24th of March 2014

Hey Everyone!
  This week has flown by and many things were accomplished!  Tuesday was Zone Conference and that was the highlight of my week! For our zone song we sung Hymn 26 "Joseph Smiths First Prayer" to the tune of "Come Thou Font." We sounded like angels! I was in a quartet with Elders Oldroyd, Thayne, and Steele. Our song was the best out of the 3 zones there! For our zone report, we did the Haka! Like a legit Haka that included all of our names and some actual Polynesian words! I think Sister Wheeler recorded it and is putting it up on facebook so go check that out! President and Sister Wood said our report was the best so yeah...straight from the mouth of President Wood!

  The work this week went excellent. We could've done better but people like to cancel on us missionaries! But we have excellent people to teach and have 3 baptisms scheduled for the 13th of April. Hopefully everything goes well and all of them can be baptized! I'd love to see them baptized because most likely after that Sunday, I will be transferred to another area! Today for P-day we started a game of Risk, so after we are done emailing here, I will have "try and take over the world!"

I Love you all! Thanks for the support!
Elder Prisbrey

17th March 2014

Hey Everyone!
    You won't believe what happened today! But I'll get into that later! So NU 17 is just the best area ever! Elder Sombke is down to work hard and smart. We are really doing good. We completed half of our goal for teaching lessons with a member present in just one day! That was Tuesday. Things are looking good for this transfer.

     I have to tell you guys about Sister Lulama Sicam. She is just a golden investigator! She understands so much and comprehends everything we teach her and every scripture she reads. She marks her scriptures and writes down questions when she doesn't grasp a principle. We were meant to teach her! Hopefully everything continues as well as it has been going. Her only issue is getting her to church. She has the desire, but so many things have come up. Her mom has cancer and just tons of stuff have stopped her from coming. We are working on that and she is praying to get to church. We teach her every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 5:00 PM. She is very committed and like I said...just golden:)

     So today we had a Zone Activity.

 

 



We went to a Game Park! I actually got to see some African animals! Elder Steele and I are working on going to another place where we can ride the Elephants!

I love you all:)
Love,
Elder Prisbrey 

 

 

10th March 2014

Thank goodness I am done with Training! I have spread my wings and I am no longer a greenie!

Last Monday we went bowling, and I'm ashamed to say that I bowled a 77. No comment, but today I bowled a 111. I truly am the blind squirrel!

Wednesday-We had to wake up at 5:30 AM and drive Elder Olyabo and Cowley to the airport. I was dead tired! So for a while it was just me and Elder Steele which was nice cause we are good friends! We cleaned up the boarding for a bit so that the new elders would have a clean place to stay. My new companion is Elder Sombke from Virginia though he has lived in Ethiopia and Bosnia and Egypt! 

 

 I have been the senior companion and showing Elder Sombke around the area, introducing him to members and letting him get used to the area. The teaching is slow because of transfers, but this next week is going to be really busy!

Mdantsane 3rd ward has lots of less actives and so we are working with the members to do their home teaching and just to reach out to their friends to do missionary work! We got a list of like 130 prospective Elders that aren't ordained yet.

 

Sunday was nice. We were able to teach 2 lessons. One to Buncwane and Rooibos and the other to Lulama. Buncwane and Rooibos are like eternal investigators. They have been taught by the missionaries for 2 years! Lulama is just a golden investigator and understands everything we tell her and she reads everything we tell her too! She accepted the invitation to be baptized and the only thing keeping her from baptism is going to church! We are working on that with her.  Love you all!
Love,
Elder Prisbrey

Date: Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 7:19 AM

HELLO!

     Hey everyone! This week has been awesome! I am in such a great mood right now. Its ridiculous! I am filled with the Spirit of Love! That sounds self righteous...sorry:)

     Anyways I have lots to say about this past week so I'll get going!

