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

First Time on Splits

Well this week was pretty awesome. We had companion exchanges on Friday, where we switch companions with the district leaders for a day. I went to a place called Alexandra and this place was crazy. It was a township and there were people everywhere. The houses were huts or less. We were the only white people there, so that was pretty interesting. The best part of that day was eating a chicken foot. It cost 10 rand, a dollar. It was pretty good once you got past the crunch of the toe nail.

I don't have much time, so I'm trying to get all the interesting stuff out. It's pretty sad, I've seen three dead people in the month that I have been here. That is always sad to see. Driving is really crazy here and people stop for no one.

We have been teach a lot of people and I love seeing the happiness that I get to bring into their lives everyday.

To all who are reading this, I hope all is well with you. I love you all and I will try to write more next week.

Elder Segil

Alright, I know it's been a while since I have posted on my blog, but I have a lot for you now.  I will start with my everyday life.  I get up every morning at 6:30, work out until 7 and then shower and eat breakfast until 8.  At 8 we have personal study for an hour, where I will read from the scriptures or what ever I need to work on.  At 9 we have companion study for two hours, where we go over who we are teaching today and what we will be teaching.  On Thursdays, we have weekly planning where we plan for the whole week and who we want to go visit.  On Fridays we have district or zone meetings depending on the week and this is where we meet together and talk about what has been going on.  When that's all done, we have lunch for an hour and then head out.  Either we will have appointments or we go tracting to try and meet new people to share the gospel with.  We do that until around 8 or 9 and then come back for dinner.  Then we plan for the next day and retire to bed at 10:30.

The food here is pretty good.  We have lots of rice and meat.  We get invited into a lot of houses that have nothing, but they do their very best to give us something to eat.  People are so kind here.  They drink a lot of juice they buy juice concentrate and mix it with water.  Its not too bad.  Most of the time we have pasta or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at home.  Oh and roman noodles, gotta have that.

Driving is pretty awesome here.  At first driving on the left side was crazy, but now that's all I know.  I can't imagine driving on the right side of the road.  Johannesburg has the highest hijacking rates in the world, so it gets pretty crazy.  If you thought taxi drivers were bad in bigger cities like LA or New York, you should come here.  They act like they own the road and stop for no one.  At a red stoplight aka robot, they will already be through the intersection before it turns green.  By the time I get home I will be more of a crazy driver.  The police are corrupt here and pull you over for no reason.  Sometimes they will pull you over and say buy me some McDonald's or give me money and I won't give you a ticket.  We are instructed to just say give me the ticket.

We got robbed last week in the mall.  My companion was using the ATM and this guy comes up and says here do this and just walks away.  Another guy started yelling at that guy and then he ran off.  The guy told us he stole our credit card and we had no idea.  He was good.  I think we lost 200 rand, which is about 20 dollars.  We get about 1400 rand a month, so 140 dollars.  It is not much but we make it work.

Elder Dutson and I opened a new area call Bedfordview and it is huge.  I think it is around a 30 km radius.  We are both new to the area, so it has been a rough beginning, but is going very well.  We do a lot of tracting and driving.  This is the rich part of South Africa, so all the houses are huge.  The houses are like fortresses.  They have walls that are 10 to 15 feet high and then an electric fence or glass on top of that.  If there was a zombie apocalypse I know where I would want to be.

Its funny, in normal life Mondays are the least favorite, but when you are on a mission they are the best.  It's the day off where we can take a break and go do stuff that we couldn't do on the other six days.

I would like to leave my testimony that in the first month I have been here I have grown so much.  I know that God lives and I am doing His work.  I am bringing happiness to people that never knew where to find it and now they have it.  They now have hope and a reason to live.  I wish you all the best.

Elder Segil

Leaving the MTC

My First Companion, Elder Dutson from Rexburg

The mission President and His wife

President and Sister Omer

On my way!!