It's Summer!

Hey!!! Sooooo yea it is summer! How was Thanksgiving?? I miss it :( The way I explain it to the Africans here is it is a holiday we sit down as a family and eat a lot of food and say what we are thankful for :P hahaha did I do a good job?

So, I am in Umlazi which is a flippin big township. There are 8 elders that live next to each other and we all work in Umlazi. It is pretty cool.

So, Umlazi is a township that is packed full of people and it looks like it is in the middle of a jungle; ma it kind of looks like the Okinawa jungle, but African.

My companion is Elder Chathyoka and he is from a country called Malawi. He is cool. He jokes a lot and we get along just fine. He is a great teacher. And he tells a LOT of stories which is fun. I serve in sections A,B,C,D,V,E,S, and I think...part of W too. (The Township of Umlazi is divided by Umlazi A, Umlazi B, etc.).

My comp has been out for almost nine and I am almost five. We are probably one of the youngest on mission together. So I left my area with a lot of people getting baptized within the next 6 weeks. I am very very very sad I don't get to see them all the way to their becoming a member of Gods Kingdom. I will miss that. BUT the area I am in is a great opportunity for me to polish up my talking with new people abilities cause we tract...every day. There is no one here that is prepared for baptism soon...We have A LOT of work to do. We were tracting in a bunch of shacks the other day, and the people there don't see Caucasians very much and they only speak Zulu. My comp speaks IsiZulu alright and can communicate but not too well.

We ran into a gogo that told us she wanted to stop drinking and smoking. She told us as she was smoking and grabbing a beer. I told her to put the cigarette out and put the beer away and I told her she must pray and also act by not buying them and throwing them out of her life and that it would be hard but with us and mostly God to help her she could do it....I had to explain it all in Zulu to her as well haha. Unfortunately, she just picked up her beer and drank anyways saying she would continue to pray haha.

So the members here are cool and they are strong in their testimonies.

I am learning this new area. We spent today walking around the huge city of Durban. I love South Africa. Oh and your Christmas presents should get there in March....hahahaha but really, I'm too poor to send it by air :P I love you all! Have a good week! I miss you.

Love,

Elder Petrie