This has been a very interesting week to say the least. So grab hold of your socks.

Monday: We were enjoying a wonderful P day, you know having a burger, good stuff. Then....BAM call from the zone leaders, "get your emergency kits and non perishable food items and meet at the mission home". We were like "okay". Shoved the burgers in our mouths payed and booked it to the flat. Got dressed in whites and stuff then made it to the mission office.  Now this was the day when we were to get an SD card for the camera to send pictures and also to get toenail polish remover so I wont have orange toes anymore. Then we were told to drive to Belville. We were having a multi zone emergency mission drill. We did a finding activity and handed out 30 copies of the B of M so that was fun. 

 

Tuesday: We had a super powerful zone conference which was just incredible! I learned a lot about the B of M and the Bible. How they testify of each other. The coolest thing I found with that is cross referencing Isaiah 29:11-12 and JSH 64-65.  If you have never done that do it now.

Wednesday was boring except one of our less active members we found out was in a school strike that got on international news.  It was pretty intense from the couple of witnesses that told us of it.  I can't remember what it was called or I would put it in.

Thursday: I started driving. It's a lot easier than I thought it would be, so that was nice. We met a guy who firmly believed that Christ never established a church but had disciples and a ministry- but no church, and the dude wasn't even drunk.

Friday was fun we had a few lessons. I learned about pop.  It's not good at all man.  It's super pasty in my opinion. Super boring day except for the semi heavy misting in the air. 

Saturday was nice because we finally got to go shopping.  I had been out of milk and yogurt and bread for the entire week.  We taught some awesome lessons. I learned that they do not say family in Xhosa it is Ikya which means 'at home". That was very interesting to me. And whenever we do service the people always ask the person were helping; how they got four white men to do their lawn for free?  They tell them to listen to our message,but we still don't get a ton of referrals.  

The people here don't really celebrate Christmas here its mostly just another day. New years is apparently what's insane here so looking forward to that.  

Called the family on Sunday heard that there was a lot of snowfall back home. So drive safe. 

This has been adventures in South africa with Elder Tucker. 

Love you all!

Molweni, Its crazy to think that i have already been out a month. It feels like I just got on the plane for SA yesterday. It has been a very busy and fun week so with out further ado here's my adventures:

Monday:

We went to a place called spur because they had a good deal on burgers on monday and it was good but people here seriously need to learn how to make fries the taste like dust so yeah then we hada multi zone basket ball tournament and taught some lessons to less actives and recent converts. Nothing really happened to crazy that day.

Tuesday:

We moved couches a lot that day it was really weird actually. We taught more lessons one of them being a young women that has an english sort of  accent which I though was really weird because in townships it usually a really thick more African accent. I found out they don't have root beer! Sorry colter no local brew for you. I tried this Soda called Iron Brew which was like cherry coke with a red bull after taste. We gave out a Book of Mormon to a man that came to one of our lessons he was pretty cool.

Wednesday: 

Most of our lessons dropped but it was still a good day because there was Gwinya. which is like a scone but with hamburger meat and fries on it. It was pretty good and super cheap  about ten rand ( maybe eighty cents back home) and we taught one of our favorite member families  they said to "tell everyone hello". I learned how to make a cross in a paper with one tare its intense.

Thursday:

Dropped lessons again but we still had a ton of lessons, and they were all super powerful. We found the quote of the week. We shared Alma 6:5-6 and asked the person we were teaching to interpret the scripture and he said, "It says Nevertheless, so its true." It was hilarious and Elder K and I had to bite our tongues to stop from laughing.

Friday:

This was Elder R year mark, so he was super excited!  So was I, because he is our district leader and we had two people commit to baptism! Only one showed up to church on Sunday but hey that's still one soul coming to be more like Christ so I am happy.

Saturday:

Fun stuff. First Exchange I was with Elder W, who coincidentally has been to eagle point!  He is a very strange person but super powerful and can grab peoples attention like a rainbow.  We only got one lesson in that day but it was good it was the first lesson we had with this lady and we totally slayed it.  We also had a branch party there in Langa and it was super fun because there was a ton of food that was braaied ( sort of like Grilling but better) and it was delicious. Then the best part of the day is I got yelled at by a drunk man.  He asked me how old I was and I said "eighteen".  Then he just started shouting about if I knew what teaching was and it was funny. Elder W. almost fell in the dirt and our fellowshipper had to go to the car.  Drunks are everywhere and they are funny.

