October 24

Life has been very good. This was a really good week. I have been doing my best to work hard, exercise faith, and obey with exactness, and I have been seeing miracles. They have not been huge miracles like speaking in tongues, healing the sick, or anything like that, but they have been simple miracles. We had an investigator, who is preparing to be baptized on Nov. 6, walk for an hour to come to church on sunday, and we had another investigator, who we have not seen in weeks, come to church with her non-member friend because we called her on saturday night. I know that it is by small and simple things, such as an investigator coming to church, that great things come to pass, such as an investigator being baptized, claiming their spot in the kingdom of God, and bringing their family with them. Great things are soon to come to pass.

I love dumb birthday gifts. I loved walking around the mall at christmas time, or birthday time, and searching for something weird to give to someone. It was meant to be expensive (or even useful), but I would buy something just to brighten their day. Like the shirt that I bought jessica for her birthday. Those things are the best. Anyone can buy something that someone else needs, but if you can buy something that has you written all over it and give it to them, it'll mean more whether the gift is useful or not.

Jake's mission call is so cool! I pretty much knew that he'd go foreign because everyone else on the dh soccer team has. Yeah, Brady didn't, but he went cambodian speaking to Boston, so why not include him in the group of foreign mission goers? I'm glad he doesn't leave in like april or may because the long wait for departure is dreadful. The only session of conference I haven't seen in the saturday afternoon. We watched the saturday morning, sunday morning, and sunday afternoon two weeks ago for church, and we watched the priesthood session yesterday after sacrament. Elder Holland gave us fire. What a brutal talk. I loved every second of it. And Pres. Monson's talk in that same session was incredible too. He pounded on the stand a few times. I spoke in church yesterday too. Pretty much just read "Prayer" in True to the Faith, and you'll know what I talked about. I didn't have much time to prepare for it, but it went very well. The investigator who came to church with a nonmember friend said that I answered a lot of her questions in my talk, so I know that it was successful. That's all I wanted: to say something that would help someone in the congregation, and my prayers were answered.

DON'T STOP READING IN THE BOOK OF MORMON!!! It's hard to get everyone to sit for a long time and read, so just take ten or so minutes. Start with a prayer, read a page or two, discuss, then close with a prayer. I promise that the Spirit will grow so much stronger in the home as you do that. The Lord knows that it's hard for everyone to sit for a long time and just read the scriptures, but what the Lord wants more than quantity is quality until quantity can increase. For the first few weeks, just take ten minutes or so each night and read. Then take longer as after a few weeks of doing that. The Lord doesn't require hours of study each night. The purpose of our study is to increase our knowledge of the gospel, feel the Spirit, and grow closer to Him. Time doesn't matter as long as we are doing those things. Certainly, the more time the better, but keep the lessons short so you don't burn everyone out after three days. I promise that everyone will respond better to short, meaningful lessons and that everyone will come to enjoy them.

I wrote my opinion about buddy's winning the contest to dad. Give it a read. I used to love taking buddy outside in the winter time and watching him freeze from the kitchen window. Don't blame me; he wanted to go out there.

I feel like I'm getting off easy with the rejection factor that inevitably comes with mission service. We really don't get rejected much. A few times a day. Maybe. Getting bunked for appointments is a bit of a problem though. It's really not bad though. The gospel is exploding in Africa. Particularly the poor parts like townships. Most people are humble here, but some are compelled to be humble. Those are the ones that don't want to hear our message. They are also the ones that don't know what they want. I love the scripture that Moroni writes. It says something like: you'll know that I'm a messenger from God when you see me standing at Christ's side at the judgement bar. My job is to help them know sooner, and I'm doing my best. Life is really good. I love you all so much! Keep the faith.

Elder Steed

Buddy comment:  Buddy won. Just think about that. Buddy is the ugliest dog in the world...and he won. I'd hate to see the others dogs in that contest. Maybe it was a cutest rodent contest instead, so he was the cutest rodent. That's more plausible. Freakin buddy. I kinda miss that dog, but I'll have no problem waiting to see his scruffy mug.

