"What's in your mouth?" *pfft* wrapper is on the ground. "Nothing".

This week our fellow shipper had another run in with low blood sugar.  It was not to fun, but the fellow shipper was so funny.  It took everything I had to keep professionalistic. ( I know that's not a real word, but if my mom can do it, so can I.)  We had a little packet of screws left in our car from another fellow shipper and apparently he thought it was food.  So he almost ate it but he did get part of the wrapper and title is what he said.  Man it was so funny, sounded like a three year old.  Ah that guy is awesome though.  His blood sugar returned to "beautiful" levels before we reached the hospital !

Story number 1: Stake Conf.

This week we had stake conference with everyone in Port Elizabeth area.  Hopefully we can help the Stake to be able to split soon.  Back to the conference we had a lot of powerful talks given, one of my favorites was from Elder P. one of the seventy.  Elder P. talked about a lot of things but mostly testimonies.  He shared something about the prophet and apostles.  He said "they are not perfect people, but their testimonies of Jesus Christ are perfect".  So if you want to be like the prophet just make sure your testimony of Christ is perfect and rock solid.

Story number 2:  "You don't speak normal english. - A six year old

Saturdays are really hard days here for missionary work.  The white handbook lied.  Anyways this Saturday we had one lesson at twelve and then all of our appointments dropped up until six.  So we decided to try and contact some of our previously dropped appointments in the week.  We went to a house and there was a lot of kids outside that all had a lot of questions. I was kind of bored so I started talking with an Irish accent.  This was the kid's response to my accent.  So sorry if you are Irish you don't speak normally. Good kid though, very very talkative.

Until next week folks.

Elder Jeron 

"We got some Sandies with Balolo.Pelolo"-Bro. G

This week we helped with "Mormon Helping Hands". This was the description of the food. Now to truly make you understand why I loved this statement.  I want you to picture "Andre the Giant",  but black, with a shaved head.  That is what this guy looks like. (If you don't know who "Andre the Giant is" go watch "Princess Bride". He is the Really BIG guy.  Then in your head say this a little bit like Teron would say "Faabulouss" but  a little bit less diva- ish and more relaxed. That is how it sounded and it was AWESOME!.

Story Number 1:  My wife has a question for you. 

So lately we haven't had to many older investigators for church so we just stay in gospel doctrine.  This Sunday was not too different  so we stayed in Gospel Doctrine, which is good because no one really goes into deep doctrine. We had an investigator who is the mother a family we are also teaching.  We had an appointment with them later that night, but unfortunately she runs a hair salon.  Hair salons here are always running because people change hair here every week and a half. (If you get that reference. You deserve a high five.  So just TAP the monitor and that will count.)  Back to the story though, we were visiting their neighbor later that night and her husband saw us. He came and told us that she had a question about the Lesson earlier. The lesson  was on baptisms for deceased ancestors.  We then had a wonderful lesson teaching her about how she can help her ancestors come to know the gospel and accept it.  Great stuff.

We had five investigators at church and they are all doing very well. All referrals, but one of them was a pastor for another church. So my companion and I were praying and trusting a lot in the Lord to help him soften his heart. The heart softening seemed to come during Priesthood. The teacher was talking about the Book of Mormon. Great things were said. Man we are teaching alot of Pastors. I am finding out how much some pastors really do not know about the gospel and basic doctrines of Christ's church.  It is very scary. 

Story Number 2:  For a driving Area we sure do a lot of walking.

This is what I told my companion as we walked the width of our area yesterday morning.  It was a very long walk.  Like two hours of just straight walking.  It was good though it helped a lot of people realize that not having bus fair to get to church is not an excuse to be less active.  It was very fun, except I shined my shoes before we did it and then they were not as shiny or nice looking for church.  Hey we did  help a soul come to repentance so that was really good. (he didn't finish the story-guess that will be mom's question for next week).

Mom-Ipads are a "no fly zone" if we want to share a Bible video we put it on a flash drive and hope the investigator has a flash port to share. We can refer them to the Bible video's the church has put online. 

