Missionaries had real bear in their flat...?

Howdy ya'll! Merry Christmas to all of you!

I apologize in advance for the super beefy email. I promise that it will be worth the read!

Also sorry for not sending an email last week, it was a very very hectic pday. For that reason, I'll justs sum up the whole week with a spiritual story.

Story: It was the end of our day, and we decided we wanted to call one more person to see if we could meet them. When our guy picked up the phone, he told us that he was a very busy man because he was one of the few guys that delivered water to people's tanks (there's next to no running water in the Tickyline village). We said we understand, but Elder Muller was inspired to ask for his license plate number so we could be on the lookout for his water truck so we could follow him to a jo to meet him there if we ever saw him. We said goodbywe and hung up the phone, joking that we'd see him eventually because there were only about 10 water trucks, period. Lo and behold, 5 seconds later, we saw our first water truck. We looked at the license plate and it was our man! We kept our word and followed him to his next job where we met him and helped him pump the water. What an amazing experience!

(We also had transfers and I'm staying in Tickyline!)

Now we can begin on this week.

Monday (last): This was our good friend Elder Weather's last pday in the Limpopo Zone! Due to this fact, Elder Muller and I invited him over to our flat and we did a nice workout together. Fun fact, I can do 416 pushups in 25 minutes! After this, we decided that we would hae another braai, because we Americans absolutely love to bbq! Elder Weathers and Elder Redondo left to go get some braai meat while me and Elder Muller prepared the fire. Elder Muller set our meat in a marinade while I tended to the fire to make sure it was hot enough for the braai. Once the other guys came back, we set our meat on the rack and let it cook. It was by far the best braai we've had so far!

Tuesday: Tuesday was a pretty normal day. Graca had her baptismal interview and she passed! We were so excited for her and she was so happy! She also trusted us to watch her three year old son and he absolutely loves us. He loves to play with us and he's very comfortable with us. Nothing super special happened after that. A couple of our appointments fell through so we contacted and called alot of people. We also had to take our friends Molefe and Rachel off date because they go to way too many funerals in December so they would never come to church. RIP.

Wednesday: A slightly worse day, most of our appoitments fell through, but we were still very satisfied with what we were able to manage. We continued to call more people to try to get appointments but it was in vain. Otherwise, we were happy with how tired we were at the end of the day.

Thursday: This was an amzing day! All but one of our appointments happened and we met a couple promising people. This is also the day that the title of this email comes in. For some context, Thursday was transfer day. This meant that our DL, still Elder Rami, went to Pretoria to pick up two greenies, or brand new, fresh out the box missionaries. One of them is from Washington state, and the other one is from Madagascar, so he doesn't know much english. Anyways, me and Elder Mller had the great idea for a prank. It was mostly Elder Muller's idea, so he asked this crazy question to our branch president. Elder Muller asked this guy for two full, brand new bottles of beer and two empty bottles. Once he explained, the idea for the prank, Pres Monyepao was dow to help us and sent his son to a tuck shop to get some beer. After we got it, we went home and prepared for the prank. We slid the two full bottles into the fridge, and washed out the two empty ones. We filled the empty ones with cool drink that looked similar to beer so Elder Muller could drink from it to pretend to be drunk. Elder Rami was busy telling the greenies that they had a media referral to visit before they went home, and so he brought these two untrained, fresh from the MTC missionaries to our flat. Elder Muller was in the bedroom, pretending to sleep and I had one of the cool drink bottles in front of me on the table to solidify the prank, hiding my true identity as a missionary. After about 10 minutes of me drilling this American greenie with absolutely bizarre questions about the church, Elder Muller came out and messed with them as an extremely drunk man who just woke up from a nap. A few things happened, and Elder Muller offered them the sealed bottles of real beer as a gift for entering our home. The greenie denied and that "pissed off" Elder Muller, so he chased the greenies and Elder Rami out with a bat. They were so scared until we went to their flat with our nametags on to reveal it was a prank! They reacted so well when they found out and there are no hard feelings. We're considering another prank on Friday this week, so stay tuned...

Friday: A super chill day, we had DCM so we were able to hangout with the greenies again and talk about the prank. Lot's of fun and then the rest of the day were lessons and talking about a hike on Monday. I also started to make a ton of cupcakes for a wedding the next day. Chill and effective day.

Saturday: This day was a bit more hectic than originally planned. In the morning I got up so I could frost the cupcakes. I discovered that we had a small maggot problem in our trash can, so I immediatley took care of that then I made the frosting. When I pulled the cupcakes out to frost, I realized that all of them save it be six were all sunken in and not baked all the way through, despite the top of the cupcake being burned. I ended up having to throw all of the cupcakes away besides the six that worked, and I had to buy cake instead because the Monyepaos, who were having the wedding ,were counting on me to provide the treats. After that, we went to contact the people that we needed to organize and finalize Sister Graca's baptism the next day. That all worked out, and so we went to fill up the font at the chapel, when the running water stopped and the power went out. We then decieded that we just needed to get to the chapel extra early the next day to finish filling the font and prepare the whole day. Then the nighttime came...

Sunday/Spiritual Thought: I'm combining the two here because the spiritual thought of the week is a part of this story. Anyways, on Sunday morning, me and Elder Muller woke to the sound of pouring rain outside. If you've remembered past emails, rain is never a good sign for church attendance, especially Sister Graca's. Since she lives a 20 minute drive from the chapel, we had organized someone to give her a ride on Sunday, and every Sunday so that she could make it to church. The usual family who did went out of town this weekend, so we had to ask the first counselor in the branch presidency. He said he would do it on Saturday, but on Sunday we called him in the morning to ocnfirm he would still give her a ride, but his car was sunken into the mud outside his house, and he was stuck. He was now unavailable. It was a no go. We called another member with a bakkie, but he said the water outside his gate was too deep for him to pass through, so his family was not going to church. No dice. Then we remembered that we had the chapel keys, since we needed to go early for the font. We then called President Monyepao and told him that we would prepare the sacrament if he would be willing to drive 20 minutes both ways to pick up this one sister. He said he would. Awesome! But then we got a call from Sister Graca herself. She told us that it was way too muddy to walk to the main road to be picked up and she said she probably won't be able to make it to church without falling in the mud. On the call, after she said this concern, I felt inspired to promise her that the Lord would dry the walking path for her because of the event that would be taking place for her at church. She said that she would make the trek, and we left to prepare the chapel. After all that happened, Sister Graca made it to church and is now a baptized member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!! I had the opportunity to baptize her and afterwards asked if the road was dry on the walk. She said that it was but very tight. She also told me that she said many prayers of thanks unto God while walking that narrow path! What a miraculous and marvelous demonstration of the power of God! He knows the intentions of our hearts and will help us in any way He can when we are taking the right steps to follow His son, Jesus Christ! Oh, how much He loves us!

The rest of the day was just visiting those who couldn't come to church after the rain died down, and also us giving a blessing to a sister who was sick! What an amazingly fantastic day!!

I once again apologize for the extremely long email, but if you managed to make it this far, I really hope to hear back from all of you! I love reading the emails that I already get, but I would love even more!

Much love, and Merry Christmas!

Remember the reason for the season.

Elder King