21 January 2013 - Bold Comic, Peggy, Primary Kids

Me, Sister Peggy, and Elder Gillespie

I have decided to write this letter in bold comic sans.

Hello family and happy birthday Mariah!

Besides transfers this week has been a slow one. Not much worth noting has happened. Transfer news is that I'm staying in East London. Elder Gillespie is moving on to an area in Cape Town and my new companion is Elder Pebe from near Johannesburg. Elder Madsen in my district/boarding is moving on to George (one of my previous areas) and is being replaced by Elder Tukuafu from Arizona (his father is Tongan).

Interesting fact that I just learned: Elder Tukuafu's brother plays for the 49ers and he just learned that his brother is playing in the Superbowl... the year he's on mission and can't watch it. haha. That makes our district now Elder Pebe and I in the driving area and Elder Tukuafu and Elder Strauss in the walking/biking area. Our Zone Leaders are Elder Moangare and Elder Simpson.

I got grandma and grandpa's package and also a package from Sister English with cards from some of my previous primary kids. That was very nice, thank you.

Oh! I just remembered something amazing that happened this week. One week ago on Monday I won Phase 10 for the first time! On the last hand I went down and out on the first turn, blowing through 3rd and 2nd place to steal the win. It was glorious.

L'église est vrai!
("The Church is True" - in French)

-Elder Tekulve

14 January 2013 - A Tough Week, Book of Churches

I almost wrote '14 January 2012'.

This is displayed on an old library building
across the street from where we e-mail.

This week has been... a bit tough actually. I did the math and while every day was full of appointments, 70% dropped for one reason or another. That's pretty high, but hopefully next week we can teach more. What to do if appointments drop is an art learned through experience. Popular options include visiting members, seeing if investigators who have dropped appointments in the last couple of days are home, or simply tracting. Pray for opportunities to share the Gospel. You bring joy to the missionaries when you refer people to teach.

This week is transfer week, but I don't have the news yet. Most likely I will be staying here in East London 3rd Ward.

Unfortunately I have not received any other packages yet.

I'm going to start keeping a "Book of Churches" so I can document all the interesting and various churches I encounter in South Africa. There are a lot.

-Elder Tekulve

07 January 2013 - Ticket to Ride, Simphiwe's Baptism

Hello Everyone

Happy New Year 2013. I guess this means my "Mission Year" is over. Lots happened in 2012, didn't it? Not that I would know, it's all just mission to me.
Thanks for sending the pictures.

This week was a pretty slow one after New Years on Tuesday. On New Years Day, like last year, we couldn't go out into our area, so we played Ticket To Ride in the morning and went to the Steenbeek's farm again in the evening. On Sunday Simphiwe got baptized. He's a great guy with a strong testimony, and possibly a future missionary (he's about 6 months younger than me).

I would like to add the CD 'Variations on a Sacred Theme II' to the top of my wishlist at the exclusion of all else. I will even pay for it if need be, I simply must have it. Something else that I think Dad or Nikolaas would like (but that is not on my wishlist) is an artist named Ludovico Einaudi. Look him up if you like ambient-type music.

Breaking News! I now know that the day I leave mission will be June 27, 2013. Because of flight times and time zone differences and layovers I will most likely be home on the evening of Friday, June 28th. It is also possible it may not be until the morning of June 29th. That makes it exactly 2 years to the day that I got on a plane headed to London, and I can give my homecoming talk on my 24th "click day" of the 30th of June.


Just as a side note: Elder Gillespie looks a lot like Keith from Humble Ward. Unsurprisingly, Elder Gillespie's sister looks like Krista.

I mentioned last week I got the Young Women's package but I haven't gotten any other post besides that. Well, I think that's all for this week. Give my love to Humble Ward and tell Elder Ballard I'm sorry I missed him. :(
-Elder Tekulve

Elder Gillespie, Simphiwe, and Elder Tekulve

Elder Gillespie, Nadia-baba (an investigator),
and his dinner.

31 December 2012 - Happy New Year! (Almost)

Happy New Year! (Almost)




Me and a cockatoo named Frankie

This week was Christmas (of course). Christmas here is a bit different than the United States. For example, there was a sign in a shopping center here that said 'Jesus is the reason we celebrate the season.' I got a package from the Humble Ward Young Women and thank them for that. I am wearing the tie they sent me right now. You guys didn't send me pictures of Christmas Day! And you had all week. Noah (the only sibling who e-mailed me!) sounded like he was having fun. On Christmas Day, as I said in my call home, I was on "The Mad Farm" all day. We had lunch and supper there but didn't spend much time outside as it was raining. I learned that they also have 2 owls in addition to the rest of the animals I listed. Was the Les Miserables movie more like the musical? I know there is another movie with Liam Neeson that I actually mentioned a couple of weeks ago, so is this a new one?

