Malia eh faifekau. (Mission is going good.) - Tongan‏

It's been quite a week.

I am basically loving mission at this moment. Part of the reason is because I had the chance to go back and baptize Esam and Vuyusile. It felt like a hero's welcome home. Yeahh, no more lone soldier. 

It was pretty great actually. After attending our church, which was a bit of a bummer because we only had three investigators there, we ran over to Mandalay to have the baptism. When we got there and I stepped out of the car it felt like I had been gone for two years. People were running up and screaming and hugging me. They were all asking a million questions and saying how much they missed me. I couldn't help but laugh because I had only been gone for a week and a half, but they were so sweet and I could really feel the love.

After that we found out that we wouldn't be having the baptism at Mandalay in the little set up pool. The baptism had been moved to Mitchells Plain. (I know right, Mitchell Thayne baptizing in Mitchells Plain. HA.) After fitting six people in the car and driving over I found out that I would not only be baptizing Esam, as I had been told, but I would also be baptizing Vuyusile! I was all for it though! He is such a powerful guy who will actually be getting engaged to a member girl in the next couple of weeks... ETERNAL MARRIAGE! 

After a great service and everything I went over with them how the baptism goes down. "Okay good, now plug your nose. Now bend your knee's when I put you under... Yes bend them. Ohh, and don't let go of your nose when I am pulling you up, that never works out well."

The baptisms themselves went really smoothly. The spirit was so apparent. Those that were baptized were asked to bare their testimonies. They all cried. It was a powerful moment. Really one of those days that made mission worth the sacrifice.

After the baptism I was able to go visit with brother Gcina and go around Site C with him and Elder Chapman. Good ol' Chappy was shocked to see everyone living in shacks and doing things. We had drunk people running up to us telling us how happy they were to see us in Khayelitsha and how happy they were that we were white. It was pretty hilarious.

On a sad note. Last week I think I told all of you about Mashae. She is a little down syndrome two year old who has a hole in her heart. We are really close with her family, the Leroux. Anyways, we went and visited her and the family in the hospital last Wednesday. They asked me to give her a blessing. When you give a blessing you just say the thoughts and impressions that come to your heart. I spoke about how she come here, gained a mortal body, united her family and now it was time to go home. She is struggling, and it looks like she will pass away. It was a very spiritual and touching experience though. We have been supporting the family and giving them scriptures and lessons which have been helping them a lot. They have such amazing faith.

Chappy and I this week have also been up to a lot of teaching on some days, and a whole lot of NOTHING on other days. On Saturday we had an appointment every single hour from 1-8. Guess how many of them dropped? Eight. So that was a bummer day, but then the next day made everything good with the baptisms.

We have a fellow-shipper named Leon. He is a nice guy. He is preparing for his mission and comes out with us most days. He tends to try and teach the whole lesson, but he is really honestly so great. He tries really hard. His Aunt who recently went through a divorce has also been really struggling. I was hearing about how hard and sad it is to go through something like that. We were able to testify to her about God's love. And moments like that truly are when we need to reach for God most. She talked about how she is worried that others will judge her. I was able to really feel her on that subject and was able to testify that ultimately it doesn't matter. Most people try to point out the "mote in their brothers eye" but fail to see or take care of the beam in their own. We just need to worry about ourselves. Then once we are good then we can assist our brothers and sisters in their change as we do it with love. She seemed to feel real good about it and she came to church.

Last thing, Elder Chapman is a super buff tongan stud, so his family and him want him to go to a gym to stay fit and keep his muscle. It's for football and everything back home. So I got a gym membership as well so he could continue to stay in shape. He has been absolutely destroying my body. I am so sore every day. I know it's good for me though. I want to keep it up and stay fit my whole mission. Chappy eats a ton though. Let me tell you.

Well we also hiked to a waterfall this week, got chased by some coloured gangsters and their dogs and then also taught a 7 people family that all live together from Zimbabwe. They are all above twenty and SO powerful. We hope to get them to church this week.. And get this... they have a car.