October 17

E. Sincreah is used to eating anything and everything. He tells me that Africa's like that: If it grows, eat it, and eat it we do. Major religions: Shembe, 12 apostles church, Jehovah witness, and 7th day adventist church. It's always in zulu, so I don't understand much of it. We sat in on a birthday party, and it was really different. People would scream their sermons, and when people "felt the spirit," they would stand up and start singing some song about Jesus, and everyone else would start singing too.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just makes sense. The Bible was evidence of the prophets in the old world, so there would need to be evidence of the prophets in the new world. Hence, the Book of Mormon. The bible is only accepted by so many people because people jump on the bandwagon and don't bother to question its authority, but the Book of Mormon isn't as well known, so it's harder for people to believe it. But guess what? We have a way to know if it's true or not! And you can find out for yourself as you pray to God to know if it's true. Tell me that's not the perfect plan. And it gets better: not only can we receive personal revelation from God to know if it's true, we can use that same gift of revelation for the rest of our lives to guide us and protect us. The list goes on forever.

Zulu people worship their ancestors by slaughtering goats (excellent animal choice), and they can speak to them somehow. I'm not really sure how people make a living here. I know it's difficult. Everyone I've talked to is extremely grateful for what they have, even though it isn't much. Sometimes people ask what it's like in the states, and I don't have the heart to tell them. I just brush it off by saying something like it's really hot there, or I'll tell them about something that doesn't really matter. The houses in the townships have over head power lines that are run into every house through a single box on a wall inside their house. The lines that get run into the houses are a little larger than an industrial extension cord. Not much power.

That's a great story by bishop Hendrickson. Tell justin madsen that I met one of his companions on his mission, Elder Tominaga. He taught a class or two of mine in the mtc. We had our zone activity today, and it was great. We went to a lion park, and it was really, really cool. Before the park, I had about 50 pictures on my camera card, and after I had about 200, so there are plenty of pictures to go around. I'll send as many as I can today, but there won't be 200 to send. Sorry. A lot of the pictures I took were repetitive meaning that they were many pictures of the same lions. In the lion park, we drove around this track that was really long and we didn't see much wildlife. We saw a few springboks, but they ran away quickly. The lions were kept in an area about the size of a soccer field, and there was a small track that we drove around to take pictures. It was really neat because the lions could walk right up to the cars and lick the windows if they felt like it. If you stay in the same spot near a lion for too long, it gets curious and decides to bite the car, so you have to keep moving. I got some awesome shots though. 

If I sent you pictures of the townships, you would think they are interesting, but you would not like them. Townships have tons and tons of animals just walking around. Dogs, goats, chickens, pigs, and sometimes cows. The pigs are very amusing to watch because they do the stupidest things. One time, we were contacting a person outside their home, and we heard this loud rumbling noise. We looked over and there was a small wall of tin sheets through which the piglets were piling through. Why? I don't think the piglets even know. It was absolutely hilarious though. A pig stampede through a wall. They didn't knock the wall down, but they just piled through the space in between the sheets. Stupid pigs. Chickens are really strange though. They do some weird stuff. One time, we were waiting for an investigator at their house, and we saw one chicken chasing another across the road. The first chicken escaped and left the other one feeling stupid in the middle of the road. Just then, a taxi driver (who wouldn't stop for a human being, never mind a chicken) comes flying down the road. The chicken realizes that its life is in danger, and it decides to fly away, but a little too late. The chicken smacked off the taxi's windshield and was sent flying about twenty feet off to the side. The chicken landed, re-oriented itself, and began looking for something else to chase. Stupid chicken. This is one of the many funny things that I've seen since arriving in South Africa. Weird things happen in townships, and I can't help but laugh. But when we're teaching, I have to somehow hold it in.

I got to see some conference this weekend. I watched the saturday morning, sunday morning, and sunday afternoon sessions. The sunday morning was my favorite. I loved Pres. Eyring's and Pres. Monson's talks. The Spirit was almost tangible in those talks. I heard the priesthood session was really good too. I always love the priesthood session because the first presidency always speaks. It's so wonderful. I love you all so much, and I hope everything is going well. School seems long in the moment, but I can hardly remember sitting in class in the MTC, never mind high school.

We went to a lion park for our zone activity this week, and these are the fruits of the journey. Enjoy!

Elder Steed

Buddy, I wish I could say that you look cute, but I can't. There's a word in zulu to describe that picture of pink soccer players: Ayibo. It means "weird" but also "whoa." Thanks for the pics! I enjoy them muchly.