Sunday:

Church was great the branch is doing well, we had some talks on the love of Christ and prayer. Really good stuff was taught. On Sundays we go to mama J's house to eat food.  That lady loves her Elders and shows it through the food. She literally brings a mountain of food for you to eat and if you don't eat it, she will never let you live it down. I heard stories about the Elder I replaced.  So I ate it and there was too much I felt like I was about to explode but it was super delicious.

This has been Elder Tuckers Adventures in Cape town. If you have any questions comments or concerns. or would just like to send me an Email. Do so at this address and have a Merry Christmas.  Love you all

Hey everyone, 
     Sorry I couldn't get an email out last week we got transferred to our respective missions . Left Tuesday which is the MTC p-day and mission p day is Monday, so yea.  It's really interesting here. I was the only one of my transfer group to stay in Cape Town everyone else left to go to Eastern Cape.  I am serving in an area called Gugulethu which is a township area, but has some incredible cars.  My trainers name is Elder K. and he is from Highland, UT. He is an  awesome missionary and had just finished up his training weeks before training me, but its way fun.  The language is super awesome, most people speak English. The people are more receptive if you show your trying to learn the language here; which has a lot of different clicks which are difficult to get correct. I have taught quite a few lessons because everyone wants to hear what the new elder has to say.  That has been going awesome thanks to the free time in the MTC I have a lot of scriptures to share.  They play a lot of soccer here and watch Indian soap operas called soapies  which kind of suck, but that is my opinion.  We had a confirmation this week in church of a sister L very powerful woman and her whole family too. That's about it for me but if you have any questions, comments or concerns. Send them to me.

<merrillsj@ldschurch.org>	6:03 AM (14 hours ago)
to me

Dear Tucker Family.

This short email is to inform you that your son has landed safely in Cape town today. He is looking good. We are thankful for his sacrifice and we’re looking forward to serve with him.

The pictures attached are of your son on Signal Hill, Cape Town, overlooking Table Mountain and the city.

May God bless you in this festive season.

Regards.

South Africa Cape Town Mission

Week 2

     This past week in the mtc has been pretty crazy, a ton of classes but the teachers are way cool. We have one teacher whose name is Brother M.  He has some weird language which is super fun, like "slayage". So any time we do a lesson and we do fantastic we have "slayed it". We have been doing a lot of practice teaching with the teachers. I have definitely seen growth in my testimony and my teaching skills.  It was pretty funny because my new companion is from Alaska. He was talking about how every person he talked to had a huge trial or something like that where they were reassured of the gospel. Each of us and has a huge testimony so that's why we were all called to Africa. I have also been told some about my mission field in that appaarently the Africans are a very proud people so they may be hard to teach. The lord provides a way just like Nephi says.  Our teachers say that the farther north you get the more religion is everything, especially with Teron in Kenya. 
      Also during our sports time I have learned a few new tricks with the hacky sack thanks to Elder, they're sick, trust me.  We have made sure were going to get at least one investigator through hacky sack means! That would be great! There is not much else going on but just so everyone knows there will not be a weekly email next week because we are going to the field so it will be the following week when you'll get one. Sorry for the typos we only have thirty minutes. Cheers mates

Elder Jeron Tucker

Hey Everybody its been a while. I arrived in South Africa on Friday night ( Johannesburg time). It was pretty crazy fun stuff though. Some interesting experiences though were going through the passport stuff the clerk dude saw that I was wearing a suit and a bag and asked me "if i was a man of god".  I said I was and I am serving a mission in Cape town after my stay at the MTC. He looked straight at me and said, "Alright then feed my soul so I told him he has a heavenly father who loves him and knows him" because that was the first thing that came to mind. So he said "thank you and his soul felt lifted". So i feel I did a decent job after not sleeping for 24 hrs.

 The MTC is way fun I would load pictures but the network is way too slow, so that will have to wait for the field. I have and awesome companion from Lehi,  who has a a very strong testimony. Fun fact the SAMTC is the smallest MTC in the world The biggest it got was 38 missionaries so a lot smaller than Provo. The accents here are more like an Australian accent rather than a English or African so that is fun. Also when we arrived the escorts took us to Mcdonalds ( apparently they are not on every street corner here).  And they have green creme soda which tastes funny, but its pretty good. I am learning a lot and found a few missionaries going to cape town and a few teachers that have been there. So we have been learning about that and finding out the needs of investigators. We have a few African missionaries and English is there second language so they get to say prayers in their original language which is way fun. My next email will be next tuesday then after that we will be in the field because were only here for 16 days.  

Love you all, have great adventures back home just like I will here. Jeron