Elder Kaden Smith: December 12, 2016

Hello Everyone!

This week has been a crazy, hectic, sad happy, all around week.

Monday we got Elder Zongoro ready to head to George and Tuesday we left early in the morning and drove down to East London. In East London it was really fun to see some of the Elders I served with in the MTC like Elder Kruse, Kraftner, Heald, Ondracek, and Larson. It's fun to see how much we've all grown although I'm quite jealous they get to serve by the coast haha.

East London is so beautiful and I hope I get to serve there someday. We visited with most of the elders to the Delport family for dinner. The Delports are a powerful recent convert coloured family. They are the young mens and young womens presidents now and they are hoping sometime in the future to take their family to SLC to be sealed for time and eternity.

I also had the wonderful opportunity to meet Sister Peggy, an the most loving and spry 93 year old Afrikaner that can still drive haha. Apparently she has been feeding the missionaries for over 65 years and the East London elders recently calculated she's fed missionaries over 12,000 times in her life and she's still planning on many more years as she will be celebrating her 94th birthday in April I believe. I hope I can feed the missionaries like her someday because it truly helps us out sooooo much.

Wednesday morning I got up at 4:30 :p and dropped off Elder Zongoro at EL airport and Elder Heald was my temporary companion haha. Neither of us know EL well because he serves in Mdansane so we got lost and took ourselves on a wonderful driving tour of East London.

We eventually got back to Amalinda chapel and I waited for Elder Thulari to arrive with the Zone Leaders. 7:45my my new mother arrived! Elder Thulari!!! He's the coolest elder ever and I know already I'm really going to miss him when I leave Mthatha. He's 21 months on mission so he's going to "die" in Mthatha the transfer after I leave Mthatha. We already have a very very strong companionship and our teaching is great together. We have a lot of good laughs and we're enjoying the work.

We had one heck of a storm and we saw a cool funnel cloud but unfortunately it didn't touch down, that would've been interesting haha. The lightning was crazy though. I've never seen more lightning strike buildings in front of us as I have here in Mthatha, it's insane!

We've been blessed with a lot of new investigators and more that are progressing so hopefully in a few weeks we'll have some more people join the flock of the Lord! We were able to confirm Mama and Lisakhanya Mayeki yesterday and they received the gift of the Holy Ghost! It's wonderful to see the joy already that the gospel has brought into their lives. I hope they continue strong and continue strengthening their testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Continue keeping our investigators in your prayers. As they progress they see more of the light of Jesus Christ in their lives. As the December initiative of the church is #LightTheWorld, it is important that we share our light, so that others lives may have that light begin in them. Christmas is about Jesus Christ, the greatest gift to the world. Jesus is the light of the world, and as his followers, we have that light. As we share our light, others will be brought to Jesus Christ, and the world will be brighter this Christmas season.

My testimony of the Plan of Salvation has been put to the test on mission, with my great grandfather passing in October, I found out today his wife, my great grandmother passed away on the 6th. I'm sad I won't be able to see her again in this life but her legacy lives on and I'm reassured my the Plan of Salvation I'll see her in the next life. A quote of hers that I've been thinking about on mission lately is, "Do your duty, do your best, and leave unto the Lord the rest!" As we do our part and serve the Lord with the best of our abilities, no matter our calling or status, the Lord will help strengthen our weaknesses and great things will come to pass. The Lord's promise in Isaiah 41:10 and 13 has helped reassure me the past few weeks the Lord will help us as we turn to Him. We have nothing to fear. Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us, and want the best for us. All we have to do is do our part, and strive our best to be who we are- followers of Jesus Christ, and the Lord will provide a way.

Until Next Week

Elder Smith