Excuse me, did anyone see where I put the last 2 years of my life?

with his new companion, Elder Manuma

Aweh!
Eish this week has been a fast one but a great one! Especially the weekend we had some cool lessons, heard some great things and are looking forward to even more great things!
                We had several lessons with an investigator named Lucky. Now, Brother Lucky is a sweet guy whose sister is a member. This week we’ve been teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and today (Sunday) we finished it. After concluding, Elder Manuma asked Bro. Lucky how he felt about what we had shared with him. He understood the seriousness of it all and the impact that it would have on his life. His faith was an example to me as he said, “I’m thankful you guys are letting me pray about this because this is something that’s big. This is something that I’ll have to follow for the rest of my life if I get my answer.” So often, I think people don’t quite grasp the concept of gospel living and all that it entails and when a baptismal invitation is given, they just say, “Sure!” Now, a positive response is good but 10 times out of 10 I would rather teach someone like Bro. Lucky who understands the covenant we make at baptism and wants to make sure he’s doing it for the right reasons. At the close of that lesson after his sister bore a very cool testimony, he asked if I would pray and, “include me and my desire to know the way from God.” Sho, it was a great experience! Many good lessons this week but I would have to say that was my favorite!
                The Soweto stake gets to view General Conference next week in Pimville but we did hear who the 3 new Apostles were! It’s pretty cool that when Elder Renlund was serving in the Area Presidency here in the Africa Southeast area, I got to be in the same sacrament meeting as him! Haha funny little “claims to fame” that we have in the church eh? :P But speaking of keeping good company with people in the church, today we were invited to the home of Elder Mdletshe who is an Area Seventy who lives in the Florida ward of our stake. He works for the CES and has his office at the Roodepoort chapel so when he heard that I was leaving and that our District Leader also has his same surname, he invited us over to his house for lunch! What a great guy and his family was awesome as well! So we got permission from our ZLs and went there today after church for a nice lunch and lesson. Haha I know Area Seventies are no different church members than you or I but after being with the Chatora family in Centurion and now here in Joburg, the pressure always seems a bit higher when it’s your turn to share the lesson haha. But it went well! The spirit was strong and we all learned a bit more about having our hopes motivate us and give us the anchor we need to get through this life and share the gospel with those we love and interact with. And one more cool fact, Elder Mdletshe was the first black South African missionary to serve a mission for the church! He served in the England London South mission in 1985 so that’s pretty cool! He’s one of the pioneers of the church for the black people of SA.
                Other cool things that happened…  three brothers who were baptized last week were confirmed today and also sustained to receive the Aaronic priesthood and 3 members received their endowments on Saturday including one of our ward missionaries who leaves in like 2 weeks for Botswana/Namibia/Pretoria mission! Also, we had interviews with President Dunn and all he could talk about was me going home haha crazy:P He made a funny analogy though about thinking about home. He said that an airplane, when landing doesn’t all of the sudden drop out o the air until 30m above the ground. No, he glides in slowly and smoothly descending. So it is with me and that I shouldn’t worry about thoughts of home just as long as I don’t dwell on them. Eish, that time is less than a month away….
                …Excuse me, did anyone see where I put the last 2 years of my life? They seem to have disappeared. If you find them let me know ;)
Cheers tho hey?
-Elder Smith

Sister Lebo's Baptism

Johannesburg temple gardens

with Elder Lea'aetoa at the temple

Brother Llewellyn wasn't best pleased with Elder Smith's transfer news.
Brother Llewellyn hosts the missionaries in his garden flat.  

The storal of the mory is stay true to what you believe, ask the Lord to help you in pursuit of truth and remain hopeful!