I have no time to tell you all the stuff that happened, but things are going so well. I am loving my mission and loving the people here. Even though they aren't my Xhosa people, they are still amazing and faithful.

I love you all!

Elder Mitchell Ryan Thayne

Scatter Brained!

First off here is that scripture I wanted to share with you. When teaching someone it could be a good one to kind of say, "Look at how your life is going! It doesn't work when you try to live this way!" It's Haggai 1:5-7. It talks about how we should consider our ways. It was a random, but really powerful scripture that is nice and can really be applied to people in their lives.
Yesterday at Zone Conference was really a spiritual feast! I was really impressed and grateful to have been taught all those principles yesterday. Elder Chapman and I have been talking about how we can improve and "lay down our weapons of rebellion" to be better missionaries and servants of the Lord. It was a really good talk and I think some great things will come out of it.
The area itself is doing really great though! Elder Taylor and Elder Chapman did a great job on it. We set some really high goals and we feel that we can accomplish them though and take things in this area and in our missionary work to the next level. We are currently tracting a lot, but as well we are reactivating a couple families and working on some part-member families as well. 
Well yeahh, my new area is pretty dang legit. It is really different being here in a white area! I have been in township my whole mission. I had gotten used to the township missionary way of teaching and finding, but coming here really is a new and unique challenge. It's not something I am unhappy about though. I knew that if I was going to grow and improve even more, I would need to go somewhere where I felt outside of my comfort zone. I don't like being around more white people like me. Especially with their proper sounding South African accents. It's way weird for me. I feel bad because I keep teaching super basic to these white people that understand, so it looks like I think they are stupid or something. So the first few lessons was a real adjustment for me in my teaching, but it is really fun to be able to go deep with these people and have them ask really educated questions and such. I enjoy it.
We are teaching a few people that we want to baptize in just three or four weeks. They are doing SO well! And we went finding and have had some great success with that and we are really starting to move more people forward in the lessons and with their commitments! So I think things are just going to absolutely take off! 
Ahh, speaking of Chapman he is a TOTAL stud. I love the guy so much. He is a way hard worker. His father was my old ZL Elder Taylor. So he taught him really well. Follow up training is really cool! You still have a real big influence on the missionary and he definitely has that greenie fire, so it's fun being with him. We are having such a good time. :] I am honestly all smiles. His family is sending me a lava lava and us both packages!! How sweet are those people?! I think that is just part of the tongan culture. I am also going to learn how to bare my testimony in tongan. :] So be on the lookout for that. Elder Chapman is a great missionary. He is very humble and doing a great job with obedience. He was trained well and I can tell he will be a good missionary his whole mission. It really helps when you are trained from the beginning to work hard and give it your all! I want to make sure I am that kind of a trainer as well, I see how it sets the tone for a missionaries entire mission. 
Elder Chapman and I are doing extremely well together, we just have a real big issue finding the houses of people. We have been getting lost A LOT. So that is our issue with the high k's. We are going to try to park the car more though if possible. It's hard with such a huge area, but we will do what we can. 
