August 31.2008

Dear Family, It's good to hear from you again. It sounds like things around home are going well and everyone is doing fine. I like the sounds of the political news. I have really had to bite my tongue on the politics down here because everyone worships Obama. He is the only American political figure they know of and they are all convinced he is going to be President.
I'm sorry that I have been vague on my new area but I will be very comprehensive in my description of it today. I live in my area and it is the city of Phoenix. The population is almost completely Indian. Indians came to South Africa in the late 1800's as indentured servants to work in the cane fields. They are really racist against Black people and in turn the white population doesn't like them. Most of Phoenix is Hindu, or Muslim, but there are a lot of Christians. Most of the Christians belong to Full-Gospel churches. There is a branch here of about 170 people but usually we only get around 50 or so to church. I don't get to speak what little Zulu I know, but many of the Indians know Hindi, Tammel, or Arabic. The branch doesn't have a building so we meet in a high school for church. It's a lot harder to find people to teach here but it is a whole lot easier to communicate with people because the language barrier isn't there. I am actually liking it a lot more than I thought I would, and I really love the members and the people in general.
President Mann has a new method of finding people to teach and it is called the walk about program. How it works is we walk around members homes with them and as we go we are introduced to the neightbors and we offer service, or church resources they may be interested in. Things like Strength of youth, geaneology, info about the word of wisdom, The Family Proclamation to the World and anything else you can think of. So I'm really excited about it. On that same subject we have a progressing investigator named Alan Govender, we contacted him when I first arrived to the area and since then we have gone through a seven day stop smoking program and it worked out great for him. Now that we have built a relationship of trust with him, he has committed to read the Book of Mormon, and come to church next week with his family, so that is really exciting. So that is the news for my area.
Its really good to hear about Spencer getting geared up for his mission, sounds like things are going well. I wish I could be there but thats no big deal. Thats funny about Brayden, I have been keeping in touch with him by email a little bit. I hope this email was thorough enough, I really appreciate your emails. Thanks for everything, I'll hear from you next week.