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.

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

3 February 2014

     I have heard about that talk about the three pillars of eternity. Two weeks ago I started a deep study of the Book of Mormon. I just finished studying chapter 2! I look up every footnote (excluding Topical Guide footnotes) and I write notes in the margins. I will send a pic next week of what it looks like. It is amazing though! I read the verse about 5 times. Ask myself questions, mark the scriptures according to my way of marking, then look up every footnote. I spent 5 minutes on 1 Nehpi 2:16. Look that up!! You will laugh at me I'm sure:) I love the Book of Mormon. It is translated correctly and is essential to my salvation so I want to treasure up the Book of Mormon all I can! I also just read it and I am in Alma 24 I believe. Look up the talk "His Grace is Sufficient" By Brad Wilcox. That is THE best talk I have heard on the atonement. Please, listen to it with dad. It is found on BYU speeches website.
     I am also trying to eat healthy! It is important, especially on mission. Being on a mission is bad for the physical body. You rarely have time to eat nice and take care of it. Thankfully the Lord provides and makes all the difference. I am sore from working out and also tired!
     I do remember that quote* that was on the fridge! I can picture it in my minds eye as I type. That is great. Find a Preach My Gospel. In chapter 6 it talks about Christ-Like attributes and at the end of the chapter, you can take a quiz that will let you know where you are at.
     My favorite scripture(s) of the week is Sections 76 and 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants. 76 talks about the Kingdoms of Glory and lots of good stuff. 77 is significantly shorter and explains some of the symbolism used in the book of Revelations.
     I rarely get to play the piano. Hopefully some time on my mission I will get the chance. I just sent you and both grandparents letters (cards) and in the letter to G. Ashdown, I told her I missed playing the piano for her!
Love you!
Elder Prisbrey

 

*QUOTE by Marvin J. Ashton*

“Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don't judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn't handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another's weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other.

27th January 2014

Hey Everyone!

          We have a new Elder in my District. His name is Elder Steele. He is from Nephi Utah and is a hunter! He earned his money for mission by being a hunting guide on the Boulder Mountains. He is way cool and we have become great friends already!

    
   I have a happy story as well! On Wednesday when we put Elder Black on the bus to Port Elizabeth, we went into the grocery store and guess what I found??!?!?! I found an American soda, and it was A&W!!!! Real American Root Beer! I savored every sip of that drink of the gods. (Only dad will get that joke).

   Continue to do the small things in this wonderful gospel! Thanks for everything!