By the way Dad, and all other BYU football fans, I am talking him into going to BYU for football. He got scholarships for football to SO many different schools. Namely UNR(Apparently they are better than BYU at football), Arizona Blue Sky conference, Oregon State, Weber State, Southern Oregon and he can't remember the rest. He basically destroys. He played offensive line guard. He also played left tackle. I have basically convinced him to play for BYU. I guess Kafusi the BYU coach guy wanted him to play for him. He also talked to Papinga for a while as well. So he says he honestly thinks that he will go. 
YOU ARE WELCOME.
The ward seems good! We are the only two missionaries in the ward, so that is different for me. I am used to being in a four missionary ward, but I think it'll make us take more responsibility for the work here. We went to dinner with our Bishop and his wife tonight. I specifically asked him for the names of 4 less-active families that he wants us to focus a lot of our efforts on. Then I asked him for a copy of the ward mission plan, sadly they don't have one. So I asked him to give us an idea of his vision for the ward and then we would make a rough draft of a new ward mission plan and present it to him next time we saw him. He seemed really happy. He is a bit tired as bishop, I can tell he carries quite the burden, but I think we will all do really good as a team.
I also got permission to go back to Mandalay and baptize Esam! I AM SO EXCITED FOR THAT! She is the most golden investigator of my mission. So naturally I am excited.
Last thing. Elder Chapman and I were preparing to go tracting for an hour. We chose a place in Elsies River. We knelt down and had five restoration pamphlets. We said a prayer that the Lord would help us find five individuals or families that would be open to hearing this message. We knocked on eight doors. We got into five, taught a bit, and set a return appointment. One lady particularly opened up the door and was acting really cold. I had the impression to ask her if she had ever lost a loved one, she said yes she lost her husband and daughter three months apart, and then I responded with saying, "Because our Savior Jesus Christ died for us, you can see your husband and daughter again. We want to share with you what you must do in this life, to secure a place with them in the next." She then invited us in and shared her whole life with us and asked us to come and teach her and her 30 year old son.
I have such a testimony of prayer. I have found that a lot of times we get into a routine of praying and we just ask for general things. But as we exercise faith and ask our Heavenly Father for a direct and specific blessing with righteous desires, then he WILL give it to us. We ask for general miracles, but we don't pray for specifics and don't do the things necessary for us to receive that blessing.
Last thing. Elder Chapman and I are working on reactivating an entire family and baptizing the LA couple's children. They are the Leroux family. (Lair-ooo) They have a Down Syndrom niece that has a hole in hear heart that we went and gave a blessing to. Her name is Mashae and she is two years old. The sweetest little girl. We gave her the blessing and she seemed to be so happy and doing so well, but we just got a call literally two minutes ago informing us that Mashae is in the hospital and she has Pneumonia. We are going to fast for her today and going to go give another blessing tomorrow along with some scriptures of comfort for the family. So please pray for them and Mashae specifically.
The church is true. I am so grateful to be part of it. We are all so blessed to be able have the knowledge that we do have. We can't keep it to ourselves.
Keep the faith, and as the band Journey admonishes us, "Don't Stop Believin'."
Love,
Elder Mitchell Ryan Thayne

