Everyone thinks my Comp is my brother

 

This is gonna be a really long one, so get your glasses out.

I really hope that the subject line caught your eye bc it's a pretty funny story. But more on that later, as for this week it was pretty kuhle. Ladysmith is awesome!

I'll start us out on Pday, one of the best Pdays I've had on my mission, simply bc I'm in a new place so everything is a lot more exciting. We got a car wash bc we had zone conference the next day and Prez told me that our Nissan Magnite hadn't been washed in a while. Yeah, you heard me, a Nissan Magnite. I love the car so much! 😐

But in all honesty it is a blessing to have a car bc holy guacamole it's getting hot outside. But back to Pday. We played basketball which you can probably guess how that went. I swear every time I step on the court we go from playing basketball to keep away from Elder Cottrell bc he's trash.

So now I just skip the embarrassment and sit out on the side. Later that night we had a sleepover with the Elders from a place called Dundee. It's Elder Magallano and Elder Child, yo they're funny people. Also, Elder Child is like 6'4 so I'm not sure if God accidentally like stretched him in the design process or if he just likes making walking skyscrapers to terrorize the less fortunate who fall under the 6-foot zone (me). 

Tuesday: Zone conference was nice but it legit took all day, so the day got pretty busy and we couldn't really do much actual missionary work. Something from the conference that actually got me messed up was the departing testimonies of missionaries who are leaving this transfer. It was so sad. It's hard to describe, but I legit just couldn't hold back tears. I felt so happy for them and that they stuck it out to the end. And while I'm telling you about me crying, I might as well throw in the fact that we all give a standing ovation to the departing missionaries. At first, I was calm, cool, and collected, that quickly turned to happy tears as I watched all these awesome people leave. But enough about that crying stuff.

Wednesday: we went to the home of Zama and Sbo. Zama is on date for baptism and I’m so excited for her!  We had a memorable lesson with her, then she also invited us to a cow slaughter on Saturday.

Thursday: can't really remember this day that much, my comp went to the doctor bc his eyes are being goofy. I also asked them if they could tell me my eye color bc they're not blue anymore so idk what the John happened there. We kind of got canceled on the whole day, so that meant we walked around and knocked on gates. Most of the time nobody is interested, but eventually they'll accept it. This was also some Indian holiday, so there were a bunch of fireworks popping off that night which was pretty cool. Although I feel like most of the pops I hear are gunshots so maybe it's not that cool lol.

We ate dinner at, the Adam's family (😬)

They're awesome though, they have a daughter who's 12 and she insists that she has read the Book of Mormon 3 times in 9 hours 18 minutes and 32 seconds. She made sure to tell us the time. So, I asked meta-Ai if it was possible. If she could read over 500 words per minute, then it would take 16 hours of continuous reading. So, she's just dead wrong yall, idk what to say.

Also, it was Halloween! Which means absolutely nothing here in South Africa, bc it's just scary every day, no need to set a day for it 😊.

Friday: Some reason this day is completely gone from my brain, but I think we found a lost sheep. She was at a friend's house when we were teaching and then she started adding into the convo. I was like ayyo what? Turns out she's an inactive, so that was cool to find her. We went to get some grub at McDonald's bc we're fatty fatso, and we saw the other Elders there getting ice cream. Glad I'm not alone in my obese journey.

Saturday: The day of the cow killing.

This email is already longer than the DMV wait line, so I'll just tell the cow story.

Elder Fenn and I drive over to this place and on the way there we passed by a guy who's just running through the busy street screaming bloody murder. He honestly looked like he was possessed by something. So hopefully he's chilling now but idk what happened to him, anyway.

We pull up to the house and I see 4 cars in the driveway, so I'm thinking ok this isn't that bad. Boy was I wrong. We walk into the backyard, and it was packed full. As we pull up everyone immediately is trying to talk to us. They're speaking Zulu so fast I'm just like aye aye captain.  While everyone else was sitting in the dirt and eating cow parts out of these bucket things, they all pointed us over to these two chairs. They gave us plates and forks and glasses of "the green stuff". The food wasn't terrible, but I tell you what, I'm not gonna go out of my way to eat it again. 

It came to a point where people just gathered around us after they finished eating and just looked at us. Just observing us eating some grub, I’ve never felt so silently judged by so many people who have no idea who I am. 

Then they all started yelling to quiet down, which to me doesn't really make sense bc now we just have a bunch of people yelling to shut up lol. But once things settled down, we found ourselves in the middle of ancestor worshipping. Obviously, I didn't take part in this, but I was getting the feeling that we would be the next thing on the plate if we didn't get going. So, amid all the drunk yelling and weird dances we were able to get out of there. Pretty cool experience though.

Sunday: woke up, went to church, church was dope, got back, now I'm writing this email, should be a great rest of the day. I'm looking forward to "deep doctrine dinner" with our Branch Prez and his wife. They're super cool and they're pretty young to be in such a calling in the church. 

Ok so wow, deep doctrine dinner blew my mind, this life is so crazy guys.

But I hope you could make it this far for my spiritual thought! 

Trust in God, and his timing, he knows what you're going through, he allows these things to happen so that we may grow into a better person if we let it. Christ's atonement is infinite and eternal. Nothing you do can be too out of reach to come back to him. So just try. 

Have an awesome week yall 🎃

Elder Cottrell