TOMORROW

I can't quite sleep yet so I figured I would get this written. Last email of his mission!!!

"Well its been two years and this is my last email home. if ya'll want to get some information you can contact my wonderful momma and she can fill you in on all the details. I would love to see you all at my homecoming address on Sunday, June 18th at 11:00am, as well and get to share the experiences I have had over these past two years.

This week was great. I was very grateful for the priesthood as we were able to give four blessings throughout the course of the week. I have loved being someone who can be called upon when heavens help is needed. I have loved being in the service of my God for these two years and the learning and growth that have come from it. We were able to see three new investigators accept the invitation to baptism as well this week which has made it just grand. I am going to miss SA, it has literally become my home. Hope I am not to culturally awkward when I get home.

Love you all and I am forever thankful for the support that you have given me through these past two years.
Elder North"

And a little bit of the email he sent to me...

"Thank you Hai, I cant say it in words but I just want to give you a big ol hug! the best things in life are hard, but they are worth it. Mission has been the hardest thing I have ever done, but it sure is worth it. Hears to a great two years and a sweet reunion! :) I love you Hai!"


I am feeling all kinds of emotions right now. In less than 12 hours, my best friend will be HOME! I've been super busy this week working a soccer camp so I haven't had a ton of time to think about it until today. As I've been thinking about the last two years though, I realized how good it was for us and how much it has changed us. I already know things are going to be different, even though I don't know exactly how yet. I don't think it will be a bad different though. We have grown and matured so much over this time and I don't think that it could have happened any other way. Even though this has definitely been one of the hardest things, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I have learned so much about myself and our relationship has grown in ways it couldn't have if we were together for the last two years. The future is a little scary and I honestly am getting a little nauseous just thinking about seeing him tomorrow, but I'm also just so excited to talk with him and laugh with him and just be with him again. I'm not sure how much sleep I'm going to get tonight but I'm going to try, haha. It's been quite the ride, these last two years, and I'm so glad we got to go through it together. I cannot believe I get to see him tomorrow!

Almost There

So I'm just really behind on these posts because I am just really ready for him to be home. Haha :) But actually I've been super busy the last 3 weeks with a week long intensive class, a weekend of away games with RSL Women, and watching my younger siblings while my parents have been out of town. It's been pretty crazy to say the least. HE WILL BE HOME IN ONE WEEK. From yesterday to be exact... ahhhh!!

May 22nd

"We had a few events this week one of which was zone conference. It was good and we talked about how we can increase the spirit of the mission in rescuing the one, the doctrine of Christ and the fundamentals of missionary work.  One of the missionaries giving a teaching segment passed out in the middle of his speech. it was quite the moment, after that the meeting just kind of lost focus.

We also had the amazing opportunity to learn from Elder Rasband of the quorum of the twelve apostles. He was in Durban for a priesthood leadership meeting and was able to spare two hours for the missionaries. Unfortunately I was not able to see him in person because of the distance but we were able to watch via satellite. It was awesome! He gave some great advice as he answered different questions posed by the missionaries in the audience. He taught about how we can be more unified with Christ and how we have given our word that we would do his work. We all have signed up voluntarily and signed an agreement that we will do what He would want. He also spoke about becoming excellent finders, how we need to find more people to teach and find them in every situation.

I got to go on Exchanges to Kimberley, the area where I started my mission. I had this great idea of going to the house of the very first person I taught on my mission, the man never really progressed and I thought how great would it be if we were to try, two years later and he was prepared. Well we went to the door, I am glad I remembered where it was after so long, knocked on the door and his wife answered. we began talking (it was a bit awkward) and they were not interested.... haha oh well, such is mission, it was worth a shot though"

"We had a great opportunity to teach one of our investigators named Thlompho, I am positive none of you pronounced that correctly.... its okay) We were planing on talking more about the Book of Mormon, but she didn't read the introduction that we left with her. We began talking when she brought up some questions that she has long had on her mind. Questions about, why bad things happen to good people. What if I do something that I know is wrong but for some reason I just keep doing it? and a few more great questions. We very quickly changed our lesson plan and began to talk and testify to her about Gods plan for us, the gift of agency, the gift of repentance and much more. it was a wonderful experience and we were able to find so much love for her as she sincerely sought for guidance.