Yeah. I'm Gone.

The time is far spent, it's time for me to move!

I have been called to go to Panorama! It's part of the Belleville ward. I am going to be in a Six man district. We have the ZL's (one of which is Elder Ramat on of my companions I had in Mdantsane) then we have the Durbanville elders who is Elder Bell and his new missionary, then we have me and I am follow up training a Tongan elder named Elder Chapman. So naturally I am really excited.
It'll be a bit weird for me though to go to a partially white area. I honestly have gotten so awkward around white people. The other day I was talking to a white lady and I said, "Okay, well it was nice talking to you Ma! Shap!" She just stared at me for a minute then said, "okay!" haha it was pretty much a fail. I just forget how to communicate and interact with white people. I feel weird standing with a bunch of Mlungu's. I honestly think inside my brain I believe I am a Xhosa or something.
I am sad to leave my district. Elder Ngobeni, Elder Bohn, Elder Pitsoane and I have had so much fun and done so much work. I am going to miss them all quite a bit, but I know I will enjoy my new district as well. Me and Elder Pitsoane especially have gotten tight this past transfer, it's sad to leave, but I will see all these guys around the mission.
This past week has been just a lot of us trying to prepare new things for Elder Ngobeni (who will be getting a new Elder to train) and his son! We have been working on filling out the area book (which basically is just a record of everyone who has been and currently are being worked with by the missionaries.) and also have been finding and trying to set everything up for the four baptisms we have coming up in two weeks! I am sad to leave all those people behind, but I am going to get permission from my mission president to come back and baptize one of the people. 
The girl I am going back to baptize is named Esam and she is 25. Probably one of the most sweet and searching people I have met on mission. Anyways, she is totally going places and is so on top of everything. She started living the word of wisdom before we even taught her, she reads everything, she has never missed church, she came to mormon helping hands and other activities and she is just so cool. I found her while I was out tracting with my previous companion named Elder Mashigo.
Things are just going well.
I was able to see Monwabisi (Happiness) and Chuma, the two guys that we baptized last week, as well. They are literally glowing. Probably the two most happy guys in all of Khayelitsha and Mandalay. You can almost see it. We were walking and I see some guy running/skipping up to us from far away with THE biggest smile on his face. Right away I knew it was Monwabisi. No one else on this planet is that happy. He just was telling me how his mom is going to support him with going on a mission and he wants to start fellowshipping with the missionaries so he can prepare to go on mission as well. So I know him and Chuma will do so well even after I leave.
At church it was a sad, but at the same time, happy goodbye. I realized that I had really grown to love the people of the Mandalay ward, and they in turn really grew to love me. We took pictures and I got lots of goodbye letters and attempted hugs. (I quickly dodged out of them, no worries. :]) It was just really special to hear from people the impact us missionaries were able to bring as we worked and served there. It was a happy and fulfilling day.
Brother Gcina who is probably the most once-gangster-now-converted guy I have ever met was probably the hardest goodbye. I'll see him again on tuesday, but he told me, "Elder Thayne, never doubt the difference that you made here. I have seen a lot of missionaries come and go, but you have done something to remember." It was one of the most humbling things for me to hear. Even though I am going to miss out on a lot of the baptisms and "fruits" of my labor, I was really comforted to hear that from our Elders Quorum President. He is probably the best friend I have made on mission so far. By the way dad, he wants to come to Utah and ride a horse before he dies. 
Our mission prez, President Merrill came to visit church and sit down with us to talk about how he wants us to be obedient and striving to build better relationships with our wards. He spoke about leadership and different things like that. So it was a good reminder to continue trying to step up my game while in the service of the Lord.
Here are just some pictures. One is of me and Esam, the girl I am going to baptize. Speaking of the baptism we are trying to make it happen at the beach!!! How cool would that be?! Then there is a picture of our whole zone at panorrotis pizza. It was all you can eat! Not the best pizza in the world, but it's something! :] And then its just me doing a cheeky smile with brother Gcina's son.
I love you all! Sorry for the short email last week! I have been very busy with the Lord's work! I am so excited to go to a new area and stretch and grow as a missionary, and as a person. I love how God gives us these challenges because he knows we can handle it. It's so true. I have so many setbacks and weaknesses, and its the hard things that we go through that make us so much stronger and helps us go through the process to become a celestial being.
Lean on the Lord and watch Him work miracles in your life.
Love.
Elder Thayne
PS Write me people! I wanna hear from you!
Elder Mitchell Ryan ThayneSouth Africa Cape Town MissionPO BOX 181 Observatory,Cape Town, 7935Republic of South Africa

Ran Out of Time!

Hey everyone!

Things here are so good! I honestly can't complain! I ran out of time today trying to respond to individual emails and all that stuff. So I apologize.

Yesterday we baptized four people into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Chuma Majozi- Lives across the street from the church. I found, taught and baptized him myself yesterday. 

Monwabisi Mbangi (Happiness)- Found him again, taught and then baptized him as well yesterday. Probably the most loving and happy guy I have ever met. He wants to come live with us in Utah by the way family!

and then one was a ward baptism of an eight year old kid and then the other guys (ELder Bohn and Pitsoane) Baptized a guy named Zanithemba. 

The work is truly moving forward! I am so sorry I ran out of time and didn't give more detail on how things are going! I love you all so much though! Please keep in touch.

Love Elder Thayne

Ukulele dayz!

Ukulele dayz? What am I talking about. Lemme tell you.. Well things here were going extremely well. Then our car broke down and was in the shop for 2-almost 3-days. So that pretty much blew our week, but on the upside, I got really good at playing my new ukulele. 