I've had to draw a lot of strength from the Book of Mormon this past week. Its been a rough week with cancellation after cancellation leaving us with no other option but to tract or contact in the heat of the day. I’ve read about Alma, Amulek, the sons of Mosiah, Alma’s sons and all of their missionary work and most recently about the people of Nephi as they are encompassed in war with the Lamanites. It's pretty cool how their examples can have real life impact on us today; especially me here in SA. There are a couple lessons that I’ve learned that I’d like to share.
                The first one kind of carries over from my last 2 areas of Krugersdorp and Centurion. Both affluent towns, the missionary work and people are different from what I'm experiencing now in Soweto. Then, we dealt with a lot of anti-Mormon claims and accusations which caused a lot of doubt to our investigators and even the missionaries. So what I loved from the examples of missionary work in the Book of Mormon are how the Sons of Mosiah and Alma and Amulek responded when faced by people like the unbelieving Lamanites, Korihor, and Zeezrom is how they stood their ground. Imagine, when a lawyer who knows the language of the people tries to twist words and doctrines to suit them how hard it would be to respond when the spotlight is on you and your companion. Or when people straight up deny the Christ. What I saw in them and what helped me to press forward is that they didn’t give up or give in. And ultimately, after the trial of their faith, they saw, and even produced, miracles! So the storal of the mory is stay true to what you believe, ask the Lord to help you in pursuit of truth and remain hopeful!
                Another cool lesson I’ve been learning has occurred this week, and I don't think I'm done learning it either! haha. Eish its been a rough week like I said. People have dropped through, it's been HOT, and motivation has been on the waning side. So what did we do? Unfortunately there were some times where we didn’t use our time as valuably as we should have but fortunately, we pressed on and did our tracting and finding and working with the ward members! So we’re happy that we didn’t just totally flop but even today (Saturday) we’re battling to keep hope and faith and motivation. So I was reading about the stripling warriors and the armies of the Nephites when they take back their cities from the Lamanites in Alma 55-59. With the Lord’s help they were able to pull off some miracles but when it came time to hold on to those things, they were in desperate need of reinforcements and didn’t receive much help. Haha it's kind of like us! Last week was so awesome with great miracles but now that its time to hold onto those things, Elder Manuma and I feel like we need some serious reinforcements! So it's up to us to do like Helaman in Alma 58:9-12 by pouring out our hearts to God to ask Him for help in retaining our works and delivering us from the temptations that are directly related to our purification challenge. So a greater part of peace has come to our hearts, or at least to my heart knowing that all I have to worry about is working hard and not giving up or being lazy and the trial will continue until the Lord sees fit but He won't leave us alone. I truly believe he will buoy me up in some great way this weekend and who knows, maybe next week y’all’ll get the update of the cool things that will happen!
                So yeah, just another testimony that the Book of Mormon is written for us today and no matter what situation we are in, we NEED it! But yeah, keep us in your prayers please- we would love that! Pray that we can have the mental and physical strength to press forward in righteousness!! Cheers!
Elder Smith

"As we were willing to work, we've had an incredible month; we've had amazing miracles and found wonderful people."

Audio Blog: "We've found December has been one of our most rewarding months! As we were willing to work, we've had an incredible month; we've had amazing miracles and found wonderful people.  And it's just going to get better!"

Elder Smith's Tree & stocking

Elder Ah Wong's tree & stocking

Elder Savage (the "grandson") in the old Daveyton (Benoni) flat

Santa remembered Elder Smith!

The Nelspruit & Daveyton Districts have a Christmas Eve sleepover in Benoni.

A fetching photo of Elder Allen and their Christmas Day breakfast at the Mission Home in Johannesburg.

They finally got their KFC! ;)

Elder's Smith & Ah Wong doing splits with their Zone Leader.

Elder Swan has a visit with Santa.

A P-Day Adventure: "We saw tons of springbok and impala, turtles, warthogs, monkeys, kudus, zebras, giraffes, crocodiles, hippos and 3 out of the Big 5!"

November 3, 2014

“Everybodies(is it y’s?) got a water buffalo, yours is fast but mine is slow. Where did we get them, I don’t know but everybodies got a water buffalooooooo! Tune in next time to hear Elder Smith sing “Everybodies got the African Big 5, we saw three but missing two….”

