So I had to do 140 push-ups....

Hi Haws family and friends!

How's it? Short email, but thats okay. BAD NEWS..no package, or letter from my sista :( ... it'll get here eventually, just gotta be patient. I'm not worried.

Glad to hear the Ragnar dinner and race went well! This morning we ran what we call "The Big Kahuna!" haha we had to wake up early cuz the run took like 30 minutes. Yessie, it was a beautiful..to watch the sunrise over the Indian Ocean. House music is sweet. All the taxi drivers BUMP it in their taxi's. and yeahh black people can DANCE!

I only get Dear Elder letters from grandma once and a while. I have no clue who looks at my blog here in SA now haha. Are you guys still marking off the days on the missionary calendar thingy?

Soo I was at the Lubelwana house, and they mentioned about Elder Munion...remember, the RM from here who stays in Logan and Kelly and I went to his house that one night! Yeah, I guess they knew him. and also, Elder Frost said he saw Elder Munion's name on teaching records! haha cool.

Another cool thing...during conference this weekend..during the priesthood session..the choir director for the Logan institute choir..brother Salmon..yeah, he was my institute teacher!! It was awesome to see him! He conducted "Guide Me to Thee" and I saw a guy named Spencer...he lived on my floor at USU and we went to the temple to do baptisms once or twice.

Email this to Aunt Julie : Hey Aunt Julie…in answer to your question in your last letter about what the young women do here for mutual..my answer is that I don’t really know too well to be honest! Um, I don’t really get to hear what they do, but I do know that here in a township, the young women program is not very strong. Now that I think about it, maybe they don’t even meet during the week?? No one has a car here, and its hard for people here to find money for transport. It is very dangerous for people, especially girls, to walk around the streets of Mdantsane at night, so I'm not sure when they meet for mutual. I do know that boys meet and play soccer at the chapel, and the ward has a small like dance group.

Relaxing with Elder Thole during our lunch break on exchanges!
yeah, steering wheel on the wrong side! Hectic

I went on exchanges this week with Elder Thole, from Zambia. I have to admit, I was nervous to have to drive ALL day with a manual, but hey I survived. I was proud of myself. Heavenly Father answers prayers haha. I only stalled it like twice!!! and I drove like 90+ K's! I was wiped out after that day! my brain had to really concentrate and focus all day, cuz it was my area. we had fun together. Now my confidence in driving a manual is alot better.

We taught the FHE in NU 3 on Wendnsday night. We decided to do it on the Atonement! Alright, I'm gonna attempt to explain what happened. So we baked brownies, and in order for the people to be able to eat the brownie, I had to do 10 pushups. It went well, and everyone thought it was fun to make me suffer and do the pushups. but then after I did like 80, Elder McD offered the brownie to this shy girl, and she felt bad for me, and didn't wanna make me go through the pain, so she didnt accept the brownie. That was fine, but I still had to do 10 pushups! Can you see the point of the lesson? I hope you can. Well it ended up that 14 people were there...so I had to do 140 push-ups! I was impressed with myself! Yeah, the last 20 were tough, but I was surprised with my strength! Not bad for a guy who hasn't really worked out too much for over 7 months! haha. Then, after the pushups, I had to attempt to teach about the atonement haha. I occasionally had to wipe drops of sweat from my face..but it was all good! The lesson actually turned out to be super spiritual! Everyone that was there said they really liked it. I was happy, but yessie I was sore for the next 3 days!

The NU 3 FHE after I did the pushups

Witnessed a miracle this week. we needed to visit this guy named Lwazi, but the poor guy doesn't have a phone, and went to town for a while, so it was impossible to get a hold of him, and we really needed to. Anyway, we randomly decided to check up on this one investigator, and she wasn't home, but as we were walking to the car, we just "happened" so see Lwazi running right past us...like perfect timing! It was great. We scheduled a time when we could visit him, and now hopefully he'll get baptized this Sunday!

Oh man, had a stressful moment this week! So President has gone around to each district and zone to teach us the fundamentals of Preach My Gospel...like how to begin teaching, how to ask good questions, teach by the spirit, teach people not lessons, etc. Sooo him and his wife decided to go around with EACH of the companionship's in the entire mission and teach with them! Soo on Friday, the mission president and his wife were our "fellow-shippers" haha! I was scared, and to make matters worse, the person we scheduled to teach bounced us that morning and so we had to change our entire plans to try and find someone to teach! They were coming at noon to teach, so we had to scramble, but after some prayers and phone calls, we found someone to teach! Lets just say I was relieved after the lesson was over! haha. It went really well, and he said we did a great job. It was funny...the person we were teaching picked on President Probst to give the closing prayer! hahaha.

General conference this past weekend was awesome! We got to watch all the sessions! There were some good talks aye?! I especially liked priesthood session, and Saturday and Sunday afternoon! I cant wait till we get the conference editions of the Liahona so that I can go back and look over/study the talks more in depth!

Alright, last time you guys failed on giving me a happy/fun moment from the past week!! Come on now haha. If there's nothing exciting that happened, then dang it do something fun! okay?! I'll be following up next week...just like I follow up with my investigators. I invite, you commit, I follow up. haha

Well, my time on the computer is up. Hope you enjoyed my email this week!

Till next week!

Love, Elder Dusty Haws...missionary...Mdantsane, South Africa :)