We now have written a total of three songs. One is about Banana Pancakes. The other is about "The Girl I Left Back Home." Which is a funny missionary love song. Then we are writing one about mission life. So maybe I'll send a video of us singing and rapping them for you guys sometime. It's been really fun. I bought an instrument so I could try to expand my talents and improve in a lot of different areas on mission. I decided that I would use mission to change and improve myself, so why not get better and singing and playing an instrument. I think I am getting semi-close to mastering the uke though, I may just need to get a guitar. It's been quite entertaining for all of us. We preformed for sister pat and half the ward on Saturday. So that was pretty fun.

Sidenote: Dad I totally learned Somewhere Over The Rainbow. I know how much you love that song as well!

Things here are going well! We are a bit bummed with how some things ended up happening with our baptismal dates. After teaching and preparing them they all of the sudden went MIA on us! Satan definitely starts working SO much harder after you help someone do the right thing. Anyways, a few didn't come to church which resulted in us pushing back their baptisms, and then we also had to push back a few dates because we want to use them getting baptized as an opportunity to teach their families and educate them on what their sons are preparing to do! That way we can hopefully teach and prepare the whole family for baptism. So I think that'll go well. It is working well with the two guys we are pushing forward for baptism next Sunday. Monwabisi (Happiness) and Chuma who are cousins and doing SO great. We met with their families and are going to meet with them again this week. So I think this will go well! They are doing great and I am SO excited to see how things go with them. So pray that all goes well and you will get some pictures of people dressed in white next week!

I went on an exchange with Elder Bohn and we really had a great time. We met and taught a family. They are really awesome. They loved what we taught and I really think the Father is willing to make the changes that will be necessary. So things in their area are going well. Elder Bohn is a very obedient and hard working missionary. And on top of that we are pretty tight. We are really similar! He is the one that I sing and rap with all the time. Elder Ngobeni and Elder Pitsoane like to rap with us as well though. I think Elder Bohn and I may room together after mission with some other friends. It's a thought at least.

Our investigator Thandi stabbed our less active Zolani that she is living with. So we went over there and talked with them. It was pretty crazy, but we tried to help them solve it. We are going to go see them in the next day or so.

I don't know. There isn't too much more to report. Just a picture of our district and stuff. Mom, don't worry I am cutting my hair today!

Keep in touch everyone! Thanks for all the love!

Love,

Elder Thayne

Gangsta's Paradise‏

Mmm, well it's been another interesting week. Sadly, the work was slow due to rain and lots of people smoking weed and drinking. It was basically another party week. I guess I should be used to that by now because generally every other week people are partying, but it still is just as annoying as it was two weeks ago!

Life in the Khayelitsha/Mandalay area still goes on though. We had a few fails this week, so I'll start with those and end on the good stuff. It's been a pretty ghetto gangster week.

-We went to go see a girl named Limo that we had taught up till the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She was progressing really well until a few weeks ago. Apparently, she started hanging around with girls that really weren't a good influence. They started partying and never being at appointments that we set. One time I ran into her on the side of the road and she was kinda drunk and trying to hide from us. Anyways, we decided to just drop in on her and see what is up with her. We went there and her sister got sent out and told us that Limo didn't want to see us anymore and that we shouldn't try to talk to her again. We also had her friend tell us the same thing. It was pretty sad honestly. Because we were really feeling so good about her and how she was doing. But now we officially have been dropped. I guess it was just sad to see someone who was doing so well and feeling the joy's the gospel brings, then see them turn away from it. 

..... Honestly, now that I think about it, that is about it for fails for the week. There was just a lot of rain and a lot of little issues that came up.