                Hahaha gotta love Veggie Tales :) but on tha real, yesterday was so siiiiick!! Haha before I came on my mission, I knew very little about the physical part of South Africa, except that the Kruger National park was located in our mission boundary. So with that little gem I told people that I would be able to go the park and, it took me 11 months but yesterday I made it!! Our whole district, thanks to the generosity of the Scotts and Swans, got to go to Kruger! Man it was so cool!!! The layout was exactly what we all THINK our mission looks like and what we all think of when we hear “Africa”. So what you do is you drive around the park, kind of like Yellowstone but not nearly as many people or stops. So you drive around about 30kmh and just keep your eyes peeled for the animals that roam the park! We saw: tons of Springbok and Impala, turtles, warthogs, monkeys, kudus, Zebras, Giraffes, crocodiles, hippos and 3 out of the 5 Big 5! Yo they aren’t kidding when they say “big” either! The water buffalo were big and so were the elephants (it was cool to see that they still had their tusks) but the thing that amazed me the most was the size of the Rhinos! Those things were tanks! Their horns were about a yard long and they were huge! Haha we were glad to see them as well because we’ve heard they are getting relocated because of poaching :/ So unfortunately we missed the leopards and lions but the rumor is that if you see 2 of the 5, you’ve had a great day and we saw 3 so there are no complaints! It was so cool to be able to see these things outside of a zoo setting where they just chill and do their thing in the wild.
                That’s really the biggest thing to report on from this last week, or at least it was one of the highlights. Elder Ah Wong and I are having fun trying new finding ideas by going around to different lodges and Bed+Breakfasts and offering copies of the Book of Mormon for their rooms! Some of the owners reject but we’ve had great success from the receptionists who also ask for a copy of the book! In fact, yesterday morning we got a call from one of the ladies who said that she loves the book and wants to learn more about it and more about the church! SWEEEEET! The Book of Mormon really can convert and it is the greatest tool! So that’s been really fun to see and to do as a part of our finding. We have a baptism on Sunday of a brother named Esrom. Elder Ah Wong and McClellan recontacted him from former investigators and it was inspired because he wasn’t ready before but he sure is now! And the cool thing is that his daughter is going to be baptized the week after him! Then hopefully we’ll start teaching his son! Ahhh I love father led families! Haha so powerful! I love mission!
                On another note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! You’re getting to be an old man! :) I hope you had a great birthday!
                Well, I love you guys!
Love,
Elder Spencer "Tony" Smith

"We're gonna try an all audio blog post! So plug in your headphones and get ready!"

Hey! The life of this goalie has been toooo nice this week! And this week I think Imma try to do something a little different so I hope it works and I hope it puts a new spin on the blog posts :) We’re gonna try an all audio blog post! So I’ll type some of the main stories/headlines from the week here but in order to get a full story, ya gotta listen :) so plug in your headphones and get ready for Daveyton: 29 Sept-5 Oct.6.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO: 
-Updates from lessons of the week: Lebo, Oliver, Jacob, Ntokozo, Thabang, Sello, Anna
-Doing service at Shimi’s house
-Funerals galore :/
-Prepping for general conference! (msh 2:1)
-A trial of faith—fasting
-Other fun stories :)-
(Mom's note: It's a bit long but totally worth it. The best stuff is at the end.)
 As well, enjoy the testimonies of these powerhouses that we get to teach with! We’re spoiled to work with such great young men!
                I love you guys and I miss you but askeese, I wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else right now! Salani kahle!
                Ngiyakuthanda,
                Elder David Spencer “Tony” Smith

the mission planner "I love to see the Temple"

the back of the mission planner "I am doing a GREAT WORK and cannot come down."

sunset in Daveyton

"I am an African ... because my soul is at home in Africa"

 (This post was sent on Monday, September 15, 2014)

“This is the new South Africa, where we can live together!” 
             ~Nice man on the street where we were contacting

I am an African
Not because I was born there
But because my heart beats with Africa’s
I am an African
Not because my skin is black
But because my mind is engaged by Africa
I am an African
Not because I live on its soil
But because my soul is at home in Africa
~Wayne Visser
(See the full text of this poem here.)

