21st Birthday!

Thinking back, I would have never thought that I would be in Africa on my 21st Birthday or really at any point in my life.  It was an awesome birthday as you can see.

Elder Dutson and I having Buffalo Jerky.  Thank you Dalonda 

 Started my Birthday in Alexandra.

Yes!

Crazy Kids!

No Mom and Grandma, It is not as good as yours!

The Mahara family.  This is the first family I met in the field.  They made me a cake and are the best.  We will be going to their home on Christmas, if I am still here in Bedfordview.

Good stuff!

As you can see it gets a little crazy around here.  Well as I mentioned before my Birthday was a blast and I want to thank all of you for the Birthday wishes.  I sorry I have not written you back, but I will make sure to next week, when I have a little more time.

 YUMMY, YUMMY

Ok, so I had to take a picture of this bug because I have never seen anything like it.  It is hard to see how big it is, but just think of the size of a Tarantula then you will get the idea.  I know what you are all thinking and no I did not eat it.  Yet!

I guess South Africa does have everything!

Wow this week flew by and so much happened.  We met lots a new and exciting people.  The day I went  to Alexandra was crazy.  First I was the only white person around and I kept looking at my skin thinking, wow I'm white.  I went on companion exchanges, so my companion was black as well.   It is so funny, some of the kids here have never seen a white person before, so they surround me and start grabbing my skin.  They call me Mlungu, which means white man.  I drove that day because no one else could and holy crap, the streets in Alexandra are crazy and there are people everywhere, not to mention the crazy taxi drivers.  Well, that is all the time I have, so have a great Thanksgiving everyone and remember try not to waste food, there are people starving in Africa.

Cheers!

Good Monday everybody.  This was another great and quick week here in Bedfordview.  Sorry if I scared you with last weeks post.  I can't scare you in person, so I have to figure out another way to it.  This week was full of hot weather, crazy hail, and lightning storms.  Johannesburg is called lightning capital of the world and I took a couple of pictures just to show you.

                                      

As you can see we get lightning here like no other.  What is even more scary is this lightning will come over top of us and when you hear the thunder, it feels like a bomb just went off above you and taking cover happens involuntarily.  The hail we get here is amazing.  I was talking to some members and they said they got hail stones the size of golf balls.  We were unfortunately not that lucky and got ones that were slightly larger then marbles.  Our car is messed up with dents from hail storms.

 We have a new member of the household.  We found this little guy trying to climb our wall, when we got home.  Elder Dutson and I put him in a jar and fed him some lettuce and eventually let him go free.  They grow up so fast, don't they!

Well as my Dad reminded me, only 95 more weeks to go.  It is crazy to think that two months ago yesterday I left little old Bozeman airport and after many flying hours, landed in Johannesburg, South Africa.  The culture and the people here are amazing.  Don't tell my family this, but I could live here one day.  I just finished my first missionary planner, which is about a six week period.  Only sixteen more planners to go.

This Thanksgiving will be the first time that I will not be with the family in Arizona.  It is going to be hard, but it will be for the better.  The way I think about it is I  will be gone for two Thanksgivings, so when this one is done, only one more to go.

We had five of the people we are teaching come to church this week, which was awesome.  Four of them have baptismal dates coming up on the 8th of December, so that should be pretty sweet.  There names are Hazwell, Fiona, Happy and Vincent.  All very nice and sweet people that Elder Dutson and I have come to love.

I am running out of time, but I want all to know who may read this that God lives and loves you.  I know that this is the true Gospel and you can know it to.

Have a spectacular week everybody.

Elder Segil

Wow is it Monday already.  This week has flown by. This week was crazy we were in a families home and all of the sudden we heard a loud noise outside.  We came out and our car was on fire.  Some guys had thrown some cocktail bombs at it.  We ran and got some water to try and put it out. It ended up burning the whole inside of the car.  The car was towed to a lot, where we took some pictures a couple of days later.

 Shes a beauty!

 Front Windshield

 The Books of Mormon made it

 Backseats/Trunk

 Steering wheel/Front

 Steering wheel

 Front Seats

Haha got ya.  This happened to some Elders about three months ago.  We had to get our breaks replaced at the warehouse and this car was there.

 We saw an Ostrich on the way there.   

 Sun shining through the clouds

Oh yeah

Squatter camp on the way.

Well this week was another great week.  We had lots of people come to church and the gospel is touching millions of lives around the world.  I hope you all have a great week and I will see you very soon.

Elder Segil

Boom my companion and I finished the bag of Cheetos.  Actually we gave half of it away to some of the members.  It filled up like five grocery bags worth.  We managed to eat the other half in about a week.  Good stuff!

This week was pretty awesome and went by so fast.  Elder Bednar came to our mission and we got to hear from him.  He is definitely an Apostle and speaks with such power.  It was an experience that I will never forget. He was in a hurry afterwards, so I did not get to shake his hand or get a picture.  I was so sad, maybe next time.

Not much else exciting happened this week.  We are teaching lots of great people and their faith in God is growing each new day.  It is the best to bring happiness into these peoples lives.

We are going go-karting later on today, so that should be pretty awesome.  Well off to go get groceries and clean the flat.  Hope everyone has a great week and I love ya.

Elder Segil