The pictures attached are of one of my best friends. He is two. He wants to be a missionary and likes to wear our name tags. He also likes drawing and cars.

(Been working on getting the pictures for an hour.-Mom Will add them when I figure it out).

The Famous Mdala Myama (Elder B.)

This week when going to church we got to the courtyard of the school where we attend church and saw a white couple standing there.  Needless to say Elder Smoothies and I were very confused because. I presumed we had the title of mlungu in Motherwell.   We greeted them though thinking they might be guest speakers from the stake and were even more shocked to hear that they were not South Africans.  In fact they are from Alabama and he served here before, and just came back to visit.  Very nice people.  It was good to finally meet someone that you hear about a lot.  But Stories.

Story #1: Blessings of The Fall

This week we had a lesson which really brought into perspective how much The Fall of Adam and Eve helped us to fulfill the purpose of God.  Now when we teach the fall we always talk about how Adam and Eve were innocent. That when they were cast out they could feel sadness and misery but also love and happiness.  When we were teaching this man though he got so angry at us because he said "we were accepting sin".  But what he couldn't understand that we can only know good from bad if we have a chance to experience both.  Maybe sin is  not personally, but we can still see how bad leads to more bad without repentance and good leads to more good.  It was a very frustrating lesson for us to teach,  However it helped me to see that the Lord loves each and every single one of us with an incomprehensible love. The Lord wants us to be happy and I appreciate and know it.  That is why he lets us see/ hear or experience bad things.  Isn't our God amazing! But before I go to far on that I will end there, but if i can add one more thing is you have agency use it.  Don't let the gift be taken or misused.  Back to the story he never really understood, so we asked him to pray and read a few chapters in the Book of Mormon that can hopefully explain it better than we can.

Story #2:  Oh, there's dogs, naww man.  I don't do dogs I had a bad experience. 

So at one of our investigators houses there is an old dog but not like really old just an old dog.  Now when ever we leave the house the people always hold the dog.  This week we found out why.  The dog will let us enter the gate and go to the door, akongxaki.  When we leave though he doesn't like it.  This time we went and no one was home but the dog was.  Our fellow shipper does not like dogs so he was outside the fence. Elder S. and I when we found that no one was home made a b-line straight for the gate.  The dog was near the gate.  So Elder S. ran out and I followed shortly after and shortly after me came the dog.  Luckily Elder S. basically threw the gate closed as he was leaving and I was skinny enough to make it through.  The dog almost got his nose smashed though.  Scary moment though.  Dogs are weird. 

News on transfer:  I am staying and so is Elder S. 

Have a lovely wonderful week and beware of dogs

Elder Tucker

Dad,

Life here is awesome. It has been getting warmer latetly so the weather is getting sort of unpredictable but it is really nice. Sister Vena is doing well. Someone did throw a rock through her window because they thought no one was home. She is a very fiery lady so they wouldn't have stood a chance against her. We are her missionaries and we did go right over to make sure she was safe. Miss you lots, Jeron

Mom in answer to why some call me an Albino African:

When I came to Motherwell The missionaries before me spoke little to no Xhosa. I however knew enough to have a pretty lengthy conversation. So I would always use Xhosa when talking to people. Our fellowshipper said

"no you are not a mlungu(white man) you are an Albino African". Then when I was driving in my bucket hat and shades a drunkard said "look at that Albino driving there". That's really the Albino African story. Just like Teron's "your the blackest  white man I ever met". 

Sum up if Teron's ok. I don't want to be worried so I didn't read the notifications you have been sending from the mission home.( He loves his brother. A sum up was already in my letter luckily.)   Jer

HEY! WE GET TO DRIVE THE COLORFUL BRIDGE!!-ME

Last Sunday the other Elders in our district got in a car crash. Don't worry everyone is all good. The lights here are merely suggestions.  So we have been helping them out on getting to and from their area since we stay in the same complex.  Now we have been adventuring a lot to find the quickest route to and from their area to ours and one time we ended up driving on a very colorful bridge that I have wanted to drive on but never knew how to get there. (video included)

Story number 1:  Some moron forgot to fill up the car on Saturday.

