Things are going well here in Glenview.  The people are very nice.  Elder Sefatsa is cool.  We get along well, I enjoy being around him.  But Dad, he is not native, he is from South Africa.  It is much different here in Zim.  He has been out on his mission for like 7 months.  He was in Zambia until last transfer when he came to Glenview.  He knows how to get to all of the areas, but we are trying to rebuild the teaching pool because they just had a lot of baptisms so finding the people's houses is a problem.  It isn't as bad as in Chi-town though.  The houses are easier to find.  We have had quite a few referrals from members so it has been nice.  The week went well and we have quite a few who we are teaching now.  We meet in a chapel here so it is pretty nice.  Yesterday was the first time that I have been in a real chapel since the Sunday before I left.  In Chi-town we held baptisms at the Church (tent) in a portable font.  The houses are about the same size as the ones in Chi-town but the roads are much nicer though.  I have a different bike than the one in Chi-town, they just leave them at the houses.  This one is much better.  It actually somewhat works and it actually stays put together.  Our house is pretty nice.  We have a shower which is nice,  but the problem is that they just moved in so we don't have much furniture.  But they are working on that for us though.  We don't even have shelves for our stuff yet, so we are living out of our suitcases.  But as soon as they get us our new stuff it will be a nice house.  We still don't have power all that often though.

I talked to Elder Roberts today and he said that Brother Jena is still doing well.  So he should be getting baptized on Saturday.  He said that Brother Jena talks about me a lot.  I'm going to try to keep in contact with him as much as possible.  He was one of my favorite people to see in Chi-town.

I got an email from President Rasmussen today.  He told me about all of the other missionaries from the stake.  It is crazy that some of those guys are already home.  But it was cool to read about some of the other guys on missions.

That's good that things are starting to work out with the vehicles and even out in Milford.  It will come together, just have faith, and the Lord will provide.  That's good that Jaxon is dealing with it well.  It's even good for him to have a calling.  I'm sure that he likes having something to do.  Tell him to email me, I want to hear from him.

That's crazy that Auburn beat Oregon, it sounds like it was a good game.  It seems weird that things like that are still happening because we are so secluded from it all here.  I always had heard that the clothing from the teams that lost in the championship games is sent to Africa, but I never really thought about it.  But I see people wearing them all the time, and I think, "They didn't win that game."  But then I realize what the shirt is from.  Thing are just so much different here.  For example, the people here in Africa don't have "national pride" they have "continental pride".  I did want to tell you that I have now eaten some spiny caterpillar.  It tasted kind of like burnt popcorn.

I received packages from Grandma and Chris.  Tell them that I appreciate them very much, the candy really helps a lot.  Also tell Parker that I love the picture that he drew for me.  It made me happy.  I hung it on the wall by my bed.  Elder Sefatsa wants to see some pictures from me wrestling and playing baseball.  I also need a picture of our family to keep in my scriptures.  President Dube wants us to have one to show to some of the investigators and members that we teach.  And you don't need to send my glove, I don't want it to get stolen.  But no, I haven't gotten to play catch again, because the APs have their P-day on Saturday.

I love and pray for you all.
Love,
Elder Cecil

How is everything?  I'm sorry to hear about the vehicle problems, that makes life a lot more difficult.  But things will work out.  Maybe next time you should try to spread out the problems and not have them be all bunched together.  It might make things a little more convenient.  I'm glad you were able to find a new raincoat.  I need it badly.

We have had no luck on finding out who stole our money.  We are now all but positive about who it is but he just won't confess.  He has been wearing new clothing in the last week and so his uncle asked him where he got the money to buy them and he told him that he had received it from a lady in South Africa that he knows.  His uncle knows the lady too so he didn't press.  But when we learned this, we called the lady and she told us that she has never given him any money before and that he is lying.  Then he changed his story.  He then said that he had done some work for a guy in the area scraping paint off cars, but his uncle said that that was a lie.  So we are sure it is him, but he won't confess.  We were going to take it to the police but then President Dube said that is wasn't a good idea to do that.  We found all of this out on Saturday after the baptism.  It really put a bad mark on the day.

