Christ. This is what I did and boy did it work. The spirit came in strong and I testified that Christ is our brother. His love surrounds us, He died for us and so much more. I honestly can't even remember a lot of what I said because honestly it wasn't me speaking. The spirit had control of the lesson and steered it where it needed to go. She continued to open up to us and tell us more about her life, struggles and all. I then asked a few questions and she mentioned how she felt and knew we were sent by God to see her. And that she now felt relieved and so much better. We knew that was our que to leave because she was feeling the spirit and we want to leave her on a spiritual high. We closed and said our goodbyes with a final testament of our love for her, which was and is indeed a real and genuine love. It had been one of the most powerful moments of my mission thus far."
"adventuring in Lesotho. we got our bakkie stuck for like 15 min, I hope I didnt hurt the clutch at all coming out haha eish...."
"In SA people wash their cars religiously, they hate a dirt looking car, which is contrary to american policy, we love the dirty used looking truck. so we made our bakkie look american....."
"As for the area, things didnt necessarily pick up as I was hoping for this week but a new week comes and we can only move forward. I am anxious to see what the Lord has planned for the people here, Its actually quite exciting when you really start to think about it. I was listening to talk by some youth speaker and he related a story about his football career to making decisions to determine your destiny and at one point in his story president Hinckley, prophet at the time, came into the BYU locker room and told the team that it was the coaches last day and "dont muff it" I have been thinking as if the current prophet is saying this to me, I have come out on mission, to a new country, there is work to be done and work expected to be done... dont muff it. I dont know why but when I picture in my head the prophet or the savior pushing me to work harder it gives a sense of motivation."
Watching Conference
Now there is general conference. Soooooo all of you who have made it this far... Thank you mom, and Hailey and Amber..... (haha :) It twas grand! I'll speak brief on it though because of time. It was all fantastic. I loved all of it! as a missionary I think conference becomes more interesting. I felt like there was so much mention of God loving each and every single one of us. To me it seemed like countless times they talked about our individual importance and love from our Father in Heaven. Christ is the good Shepard and would not leave his flock untended and without provisions. We are all sons and daughters of the most power being in the universe and that makes us all royalty. We are kings and queens to be. Currently prince and princesses, in quite a real way. I don't know if we all completely grasp this. When we know for sure that God loves his children, nothing else really matters. It all makes sense. Things happen, but always for our good. We all go through many experiences in the life. some hard, some fun, challenging, depressing, sad, hurtful, painful, shameful, disgraceful, exciting, joyfull, and pure and more and more. I think you get it. We experience a lot of things. Now out of all of these are any bad? No! All experience is good. Although painful it is indeed good, most of us know by now in our stage of life that we learn the most through the hard times of life, that is good. There was also a lot of talk on family and temple, those go hand in hand. I love my family, and the separation because of mission has only made my love for them grow so much! I hope to be with them for eternity and know I can because of the temple. Guard our families, do everything in your power to keep a strong and healthy loving family and God will bless you with so so much. What makes God, God? Well he presides. over who? His family! What do fathers do? )Preside. over... their families. We are now preparing to become Gods and Goddesses. and we can! I love you all and if you did not get the chance to listen to general conference please do so! it will enrich your life, understanding, and love!"
"I love you so much babe, you are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me and you best believe I am on my knees each morning and night praising God for the wonderful blessing you have been in my life. So I finally sent some letters to you, sorry about that... some were written like 4 months ago. I still need to send your package though, I hope soon, but I wont make any promises. I was hoping to get it done like two weeks ago so it would be there for your birthday but it dosnt look like that will happen #cryFace
Always,
Elder Mookie"
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