January 16, 2012

Moni onse (Hello to all of you)
Muli bwanji (How are you (all)?
Today I got a letter from Kathy!! It was sent on the 13th of November.  I think the mail here has a bit of a backed up!! Kathy is so funny! She reported that she threaten to send Ryan to Africa to me!  She may need my help in getting him on the right path!! (ha ha).  However, Elder Hewlet reported that he saw some letters for me at the office, so I will see what they are today.

Today is our zone activity we are going to Kalimba farm.  Kalimba Farm is a reptile park. The park has a large variety of indigenous snakes, tortoises and other reptiles. It is also one of the few places left in the world where you can see the rare and shy slender-nosed crocodile. They have black mambas! It is feeding day and we are going to watch them feed the black mamba chicken! It’s going to be sweet!!

We only baptized one person on Saturday; Prince Bwalaya.  However, it was a great experience! We are going to baptize his wife on the 11 of February and I am excited about that. We were suppose to baptize the Mwaywa family on Saturday, however I don’t if we those baptisms are going to take place. The father of the family put us in a strange situation. He told us that he wants to get baptized but, not go to church.  We told him he can’t get baptized if he doesn’t come to church. He reports continues to report he doesn’t want to come to church, but wants to be baptized. We want to try and baptize people that will stay in the church. We do not want to baptize people who we will never see again.  

I get along well with my companion. Elder Santana is a cool guy and we have a lot fun.  For our p-days we usually start out the day by going to arcades to email, eat lunch somewhere nice, we go to the main chapel to play soccer and have a BBQ, go shopping for the week, and watch a movie at home.  It is cool how they sell movies here.  For example, on one DVD you get about twenty movies and I can get it for about ten pin, which is like five US dollars.  The movies new released come out fast. For example, I can already get the new Mission Impossible movie here on DVD for ten dollars.  In addition, p-days are the days we get haircuts; however here is Zambia they have no clue how to cut a “white man’s” hair!  They don’t understand that when you cut my hair you have to cut against the grain not with the grain of my hair.  I have just started to cut my own hair because having someone here cut it is a waste of money.  It is somewhat funny though because I grew up in Utah and I am sure that most people there have not clue how to cut a “black man’s” hair.  Anyways, the first self haircut did not go as well I hoped but the second one went a little better.  I’ll be a pro by the time I get home.

I have only been on my mission for a short time; however I have a lot of fun/crazy stories.  I write them down in my journal.  So, even if I don’t email them, you can be able to read everything I did every day (If you really want to).  In addition, I’m keeping my planners. I have two so far.  They last for six weeks and they contain a record of all the people I taught.  So, it will be fun to go back over that when I’m finished with my mission. In addition, I bought a journal to keep a record of the people I meet in all my areas.  I am planning on having the following people sign it and I am going to put their pictures next to their names: the members, the people I baptized, and other missionaries. So, that will be cool to look through when I get back home.

Its week six in my second transfer, and I’m going to be staying here in Chinama. However, this transfer will end March 3. We will have to see where I go after March 3.  Sister Seiben is going to Malawi. I was sick the other day; however I am feeling much better today.

I miss my family, my brothers, and my mom’s cooking!  I can’t wait to come home and eat some of my mom’s food! When I do come home and eat some real food I will be in seventh heaven!!

 hope all is well! I miss everyone!
Tsalani bwino (stay well)
Devin

We just got back from the Kalimba farm.  It was extremely cool!! I got the chance to come email again so I did.  The crocodiles were huge! One was about 2 tons and 25 feet long! It was crazy. In addition, there were lots of snakes, such as pythons, spitting cobras, and the black mambas. The black mambas did not look scary until they fed them. Wow! They are fast! One bite and the chickens were dead! After all that we played some soccer and volleyball and just had a good time. Now we are going to go do our shopping and get something for dinner. Anyways, I just thought that you would like to hear about that. It was awesome!