Families

This post has gotten pushed to the side a little throughout the week because of soccer, moving into the dorms and whatnot. So I'm just barely getting around to it and it's almost Monday again!

He had a way cool experience on P-day last week where he got to pet some African animals! There was a lion, cheetah, black panther, and another animal that he couldn't remember the name of. These pictures are so cool!!

baby cheetah!! Can't decide who is cuter.. ;)

black panther

wolf

lion!

cheetah!

he wanted a hug haha

That awesome day they had turned into a long night. Elder Jena, his companion, has been sick for a few weeks now and started to get some sharp pains in his chest. They went to the hospital and it wasn't as much help as you would like, they spent over an hour waiting for a doctor. They left there by 2AM after an IV and some medication and the doctor just said its probably worms from the water. Mikel said he didn't like the water.. good call!

eating pap at a member's house

his planner :)

nasty spider!

I told him about my dad giving me a blessing before I moved out, and he said some really sweet things about my dad. He looks up to him and how he holds the priesthood and respects the Lord and the Spirit. That was cute to read :) In church that week he said they focused a lot on families, and I really liked what he wrote: "I love the respect the teach that you should have for your spouse and I love the way they teach about raising families, Elder Jena always says to fams we are teaching that "A family that prays together, stays together." Its so true and all sunday I was just thinking about how great Im going to strive to treat you as my wife, and how much Im going to love our kids and how much I look forward to family study and prayer it is just ah I cant wait. I just love how family oriented this gospel is. A quote I heard by Elder Bednar in the MTC was "Salvation is Individual, Exaltation is a family matter." Another thing in church while learning about families and raising kids and what not, I really liked that in the book we were reading from it said to council and rely on the lord, pray often as a couple for guidance. as parents you can receive revelation for your children and that made me so excited as well."

little rodeo he said reminded him of me

cool stone lion at a house

He said he's been missing home a lot this last week, which makes him easy to frustrate and upset. He misses his mom and is really sad that my letters haven't gotten to him yet :( I'm really sad about that too, because I've sent like 5 and none of them have gotten there. So I hope they get there soon. 

Almost two months down! I've really been struggling lately, but without the bad days how could we have the good?

"I cant eat oranges anymore without thinking of you haha, even just the color orange because its your favorite color. I started the otherday to Mark any scripture that makes me think of you in orange :) I really like it and it helps comfort me :) I left my scriptures but ill have you tell you what I highlite. Also chap stick You know how I dont really use it that often but I pulled it out the other day and Its the same one from my car and now whenever I put it on I just think of you and how whenever you got in my car you would always put it on, or if you had some you would re apply frequently and if it was flavoured I would find out what it taste like haha. Pretty much everything makes me think of you, smile and reminisce.

So I talk about you alot of course. Me and Elder jena were at a members house who just got engage and we were talking and the women said that we didnt know about love and we were all like eh! what do you mean! Jena told me that he actually prayed that we would stay together and get married because he said a dear john would destroy me because I talk about you so much haha so I was like sweet I got another person praying for us to be together haha. 

while on our way home from some service saturday morning we saw some people getting on horses and decided to go and check it out. It turned out to be like some horse event where they ride the horses through poles and what not, it was actually quite boring but it made me think of you. Seeing all the cowgirls and what not just made me think of us listening to country music and how you made me fall in love with country.

Driving manual is ruff, Im a pro at driving it, its super easy now and feels normal, its ruff for two reasons. one because I think of the times when we would hold hands and shift together or I would shift for you and just having fun and laughing. and two because I cant eat food while driving which really bust my buffers haha. we were driving at night and the stars were super pretty and it just made me think of our night drive in my dad buckie and we would just get blankeys and go up the mountain and cuddle and talk and look at the starts. Every time we did that I just would re fall in love with you so hard!

with faith the size of a mustard seed you can move mountains, I have faith that we will be together again and forever and I know that with a little bit of faith all things are possible. I love you babe from my toes to my nose and Im always with you in prayer giving you strength in comfort.

Always in love with you

Elder North"

Delay What You Want

Elder North is doing well! :) He sounds happy, busy and enjoying the work. There are a lot of awesome stories he told this week so I hope I'll remember to put them all in!