     Monday..I was in the biggest storm I've ever been in. It was like a hurricane in East London! Nevertheless we still played soccer! I stepped outside and I was drenched within seconds! I almost hurt myself sliding around in the mud but Heavenly Father Made sure I didn't screw up my knee! Haha just messing with you all!
     Tuesday was the normal day of the week. This week was not normal but it was very nice to get back in the area after a hectic weekend! It sucked walking though. My thighs are constantly sore!
     Wednesday...I will try and describe what happened on Wednesday. I was on Exchanges with Elder Steele again since Elder Olyabo was gone. Elder Cowley was with Ndima in my area and I was with Elder Steele. We taught 4 lessons and all 4 were by the Spirit and were just inspired. I learned a lot. We had some down time and we were both hungry so we went to the store to look for some food. We found a white guy there! That is rare. Anyways, we found decent sized cakes for R 25! That is $2.50 back home. We each bought our own and tried to eat it all by ourselves with our hands in the church parking lot. We only got halfway through! Then the gate shut on us and we didn't know the code and had no air time so we could not call anyone to let us out. Thankfully Elder Cowley called us and we explained the situation and he told us the code! After that we went to find a male so we could teach nomso, a golden investigator at 7 pm. It was 6:30 and our male was getting home at 7ish so we went on an adventure! We went down to the greenacre lake/river. It was a dirt road in the bush so like anything could've happned. We saw a couple of shack houses and Elder Steele drove us down there! We are pretty sure a weed farm was somewhere hidden not to far away cause it smelt like weed! The people there looked friendly and I took some hilarious videos on my iPod that I am working on sending you all. It was a very poor family of goat herders. So we took our pictures and videos then got out of there. On our way out a steer almost rammed the car on my side! I was scared out of my mind! Then we spun out of there. The smell of burnt rubber and weed filled the air. Oh it was just a fun day. It was spiritual and so fun. I'm certain that Heavenly Father had His hand in everything we did that day!
    Thursday was fun cause I went on exchanges with Elder Olyabo! He is way cool and he goes home in 3 days! 

     On Friday I turned 3 months old on mission! 21 more months to go. The Time is Far Spent! Gotta keep working hard. For my "click day" my trainer bought me a mcflurry at McDonalds! 

     Saturday was kinda scary. We played soccer and towards the end of the game I tweaked my right knee. It hurt and you know.. I've felt similar pain before when I tore my acl. It was difficult to walk all Saturday and Sunday morning. I fasted and prayed hard that God would please heal me so I could continue on with the work. I promised to not play sport for a month so I could make sure it is healed. By Sunday night, I was walking fine and felt no pain at all. God is a God of Miracles.
    On both Saturday and Sunday, we had 3 dinner appointments. I feel fat. I'm not getting fat but I ate a lot! 

     Tonight I find out who my new companion will be! I'm excited to get a new companion and learn from him and progress in the mission field! Excuse any grammar mistakes and stuff like that. I am in Africa and I'm pretty sure my English is slowly getting worse!
    I love you all and thanks for all the support!
Elder Prisbrey

	Feb 24 (6 days ago)
T.I.A. This Is Africa

  

Hey Everyone!

  Tuesday was way fun! I was on exchanges with Elder Steele in his area. We have become best friends ever since he came into my district. It was fun to be his companion for the day but we had no male fellowshipper for most the day so we had 4 dropped appointments. That day we were poor so we ate some fat cakes (Scones) they cost like 25 cents and they fill you up but they are super unhealthy. I've decided that mission destroys my body. I'm not rich enough to eat well and don't have the time to cook good food. I'm glad that the Lord takes care of his servants. Anyways..so we ate 2 huge fat cakes and that filled us up. The fat cakes were bigger than both my fists put together. Than we went to a members house and she fed us these huge home made rolls...I took like 20 minutes to eat 2 rolls. At least they were home made. So I had like 2 lbs. of dough in my belly and oh it sucked!   

  On Wednesday we had to pick up the Zone Leaders from the Airport at 3:30 PM. So we got to the area really late and I think we taught 1 lesson. It was a long day. I hate not doing anything.  
   Thursday was pretty good. We taught 2 lessons! We had 2 dropped appointments and it was raining hard after our 5:00 PM appointment. Our investigator Siphoxolo is way cool and let us stay until 7:00 PM . We watched the Restoration video with him and his mom.
  Friday was awesome! Elder Richard J. Maynes of the Presidency of the Seventy trained us missionaries! That was a powerful training. He taught us about having a culture of high expectations and how we can be more connected with our purpose as missionaries. It was a good 3 1/2 hour training! I never got bored nor sleepy! Since the training was so long we didn't have a chance to go to the area.

