Elder James Bryner A LDS Missionary In God's Army In Johannesburg, South Africa: Welcome to Secunda and new companion Elder Wilombe

Email #39
Area: Secunda
Companion: Elder Wilombe

Hey Everyone,

The week was really slow, but now we made it to pday so I am super excited for that. A LOT has changed and A LOT is different about this place than Cosmo. So much work is needed here in Secunda. Just to start off, it is a branch and looking at the stats of the branch they have about an average of about 30 people at church. It is a town and so that is a change as well. I am used to township. There is a township area that we work in, it is called Kinross. There are 3 investigators in Secunda and about maybe 10 in Kinross. They just had a baptism last week, so at least there is potential. There are also a lot of less active people, so we are trying to reactivate those people. So I have come to find that Afrikaan people are not very receptive to the gospel. They are too much into the world, but hey someone has to try and teach them. This is the hardest area in the mission right now from what I can see. We are in Mpumalanga, not quite sure how you spell that. But I am no longer in Gauteng anymore, so that is a bummer but it is in the northeast. A ton of farm land and it is beyond flat ground here, just flat everywhere you can see. It is about a 2 hour drive from the office so yeah it is pretty far. The flat I stay in is okay it just needed some uber cleaning, but now it is good. My companion is Elder Wilombe from Zambia and is 21 years old and 3 months on mission. The one who trained him just swapped areas and we are follow up training each others sons. So now I have had a companion from 3 different countries in Africa and one American and one Canadian. So it is a lot to adjust too, but for some reason I know that God has given me each companion with their strengths and weakness's to make of for mine! He loves to draw cartoons and is a child of record like me. We don't have too much in common. But hey you have to have those companions sometime in your mission. We have interviews with Pres. tomorrow and a temple trip next week and then zone meeting the next week. Then zone conference the next week and then a week off and then it is transfers again. So I am happy that we are staying pretty busy and everything especially with a new area and everything. We drive an automatic car, so that is different as well I am used to driving stick so it is a nice change. This area is a testimony builder and will strengthen your patience. God has me here for a reason and my mom always has told me I can do hard things and so if she believes that I can do than sure why not! Have a good week everyone wish me luck!

Elder Bryner

Excerpts from Mom's email:

I really do miss Cosmo so much, but it is ready for the next missionary to take over and help it grow even more! I am going back there what ever it takes. That would just make this all worth it. I absolutely loved that place. Sure it had its downs, but so does everything else in life so just get over it and move on. There isn't an email shop here in this area, so we are at the chapel using the clerks computer and we just bought a modem to use. So yeah it is good in that way so that I can just take my time and email everything that I need to. But yeah this area really needs some help seriously. The members are not that into missionary work and they are not that unified either. We know what we are going to be doing in this branch. Get them motivated and love each other haha! They are a sweet people. One white guy here is 76 and said that he has been to salt lake and was there for about 3 weeks haha, but yeah he said that the missionaries came to him 4 times until he let them into his house. So yeah no effort is wasted and be persistent is what I learned from that guy!

Excerpts from Dad's email:

We teach about 1 to 2 lessons a day and the rest we tract and street contact so by the time I am done here I will be an expert at that haha! It is just so weird every companion has a little bit of jaren in them haha. He loves cartoons and gaming and stuff like that. He is a little bit messy and doesn't like to clean, but last night I cleaned it pretty well. eah transfers were way different and i really liked them actually. I have met a few people, but yeah the people here are either muslim or catholic some christian. This is a country where I have never seen so many religions before, it really is a new world here. Wow i can't even believe that spencer is home already and hunter will be home soon as well.