Monday, February 10, 2014

Hello everyone! And Hello Bishop!
     Things here in SACTM (South Africa Cape Town Mission) are awesome. This week, just like previous weeks has flown by.
     This week has been pretty good but it ended very well! On Tuesday, we had a dinner appointment with the Hongana Family. They are members and they fed all four of us Elders. It was me, my companion Elder Cowley, Elder Olyabo, and Elder Steele. They bought mince (ground beef) and tortillas. We had a real Mexican meal! Oh it was good. The family really spent some money on us. The tortillas here are expensive. R 80 ($8) for 6 tortillas, everyone had at least two burritos! There were 9 of us all together! I will send a picture of the family!
    Wednesday...was interesting. We visited a family that was investigating the church. They told us they don't mind our visits but they have decided to go back to their own church. I wanted to tell them that their church was "the whore of all the earth" but decided not to :) Haha then later, we decided to go try our luck with Sivu and her mom Thobeka. They are the two who denied the Book of Mormon a while back and felt the spirit and everything, but said they were scared. It was me, Elder Cowley, and Ndima, our fellowshipper for the day. Thobeka's oldest child, a guy met us at the door. We never had met before but he had heard all about us missionaries. He told us he had heard many bad things about us from Sivu and Thobeka. Apparently, us testifying of the Book of Mormon and teaching them about it offended Sivu and Thobeka greatly and made them feel uncomfortable. The older brother wasn't happy about that and he wanted to know who out of me and Elder Cowley offended them so great. I told him straight up it was me and explained that they were not respecting my religion as we had respected theirs. I am very thankful for the Holy Ghost. He was there, and he told me what to say, and he calmed down the older brother, because he wanted to fight us.  So we settled all things with words and everything was good. We left in peace. He told us never to come back again. Elder Cowley then out of habit said "Sabunana" Which means "See you later" He started coming after us again but I calmed him down. He said we are lucky he was a nice guy, or the brick that was next to him on the ground would have been in our faces! So long story short I, along with Elder Cowley and Ndima, almost got in a fight! Again I am thankful for the Holy Ghost because that situation could have gotten bad real quick.
    Thursday was just awesome! There was a zone competition put on by Elder and Sister Boyce who are the senior couples in my zone. They said whoever had the cleanest boarding would receive a prize! There ended up being 3 boardings who won, and the Boyce's took us all out to Chinese! It was a legit Chinese place too. Even better than Panda Express! Crazy right?! It was a dream come true!
    Nothing much happened on Friday.
    Saturday sucked. During my studies, I felt like the spirit was gone, and I was worried. I began to wonder what I had done to chase the spirit away. Not having the Spirit is horrible. I couldn't teach,  just like D&C says. Section 42 I think vs 15. I was worried but I didn't give up! I prayed so much on Saturday. 
    Sunday I was still worried about what had happened on Saturday. I talked with Elder Olyabo and he told me not to worry and that I didn't do anything. He was right. I wrote in my journal, "The night is darkest just before the dawn." I think Harvey Dent says that in The Dark Knight.  But I had an awesome spiritual experience on Sunday. Before it though, Sister Mjuza fed us the best meal I have had in a long time. It was comparable to some awesome home cooked meals back home. But back to the spiritual experience.  Elder Cowley went on splits to cover our appointments. He was assisting Elder Olyabo in some baptismal ineterviews for the 2 girls in my area that are getting baptized this Sunday! Whoop Whoop! I was with Ndima at Siphoxolo's house. We taught him about the Book of Mormon by going through the introduction of the Book of Mormon and helping him understand it. The Spirit was strong. Ndima speaks Xhosa obviously and helped me out a lot in explaining the Book of Mormon to Siphoxolo. Afterwards I felt prompted to invite him to be baptized and he accepted! It was so awesome!! We then asked him how he was feeling and identified that he was feeling the Holy Ghost. He told us that he feels it everytime we are at his house and he forgets about all the stress of life and just feels good! Oh it made me smile so big! I have totally forgot about Saturday sucking and I am just very thankful to be on mission. 
   I love you all! And this goes for everyone, you can share whatever you want from this email to whomever you want to share it with! I love and miss you all! Pray always! God Speed.
Love,
Elder Austin Prisbrey

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