Money one of the members asked him to put in the bank for her.

Apparently it's cold in the morning there! I made that blanket for him :)

I asked about the soccer games there and what they are like, and he said that they're awesome because every game feels like a state championship! There are a lot of people there supporting and cheering. They aren't as skilled as they are here but every now and then you'll see a good team that can move the ball well. He and his companion are looking to actually try and join a local team just to play and use it as a teaching opportunity!

In his letter home I loved what he said about the atonement. They were talking to a less active girl named Liberty and trying to get her to come back to church, and I'm just going to copy and paste exactly what he said: "while talking with her I started on my testimony of the Atonement, which if you have any Idea of what I know to be true about this gospel it is I know the Atonement to be true. Our Savior, Our Elder Brother sacrifice his life for you, I don’t say us because the act wasn’t for us it was and act for you as an individual, He saw your face, He heard your name and then he felt every heart ache, every tear drop, every pain, every lonely thought, every ounce of shame guilt and humility, he felt it all, not for US but for YOU, He love you and because Jesus did this for YOU He knows how to help you, when you are sad, down, discourage, depressed, alone, afraid, and every ill-conceived thought enters your mind He can lift you up, brush you off, and help you to be okay because He has been there He has done that, for YOU because HE LOVES YOU! I know that Christ suffered for YOU so that he could help you. Trust in Him, rely in Him, He will bring you up and higher than you thought ever possible!" It was so powerful to me to read that! It's amazing to see the difference in his testimony and to see his love for it grow every week.

They had some car troubles this week so they've been biking now. They said it would take two to three days but it had been 5 by Monday, so they had a sore butt by then haha. It was right when he was getting good at driving a manual too!

Isn't he the cutest ever? <3

Elder Jena taking some selfies!

They found some dirt hills the other day and decided it would be fun to ride they bikes on them because well, they are boys. Towards the end Elder Jena almost crashed right into him but barely missed which made him fly into a ton of bricks, do a flip and land straight on his shoulder. He thought for sure that he had shattered his shoulder but there was a random pillow right where he landed. Blessings come in interesting ways!

Around Kimberly

The title of this came from a quote he shared with me that said "Delay what you want for what you need." It came from a story about a girl who went through the long process of becoming a doctor, when asked how she did it she said I had to learn to delay what I wanted for what I needed. I liked what he said about it: "This hit me strongly as I realized this is why I’m on mission. I delayed what I wanted which was to be with you, my friends and family, to go to school, to have fun back home because what I need to to become the man the Lord need me to be, to become his servant to lead and spread his word, to become a more loving person, to become a capable father and husband that, become what you need, to honor my mother and father, my priesthood and just to learn and grow to be all I can be. I think you can apply this to your life. Delay what you want for what you need and you will see the blessing in your life, they may not be instant but they are bound. As the scriptures say, I the Lord am bound when ye do, but when ye do not ye have no promise. (something like that)." Sometimes what we want isn't what we need, and it was a good reminder to hear that from him!

I got some cute letters from him this week!! It came at the exact time I needed it with exactly what I needed to hear. It's crazy that something he wrote weeks ago can still be so applicable to the moment I got it. I loved how he said that he tells people about me and shows them the picture of me he has in his wallet. :) Man I miss him.

Cool little cards from the temple. I loved the quote on the smaller one, and on the back of that he said: "We're going here someday!"

"everything still reminds me of you which is good because i dont want to go a second without remembering US. :)

I miss you and Love you babe Im out of time because I need to write home still haha just remember that things will be even better than they were, we will both have grown so much and become what eachother need and things will be even better but its hard now.

I almost forgot, we had an awesome mutual and I taught the kids how to play four square which made me think of you and how much of a champ you were, it made me miss you and our friends and playing four square. Our late nights playing nine square and just how much fun we had so that was ruff but still fun :)

Love you always and for eternity, we are going there someday!

Elder Mookie"

Honor the Priesthood

What a week! Life has been crazy, stressful and emotional lately and I'm so grateful for Mondays because I get to hear from my cute boy.

Soccer Match!