This week has been a great one!  Again, full of miracles and full of learning! We had zone conference and it was pretty dope if I can use that word to describe a zone conference. Haha! In all reality though, it was wonderful and uplifting and we learned a lot; at least I did. This whole week has been about learning! Whether it was in a conference or in the area, this week has helped me to continue growing as a servant of the Lord and as a lifelong disciple of Christ :)

                Some of the miracles we have been experiencing are continuations of miracles! Elder Clegg and I have been trying our hardest to be the most obedient we can be and we think (hope) that that is why we are seeing such great success in our area! Many of the less-active members' hearts are being softened as they desire to come back to church and keep commitments, our investigators are feeling the spirit more and more and are seeing the fruits of planting and nourishing their own seeds of faith! One investigator, Sis. Anna, told us that she knows the Book of Mormon is true! It’s extremely cool to see her drive to come to church! As the investigator, she is more so the driving force in getting the family to church than her husband (who is a less active member but still a sweeeet guy.) Another miracle this week occurred during a lesson with one of our investigators on date to be baptized. We planned to teach Oliver the law of chastity but were concerned because of the slight language barrier that exists because he can’t always comprehend gospel words/topics in English. Luckily, his friend and our ward missionary Lesedi was able to translate into Pedi (a Setho dialect) when we needed it and Oliver not only understood and committed to live it but liked what it was about and agreed with it! We’re talking a 21 yr old guy living in the kasi (South African slang for ghetto) who agrees with the law of chastity! Miracle! Haha! Oliver is truly converted and it is our privilege to be a part of his acceptance of the gospel!

Homes and a playground in Daveyton

Daveyton homes are 1-2 rooms with concrete floors
and corrugated tin roofs. 

                But now for the update from Zone conference!! It’s lacrosse camp again!  I’ve used this analogy 3 times now but it’s still the best way I can describe the feelings that I feel as I am able to learn from President and Sis. Dunn and the Assistants. It was a different dynamic than in the past but it was still good! We had a lesson on the Book of Mormon and its role in conversion from Pres. Dunn and that was eye opening! We were able to see the promises that are contained as we use the Book of Mormon and the spirit in our teaching! Simple things such as reading passages with people enable them (and us) to feel the spirit and power associated with Another Testament of Jesus Christ. It reminds me of the cool scripture in Alma 31:5 about the power of the Word of God! Haha I’m not going to quote it so you guys can have the chance of looking it up yourselves and seeing how cool it is! After that great lesson we were then split up by zones into different “workshops”. We first went to sis. Dunn’s about being FIT for the kingdom”. It was a really cool presentation on how we can all be a little better at using our 30 min to exercise each morning! It was nice not feeling guilty since we’ve been running for the last 3 months; as well, feeling good and healthy is probably the biggest plus. Then we went to the AP’s workshop which was probably my favorite! “What to do when there’s nothing to do” helped us to find activities to do when we have “nothing to do” (ie. Appt falls thru, current finding method isn’t working, etc). I say this was my favorite because I really like the focus on using The Lord’s time wisely and not wasting it! It was really cool, we found out that after taking out the time for: food, preparing, studying, meetings, sleep, p-day, and travel we really only have 6 ½ months worth of opening our mouths proclaiming the gospel! Haha time to get working! We got a lunch break where we got a nice lasagna from the senior couple missionaries (THANK YOU!!!!!) and then we went to our last workshop given by Pres. Dunn about engaging with members. It was cool because we talked about the basic mechanics of cogs. (yes, Elder Allen and I did quote The Incredibles) we talked about “mesh-inary work” and how we as fulltime missionaries can mesh better with the members to help the work progress further! After the Workshops we had a Q&A from the ZLs and played a PMG game to kinda build unity and end on a fun note. It was definitely different than I am used to but it was great! It’s nice to look back on the zone conferences with the Omers and to see how much I learned and then look at the current setting and KNOW that the Lord has called the Dunns for this time and for us as individuals! One quote that I love on my companion’s wall is a picture of small flowers with the caption “He is in the details” and He truly is! I feel that the sooner we are all able to learn that better, life will cease to be as stressful and rather we will learn how to become more like Him. And that’s what life is all about: learning! Whether its lacrosse camp, zone conference or just plain life we are here to learn! And don’t worry, we can smile and have fun while we’re doing it :) That’s where I am thankful that Elder Allen’s zone and Elder Graham’s zone were with us so we could chill and have fun joking again. To end, ZC was dope!
                On a sweet lacrosse/mission/adult life note, we adopted a new mission maxim of “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” And in the AP’s workshop we talked about not being discouraged about past events. Do both of those sound familiar to my fellow CH laxers? “First time, every time” and “it is what it is” –two of the greatest sayings from the man that I have come to admire more and more as I go thru life as an adult, Coach Matt Evans. We didn’t see it as high school punks goofing off at practice or during the bus trips or even during the weeks of running and running and then running even more as punishment for not running enough the first two times. But now, I see clearly that Coach Evans was preparing us for real life. It is what it is! Deal with it and learn from it and move on towards greater things! And first time every time! If you’re gonna do something, do it right instead of doing it again. Nobody likes excuses in lax as well as in real life! So I guess this note is just my way of saying thanks coach :)

