The Power of Prayer

 Hello everyone! This week's email will be a ride, good and bad. It's going to be a super long one, so sorry about that. Also join the photos for a virtual African safari! Anyways, I'll just get straight into it.

Monday: Last pday we played a lot of sports and I learned that I'm still awful at pickleball. Elder Edwards had a football though, so we were able to mess around with that a lot. Not much else happened outside of that.

Tuesday: Just another regular pros day. Canceled appointments, lots of contacts, and no new friends.

Wednesday: Another regular pros day. Same story as Tuesday. 

Thursday: Now this day was wild. It started off slow, but quickly picked up. We went to visit a friend we're trying to progress and she wasn't home. As we left to head to another friend for the same thing, we were attacked with the first round of rain. An absolute downpour. Now I said the first round, because as we reached the second friend, the rain began again. Only this time, the hail joined in. The ground was white with ice and the rain was coming down in sheets for a solid 15 minutes. Once it was over, we left her house and went to go help the biking elders in our district. We passed by and through countless brand new rivers the rain had created. After we took their bikes and dropped them off at the chapel. We went back to pick them up after the lesson we left them at, but the truck got stuck in the mud. I got out and let Elder Gutierrez work the gas while I pushed it out of the small trap. We continued on our way but ended up stuck again. This time the mud was too deep for me to push out alone. The other 4 elders in our district showed up and we spent the next hour and a half pushing it out of the mud, while the rain continued on. Best day of the week!!

Friday: Interviews with President!! We had our interviews in the morning, and they went super late so we got to the area around 4:30. We contacted a few people and headed straight back. I used the time to make my first batch of my own recipe of cookies! Everyone loved them, including President.

Saturday: Another normal day of pros, kinda boring after the two days before. Me and Elder Gutierrez had three lessons canceled in a row, and so did another compship in our district. We decided to pick up some ice cream for consolation.

Sunday: District Conference! It was amazing, beautiful and powerful talks. Before that, though, we had to go to the area to pick up the piano. After it was all loaded up we went straight to Tzaneen, the town we stay in, to the building we were using for conference. After that was finished, we had to take the piano back. All fine, no worries, right? Wrong, there was a protest blocking the road to the area so we had to find another way. After adding an extra 30 minutes, we finally dropped it off and went the same way back home because it was too dangerous to stay. After that we switched around the flats of our zone so people who were going to Kruger the next day could sleep together and those who weren't can do the same.

Since this email is real late, ill go ahead and include the events of today.

Monday: Kruger National Park! It was absolutely stunning and amazing to see the African wildlife!! Everything you can imagine about African animals I saw, except for lions . We went from 6am to 4pm without seeing a single big cat, and I was so upset. Being my favorite wild animal, I felt like my day was wasted. We left the park with no luck. But then, miraculously, OUTSIDE of the park boundary, we saw not one, not two, not three, but FOUR lions. The best part is that the three lioness' were feeding on a cape buffalo they had hunted, while the male was laying on the ground slumped, stuffed, and content. He was just laying in the road, too!! We hung out for an extra 20 minutes to get some videos and pics, before leaving. It was an amazing experience!!

Spiritual Thought: I'm finally addressing the title of this email. The power of prayer is an amazing thing! My testimony of this gift has grown exponentially after this week. The first major instances were on Thursday, our rain day. While we were stuck at the second sister's home, and the hail and rain were bearing down on us, I said a small prayer for the hail to stop, and IMMEDIATELY after I said "in the name of Jesus Christ", even before amen, the hail VANISHED!! after a few more minutes of extremely heavy rain, I said another small prayer, having a renewed faith of that power. This one was for the rain to slow down enough for us to leave, and the same exact thing happened. The rain nearly completely stopped. Amazing! The third and final instance was today, at Kruger. Everyone in our car had been praying all day to see lions. And we also all joked that it would be cool to see them attack or feed. After leaving the park we were all discouraged until we caught sight of the four feeding. It was an incredible tender mercy. Prayer is so powerful. Our Heavenly Father hears each and every one of us. He knows how He can make things happen for us. He knows what we need. We just need to take the steps to get the ball rolling.

Until next time!

Elder King