Nelson Mandela sign

His email to me this week was full of reminiscing on our adventures and memories, and one of my favorite things he said was "memories are the molecules of eternity." That was a really cool thought to me, I'm not sure why. I'm grateful for the memories I have with him because I love looking back at how much we've grown in the last year and a half together, and I'm excited to see how much more we'll grow the next 2.

"I was really missing you"

Some strange shrubbery there...

In his letter home he talked about how a mission is like a rollercoaster, there are so many ups and downs. He taught a few members in shanties (small huts) where the whole house was smaller than his room at home, and he said that was such a humbling experience. We are so blessed with what we have! He said they are some of the nicest, most caring and giving people you will ever meet. It would be cool to go back with him someday to meet those people. The sacrifices that the members make there are amazing. Some of them have to walk miles to get to church, have 6 families to home teach and callings on top of that but are always giving and loving with open arms. Those people are the kind of person I hope to be like.

He is learning how to greet in Tswana and Zulu, and greeting in Afrikaans is just like English. He said that the most common languages in Kimberly are Tswana and Afrikaans, but he likes Zulu the best. (Before he left, he was so excited that he might get to learn Zulu because it has clicks in it, so that might be why:)

A flamingo lake!

A youth named Bux that likes to work with the Elders.

He had me read an article by Richard G Scott called "Honor the Priesthood and Use It Well!" and then I loved what he said in his letter home about the priesthood: "I’ve learned a lot about honoring the priesthood which I hold. I had the opportunity to give three blessings this week, two of comfort for an audition and one for healing. It’s cool being a missionary because people come to you with their problems and seek comfort from you. I have always like being someone people can go to for help and now they do and I love being able to help in whatever way possible." I'm so grateful that he is a worthy priesthood holder who truly uses it well. 

He also had me read Doctrine and Covenants 6, and that was a direct answer to my prayers. One of my favorite parts was verses 22-23: "22: Verily, verily, I say unto you, if you desire a further witness, cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know the truth of these things. 23: Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?" I was really struggling and missing him last night and the part where it says "cast your mind upon the night you cried unto me in your heart" was like it just read my mind, because I spend every night just pouring my heart out to Heavenly Father about him and I have received a witness and peace in my mind that he is doing the right thing! So much good is going to come out of this.

I found so much comfort this week in his email to me. I talked to him about what I'm wanting to major in and if I should do a double major or not, how scared I really am to move out and other things going on in my life. And it gave me so much peace to know that he's still my best friend and I really can talk to him about anything and everything still, even when he's thousands of miles away and might take a week or so to respond. :) I'm also grateful for the comfort that I find in the prayers I have had answered through him each week. I love the gospel and I love him and I'm so excited for what the future has in store.

"It amazes me that most the things I wanted to say to you, you said. Like going to the temple is one of the things I miss most becasue there was something about you there that I just cant explain, You talked about preparing to be married for eternity and that was a huge thing on my mind the past couple days. I wrote you a letter that ill send today that talks about this but I was reading my patriarchal blessing and it helped comfort me so much in knowing why im here and what im doing, and who im becoming. I know that I am here to become the Loving Husband you need, the caring father our future children will need and the strong priesthood leader the Lord needs me to be. You talked about all those things and its just so great to hear that we are both thinking of the same thing haha. I know that this time will be short in the aspect of eternity with you!!!

Ive had some good and bad days, I honestly can say leaving you has  been the hardest thing i have ever done in my life! but being out on mission is such an experience and man do you learn a lot! Im so excited to one day when we get old together to go serve a couples mission and have these memories together! I just think about how great mission will be with my best friend and love of my life with me!

With all my hear might mind and strength, I love you always

Elder Mookie"

One Month Down!

Okay wow, it's already been a month?! I can't even believe it! Time has flown. Only 23 more of those.. I can do that, right?

This weeks emails were my favorite ones so far. I love the mass email his mom sends out because I get more detail about his mission, but I love the personal email he sends me because they're so cute. I love hearing about the people he is contacting right now and the experiences he's having with his companion and the other elders living in his apartment.

He and his companion got a new car this week, which is a manual. My car is a manual and I tried to teach him before he left, but he said this new car is a lot easier than mine hahah. If you could have seen him trying to drive mine you would have died, it was so funny. They drive on the opposite side of the road than us there, so he's always accidentally driving on the wrong side. 