Sister Humble is doing great! She has been nothing but power since her baptism and continues to ask amazing questions that come to her mind and also from the book of Mormon. We are currently teaching two of her friends that she has introduced us to and we love seeing them as well. She will be going home to Pretoria soon and I am hopeful that she will be able to go to the temple while she is there. She has become a dear friend of mine whom I will never forget!

Mission is great, you come across people from all sorts of walks of life. Different cultures, backgrounds, beliefs, likes and more. The gospel brings us all together. Who would have though two years ago that some of my favorite people in the entire world would be in South Africa!? It is amazing to feel such love for people as you try your best to serve them as the Savior would. it is amazing to see peoples spirit and life change as they come to live the teaching of Jesus Christ. It is amazing to be a missionary each day!"

May 29th

"Not going to lie, emailing is getting tough haha I am ready to not have to recap my week in an email anymore.

In all it was a good week though. We got two new investigators this week who we met on campus. We met them while we were walking through our area, we saw two sisters caring some groceries and milk so I asked if we could carry it for them. they allowed us and then we began talking. They eventually asked the question of dreams! Who are you guys? why are you here? It is nice when we get someone to ask us those questions because then they are more interested in listening to our response rather than us just approaching them with an agenda to say who we are. We explained we were missionaries and talked about Jesus Christ for a little bit. unfortunately we met the end our our road and split paths. we gave them a pamphlet to read about the restoration. When we met them this week they had some great questions about the book of Mormon and where it came from, how Joseph smith got the plates and who the Nephite were! It was grand, the only problem was that we were sitting on a park bench the cold south African air. I know, you probably think that sounds weird. cold air in Africa. but let me tell ya, it was probably 17 degrees while we were sitting there!!! okay 17 degrees Celsius but still. it was cold....

Some of the students are going home now, and by the end of the week most will be gone. They are ending school for a month for the winter holiday. It means that our whole teaching pool except for a few people will be gone.... Oh well, just means we will get a lot of time to knock on peoples gates!

We went to visit Mme Violet this week, when we got their her neighbor was also their. She is about 40 yrs old, has three children and one on the way. We spent some time getting to know them while drinking our Herbal tea and bran muffins... it was really nice. We then started answering Mme Violet's friend's questions. We explained who missionaries are, what we do and a brief summery of the restored gospel. The Mme then asked us how people take us, because we are so young and they are much older than us. I turned the question to Mme violet and asked her, how was your perspective of the missionaries changed from two young boys walking the streets to what you see today. She then bore a powerful testimony of missionaries being Heaven sent, selfless and full of service and love. She bore testimony of the book of Mormon, she bore testimony of the restored and true church of Jesus Christ. The awesome part is that she knows all this but has never come to church. because of financial circumstances she has not been able to attend and also she recently had a baby and couldn't go out. She reads the book of Mormon whenever she cant sleep and continues to increase in faith and love for our savior Jesus Christ.

The days keep seeming to fly by, I thought they would slow down on this last stretch but I have been anything but wrong with that assumption. time doesn't care and I am trying to use every bit of it I can while I still have it. being a missionary is the most incredible thing and I love it so much!"

June 5th

"We had another great lesson with mme violet! We reviewed the restoration and talked more about what "apostasy" means (if you have any questions, please contact your local missionaries for more help ;) ) She continues to read the book of Mormon and is excited to come to church.

This week we were able to have stake conference and it was awesome. The mission President and his wife came down and spoke in both sessions. Whenever President Thompson speaks he invites the spirit and I learn so much! After the conference we had a little zone conference and he taught us more as we discussed the recent visit from Elder Rasband and how we can be 100% missionaries and strictly obedient! It was a really nice meeting and I learned a lot from it.

