March 30, 2015

Well, what a week we had here. So last monday, after email, we went to a cultural show for swaziland. It reminds me a lot of the Polynesian Culture Center on a small scale. And it was really really awesome. They all dressed up in the traditional Swazi clothes and then did some different dances. Their dances are very centered on kicking. They kick their legs extremely high so I tried to get a couple of pictures of them kicking. Then they took us on a little tour of a classic swazi home and talked a little bit more about the culture. There is a mountain near the place that is called Execution Mountain because they used to throw people off it when they did something wrong. We were thinking that that had to have been a long time ago right? Nope, they just discontinued the practice in 1978! haha! Super crazy. But it was good to go there. Swazis love that they are swazis and they love their culture so it was good for us to see and appreciate the culture to help us understand and be able to serve the people better!

Tuesday, the McEwens left :( We were very sad. But President and Sister Kretly were here to take them to the airport so we also invited them over for dinner and we made them pizza on Tuesday night and then we had a little 20-30 minute talk and President taught us on the finer points of life ;) haha. It was really nice though. 

Wednesday, President called me and had me come over to the senior couples house, and now since they are gone, I get to do what they were doing before. So there is a member here that kinda works with me, but I am in charge of all the financial stuff for Swaziland now so I will pay the bills and do the monthly financial reports for Swaziland. I also have to take care of the senior couple house and make sure that it stays in good order and a few other new responsibilities. So, more work but it will all be good. I have had to learn quickly how to take care of the financial stuff. I still don't know everything though so hopefully tomorrow or sometime this week, I will be receiving a training from the financial secretaries on what I need to be doing exactly. 

Umm Friday, I went to Mbabane to do a division with Elder Oryang and discuss everything we want to do this transfer. So I had a really good time. He is good missionary and I am excited to be working with him! The only thing that is bad about Mbabane are the mountains. Here in Ezulwini we have the mountains too but we only have to go up them maybe once a day. But there, we are up and down them all day and it gets a little bit tiring. 

Then after that I caught a little flu and wasn't feeling too great so I ended up staying home. I went to church but I didn't work after that. I am still not feeling great but I think it is passing now. Being sick on the mission is no fun for sure! So that was our week!! 

Hopefully we will be moving to our new house tomorrow... but some stuff still needs to be worked out so we aren't exactly sure what will happen yet! But I hope you all have a great week!! I love you and miss you all!

Love,

Elder Lynn

March 23, 2015

Well I wanna thank everyone for all the birthday wishes. I didn't do too much for my birthday. Really the only thing that I did was we had the senior couple, the McEwens over for lunch because they are leaving tomorrow and we wanted to thank them for everything they have done for us. They really are some of the most Christlike people I have ever met. So we invited them over for our traditional sunday pizza and made them pizza and salad and then elder van leuven made me brownies for my birthday. It was quite the feast!! We made 6 pizzas! Maybe a little bit too much haha. The miracle of yesterday though was that we had 3 full families at church. That is a huge improvement considering we started from almost nothing at the beginning of the transfer! Our first sunday we only had 1 investigator at church. We had 8 people yesterday! That is nothing less than a miracle wrought by the hand of the Lord.

A funny story that happened this week. Well honestly we had a pretty rough week... We got rejected a lot and Satan's biggest lie that he is telling people is that all churches are the same. We all praise the same God and its just a matter of preference where you want to go. Ugh... Super frustrating. Well in a lesson when we were teaching a new family, they had already heard a bit about our church and the husband asked if Joseph Smith was the same guy that wrote the Book of Mormon and so we explained that he didn't write it but that he translated it from a language of old to english so that we could enjoy its teachings today and to show that he was a true prophet of God. And the wife answers "Oh i get it, Mormon is an old american language..."hahahahaha. Not quite. So we had to explain again that mormon isn't a language and that he was just one of the prophets hahaha. So amidst all the frustration of trying to help people see that churches aren't the same, there was that one funny experience haha. But really, we got told this week that our church and their church is exactly the same. Not one thing is different. The only difference is that we are from different religions.... and the person was serious!!! I couldn't quite wrap my mind around that one. 

But our week was good. This week we have plans for some new finding activities! We are excited and we hope that it works out well! I attached pictures of our lunch with the McEwens. 

I actually sang another duet yesterday at church. We sang, "this is my father's world". lets just say i hadn't been so nervous in such a long time. but it went really well. Today, we are going to go to a cultural show! So that should be fun! I am really excited! Ok two things really quickly.

I started a new Book of Mormon challenge to finish the B.O.M. before I come home... well i started it like 3 weeks ago. But in it, I highlight in different colors 1. every reference to christs name in any form 2.his words 3. his attributes and 4. the doctrines and principles taught by the Book of Mormon. I am just getting to the middle of 2 nephi and I have never learned so much!! Its incredible what you can learn by studying a little bit harder!!! I have learned so many new things in this that i never knew before!!! Its been awesome!

Also, we have a family that started the marriage process yesterday so their date is set for april 25th!!! we are excited! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!

Love,

Elder Lynn

March 16, 2015

Hello!

Well I'm sorry about the lack of email and information lately. I've been finishing up the college stuff but it should almost all be done now. I am trying my hardest to come up with some good stuff to write to you. I feel like I am writing the same thing to you guys every week. So I will try think of some good stories...

Well story #1. I was on a division with elder abel this week and we ran into a semi investigator and he had told me about how he is super smart and had his own business in south africa but then got chased out so he started all over here and was doing well and all this. Well we ran into us and said that he is getting chased again and someone ransacked his house and told him to get out and so we asked him, "well what are you going to do?" and he responds by saying, ï'm gonna stay"... "well what if they come after you??" and he responds "I'm gonna show them who's boss!! That's how i do it!!!"and then gives us a high 5 and walks away hahahaha. we just sat there laughing.

Story#2. So I was on another division with Elder Van Leuven and we saw this big house we wanted to contact but we couldn't get the doorbell to work and the wall was too big so we just left a restoration pamphlet on the gate thinking well they will surely see it at some point. Well later that night we were walking around and we were about to go home and what do we see? Some random little girl walking around with a restoration pamphlet.. wonder where she got that hahahaha. 

Story #3. Last night we went to contact a man and he looked like a normal Swazi but he speaks incredible english and sounds like a cowboy... so we asked him where is from and he said from here. well it turns out he was raised here in swaziland by some guys from texas hahaha so what does he have? a texas accent! Got to love it.

Well those are just some of the funny stories from the week. My favorite thing during the day is the funny stories so I will start to make notes of them and bring them next monday. I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!

Love,

Elder Lynn

Pic of Peter and Phindile (pen-dee-lay) at Family home evening last week

March 2, 2015

Well good morning family :) This week was a much better week. We were able to get a lot of work done this week! We met some really nice new families. We are really excited about the progress that they are making. It is hard to believe how fast everything is going. I am the oldest one in my house...in terms of time on the mission. I am actually the youngest person in age but I have the most time on the mission which is crazy. The mission is going by really fast. I got accepted into college and things are going well! Elder Abel lives in a town called Mbabane. Its like 30 minutes away. Piano lessons went really well on saturday!! It was really fun. I just used my limited knowledge to  help on the parts that my comp didn't know in english haha. Also, the branch members think I have a really good singing voice so somehow I got roped into doing a duet at our branch conference next week.... interesting haha.

I still haven't decided on which college I am going to go to yet though... I got accepted to both so before I make a decision I'm going to take it to some serious prayer and studying... speaking of which, i need to take some time today to read up on both colleges so my letter will be short today. I love you all though and hope you have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Lynn

Pics of the house! its so nice, but expensive and so we will be moving on april 1st