They get to play soccer at least once a week there and he's always the only white guy. The Zulu word for white boy is umlungu (oomloongu) which he says most of the kids only say, but he calls himself that. The way they play there is if you knock down the brick on the white line, you score! That sounds like a way harder way to play, but it sounds so fun.

They have mostly been doing less active work, because there aren't many members, which he says is hard because you feel like you aren't progressing with anyone. Right now they have been teaching a woman named Erikar, who is a member of another church but seems to be receptive to the message. They are also teaching a man named Dean who is Afrikaans and plays rugby. They followed up with him after teaching him the plan of salvation and it was really cool that Dean had a new outlook on life because of learning that. He had had a bad week, but it didn't seem as bad to him. Hopefully he continues to progress :)

The garden they work in on Saturdays for Mormon helping hands.

.... oh Mikel.

They like to put pictures on their planners.

What the keys look like there

Lemon tree they cut down for service

huuuuge lemons!

Trying to take a bit out of the very large lemon

Cutting down a lemon tree for service. When someone dies they put a huge tent over their yard so they had to cut down the tree for it to fit. A Gobo (grandma) died.

Elder Agyman eating pap.

They call this the food tower-the real name is the microwave tower. It's used for satellite tv and such.

They lock everything up there!

Woodpecker

They also call the township the Kasi.

He runs into a lot of people that he doesn't understand that speak languages such as Afrikaans, Tswana, Xhosa, Shona and another he couldn't think of. I can't imagine how hard that would be!

It's winter there right now, so sometimes he wears long sleeves and others short but it's not humid so it doesn't fluctuate much. He said the food is good but sometimes doesn't have a lot of taste and he doesn't know what he's eating haha. Church is different because it's so small!

I'm kind of sad because he hasn't gotten any of my letters yet :( But hopefully he will get one or two this week. He has gotten some from his mom, sister and grandma though so that makes me happy. He sounds like he's doing so well, and he's adjusting well too. I'm so thankful for email, I don't know what I would do if we could only send letters! 

It's crazy that it's only been a month and I feel that our relationship has grown stronger since then. Which you wouldn't think it would, being apart and all, but it really has. Everything reminds me of him and I'm sure all of my teammates are so sick of me talking about him all the time. I miss him more than I will every be able to say but I wouldn't want him to be anywhere else. This is so good for us, to learn to rely on the Lord and grow and become the people we're supposed to be. I love Mondays because I get to hear from my best friend! I love him and I know so much good is going to come out of this.

Just a small piece of his personal email to me:

wow oh my goodness do I love you! all these emotions are going through me and I have to try not to cry because my companion is right next to me haha. Every singe emotion you described i have been feeling the same way, its absolutly insane how hard it is not being with my best friend everyday, I talk about you all the time and Im sure Elder Jena is sick of it because it makes him home sick when i do haha (we call being home sick getting trunky)

But when you said you still feel like im always there that was another answer to my prayers, I pray to have you know that im always ther for you and when you said those exact same words I knew it was an answer. There is so much I wish i could say, I wish I could write you every day!!!! I love hearing all about your life and how you are doing. it is what I look forward to every week, knowing ill get to hear from you :) Living without your mom, i wont lie sucks. it really does and you will miss her so much but like you said, if you skip this part then you wont ever learn and i feel like that is another reason i am on my mission so that both of us can also learn to depend on the Lord instead of just depending on eachother, because eventually we will encounter something that neither one of us can handle and we will need the Lords help. so even though a lot of times i just want to come home and hold your hand look into your eyes and again and see you beautiful face and hear your voice I know that this in the long run will help us more. 

I was talking to sister duh who is a Zulu, she is a RM and has us over often and usually feeds us so that pretty cool because in Kimberly we dont get fed by members often because there arnt verry many haha :) anyways I was talking to her about my four month rule of no kissing and everyone just thought I was insane until I kept talking about our relationship and then they understood how great of a thing it was, for us to grow and learn to love each other and just ah that made me miss you so bad talking about how great you were and how much fun we would have and how much I love you. 

I think about us, and our future and how bright it will be,

God is good, all the time

Love

Elder Mookie