Some real good things did happen this week though:

-Remember Thandi and Zolani? We had all but given up on them. We had tried and tried and tried and tried to help them progress. We used everything we knew how. Love, rebukement, reminder of their responsibilities, promises of blessings etc. The whole nine yards, but they didn't budge. So we left them to stew after I rebuked them and told them their lives wouldn't change until they started making the change by living the gospel. Anyways, I had the impression that we should go and talk to them Saturday night and invite them to church. So we went and spoke to them for a couple minutes and invited them to come.They both said yes. Sunday morning rolled around Zolani showed up! It was his first time in almost two years! Thandi didn't come, but Zolani did and I could tell he really felt the spirit. He enjoyed the lessons and really contributed in classes!

-At church we had a guy named Mfundo show up at church randomly. He said that he lives in Site C and that he used to be taught by missionaries when he lived in East London, but he stopped meeting with them. He said that he wanted to meet with us every week and get baptized. He said he is just ready to change and ready to get serious with the Lord. It was pretty cool, and it was such a blessing to us since it had been a rough week for me. It was a little love note from God reminding me that he has prepared people for us and he was ever mindful. We met with him just yesterday and he accepted the invitation to be baptized on the 10th of August. So we now have seven guys on track for baptism. :] Pretty awesome.

-We also gave a few blessings this week to people that asked. It was an awesome reminder that we need to ever be ready, willing and worthy to use our priesthood for the benefit of our brothers and sisters. 

All in all it was a good week as always, but things were more rough than normal. I was again reminded that God is love. There were a few days this week that I really just was feeling down because of people struggling and things just weren't working out, but I realize that no matter what, we will always have ups and downs in life. Whether you are living a righteous life or a wicked one, you will always have the ups and downs. 

The awesome part with living life while staying close to God is when the ups are there you experience and feel the blessings of righteous living and experience real happiness and growth, but as always, the downs and bad days will come. but when you are living righteously the Lord will support and uphold you as you go through them, and ultimately they result in you growing and learning as well. 

On the other hand we have people who live life for themselves. They don't rely on God and live the way they should. The result is the completely different. Like everyone, these people experience ups and downs in their life, but the real difference is they don't have God to bless them and help them experience true joy when life is going well, and when things aren't going well  them they just have to endure. They don't have anyone to really lean on and have help them. Instead of learning and growing in their trials, they result in loneliness and depression. 

It's such a huge difference that is SO apparent. I always wondered how people could go through SO much but still have a smile on their face. I have realized that even when things were hard, they leaned on God and he was their support.

People need to know that there is someone there who cares for them. God is ready and willing to love and support us even through our darkest days. Not enough people understand that.

I am grateful for the support I have felt from the Lord throughout my life. I have definitely felt of His love throughout this past week and was once again reminded that he is ever near if we are willing to let him help us.

Don't get me wrong, things are going great for me. It just wasn't one of those cloud nine weeks. So it's weeks like I had last week that make me want to work harder to make this coming week even better. 

Real quick, I have the best story to tell before I close: 

While tracting last week we were in a shack area in Site C. We were knocking on the doors and talking to the people. Anyways, this car pulls up to us and the guys get out and start demanding what we are doing... The conversation went like this.

Random Gangster who looks like 50 Cent: "Hey what do you think you guys are doing here!?"

Me: "We are preaching the gospel. What are you doing here?"

50 Cent: "We are getting ready for a party... Where are you from?!"

Me: "America, where are you from?"

50: "I am from Harare..."

There was a few seconds of silence as we all just stood there looking at each other. Mr. Bigshot smiles and starts shaking his head.

50: "Dang," -HA, like he really said that- "you Americans are either really brave, or God is looking out for you... I think it's both. People don't usually talk to me that way. So are you guys looking for someone who needs Jesus? Well I am that guy."

He then apologized for shaking my hand and having a gun on him. We got his info and told him we will have some other missionaries get in touch with him. He was way cool about everything though once I was real bold with talking to him and telling him what we do. I just realized that I really am not scared. I can feel that God is looking out for us, and honestly people respect us for what we are doing. All the gangsters here know us. They just yell, "Hey Eldah Tayne!" Gotta love when the peeps recognize yahh in dah hood. Now dats respect.