One thing that I liked from stake conference and I have heard it before but this time it stood out to me was a quote from Alice in wonderland. When Alice comes to a point where the road forks she meets a cat. She asks the cat which path she should take, the cat replies, well that depends on where you want to go. If you do not know where you want to go, then it does not matter. I just started thinking about how important having a plan and destination really is. If we do not have any plans then our choices become unguided and meaningless. With clear direction and focus, our choice have great impact and can determine if we get to where we want to go. Our ultimate destination should be to return to be with our Father in Heaven. Having that as our goal, every choice we make is influenced. without purpose our choices are irrelevant.

We were able to have a ton of investigators come to the stake conference as well which was amazing! I think we had 7 there!!!!

Elder Benissan and I had the privilege to sit down with the Porters, the senior couple here in Bloem, and talk about our mission and what we have learned and experience over the past two years. It was weird to be talking about my mission in terms of two years. It doesn't feel real at all that I will be home next week. It was a nice meeting though to sit and talk about the blessings of missionary service and the testimonies that have grown from it."

Only one more email that we'll ever have to write each other, and then he is coming home!!! It hasn't quite sunk in yet, so when I get around to posting his last email I'll talk about it some more. But for now... T-5days!!!!

Mother's Day

It was so great to be able to talk to him on mother's day! He sounded so good and so happy. I don't think I remember him sounding this happy on the last call we had, but maybe I just didn't notice. He had tons of stories to tell and talked about the kind of food he wants at his homecoming (which sounded disgusting). It was just fun to see him and listen to him for a while. Less than 30 days until he is home!

"What a start to the week, so after emailing last week we go out of the email shop and start walking through town towards our car. We reach the place where we park and begin to look around....but our car is no where to be seen. I say we must have parked further down, knowing that this indeed is the spot. We look down and up and again, nothing. We saw some police officers across the road and made our approach to them to inquire about our missing vehicle. We asked if it was towed or possibly stolen. Their answer was less than comforting. They took us to the traffic department but unfortunately it was after 6pm and all have left the building. luckily we were able to check the tracker on the car and find out that had not been turned on since we left it which meant it must have been towed. Early next morning we went to the station to ask about our vehicle. It indeed was towed the municipality use the area that we parked as a way to get money by towing cars and making people pay to get them back. the place is not marked with signs to say no parking and is just behind a parking area which seems to be connected but unfortunately and apparently is not. We were unable to get our car back that day because the senior couple were out of town and we had no means of paying the release fee, so the other Elders picked us up and took us home. We live pretty far from our area but we didn't want to sit in all day so we packed our bags and put on our walking shoes. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the area and then another 20 to get to the appointment we had. we were able to be pretty productive and have a good day before making the 1hr trek back to our flat that night. Just look at the bright side, burning those extra kilograms before I get home :)
we were able to get our car back the following day and things have been great ever since"

"Nothing too out of the ordinary happened this week, just the same joy that comes every week as you give yourself to the service of the Lord. Being a missionary bring such happiness!!! Our investigators are doing well and boy do I love em! We are hoping that we will have a baptism before the end of the transfer but we will see how thing go, we want to make sure that they are really prepared and firm in their testimony before we take the next step. 

As you all know it was mothers day this past Sunday which is in my top 3 Sundays of the year!!!! especially as a missionary because we got to Skype to our families :) 

Mothers are just something incredible right!? I shared this while skyping home but I will share it with the rest of you now. 

You know how in school when they tell you to write an essay they make you do a rough draft first. Now the rough draft serves as a way to see what your essay will look like, to look for mistakes and to be able to outline your plan. they usually are pretty close to what the essay is meant to become, just lacking some things or having some faults and errors. So just as we make a rough draft before the final product, God does the same. First he created Man, big, bulky, clunky, and rough around the edges. He then saw what he had made and realized we would need some improvement, so he started out on his final product. smoothing out the edges, adding a little here and a little there. He perfected his creation and the product is known as women. I mean just look at women, their love, their patience, their tenderness, their motherly love. and so much more. I mean who can look into a mothers eyes and not see the sparkle of heavens light!? so ya women and especially mothers are grand and just about perfect! I am thankful for Mothers and the Mothers to be!!!!