The baptism went really well.  We had 4 people from our area and 1 from Elder Smith and Mtetwa.  I was asked to baptize the one from the other area.  His name is Norman Dhauka.  They said that he could choose from anyone in the priesthood meeting and so he prayed about it and said that I was the only one that he could think of  This guy is a very powerful man.  He will be a great priesthood member for the area.  Of our 4 we had the Moyo family.  The mom and her two daughters.  Along with Sister Jena.  They gave really powerful testimonies at the end of the baptism.  Baptism days are the best days.  The only problem with this day was the previous remarks.

I have been transferred.  You will even be able to pronounce the name this time.  It is called Glenview.  It is in the same zone as Chi-Town and isn't far so I will still see Elder Roberts on P-days.  My new companion is Elder Sefatsa.  His is from South Africa.  He is a good guy and I have liked him quite a bit on P-days.  I have no idea about the area and I don't really know that much about Elder Sefatsa since I just got to my new area yesterday.  What happens is we get our transfers on Tuesday at Zone Meeting, then we finish the week before we leave.  So next week I will tell you about the area.

But I do have some great news about one of our investigators from Chi-town.  Brother Jena has now been cigarette free for 5 days.  We have been so happy for him.  Every time we saw him we just got really happy.  The reason he hadn't been able to quit yet was because he wasn't reading the Book of Mormon on his own.  He had just been listening to his wife read because he couldn't see the words, but he borrowed his wife's reading glasses and two days later he had completely stopped.

I have a few of the letters but I don't know who they are from because I haven't been to the Mission Office to pick them up yet.  Talk to you later.

Love,
Elder Cecil

Bad news about the Lion and Cheetah park.  We didn't get to go because the Zone Leaders working fund was stolen by a Branch Missionary and so they had to spend the entire day at the mission office.  They had $180 dollars stolen.  But it isn't President Dube who plans for the game parks and things.  We get to have one Zone Activity per transfer so it was our idea.  So then we had absolutely not plans for our P-Day last week.  It was pretty boring.

The way our finances work is we get 200 dollars per companionship every two weeks.  It all goes toward food, transport, and emailing.  For haircuts we just find a barber who gives us a buzz cut, President Dube allows them because it is so hot.

 No I haven't had any problems with homesickness.  We are too busy to be homesick.  But what I would give for a cold day.  Man that would be nice.  It is so hot here.

Yeah President Dube does have a crazy side to him.  He is really funny.  But no, he does not have small children.  His youngest is around 11.  So you must have been hearing things.  We find out transfers tomorrow.  It is crazy that this transfer is already over.  I can't believe how fast these last five weeks have gone.  I got the package with my garms in it, and the music player.  Thank you.  It is nice.  But I haven't gotten the others yet.  I hope you can find a good rain jacket for me because the one that I have is next to worthless.

We had a nice New Year's Eve/Day.  On New Year's Eve, we all went to the Harare South Zone Leaders' (my zone) house and had a party because they didn't want us out in the area with all of the partying that goes on.  We played games and lit off fireworks and ate a lot of food.  We also watched The Other Side of Heaven.  It is crazy to see how much different missionary work is now from what it was back then.  We even were allowed to stay up until midnight to celebrate the new year.  Then on New Year's Day we went to a school and played football with some guys from the U.S. Embassy.  Two of them were members so that was nice.  But I kind of pulled my groin some so I have been really sore the last few days.  After football we went to the North Zone Leaders' house and watched a movie called Treasure Planet.  It is some Disney movie that didn't make it real big.  It was a nice day though.

Terrence still hasn't come to Church yet.  Our next lesson is going to be the Sabbath Day.  It is frustrating to see someone who is  so accepting of the truth that won't come to church.
Tonderai is really struggling.  We haven't been able to teach him for over two weeks.  We had seen heim at him work once or twice and he was doing okay with the smoking but he hasn't been to church for a few weeks now and he never returns our calls.  We might have to drop him soon.
But the Moyo's are still doing very well and are ready for baptism.  They will be baptized on Saturday.
The Jena's are also doing well.  Sister Jena is ready for baptism on Saturday but we're not sure about Brother Jena.  He has been hovering on 1 or 2 cigarettes for the whole week.  We just can't seem to get him to 0.  But we haven't been able to talk to them for a few days so we will see.  If he has been cigarette free then he will be baptized but if not then it will be pushed back a few weeks.
We have finally got the Branch President's son to come to Church.  His name is Tedious.  That has been the only thing holding him back from baptism, but he has been there the last two weeks.  We have been so happy to see him there.
The Bisenti's are doing well and our lessons with them are so powerful but for some reason they haven't been coming to church.  We don't know why so we are going to try to run by today to see why but we'll see.