Elder Clegg's birthday was 3 days before Elder Smith's!  They
helped make each other's birthdays fun and memorable.

Elder Clegg and I are killing it here in Daveyton and having fun while we do it! I’m very glad to 

Elder Clegg's birthday breakfast
made by Elder Smith

have him as a companion because he helps me be better! And man, this guy’s testimony and ability to teach astounds me every lesson! Haha! 
What a missionary to learn from! And what a friend to have as we become the best we can be together! 
Life on mission is good, the greatest, even the best! I love you all and I love Jesus Christ :)
Tha’s ‘bout it!  
Elder Smith

Usually Elder Smith & Elder Clegg are the only two
mulungus in the ward as pictured above.

PS We weren’t the only two mulungus (Zulu word meaning "whitey" or "white person") at church yesterday! A father and his 3 sons from good ‘ol Cache Valley, UT joined our ward! Haha imagine seeing white people in a township ward and you’ll be as shocked as we were! Haha Clegg and I may have even been a bit jealous that these guys were ruining our reputation as the only 2 white guys in Daveyton! Nah! The dad does robotics for the mining companies here so he was on a business trip but let his boys tag along for the weekend so they could go to the Kruger wildlife park (jealous fa sho!) and see South Africa! So it was fun to talk to fellow Utahns and see how small the world is! And even better, the sons go to Mountain Crest High School!  So there ya go dad! 

Proof that Missionaries are still just 

18-, 19-, 20- and 21-year-old kids! 

 

"What a great birthday present to all of us as God’s children!! The ultimate gift!!"

WHAddup er’body! Hey hey hey it's been a freakin great week and guess who got a typie for their birthday!? Yebo, muzungu Clegg! Haha he's kind enough to let me use it to again start doing my blog post in my short spare time so I can manage my email time better! :) Email time is golden so we don’t waste a single second!! But this week had a ton of great moments! My 1st of 2 birthdays on mission, Soweto towers, birthday lunch (thank you VERY MUCH grandma and grandpa!!!!!), transfers, adding to the list of crazy stuff that happens to SAJM missionaries, and many many wonderful miracles! So let's get to it eh?
                Well, I've heard from many different missionaries about their birthdays on mission and I'd say that the positive vs. negative responses were about 50:50. Which IS a shame but I decided that I wasn’t going to be a part of the pessimistic club. The wise advice of “you get out what you put in” as well as the reminder that "these two years are the Savior’s" helped me to really get the most out my birthday! In the several times that I remembered “hey, I"m no longer a teenager” and “it's my birthday today” I was able to think about the Atonement! What a great birthday present to all of us as God’s children!! The ultimate gift!! (John 15:13) And what a great opportunity to be able to share the message of the Atonement with the wonderful people of Daveyton! I thoroughly enjoyed it and even the bishop was kind enough to invite us over and feed us dinner and then a birthday cake!

