Elder Alex Sorenson: Durban, South Africa Mission: July 28, 2014

Family,

Pretty quick week things went pretty smooth for the most part. This past week one of the big radio stations here in South Africa traveled over to Salt Lake utah and did some interviews and talked to mormons and missionaries and thats the radio station tons of people listen to so it has given us many opportunities this past week which has been nice. The Thursday night FHE was great this week we taught all 33 people the Restoration and then did a little activity where we gave them each a piece of paper and had them write a friend they knew needed the gospel and by the end of the lesson we had got 25 solid referrals in the space of 45 min. so that wass awesome but there was a few crazy things that happened this past week. one example was we were walking to find some people and i saw a Gogo (grandma) sitting out back of her house so we decided to walk over and see her as we approached we saw her sitting in a wheelchair and that she had no legs. she asked if we were here to see her and we answer 'of course' so she climbed down out of her wheelchair and she crawled inside, my comp and i were a little stund and didnt know what to do when she did that but we followed. As we did so i started to smell incense and the lights were dimmed. we were almost to the little sitting room when a man dressed in traditional clothes( skins and robs and stuff) was standing in the door way with a little light shining and mats on the ground and things hanging from the roof in the sitting room behind him. i thought 'crap this guy is a Sangoma (witch doctor)' so immediatly i felt that we should leave so i left a pass along card and we took off. I dont mess with those guys theres crazy stories what they do to people and i dont wanna get some satanic curse. Jake can probably tell you stories about those guys too. but anyways nothing out of the ordinary here just another house so we proceeded to the next house. But Sunday we had 2 Baptisms of one sister named Lihle, shes a mother of 2 and is about 26 she was a referral from members and another sister named Slindo who is about 20. The baptism went so smooth and we even had some nice chocolate chip cookies i stayed up baking to midnight the night before. Everyone enjoys those things cause they arent use to having them here in Africa. but Elder Sakurada who was there when i started my mission and who is the traveling GPS elder stopped by on Sunday which was nice cause i was able to say by to him since he goes home next monday. But all in all a good week! Sister Thabile and her family are progressing outstandingly for their baptism thats on the 17th of Aug and everything is really coming along nicely i hope things stay this way. I love you all a ton! keep me posted.

Love,

ELDER SORENSON