Well I will give you more info next week.  I love you guys.
Elder Cecil

Sorry the phone just cut out like that.  Someone else tried to call right then and it cut us off.  We don't even recognize the number, but it was local number though.  I wish that we could have said goodbye as well, but at least we got to talk.  That was the most important thing.  I had a really good Christmas though.  One thing that I didn't get to tell you about was that we went to a children's home on Christmas Eve.  We played games and sang songs with them.  We played Simon Says as one of the games.  President Dube was Simon once.  It was hilarious to watch him being Simon.  He was jumping up and down and yelling loudly.  It was really funny to watch.

Yes they have addresses Mom, but they are completely worthless.  If you haven't been there before it is next to impossible to find anything.  One house number will be like 4534 and the next house will be 6475.  It is ridiculous, even the people here can't find houses.  If you want to find someone's house you have to either know a landmark or have them show you their house.  Our first two weeks in the area was tough, but only because we couldn't find the houses, not because there was no one to teach.

Everyone celebrates Christmas here but I have only seen like one house decorated in Chi-town.  Mostly, I'm sure because they can't afford it.  But most people have work off and most people use the time off the get drunk.  The Word of Wisdom is a big problem here.

Terrence, our Gospel Principles investigator, is doing well.  He is extremely smart.  We had him read about the Plan of Salvation and then he taught us the entire lesson.  It was powerful.  The only problem is that we haven't been able to get him to church.  But we will keep working on it.
Tonderai, the one with the drinking and smoking problem is doing pretty well.  He has stopped drinking completely, and has dropped from 30 cigarettes to under 10.
We even have another man who is trying to quit smoking.  He was at about 15 a day to 1 or 2 a day.  Today he isn't supposed to even have one so we will see how that goes.  His name is Brother Jena.  He and his wife are supposed to get baptized on the 8th of January.  Sister Jena will for sure be baptized but Brother Jena has to be cigarette free for a week before he can.  But we know he can do it.  He is great, he comes to every Church event.  He came to our baptism a few weeks ago and he came to the Branch Christmas party.  He was one of the first ones there at 11:00 but they were not organized so it didn't start until like 3:00, but he stayed the whole time and helped.
Another family will be getting baptized on the 9th.  The Moyo family, there is a mom and 2 daughters.  The mom's brothers were also going to be baptized that day but they had to leave to help a relative on a farm so we will try to get them ready for the 23rd.
Another family that we are teaching is the Bisenti family.  The first time we taught them, the father didn't even want to come inside but by the end of the lesson he didn't want us to leave.  It's not often that our investigators can the Spirit in the first lesson but Sister Bisenti did.  It was really cool.
We have many investigators and it is difficult to schedule them all.  But the problem is that most of them don't keep time well so we get bounced quite often.  It's not that they don't want us to teach them, but it is because in their culture most people are used to being to things at a certain time.  So they just don't remember.

The transfers last for six weeks.  We are pretty sure that Elder Roberts is going to die here in Chi-Town, but we have no idea if I'm going to stay.

I hope you are all doing well and are happy.  It was good to hear from you.  I love you all.
Love,
Elder Cecil

Happy Birthday Mom!!!  What is it now, 29?

Funny story, I meant to write a p.s. last week saying that the baboon thing was a joke.  Sorry, I hope that you haven't told too many people.

Yeah we are really excited for Christmas.  On Christmas Eve we are going to a children's home to play with them and to sing to them, maybe even give them a few toys to play with.  I can't wait of that.  It will be fun.

That is really sad about Julie.  I can't believe it.  She will be missed.  She was a great lady.

That's good to hear that you got the power in Milford Dad.  Don't worry things will work out.
"...let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith..."
-Hebrews 12:1-2
I found this scripture while studying, I hope it helps.

Alice's baptism was powerful.  It was amazing.  I couldn't stop smiling.  I tried to send some pictures but the download keeps failing.  I'll try again next week.

We know have 24 baptism dates set.  There are a few that we aren't seeing a lot of progress with so we might have to drop them.  But most of them are progressing really well.  We have had 12 investigators at Church each of the last two weeks, but it break my heart when the rest don't show up.  Our lessons just keep getting better as I have been getting more comfortable teaching.  We now teach with very good unity.  Things just seem to flow much more smoothly now.