Birthday dinner at the Bishop's house

I don’t know how anyone couldn’t love these wonderful people! So from breakfast, to all the great things Elder Clegg did for me, and to the sharing of the best present ever, I had a wonderful birthday!! I was also blessed with the sweet birthday emails from all my friends!

Thank you guys it means more than I can put into words! I even got a present to go to birthday lunch with three of my favorite mission friends: Elders Clegg, Maraetefau, and Allen!! We went to Soweto towers (and couldn’t go up cause the electricity was out -_____-) and got SWEEEEET pictures and then went to lunch! Ah just a sweet beginning to the week!

Soweto Towers
(The Orlando Towers used to be cooling towers for a coal power station but now they are used for bungee jumping and other activities.)

Birthday Lunch

               My birthday was on transfers so we went and dropped Kewuti off (he is going to Soweto) and picked up the new elder in our district: Elder Melese from Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape; another Xhosa boy!! Haha he's a sweet guy! He spent the first 8-9 months of his mission in Sierra Leone (where he was originally called) but they shut his mission down because of the Ebola virus that’s killing people left and right in central and west Africa. So we’re lucky he’s safe and glad to have him in our mission! And since Clegg and I have another transfer to go, we stayed together!! Elder Allen went to Germiston which is a town in the Bedfordview zone but he's only 20 minutes away so maybe we can chill on p-day who knows!? Other than that, that’s transfers!
                Hahaha now to add to that list of crazy experiences. So townships on the weekends are full of drunk people! So idk, have any of you guys back home been kissed by a drunk man that you’ve never met before? I hadn’t until Saturday but that’s changed! Haha luckily it wasn’t on Elder Clegg’s or my mouths but the neck is probably even more awkward! Haha eish that’s really all we have to say about that. Haha mission stories :P
                But aside from the fun and unique birthday as well as the drunk guy, this week has been miraclulous. And I use that word because we have seen miracles all week! And I can't thank my comp enough for saying “let's look for miracles this week!” we met about 4-5 less-active families we’ve never met before, had people progress towards baptism, and had 2 new investigators bear their testimonies yesterday at their first time at church! One of them, Samuel met us on the street on Tuesday and said he had a revelation experience that confused him and that he wanted to stop smoking (holding a cig in his hand). So we gave him a pamphlet and arranged an appointment to meet with him. To our delight he was waiting for us!! Sweeeet already haha he didn’t ditch us!! But he told us he's ready to live a gospel life  and wants to do it right so he's going to come to church and he did! But not only did he come he participated in the classes and bore his testimony! Telling the congregation that since he's read the pamphlet, he hasn’t had any desire to smoke! And he read a line from the pamphlet about how he wanted to change his thoughts and actions to do good and follow God! Afterwards, he told us he felt at home at church :) Couldn’t ask for a better miracle! Maybe the runner up is finding a place to possibly open up the Chris Hani cluster of the Daveyton Ward!
But this week has just been all ups! Hardly any downs and any downs that maybe crept in were swallowed up in the greatness of our week! This is mission! This week was the shot in a round of golf that keeps you coming back! It’s the save in a lacrosse game that gets the team and crowd fired up! It's what makes all the hard work and trials worth it! I LOVE IT!!
Cheers until next time! Salani kahle bafwethu, ngyikuthanda
Elder Smith

Elder Smith and Elder Clegg celebrating their birthdays together.

(Thanks Grandpa & Grandma- they look like they had a fun time!)

Gogo (Grandmother) Mhlanga! the 90 year old Xhosa version of Great-Grandma Homer!
(Gogo Mhlanga has offered her home to be the new meeting place for the Chris Hani cluster- a pilot program that will allow members to meet together every Sunday for church, even if they can't afford the taxis to take them to the meetinghouse.)

 those little kids giving high 5 are the funniest naughtiest kids!
they're a crack up in sacrament meeting but sometimes its too much!

my old seminary scriptures now covered in really cool rino leather.