Love,

Elder Steed

(the soccer players were from Marcus-mission football) 

October 10

I'll try to be brave about taking the camera out. I'll send a picture of my flat though, and maybe our bird trap. Yes, bird trap. My Malawian companion teaches me how to eat all kinds of things. We haven't caught any birds yet, but when we do, we'll have a nice snack. Other missionaries have told me that in the summer time, there are these enormous bugs that fly around, and if you turn off all the lights in the boarding, open the door, and shine a flashlight on the wall, they come in flocks and you can catch them, cook them, and eat them. Also good snacks. Made better with certain sauces.

That is so cool with ben's mission call, and becoming an elder. I was wondering when he was going to do that. I really hope he gets where he wants to go. I hope he goes to SA Durban. It's so sick here. I'm glad to hear that dad joined the board. I hope everything goes well, and I pray for all of you every morning and night. I love you all so much, except you buddy: drop dead.

Love,

Elder Steed

P.S. buddy: you're an ok pooch.

I love the temple so much. I can't wait to go through again when I get home. By the way, there's going to be a temple in Durban. If I already told you, it's worth repeating. I received your letter with everyone's blog stuff on it. I'm guessing that you sent that nearly a month ago. That's south african mail for you. I've written a few letters, but I haven't figured out how to send them yet. I haven't really tried to figure it out either. I'd rather work because that's when I happiest here.

I love you so very much! Stay strong mom.

Elder Steed              

October 3 That's the South Africa I'm talking about!

Happy Birthday Mom! I'm so sorry for forgeting to tell that last week. I didn't forget your birthday, but with my first week emailing, I was overwhelmed with all the new stuff. I realized that I forgot to tell you about 30 minutes after I finished emailing. Great news: There's going to be a temple in Durban! I really hope that it's completed before I leave here, but temples usually take about 3 years to build from what I understand, so I'll probably miss it.

I bought a pocket hymn book in the MTC, so I'm set there. There are about 6 people, including the 4 missionaries, who can bless the sacrament each week, and only one or two aaronic priesthood holders. The music is played through the branch president's mp3 player, so that business you were giving me about learning how to play the piano is totally irrelevant because we don't even have a piano to play. PLEASE SEND ME AN ENSIGN OF GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! We won't be able to see it until something like the 30th, but I can read the conference talks when I have time. Highlight your favorite and the mos powerful talks in the table of contents, so I can be sure to read those.

I'm eating fine. That pup stuff I told you about is very filling. Fruit here is dirt cheap so I buy it whenever I can. Ariel is done for if she relies on buddy for entertainment; buddy's an old person's dog, but okay nonetheless. I got your letter on tuesday--the one you sent on the 14th of september. So that's about how fast the mailing system is, but I have a feeling that going from south africa to the states is even slower.

Speaking of food: One of our investigators, Mswazi, owns chickens. My comp (he's from malawi) knows how to butcher chickens, and he talked me into buying 7 chickens from Mswazi with him. So on saturday night, we slew 7 chickens. That's the south africa I'm talking about. It was the strangest thing I've ever done. Those rats with wings made so much noise, and it was like 9 at night when we were slaying them. I'll send pictures because they're great. I haven't taken my camera out because it's really dangerous to and I'm not totally comfortable with taking it out yet, but south africa is gorgeous. We'll be going to a lion park as a zone activity sometime soon for our zone activity. I'll definitely take pictures of that and send them. Enjoy the picutres. (Did my first email scare you?) I love you so much!

Elder Steed

September 26

Elder Frost is in lesotho, and elder luddington is in the durban area. I forgot where exactly. There are like 140 missionaries in the durban mission. I live in Pietermaritzburg, but I work in Imbali. Yes, I ate a yorkie bar in London, and it was incredible. I also had a kit kat bar. That was magnificant because the chocolate in it was just a little bit darker than in the US. I also had this stuff called Orangina, which was really good too. I wrote you a letter from london so you should be receiving it. Elder Henson, in my district, is from Idaho, and he's seen all kinds of wildlife. Pdays are the time to go to the wildlife reserves. The only creatures that don't abide in these wildlife reserves are monkeys. We saw one when we got to the mission home. The humidity isn't bad...yet. Hopefully, it won't ever be too intolerable. E. Henson said that in the summertime, there are these really thick bugs that are everywhere in the air, and he catches them, fries 'em up, and eats them. That's the south africa I'm talking about. We don't live off of bugs, so don't worry. We eat this stuff called pup. It's a lot like white malt-o-meal, and it's extremely bland (like white malt-o-meal) alone, but when dipped in brown gravy, it's pretty good. Food here is dirt cheap, at least some of it. Beef, cereal, and soda are super expensive though.

