Friday, August 22, 2014

Turner describes Kruger and the Big 5

So good to hear from you! I loved hearing about your fourth of July weekend! I hope you had fun, especially since it is you birthday! Dad's email painted the perfect picture of Rachel freaking out about the whole fish thing! I also liked you you described it. "Fish were dying, kids crying"! So funny! I am glad that your sisters/grandma/tt did a dinner for you. I love TT. It is great writing her. I love writing her in fact. 

Anyway. We didn't see any animals while we were at God's Window or at any of the falls. But I did get to see plenty of animals yesterday! We got to go to Kruger! The thing I have been looking forward to since I got here! Not many missionaries get to go, but I am lucky enough to be in this area, so I get to go! Plenty of Elders are jealous! But it was amazing! So Elder Brackett's companion and Elder Rako have both been to Kruger before, so they stayed together for P-day, and Elder Brackett and I got to go with Elder Hunt and a kid named Sanele from our branch. Anyway. For those that don't know. Kruger is a Big Five game reserve (Big five is the five animals that I don't know are famous here? But they are lion, elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, and leopard). The Hunts paid for us, and provided all of the food. They also drove us. Anyway. It was SUPER cool. Kruger is a giant game reserve that a ton of animals just live on. So they are in their natural habitat. And then there are a couple paved roads through it, mostly just dirt roads though. Anyway. You drive around, playing the ultimate game of I-Spy. We saw all of the big five except for a leopard. It was AMAZING! I took tons of pictures. But they are all on Brackett's camera. So his mom is going to send them to you. My pictures from God's Window are also on his camera. I have found out that my camera really doesn't work very well. But Brackett has a nice camera, and we took some sweet pictures! It was cool though. We almost got charged by an elephant! Pretty crazy! They are HUGE. And it makes it crazier that they are like five feet away from you car at times! But we saw tons of animals. Like I said, Lions, cape buffalo, rhinos, elephant, giraffes, crocodile, some odd spotted dog things, hippos, vultures, and tons of other stuff. But it was SO cool! Once in a life time chance!

Anyway. The rest of this week was good. Nothing too crazy. Well I guess we did meet the mission president! We left Wednesday morning and drove so we could get to the mission home by twelve thirty. They had a little presentation planned. It was good. Then we left. We didn't get to stay the night this time. Which stunk. So we ended up driving the four and a half hours, both ways, in one day. Making it a total of about nine hours in the car. Tiring. And sick of riding in a car. The new president and his wife are really nice though. Odd to think that they have seen you more recently than I have! Haha! But they should be great. It will be a little odd getting to know them. Especially since I just got to know the Omers. But it will be good. 

Sunday we had our confirmations. They went well. Elder Rako confirmed Elvis and our branch president, President Banda confirmed Nunu. Pres. Banda didn't mess up this time. So that was good! He is very new to the whole branch president thing. And doesn't understand everything perfectly yet. But it is getting better!

I haven't really told you much about investigators. So I will now. We are teaching Cynthia (whose African name is Nomakogo). She is the sister of Mandela, who got baptized June first. She came to the baptism and then decided she wanted to join. She is seventeen. And smart. Anyway. We are teaching a seventeen year old named Thobekani. He is friends with a kid in our branch who's name is Sibusiso. Anyway. Thobekani is a smart kid as well. Really likes the church. Cynthia and Thobekani are both on date to be baptized on the twenty seventh of this month. They are both super excited. 

We are also teaching a group of guys. Goodwill, Phuti, and Allen. They are all friends with a member named Big Boy (yes Big Boy is his real name). Anyway. Big Boy smokes. And so do all of his friends. He teaches them about the church. But doesn't follow the Word of Wisdom himself. So they all smoke as well. And let me tell you. Have you ever tried teaching the gospel to someone that is high? Cause I have. Yeah, it doesn't work very well. But we are being patient, or at least trying to. And hoping that they will all quit. Goodwill has been doing really good lately. Let's hope it stays that way.

Anyway. This past week was good. I hope this next week will go well. I hope all is going well at home. Sounds like some fun things have been happening. I love you so much and miss you like crazy. I love you!

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