We had an awesome 3 hour phone call with Elder Bryner on Christmas Day. Here are some excerpts from recordings of the call.
James:
"We have these pass along cards that we give out and there is this one kid that that comes up to us every time he sees us he says 'Elder got bi bell', they don't say bible they say bi bell. He is so cute and funny. Every time he sees us he asks us for the cards. He just takes them home and collects them."
James:
"It is weird driving, cause they have no sense of direction. They have no rules...when your driving you are driving on the left side of the car on the right side of the road and it's a stick shift and I have to shift with my left hand so its like you have to watch out for the taxis because the South African drivers they don't know how to drive. If you look at Utah and you say we are bad drivers, this makes Utah look like professional like Nascar drivers. "
Mom:
"That makes me feel better"
James:
"Its good because when I come home I'll be a pro like the greatest defensive driver ever" "The taxis they pay attention to the cars coming and say I'm going to cut this guy off. So when you are coming up to a taxi you have to slow down and watch out they don't pull out in front of you." "There hasn't been any real close calls while I have been driving." "There was a missionary that just went home because he got in an accident, there were four missionaries in the car. It was their fault cause they were going way too fast and they turned too sharp and they rolled the car"
Mom:
"Oh my goodness (others sigh...)"
James:
"The one, Elder Sheffield is his name, he has an inflamed disk in his spine so he had to be hospitalized for a while and he has to be in bed rest for 6 months so they sent him home"
Mom:
"Oh my" (others gasping) "James you better be careful and wear your seat belt. If your driving with someone and they are driving crazy you tell them be careful."
James:
"I am the one that is usually driving now and we are all wearing our seat belt"... "The missionaries drive safe usually, cause we don't know the area and the roads... We get passed a lot cause we are driving too slow."
Mom:
"Were the missionaries wearing their seat belts and was he the only one that got hurt bad?"
James:
"They were all wearing their seat belts and the others went to the hospital to be checked out but they were mostly ok"..."I know one of them and when he walks he can't walk a lot cause of his back"..."We have been doing a lot of fasting for the missionaries... Some of the missionaries have gotten sick from something they ate. You know its Africa, you can't really do anything about it."
Others:
(Laughing)
Dad:
"So is there anything that you need that we can send you?"
James:
"Oh man. So their deodorant here is like super awkward and weird. I don't even know what it is. I mean next package you send, send like two or three more sticks (laugh). Everything else we can get here"
Mom:
"Is there anything else food wise you want us to send you?"
James:
"(laugh) yeah like wheat thins"
Others:
(Laughing)
James:
"The food is good here. They have a mall here...they have a China mall here... like Mexico in a shop. They have all this downgraded stuff like cellphones, ties... I got two ties for two bucks."
Mom:
"Like black market?"
James:
"Yeah like black market... you can buy like anything. They have tasers, obviously we can't buy them, but they got all that weird stuff there. Some super weird stuff like that. They have this China malls everywhere all over" "I got this cool red, green & blue hand knitted shirt right after Nelson Mandella died. There is this lady that makes ties... hand beaded ties they have stuff like South African flag and the American flag on it. So I ordered two and they are only $20 and they are all hand made"... "I have cut my hair twice, on my own by myself"
Mom:
"It looks good"
James:
"All the other elders want me to cut their hair. They asked me who cut my hair, I said me. They didn't believe me."
Mom:
"So now they want you to cut their hair?"
James:
"Yeah...I bought my own clippers. So I can bring them everywhere. It was a good investment on that thing. They were only like $20." (Dad thinking: "Hmmm. I guess I taught him something good")
...
James:
"Did you know that my MTC companion got arrested?"
Family:
"What?!?!"
James:
"Did I tell you that? Oh... well like the first two weeks we were out, he was driving and it was a fake license. It was laminated because they gave us like a copy of our drivers license and our passport so we wouldn't loose it. But we have our real license now. So we have to keep them separate from our money. They police here are like regular guys dressed up in uniforms driving police cars. They don't have radar or speed guns or anything. They set up speed traps and they take a picture of your license. Cause they have the radar underneath their car. They can gun you down and then you get the ticket like three months later. This has happened to other missionaries and other people. You can figure out where the speed traps are and avoid them. We've seen police hustle down some guys."... "I've seen some guys get beat up. We saw this guy with a bat chasing this other dude trying to beat him up. Then this other guy clothes lined the guy that had the bat and the guy fell. It was funny. Then he took the bat away from him. It was just funny that they guy that was trying to beat up someone got beat up himself. I mean this is Africa."
...
James:
"The cops will pull you over, especially if you white. The elders from Africa usually can't drive cause they don't have their licenses. So we are the only ones that can drive."
...
James:
"We are going to go to the temple soon. They have some sweet stuff at the distribution center. They have scripture cases with like zebra or giraffe skin on them. They also have Book of Mormons that are leather bound that are made of animal skin. Everything is cheap."
...
James:
"My area is the most successful area in the mission for teaching. My companion and I want to work hard to keep it that way. There are not a lot of priesthood holders in the ward. My mission president encourages us to have the ward members do the baptisms for fellow shipping reasons. A lot of times the investigators will convert to the missionaries instead of the gospel. When we leave the area the new convert becomes inactive."
...
James:
"My new companion just came from serving in a remote area. He said that they didn't have showers or bathtubs. They had to boil water and wash off with a rag like when you go camping. Right now we don't have to take malaria pills. There are only two areas that you do."
...
James:
"My companion and I were sitting on the curb waiting to be picked up by the other elders. There was a man and woman walking down the street toward us. They were pushing a wheelbarrow full of beer and they were drunk. I was looking at my planner and the woman came up and straddled my lap. She took my planner and pen and wrote down her name, phone number and how many kids she had. I could hardly read it, because it looked like a two year old had written it. Her breath smelled really bad like alcohol. I kept the planner to show everyone, cause they would never believe me."