South Africa is crazy. I've been here for about five days, and I've seen some crazy stuff. The driving is absolutely madness. Everywhere we drive, there are always people just standing by the side of the road. Little kids too. And it's not like they are standing ten feet back from the white lines; they are literally in the lane sometimes. As we drive through neighborhoods, little kids stand there and we going flying by them at 60 kph and miss them by like 1 foot. Sometimes closer than that. AND IT'S TOTALLY NORMAL!?! They don't even flinch. It's freaking madness. The taxi drivers (combi's) drive in these vans and cram like 20 people into them, and they are awful drivers. The kids are used to them driving around so that's why they know to move when cars are coming.

Elder Sincreah is my comp. He's from Malawi. He's a cool guy. We work hard. We work in this township called Imbali. It's by Pietermaritzburg. There are chickens, goats, and dogs everywhere in Imbali. Seeing goats everywhere keeps me close to home. Imbali is really poor though. Some parts are richer than others, but it still isn't anywhere near our poorest neighborhoods in saint george. It's a great area. Everyone is extremely willing to hear the gospel. We have only been rejected like twice. Twice in five days. I heard it was easy, but I never would have guessed this easy. Imbali is a tiny branch anyway. We don't have a church, so we have to meet in a school. Like 3 other churches meet there too, and they sing like crazy. It's in zulu, so I don't understand a word of it. I've been picking up some Zulu, but we have a strict mission rule to only teach in english (because church is totally in english), so becoming fluent is pretty pointless. My comp says stuff to me sometimes, and he has to repeat it four or five times for me to understand it. Yeah, it's that bad. South african accents are pretty cool. I wouldn't mind having one of those.

By the way, the flights were rough. I thought the first one was cool because I had a window seat, and I got to see tons of cool stuff. But the chicago-london and london-joburg flights were horrible. I got maybe two hours of sleep on both of them combined. I'm still struggling to adjust to the sleep schedule here. 8 hours is just not enough sleep; 10 is more like it. Unfortunately, I can't do that, so I guess I'll just be tired for the next two years.

I love you so much!

Elder Steed

Arrival in Durban

Elder Steed with President and Sister Von Stetten

September 20

Dear Mum and family,

                London Heathrow airport is like a mall with a glorified taxi service. At one end of the mall, beer, vodka, and sleeze is for sale. At the other end, tourist junk is for sale, and upstairs is the food court/security check-in. I just bought a Yorkie bar, a Kit-Kat bar and an Orangina. The first two were incredible. The chocolate here is just a little bit darker than back home. Orangina is like carbonated orange juice. I learned about it in my French class in college, so when I saw it, I got it. It was really good, too. I’m going to include the proof that I ate these things (not the waste, the wrappers). I’ll probably include my leftover british pounds, so you can see the money. (There was no money in the envelope, hence, none leftover! ) I’m convinced that most Brits worship the Queen of England because she’s all over  the money.

 I actually had a cool experience while writing this letter. My comp had to go to the bathroom, so I was waiting outside the door while he was inside.  I was writing this letter and a janitor approached me and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was writing my family. He thought I was taking a survey or something. Then he asked me about my name tag and I started telling him about the church. He said he had read the Book of Mormon, and he knew about the church. So I told him that he can learn more by going to the website on this pass-along card. He took it and seemed pretty interested, but he was Indian so I couldn’t really understand him and probably vice-versa. I’ve dished out 2 pass-along cards, so far. My goal is to give all the ones I have out, but I’m too cowardly with people. I know you’re thinking, “where’s the faith?” I’ll do my very best to get them all passed out, but the airport is a hard place to contact prople because 1/3 of them don’t speak English and another 1/3 are in a resh to make their flights. 1/3 is plenty to give out 10 pass-along card though. There are so many people that need to hear the gospel, and it’s downright selfish for me to by shy about this work. I love you all so much, I need to go now and bring people into the Lord’s fold. God speed, family.     Elder Steed