I hope you all appreciate and love your mothers and motherly figures in your life!

Elder North"

One Month!!!!

Now my only excuse for not getting these posted is that I'm just so ready for him to be home, haha. It's crazy to think that one month from now he will be!

May 1st

"I will be staying in Bleomfontein as my dying area, My son Elder Mbangi will be leaving to go to Kwa Dabeka in KNZ. I will be receiving Elder Sithole. He is one transfer behind me and is from Zimbabwe.

I am entering into my last transfer of my mission, I come home next month which just blows my mind. but lets not focus on that for now :)

It was a great week! We had two baptisms!!! Nokuzotha and Rethabile were baptized!!!!!!!!!!!! It was quite the journey for both of them and Satan has been working his best to try and stop them. Through out the trials and struggles, even the recent ones, they have not wavered. Many people would have stopped or quite, but not these two young ladies! they have gone through so much and yet have so much happiness!

Because of transfers I wont be able to email that much today

I love this gospel. I love Jesus Christ! He is my friend and savior. If I could ask you to do just one thing. it would be to read the Book of Mormon and listen to your heart. That's it. One thing to change your life forever. It has forever changed mine and I am so thankful for it!"

He sent some awesome pictures and video clips from that week!

May 8th

"So My new companion is Elder Sithole, He is from Zimbabwe!!!!  This is my 5th Zim companion and I love it!

He is a wicked good singer so we are going to practice some songs, he is also going to give me the music for nearer my God to thee in Sotho, Zulu and Afrikans so that will be awesome.

We have been working super hard ever since he got here and have had some great teaching experiences.

First of all was with Jessica, so we have been teaching Jessica for a while now and she is just grand. When we first gave her a book of Mormon she called her "apostle" and told him about what we teach, his response was that she should listen and what we were sharing is good. well first of all, that never happens! She she has grown to just love the Book of Mormon and even takes it with her to school, she has found two people for us to teach by sharing the book of Mormon with her class mates and standing up for truth, even though she is still not baptized! She also shared it on social media and had another friend ask for more information and became really excited to learn more about Jesus Christ. She says that she just has this burning feeling that she needs to share this with everyone!

We even gave her 10 copies of the Book of Mormon and also some pamphlets so she can give them to people she knows.

We have also been meeting with this other lady named Shelombe while we meet with Jessica. they are friends and both from Limpopo, Jessica is Venda and Shelombe is Tsonga. Well I never thought that Shelombe was really interested until we started to ask her more questions. only to find out that she has read all the way to Jacob in the book of Mormon! she has read over 120 pages! she is incredible!!! So that just made my day. unfortunately because of transport they were unable to come to church this week but we are excited for next week!

Auspicious was confirmed this week, it was a great experience to be able to confirm her in sacrament meeting. We brought her a new member kit which has some gospel resources. we gave her a picture and asked her what is was. She responded with "the temple?" we said yes and told her in was the temple in Joburg and that she will be able to go there and do work for her parents who have passed away. she couldn't believe that such a beautiful and wonderful building was found in south africa! she just kept staring at it. she then looked up and said, don't you guys see what this is!?!? this is a slice of heaven here on earth! It reminded me of the blessings of the temple and the great love and peace I feel each time I am privileged to enter. We continued to make the temple her goal and hope she can go next month!!!

Elder Sithole and I are doing great. He is just an incredible teacher and in each lesson, I am just filled with the spirit as he teaches. He is a super cool guy as well and I am excited to work the next 5 weeks with him. Wish it could be longer though.... He is the oldest in his family and the first missionary. 

I am doing so good, I have made some amazing friends here in Bloem and love the area. I am blessed to be able to stay another transfer with them.

Love you all and hope you all have a grand week!!!!"

We got to skype him today!! But I'll talk about that in my post for his letter this coming week :)