  Next monday, If I can work it out, we might go to an elephant park where we can ride a elephant! It will cost like $45 but that is totally worth it! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and it would be so awesome if I rode an Elephant. Only in Africa right? :)
  Everything is going well! This is my last week of training and I think I'm staying here in MD. I'm excited to have a new companion and move on in my mission!  
   Oh by the way, the Wheelers are trying to set Cam Stratton and I as companions in Port Alfred. Port Alfred is where the wheelers are serving! Hopefully it happens! That would be the time of my life!
   I'll send some pictures! Thanks for all the love and support! I love you all and miss you all!

Love,

Elder Austin Prisbrey

Note from Sister Wheeler (21 FEB 2014):

We were thrilled to spend some time with Elder Prisbrey yesterday at our Zone Conference in East London. We had a three hour training from Elder Richard J. Maynes from the Presidency of the Seventy. Elder Prisbrey is an AWESOME missionary. He is happy and working very hard. Our mission is about triple the size of Texas. We know we will never move out of Port Alfred because of President Wheeler's assignment there. We keep praying that Elder Prisbrey AND Elder Stratton will get transferred to our area. We keep dropping hints to President Wood. How great would that be to have the four of us working together in the same area all from Logandale 5th Ward!

 

Sister Kathy Wheeler and Elder Austin J. Prisbrey

 

     First of all, sometimes I forget my last name is Prisbrey. Everyone calls me elder Prizberry! So sometimes when I introduce myself I say prizberry. Bad habit! But no one here can pronounce Prisbrey. Oh well.
     I am glad you like sushi!  I found a sushi bar here in East London that is cheap on Thursday nights. I have to try it out before I leave here!
    That's good that you will be able to see Kristen! I'm sure you said hi for me already.

    I have slowed down on the memorizing of The Living Christ but I have still retained what I have memorized so that is good. My favorite scripture of the week comes from the Book of Mormon! It is Alma 31:5 & 38. Those are great scriptures! 

     The missionary work is going well! We did have our baptisms yesterday! They were amazing and even though I didn't get in the water to baptize anyone, it was still very fulfilling to see Anelisa  and Linda enter the waters of baptism. Those are the 2 girls from my area. 2 other girls from the other missionaries area were baptized also so that was 4 for the day! In 2 weeks we will be having baptisms as well. Hopefully our investigator that we are planning to be baptized beginning of March stay strong!

     I hear from my fellow missionaries all the time! Skyler is doing well. Sean is training some big islander haha. Cody Johnson is doing well in the Philippines. Jackson loves peru! Oh Landon got called to Argentina! That is exciting! He sent me the video of him opening his call. I just watched and it was so amazing!

Love,
Elder Austin Prisbrey 

Hey Pops!

     Anyways. P-days are awesome! I look forward to each Monday cause that means I get to hear from my family and friends! Today we went bowling after studies, just one game. I didn't have to pay for it because 2 or 3 weeks ago, I bowled the best and set the high score for the day. I bowled a 125, which is my highest score ever in my life! Today I bowled 80, or maybe even less. I started bowling with my left hand on the 7th frame and was doing pretty good, got 2 spares which saved my score from being disastrous. We then went and ate Romans Pizza which is to die for! And now we are emailing! After this we head to the Stake Center in Amalinda which is like 5 min from our flat. We play soccer there for 1 to 3 hours. Some people play volleyball and sometimes even rugby! I absolutely love rugby and sometimes I forget we are just playing "touch" and I try and run through people or break down to tackle someone. Thankfully I haven't actually hit anyone cause I remember at the last second. After sport today, we have a FHE at a members house. Her name is Xoliswa and there will be us four missionaries, a ward missionary and our fellowshipper Ndima. After that..sleep. Sleep is precious.

     I found a Xhosa Book of Mormon Yesterday and soon I will start trying to read it. Ndima is  helping me learn Xhosa by giving me phrases to learn and use each day we see eachother. The Xhosa language is so cool and unique. It is only spoken here in the Eastern Cape (which is a province) in South Africa. Hopefully I get to stay in the Eastern Cape for most of my mission, that is where the xhosa people are. Whites and Coloreds live in Western Cape, like in Cape Town.
    [Xhosa is prounced like... the X is like if you are riding a horse and you click on the side of your mouth to make it go faster. so its the "X" click then just how it is written. Xhosa.]

      Love you dad. Stay safe and say hi to everyone for me.