Elder Turner McKay Richards: An Eventful Week! Monkeys in the Parking Lot! God's Window and Kruger National Park July 1, 2013

So this has been a pretty eventful week. I guess. Haha!

So Tuesday the AP's were here. But fortunately they didn't come the KaNyamazane! They both stayed in Nelspruit. That was nice. Anyway. Then Wednesday, Elder Brackett came here to do our baptismal interviews. We had Nunu and Elvis. They both went well. So Nunu is living with her Great Aunt, Sister Thalita. She is a member. Anyway. There was some drama there at first because it was Nunu and a girl named Hlengiwe living there. Hlengiwe was trouble. Anyway. Sister Thalita kicked Hlengiwe out. Which was good in the end. Because now she can't influence Nunu to do things. Nunu never did anything bad, but we were afraid that eventually something might happen. Anyway. Nunu was baptised! It was great! Elvis's Gogo (grandma) is a member. She really wanted Elvis to be baptised. It was hard to try and get everything going with him. He wasn't too serious. But we stuck with it, and things turned out great. He ended up getting baptised as well! So Nunu is 15 and Elvis is 20.

Some other interesting news. Elder Brackett wasn't feeling too well, so at the beginning of the day we were at the flat for a bit. I looked out across the parking lot and saw something running on all fours. I thought to myself, "Why is there a dog here?" Then as it got closer, it was a monkey! It was huge! It was so weird to see! Haha! I guess that's what happens when you live in Africa!

So I mentioned that Elder Brackett wasn't feeling too well. Yeah. Well it was some stomach stuff. He ended up passing it to me. I was pretty sick on Friday. Of course they day the Zone Leaders were here. Anyway. My stomach hurt so bad. But at district meeting Sister Hunt gave me a little shopping list of things to go buy to help me feel better! haha! It worked pretty well. I feel good now. So that's always a good thing!

Zone Leaders. They came on Friday. They brought a whole bunch of stuff for us. But nothing from home :( But we did get a bunch of stuff that we ordered from the mission office for our flat. Mpumalanga, the province I am in, is pretty warm all year round, but our flat is freezing at night, so we got two new heaters. Because there is no insulation in any building here, and there is no built in air conditioning like anywhere. So in the summer we use fans, in the winter we use space heaters. We also got some pots and pans, dish cloths, other little random things. So that was nice.

It was good to be with the Zone Leaders. We were with Elder Martin this time. He is in Elder Wilkinson's group. Anyway. He is from Switzerland. He is super nice. Good to be with him and teach with him. Some times it is hard to teach with African elders, because our minds think differently. That has been mentioned by many missionaries, and I have found it very true. Anyway. It is nice to teach with someone every once in a while that has similar thinking patterns to your own. He also gave us some info about how things are going in the Zone. I guess since I got to this area, we have been leading the Zone every week in lessons and baptisms, and everything else. That's always motivating!

Sunday we had our baptisms. They went great. Nunu asked Peace, one of the young men that goes teaching with us a lot, to baptise her. It was his first time. He forgot to say "amen" so he had to do it over again, but it was still great. Then Elvis asked me to baptise him. So I did. It went well.

Monday was great. This will explain why I am emailing on Tuesday and not Monday.

So, like you said, Elder Brackett mentioned going to God's Window. We went as well. It was SO pretty! I have a ton of pictures. But we are at an email shop in KaNyamazane, not the Hunt's flat, so I don't feel safe putting my SD card in here! So I will send them soon! But anyway. We also went to five different waterfalls. They were SO pretty! I got to do some brief trail running. Man I miss it so much! There would have been some great runs, but no one else really wanted to. And here is a unique fact. We went to this one fall that I made Elder Brackett run with me. I guess you can't really be alone on that trail or you will get attacked by babboons. Pretty insane. Something I would have never thought I would be worried about in my life! haha! But the falls were all super pretty! You would have loved God's Window and all of the falls! They are all in or around this town called Sabie. Reminded me of like a Moab. They also had people selling African souveners. Of course we had to buy some. I got some SWEET stuff. I'll send pictures. Because I can't wait to get home for you guys to see all of it! Haha!

Let's see. What else. Well we left for the falls early in the morning and then got back super late. So no time to email. We also got our bakkie (truck) fixed. The clutch burnt out. Elder Rako won't admit that is was from his driving. But he is the only one that drives it. So it has to be from him. And it can't really be because the bakkie is old because there was a new clutch put in six months ago. Anyway. I will probably do more driving from now on.

Anyway. We had to sleep at Nelspruit's flat Monday night. And then we picked up the bakkie in the morning and I went and got my hair cut. The lady knew I was a missionary. Basically just unloaded like her whole life story on me. And kind of just kept cutting and cutting away at my hair. Now it is WAY shorter than I wanted. UGH. And you all know how particular I am about my hair. But I just keep telling myself that it will grow!

So tonight we are driving back and sleeping at Nelspruit's flat again. Because we are going to meet President and Sister Dunn on Wednesday and we have to leave early in the morning to get there on time. And because everyone lives in KaNyamazane and works in Nelspruit, traffic is SUPER bad to get there in the morning. So we are just gonna go tonight to avoid the traffic. But I am excited to meet the new President. Hopefully we will be able to stop at the mission office and see if I can figure out what has happened to everything! Love you all,enjoy the pictures of God's Window and Kruger National Park!