Safari

Hey everyone. So this was a pretty good week. a little crazy! I never thought id be in Africa, knocking random peoples doors and walking into random peoples houses on my birthday haha, but it was a good way to spend it. Happy birthday to Kylie!! Hope it was as good as mine ;)

One funny story this week, the way water works here in Africa is that every house has a water tank. and its connected to water from the city, which will fill up the tank. well, the city isn't very reliable here and we hardly ever get water. Lucky for us, we have a neighbor upstairs who is a member of the church who has a giant water tank and will let us steal some of her water. So in order to do this well ask her, and shell drop a hose down to our window, and we pull it in and stick it in our tank, then she turns it on and it fills up our water. our tank is 500 liters, so it takes a little bit for it to fill up. so Elder Stewart and i were sitting there waiting, doing studies and getting ready for the day and then I stopped reading and thought, i wonder if that's almost done? so i got up and walked out, Elder Stewart was in the bathroom, shaving. So i ask him if its almost done and he says ''i dunno, it should be close, go check'' and then we just hear splashhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! hahahaha so i bolted upstairs and asked her to turn it off. so we kinda flooded our house :) but no harm no foul.

We also went on a safari today with our zone, and President and Sister Merrill. It was a blast. We saw some monkeys, Giraffes, wildebeest, (the guys on Lion King who killed mufasa), and some antelope and little dear that look like Bambi. it was a blast!!

My mom sent me a book by Elder Bednar called Act in Doctrine. I just got done reading it and really liked it. It brought up an interesting concept that I had never given much thought. it talks about ACTING in doctrine haha. I often find myself trying so study as much as I can and learn as much as I can. But for what? it doesn't matter if we don't act on what we know. For example, we all know the phrase that goes something like ''Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime'' but even if you teach him how to fish, and he refuses to go fishing, he'll still be hungry! We have to LEARN, and then ACT in what we learned. Its not enough just to know that Christ was humble, and charitable, and loving, and etc.... we have to act on that, and become like him. When we listen to the General Authorities in Conference, we need to apply what we learned in our lives.

We had interviews this past week with President Merrill, and he told me something interesting. he said ''You know, I wasn't the best missionary, but I showed up for work.'' And that's really true. We don't have to be the best, and if we are, that doesn't really matter. What matters is ''Showing up to work'' So next time you learn something new, don't just listen and think oh yeah that's great.... Apply it, act on it. That is where true progress and success come from :)

Eu Amo vocês!! Obrigado por tudo. (I Love you, Thanks for everything)

Com Amor,

Elder $

 

 

(Pictures taken from Elder Tilley's blog)