Sawubona from South Africa!

We have had a very busy week. We got 32 new missionaries in on Thursday and on Friday the head of the International MTC's came to visit for a few days. The timing wasn't the best for him to come, but he helped us all so much! We learned a lot of things that we need to change and do a little differently. This is a huge group for this MTC. We are pretty crowded in our main meeting room and the dining room. They are making plans to extend this place, but it will probably not happen while we are here.

Many of these missionaries are the only members in their family and since joining the Church have been ridiculed, put down, lost their friends, called young devils, and satanists, but they have remained strong through it all. They know by the power of the Holy Ghost that this is the true Church. They are so grateful for the Atonement of the Savior and for the faith and courage of Joseph Smith and they know that President Monson is a living Prophet today. Their testimonies are strong and sincere and they want very much to share the truth with others.

Missionaries are being trained a little differently now. The focus is on teaching people and not lessons. They are to find out the needs of people and teach to those needs whatever they are. We pretend to be their investigators to let them practice finding out our needs and then we bring in people from the community on two different Fridays who pretend to be investigators. This helps them a lot.

We are learning a lot of new words here in Africa. There is a heavy influence of English and Dutch here. They say biscuit for cookie, fringe for bangs, flat for apartment, robots for traffic lights, plaster for bandaid, torch for flashlight, boot for trunk, braai for barbeque, and instead of to rent they say to let.

We are having a great experience and hope at some point to be able to get out and see a bit more of the area.

After looking at the animals, click on "March" on the right hand side of this blog and you will see other new pics under the animals.