The time is flying by, I can't believe that half of the transfer is already over.  It is crazy.  We are going to figure out what to do with that money that the man gave me today.  So I will have to tell you on Saturday.  We do know that we are going to buy a few things for a family that feeds us a lot, the Makuneys.  One of them is turning in his papers today, on his birthday, so we are going to get him something to help.

It's funny, as we ride around all of the little kids start yelling, "Marungu, marungu."  It means "white man" in Shona.  I think that for many of them it is the first time seeing a white person.  I have only seen two other white people besides the missionaries.  So we were right that the 1% of whites in the country are missionaries.

The power company is called ZESA.  Zimbabwe Electricity Scarcely Available.  At least that is what we think the acronym means.

Talk to you Saturday.

Love,
Elder Cecil

How are you doing?
I'm doing great.  I am learning a lot from Elder Roberts, he has helped me so much.  He is so good with the people, he just knows how to talk to them.  But I'm starting to pick up on what to ask people and how to respond.  It is really cool to see their faces light up when you can greet them in Shona.  They are so much more receptive when you do.  I can't believe that it has already been I week since I last got to write to you, it has flown by.

The Joburg Temple was great.  It is a pretty small temple, that only has one endowment room but it was nice.  We went 3 times and the last time we even did some sealings.  That was really cool, one of the guys was sealed to his parents.  It was a powerful experience.  Many of them also got to act as proxy for their ancestors as well.

We did get to celebrate Thanksgiving at the MTC, it was really nice.  Sister Christensen made some amazing pumpkin pie.  It was nice to have some normal food again, even though it was still a little different.

It is good that you are getting things moving out there in Milford, Dad.  I'm glad that things are starting to fall into place.  Why is the power still not on there?  I will continue to keep you in my prayers.  Also you can write both spiritual and temporal things Dad, I appreciate both.

I had a crazy thing happen to me though.  We were riding our bikes to an appointment, and as we were passing by this group of trees a pack of baboons started to chase us.  It was a little scary because they looked like they were going to attack us.  We were able to get away from them though.

Now to the good stuff.  We are going to have a baptism for a girl named Alice Sakila on Saturday.  She's 18 years old and her mother  is a member but she has been away at a boarding school so she hadn't been taught before.  She is a nice girl that has been really nice to teach because she is always there when we have appointments and keeps her commitments.  One of our other investigators, Terrence, was a contact that I made the first day we were in the field.  It is funny because he has a Gospel Principles book that he found on the ground somewhere.  As he read it he saw all of the BoM references and was like, "Where do I find one of these?"  Then he saw the name of the Church on the back of the book and had been looking for the Church for a few months.  So when I contacted him he was so happy to see me.  He is so smart, the research in the Book of Mormon while he reads is incredible.  He found out all of the things that show evidence that it's true before he had even prayed about it.  He already has an amazing testimony of it.  Another one, Tonderai, has an addiction with marijuana and alchohol.  He had dreads too.  He's had lessons before but he didn't want to listen then.  He said that a few weeks ago he had something happen to him that made him want to change, but he didn't know how.  He said that we were the only thing that he could think of.  So he gave us a call.  He has since cut his dreads and come to church twice.  We have set some goals to help him quit smoking and drinking.  I can't wait to see how he progresses.  We have 19 baptism dates right now set in January and the first week in February.

On Christmas Day we will be going with President Dube to a lake, but I can't remember what it is called.  We will get to call home some time between 7:00 am and 12:00 pm Utah time and I will get half an hour.  Then on the Monday after, our zone is going to go to a lion and cheetah game park and have a braai (bbq).

President Dube has given us a challenge.  It is called the Challenge to Become.  We have to pick an attribute of Christ each day and study it, then try to apply it each day.  It is amazing to see how much better then day goes when you are constantly trying to become like Christ.  It want to challenge you to do the same thing and anybody else that you can get to do it also.  When you study it, write down one scripture and think about that scripture all day.  It has amazing results.  The attributes can be found in Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel.