September 12

That's definitely no good with brent. I'll keep him in my prayers. The good ol' baptistry. Those were the days. I get to go to the provo temple today so I'm pretty stoked. I don't know if I already told you, but I'm leaving next monday for south africa. I'll give you guys the flight tracking numbers so mom can stay up all night instead of doing homework, I mean, track my flights. I'll have a 10 hour layover in London! I'm way excited for that. I'm going to send marcus, and probably you, a postcard, so watch the mail. Can you get me Coach Fielding's email/address? It should be on my email account, but send him an email to see if he checks that one anymore first. I want to write to him so bad. Can you hook me up with Spencer's email too? That'd be way nice.

MTC life is great. There's a lot of studying, but never enough. We have to teach lessons like crazy, but we just never have enough time to prepare for them, so it's kinda trial by fire type of teaching. I talked with some elders yesterday that were going spanish speaking, and they started teaching in spanish on their second day. I think we started teaching in english on our third day. I'm glad that I'll have the opportunity to learn zulu and afrikaans and other weird languages, but I won't have to spend 3 months in the mtc to do it. Life is pretty good. Missionary life isn't all serious though. We have gym time for 50 minutes five days out of the week, and I'll go play soccer as much as I can. It's hilarious to play because we're all wearing sneakers/indoors on grass that's usually wet, so the elders that don't play soccer at all charlie brown it everytime they try to kick while moving faster than 2 mph. It's great comedy. I love you dad!

September 5

Hello Mother and other family members.

The MTC is incredible. The Spirit is amazing here. I'm in the laundry room right now, and the Spirit is still really strong. You can't escape it (not that you'd want to). Elder Luddington is my companion. He's from Cheyenne, Wyoming SOUTH (not south), and he's a super hard worker. We are both working really hard, and we are getting along great. He's really cool. Thanks so much for the food package, and the camera. I realized that I forgot my camera honestly 30 seconds after I left. My host missionaries distracted me, but it was great to hear from you so soon. All the other elders in my district are jealous because I had received two packages in 2.5 days. The food package is great though. I'm convinced I'll never be able to eat it all though because I just have no time to do anything but work, which is great by the way. We had a salsa party last night, and we ate a whole jar of salsa, and bag of chips in like 15 minutes, and all the other elders love me now.

There are only two things that I don't like about the MTC: first, I'm thoroughly convinced that hot water has ceased to exist on this planet. The showers are so cold, and it's very tempting to just not take one. I took the coldest shower of my life on sunday morning. It was cold enough that I could have cried without much effort. Send 50 gallons of hot water in your next package please. Second, there's just no time for personal prayer. That's one thing I'll miss about home. I could pray and tell Heavenly Father everything I wanted to without any worry of I'm taking to much time to pray. Oh, the MTC food is great, usually. There are usually five or six things to choose from so there's always something that'll strike your fancy, savvy? I'm sending letters to you guys, so watch the mail. If there's ever anything you want me to know/read, then please write me a letter because I can guarantee that I'll read every word of it because I can read mail every night. Emails I have to speed read. Speaking of speed reading, there's an elder in my district named elder Myers who can speed read like crazy. We timed him and he read a whole page of the book of mormon in 27 seconds. He's a computer programmer so there's no surprise there right? I love you all so much, except Buddy you can just drop dead. We all agree on that.

Love,

Elder Steed

First letter home

Dear Mom and Dad (and family),

                Thank you so much for the package! I’m convinced that I’ll never finish it though because I’m only here in the Provo MTC until September 19^th. My comp’s name is Elder Luddington, and he’s great. He’s from Cheyenne, Wyoming so he’s an outdoors man. I’ve seen three people I know here: Daniel Hilton, Elder Kaden Wilkinson (the keeper for Dixie this last year), and Elder Vincent (I met him in the Manti temple.) Daniel is working in the cafeteria here. The MTC is great, and I’m loving it. I love you so much,

                Elder Steed

P.S. My residence hall building is the Edward Stevenson building.