The New London Elders with the Steenbeeks on Christmas

We had a pretty neat visit with a couple named Anita and Johan. I don't know if that's the right spelling. But I think they're prepared to hear the Gospel. The Spirit was present and at one point Johan said he thinks there are graded parts to heaven like "a first-class suite and a middle class room and a third class cabin." We look forward to teaching The Plan of Salvation. :)

 

 

 

It's been a good week. The December lull is starting to lift and we are getting a bit busier. It was great talking to you, and good luck in 2013!

-Elder Tekulve

One of two owls at the Mad Farm

Liam Neeson in Les Miserables

 

24 December 2012 - The Mad Farm, Christmas Caroling

Dear family and friends,



Elders in my District. L to R:
Madsen, Strauss, Gillespie, Tekulve

This week there were lots of fun Christmastime activities. On Monday we went to Sister Steenbeek's farm for a Ward Christmas Party. She rehabilitates animals and describes it as "The Mad Farm." As far as I could count there were 18 cats (!), 8 dogs, 3 mules, 2 donkeys, a handful of geese, an ostrich, 3 emus, 20 goats, 5 or so pigs, maybe 3 rabbits, countless chickens, a crow, a dove, a cockatoo, a rainbow lory, another type of green parrot, 2 grey crowned cranes, a turtle, and a swan. We're going back tomorrow for Christmas Day and I'll call you from there.

2 New London Ward Members at
The Mad Farm

Father Christmas giving gifts to the children.
It's certainly a lot hotter down here
than at the North Pole.

We also went caroling on Friday with some ward members, much to my dismay. It went smoothly enough, though.

 

On Saturday I went on exchanges with Elder Strauss. It definitely gave me a great appreciation for the Elders in the walking area. It's starting to get pretty hot outside...

 

Merry Christmas and talk to you tomorrow!



Everyone who went caroling

 

-Elder Tekulve

 



hOnK

 

17 December 2012 - Mission Christmas Party, Sokhululeka, Gospel Principles

Hey, Christmas is next week!

The main highlight this week was the tri-Zone Conference and mission Christmas Party. That was on Wednesday and lasted all day. There were musical numbers by each zone (we sang "Oh Holy Night"), testimonies, training by President and Sister Wood, lunch and dinner, something like a white elephant gift exchange (I got a packet of cat food...), and as per SACTM (South Africa Cape Town Mission) tradition we got to watch a movie. Unfortunately it was a movie I've seen before; the same one I watched at the YSA movie night back in George. Like I said, I want to watch the movie with my family when I get home so I want it to be a surprise.

One other highlight of the week was an investigator that we met named Sokhululeka. She is very motivated to change and works hard at it. On Sunday she got a Gospel Principles manual to take home and by Tuesday she had finished half of it. You don't see that kind of commitment often.

East London 3rd is a good ward. It has some great Ward Missionaries and an awesome Bishop who gets things done and really connects with his ward. It's hard this time of the year because very many people only live here for work and go home to the rural areas in December. As a result most of our investigators have been lost until mid-January. That's okay though, we still do have people to teach and I'm having a great time.

-Elder Tekulve

10 December 2012 - New City: New London

What was that sound? Oh yes, it was the time flying out the window.

Transfer news! I am now the District Leader in East London 3rd Ward. My companion is Elder Gillespie. His father is in the Air Force so he moves around a lot but he was born in Colorado. Elder Krieger's new companion is Elder Martin from Moscow, Idaho. Elder Martin and I switched places; he was Elder Gillespie's trainer. So I am the oldest in this 4-man district by at least a year.

Missionary work here is much the same as Fish Hoek. The principles are the same, but here we have a lot more appointments and people to teach. Some fall through but I've met some interesting people.

East London, South Africa, from the air

My camera is broken for good. I'll get a new one maybe next week as an early Christmas present. So no pictures today.

 

But here's an Old Testament fact: Shem outlived most of his posterity all the way down to Abraham. I don't have the numbers in front of me but that's something like his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson that he outlived. To put that in prespective, if Shakespeare lived as long as Shem he would still be alive today.

Shem lived to be 600 years old

William Shakespeare 1564-1616

Love,

-Elder Tekulve



03 December 2012 - Brother Mike, Basson Family

Hi, I'm Elder Tekulve. Would you like a Book of Mormon?

It's December! Yay!

For P-day yesterday we went to Meadowridge to visit a convert named Brother Mike. He runs a catering business and the Mowbray and Meadowridge Elders are frequent customers. He is also a very nice and interesting person. He has an incredible testimony for only being baptized about 7 months.

In the evening on Monday we taught another powerful lesson with the Basson family. The Spirit was strong and even though they didn't understand it, they felt it. Other than that it was a pretty slow week...

Elder Tekulve in the kitchen at his flat

It looks like my camera is beyond repair, but I have a few pictures for you this week.

Old Testament trivia: Jewish tradition says that Shem, Noah's son, is Melchizedek. I personally believe this is true. He actually outlived Abraham. The Bible Dictionary seems to agree with me.


Love, Elder Tekulve