Keepin' it real gangsta and keepin' up my PMG game.

Elder Mitchell Ryan Thayne

Stars and Stripes.

Lets all have a moment of silence for the USA soccer team. They were knocked out by Belgium in the World Cup...

Okay moment of silence is over. It truly was a sad thing though. I never got to see any of it, but I heard it was heartbreaking... this is coming from an African's point of view. Apparently our team is getting better. Hurrah for 'murica!
This week has been an interesting one. It was a bit slower because of a few things.
#1 It was raining SO hard this week. On an off though. So we would be at someones house and it would become all sunshine and rainbow's outside so we would assume we could leave. Right when we are walking away from the house Satan himself would start blowing winds that the big bad wolf would be impressed by, and rain would start coming down like the earth was destined to be flooded a second time. Then we would take refuge in a members home nearby only to have it clear up. Then once we would leave the same process would take place over and over again.
#2 I became deathly ill due to all the rain and long days. I was so destroyed by this illness that I wasn't allowed to go to the area by my district leader on Saturday. And then Friday in all honesty, I wasn't the best teacher while we were in lessons. I was struggling. But I am on the upswing now, so don't stress mum. 
#3 It was drinking week this week. So basically anyone and everyone we spoke to or were working with was drunk, or planning on getting drunk within the hour. So that was a bit of a bummer, but this coming week people will have to get back to their lives and stay sober... until the weekend that is.
So yeahh, like I said, those were a couple things that slowed us down, but it's alright. No unhallowed hand can stop the work of God. It continues to move forward. I got news that Siphenathi Nake, my first baptism, recently started coming back to church. His whole family is almost baptized. All the other recent converts are doing amazing as well. So that was something that really brought joy to my soul. In the missionary Preach My Gospel manual it says, "It is not enough for people to come into the church, they must come to stay." How true that is. People must come and stay and continue to enjoy the blessings that come through righteous living. So it made me so happy to hear those I taught and loved in Mdantsane are going strong.
Some highlights from this week.
#1 We got our new mission president. Our new president is awesome... apparently. I haven't met him yet. He recently outlawed iPods and said if any Elder is apostate, especially in leadership, he will step them down immediately. He is going to have elders start training earlier instead of waiting till you are over a year and a half to train. And with our old president everyone trained. No matter what kind of Elder you are. That's going to be a good change. I am excited to meet him and see what else changes during his reign. ;]
#2 We committed Happiness' cousin Chuma to baptism as well. And then also we committed a guy named Vuyusile, who is dating a member girl, to baptism. He said he wants to get baptized then get engaged and go to the temple with her. I am so excited for them. So there is a future eternal family that we are having a hand in helping. What joy comes from serving and seeing people grow close to God and find purpose in their life.
#3 Also, brother Gcina and I and whoever my companion will be (it's transfer week this week) are going to be opening up a new part of our area that has never been touched before. It's called drift sands. It's basically shack city. I am so stoked. That is where you find those who are truly searching.
As I said, it's been a good, but slow week. I am looking forward to the coming transfer. We are planning on a lot of baptisms as well as a lot of new work ahead of us.
Shout-out to Talmage for being a stud, and to my entire family for all the love.
And another shout-out to all of you who write and support me as well. I really can say it means the world to hear from you guys! 
Last shout-out to Tanner Clegg for heading out on a mission here in SA!
Real quick, I would challenge you all to study up on the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is such a foundation for everything that we do and believe. I can honestly say I know that Joseph Smith saw what he said he saw. In fact, I have never been more sure in my life. I came to that understanding and that conclusion through diligent prayer and seeking for a personal testimony. The sacrifices that he, Jesus Christ, and so many others have made for us to have this gospel amazes me. I would ask that we don't take what we have for granted. 
Love,
Elder Thayne
Pictures: Last P-Day with Elder Olsen. Jumping on a bouncy house. Don't worry, I asked the guy for permission.
Featuring: Elder Olsen, Elder Bohn, Elder Mashigo and yours truly.