Hey......wait a minute....It was me that forgot to fill up the car.  That was rude.  We were very low on petrol on Sunday.  So we were a bit worried about the car getting where we needed.  I was like,  "Nope  we will be good.  We have super faith.  Keep the commandments and we will be good to make it where we need to go".  Then I had a prompting to look at the book of life (missionary daily planner).  I realized we could walk to our appointments yesterday because they were all super close to each other.  The promise in 1 Nephi 3:7  is very true. While walking though the township we got invited to three parties; and were offered mqombothi twice. ( Which is an Traditional African beer).

Story Number 2:  Book of Mormon is there to confound false doctrines.

This week we had a lesson with a pastor who knows his Bible.  He is a very wonderful man but what we didn't want was a bible bash.  If your not sure what that is.  It's basically and argument fought using The Bible.  He said he had some questions. We decided we would only use the Book of Mormon to answer all his questions. He agreed to the terms.  It was so much better and turned out to be a super awesome lesson.  The spirit was there and we answered all of his questions and everything else he could think of. Absolutely awesome lesson.

We have a baptism this weekend we are super stoked for. I am enjoying Motherwell, it's incredible. The people we see and just the area is awesome!  We will see what happens but this might be my favorite area of the mission. No crazy food lately. We do have Root Beer Tarzan!

We have a few investigators on track for baptism next month. Well That was the week for me.  I hope you all have an awesome week.

 Ndi Yaku Thanda Nonke

Mdala Tucker

Images :Hike last Monday, my next level shoulder angling, an Aqua farm, but that was too boring so we call it the Dinosaur fighting arena.

"Elder, I have an idea. "What?" Clusters

First off that to me sounds like a quote from a movie.  A bit edited and adapted to my needs but still, not sure the movie though. Stories:

Story Number 1:  Tetris Champions of the Year.

Last Monday we were moving all of the stuff out of our garage. It was all going to East London for a new senior couple.  We had to fit a whole bed, two couches, a washer and dryer, two desks, desk chairs and a fridge into a small pick up truck and a decently small trailer.  We did it! Then we tetris'd all of the stuff in our garage to fit our car in there finally! We won that battle as well.  It was super fun. 

Story Number 2: Well then, that was strange.

Lately we have been finding a lot more people! We found one of them through a referral that we were visiting.  While visiting this guy, he went to get some movies from a friend or a neighbor or something.  We saw this person who said "hello" to the the young man we were visiting and then said hello to the others around her as you usually would.  The next day we get a "please call".  To explain a "please call", here there is no unlimited minutes or what ever you only get a certain amount then if you want to get more you have to buy airtime ( minutes).  So everyone keeps airtime like their life depends on it, which it does if you need to call an ambulance. "Please calls" are a way around that.  It's basically a text saying call this person at this number.  So we get these all the time, then we call. The person answers and said "this is my number. I am the person that you waved at yesterday".  We knew it was a girl so that narrowed it to about a hundred people we saw and said hi to.  Then we figured out how she got our number and so we got it narrowed down to about forty.  Still no idea who this was. We hope to find out but we will be glad to teach her.

And last but not least.  Elder Smith and I have recently discovered about "Clusters" which we want to integrate in our area.  We believe Clusters may be what the Lord wants for this area;  because all of us have had this idea and revelation including the stake president.  One of the problems we have is the people have to travel so far to church. Some just can't get there. So we think maybe we could have a series of smaller meetings closer to the members we just need a more solid plan on how-where-when.  Cool stuff though.

Until next time, stay grand

Elder Tucker

It's very true you can see in a lot of people the guilt and shame they feel from past sins and that is why I think most converts are a bit skeptical at first.  Once they feel the healing power of the atonement though you can tell they are all very very happy and it's a  wonderful feeling and sight to see.  Anyways Love you mom.