Tonana Monday.
Love,
Elder Cecil

Well I'm out in the field now.  I started working on Thursday.  The ares that I'm in is called Seke (seck-a), it is in a city Chitungwiza (chee-tune-gweesta).  It is about 20 minutes away from Harare.  Most of the other missionaries from the MTC went to Zambie and Malawi.  My companion's name is Elder Roberts, he's from South Sevier.  He's been out for 22 months.  I played baseball and football against him as a freshman and sophomore.  He is really good at teaching the people.  He's been a ZL and an AP. He's now the DL of the Chitungwiza District.  We are whitewashing the area which means that neither of us has been in the area before, so it is difficult to find the house of our investigators.  Our house is fairly nice.  Sometimes we have power and sometimes we don't.  The same goes for water.  We have to take bucket baths and wash our clothes in a bucket as well.  There is one other companionship in our house.  Elder Smith from South Africa and Elder Mtetwa from here is Zimbabwe.  Elder Mtetwa was in the MTC with me.

We just have cornflakes for breakfast and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.  We've been fed by members every night since we've been here.  One of them was the Branch President, President Uthamire.  We had rice and beef.  Two of the other nights we ate at the home of the Makuney's.  They are recent converts and absolutely love the missionaries.  The other time was with an investigator.  The cornmeal that we read about is called sadsa.  It doesn't have much of a taste so they always have something to dip it in or to eat it with.  I will be eating it a lot.

President Dube is a wonderful man.  He was at the airport to greet us, and he gave us an orientation at the church next to the mission offices.  We then went to the mission home where Sister Dube had made dinner for us.  After which we had a testimony meeting in the home.  I had an interview with him and in the interview it came up that I'm related to Keith Edwards and he was excited to email him to tell him.

We are teaching a girl named Alice.  Her mother is a recent convert but she hasn't been taught yet because she was at a boarding school.  We only have about a month to teacher her before she has to go back to school but she is progressing quickly and we think that we can get her baptized before she leaves.  We have several other investigators that we committed to baptism as well.  The Moyo family (5) and the Jannas (2).  We are teaching some others but we don't have baptism dates yet.

The first few days we were on foot because our bikes were in the shop getting fixed.  But we now have our bikes back and it is almost like mountain biking because the roads have deteriorated so bad that it is like riding a trail with random rocks and bumps.

Yesterday while we were contacting we met this man who hated white people because he said that we crucified Jesus.  We tried to tell him that they were not white and that they were Jews because technically it is an ethnicity and that Jesus himself was a Jew.  But he wouldn't listen to us because we later learned that he believed that Jesus was black.  It was an interesting conversation.  The people are extremely nice and almost everyone we see waves at us and greets us in Shona.  I am starting to pick up how to respond and greet them but it is hard to pronounce the words.

We had our fast and testimony meeting yesterday.  We meet under a large tent next to our house.  They set up chairs and a little sound system for those speaking.  They are quite unorganized so they have a lot of branch business.  Since 3 of us were new to the area they asked us to bear our testimony, it is so much easier to do it here than at home.

We got rained on, on Friday.  I have never seen rain like that before.  It rained so hard and for so long that all of the streets were flooded.  That rain jacket from Mr. Mac isn't very good.  It will only hold out light rain.  When it started raining hard my shirt got completely soaked, along with my planner and a Book of Mormon.  They have these transport vehicles that are called convies.  They are basically just vans that act like a bus, but they have these guys that stand with the sliding door open, yelling out where they are going.  They pack in like 15 people in these vans, it's crazy.  They drive terrible here.  I feel scared just walking around.  I don't think that most of the people here have licenses because it is expensive to get one here, but in Chitungwiza I have yet to see a police man.  It's weird because most things are dirt cheap here but they just have random things that are extremely expensive.  Like Elder Mtetwa told me that it is $180 for a license.  Milk is also expensive, it costs about as much for one liter as it does for one gallon in America.

It is tough and I'm not used to sadsa yet but I am loving every minute of it.  I enjoy meeting new people and getting to teach some of them.  Sometimes while we are contacting we see big groups of rasta guys smoking marijuana.  We also see a lot of drunks as well because they love their beer here.  I have already grown so much as a missionary and I have only been here for a few days.

Our mission is going to split in July.  I will be in just Zimbabwe or in Zambia and Malawi.  It will be interesting to see where I end up.  But wherever I go I know that it is where the Lord wants me to be.

That is great that you got approved in Milford, Dad.  I hope that you can get it going soon.  How is announcing for basketball games?  I hope you haven't said anything too embarrassing yet.  I can't believe that Boise St. lost, that is crazy.  I had heard about the BYU/Utah game in the MTC.  Do they have the bowl games set yet or is it coming out next week?

I love you guys.  Talk to you later.

Elder Cecil