week 45: a work to do

My new area... hmm. First impressions are bleak. Sorry for the poor quality. I refuse to take my camera to the area so I use the phone.

I'm in Katlehong which is a township outside of Germiston. Here are two stories from my first week that tell you how it is. 

1.) First day in the area we go to a recent convert's shop and have a lessons with him. While teaching I hear "pop pop pop" outside. I froze. I thought I knew what it was, but I was really wishing that wasn't what it was. Then I hear another burst. "pop pop pop pop pop" Crap. People start running. I Look out the door and people are scattering. Shots are flying. We pulled down the metal roll up door on the shop. Believe it or not 1/16th inch of steel is not very comforting when a few fools with AKs are running around. After a while it gets quiet. We finish the lesson and go out a different way than what we came. I wasn't all that keen on seeing the outcome of the event. The cops didn't even show up for over an hour. 

2.) We are dropping a member off Sunday night and I notice a man in his 40s seems to be following a girl who is about 12. We stopped in front of the members house but the whole time I have my eyes concentrated on the exchange that is now occurring between the two. The first time I saw her fall the adrenaline started pumping and by the end I was about ready to beat the guy to death. Long story short. She got away and he woke up (probably) the next day with a hell of a lump on his head. I don't take kindly to the assault of women and the cops are less than worthless. 

Church went all right. We got there and had to rearrange the meeting schedule because there were no sacrament cups. None of the speakers had prepared talks haha. Interesting. I'm back in township. Yay... As bleak as this may seem I am still amazingly excited to be here. I see so much potential and I can not wait to see what the next few months will bring. The people are prepared and are very much in need of the gospel.

All three areas I've gone into so far have been pretty dead. It seems that I'm meant to revive all of them haha.

My new comp is Elder Rini, my first African companion. I love him, but it is hard to live with someone who has a totally different culture. Very hard. On the bright side he is a very, very humble man. For that I love him.

I'm a bit distracted at the moment so I'm going to cut this email short. Also, don't worry about me haha. I can tell I have a work to do here and until that's up all will go smoothly. I have absolute faith in that.

Love, Elder Kelly McClellan