Elder LaHue

Chopping wood with Bro. Moima I am really impressed with the effort level that my companion, Elder Hinnen, has put into his missionary work. He has changed from a new, ready to work missionary to a focused, efficient, and diligent one. We had exhanges this week and I had him stay in our area with another new missionary, Elder Guymon. When I came back at night, they had done such a good job teaching people and had many experiences. Now he is ready to take over the area when I leave! My work is almost complete, haha. This week our efforts have been focused on working with the branch leaders. Yesterday we had our first branch counsel, where we discussed reactivation and missionary work. All of the leaders are on board to work with us, and we passed around a sign up sheet during Elder's Quorum to see when everyone is free. All the members of the Elder's Quorum wrote their name on the list! We have been working with our branch mission leader, Thato Mohapi, each w...

Peter & Monyane Man, I was so tired this week! And not tired of the work, just physically exhausted. I'm doing great now, but my body was ready to give out on me.  On Friday  was the worst. We went to an appointment with an awesome 16 year old boy named Mabela. We were reading the Book of Mormon with him and during parts of the lesson we both fell asleep! He was cool with it, but I felt so bad. We are going to get him some sweets to make it up to him! After that I was so tired I had to resort to buying an energy drink just to keep myself awake. Mabela is one of our most favorite people to teach. He is smart, and he walks FAR to get to church, even though he is just a kid. This Sunday he walked with his mom and sister and the Mphethe family to make it to church. We were teaching him about the Spirit World and he called it "Soul City" which is the coolest name I ever heard to describe it.  We are also teaching two guys named Peter and Monyane...

First of all I want to thank everybody for all the birthday wishes!! It was one of the best days of my mission, and it wouldn't have been without all of your love and support. In order to not break tradition, we had an "Olive Garden" dinner at the Dransfield's  Monday  night. I ate so much cake I thought my stomach would burst!  Tuesday  morning the district came over for a jam session. We recorded "If You Could Hie to Kolob" and I played guitar. The video is too long to send, unfortunately. Throughout the day we taught some power appointments! In the evening we went over the the Makutoane's and had a small party and had these custard drinks. Then at night I ate my favorite food, donuts!! I would like to thank my parents especially for all the love and support they have given me during the course of my life. They have raised me the best they could, and taught me how to work hard and make smart decisions for myself. Plus they sent me some Am...

Elder Hinnen, Maleshoane, Tholang, Elder LaHue What a crazy week!! I'm turning 21  tomorrow ! It's crazy where the time goes. I remember a year ago I was at Olive Garden and at the movies with my family, watching Suicide Squad. Now I'm out here changing lives! Quite a change of pace. Haha. Thanks for all the birthday wishes! On Monday  I accidentally got my district into a crazy situation. There is a gym in our area that I was checking out. The owner is a guy named Paul. Paul invites us to come for a free trial and test out the equipment. 6 of us show up and start casually lifting. All of a sudden, Paul shows up and moves us to this big room. Then he has us do this crazy high intensity workout!! We were not prepared, and we were very sore for at least 4 days. It was wild! Yesterday we had Elder Hinnen's first baptisms!! Maleshoane Makhanya and Tholang Moreki were baptized by Elder Hinnen and President Makutoane. It was a great way to end the ...

Elder LaHue and Thato Mohapi President Thomas S. Monson - "Success is preceded by tears, trials, trust, and testimony." President Gordon B. Hinckley - Work will win when wishy-washy wishing won't." This week was filled with conferences. First we had zone conference  on Friday . The theme was "The Divine Companionship" of the Holy Ghost. We learned all about how to invite the Spirit into our work and receive guidance from our Heavenly Father. It was probably the most uplifting conference I have ever been a part of! I spoke about how obedience invites the Holy Ghost into our work. My favorite talk was given by Elder Dransfield (one of the senior couple missionaries). He spoke about how his mission helped influence the rest of his life. It was very powerful and made me realize the impact that these two years will have on the rest of my life. For lunch the Dransfields provided Chinese food!! On Saturday  and  Sunday  we had District Conferen...

Every week I look at the number of weeks I have been out and wonder where the time has gone.. how have I been out 43 weeks?! I had a valuable lesson learned in setting goals with faith. Each week, Elder Hinnen and I set goals for how many people who have a date set for baptism, how many investigators come to church, and other things. Sometimes they are just empty numbers, but this week I really tried to make sure I was doing everything I can to achieve these goals. And lo and behold, every goals we set was accomplished! We had 8 investigators at church and 7 people agree to be baptized in September. Maybe all the Lord wanted me to do was ask. Joy. That is what I have been studying lately. Elder Hinnen made this comment "happiness is better than pleasure, and joy is better than happiness". I have noticed that in the scriptures, those who have joy are those who are more concerned about others. Here is an example of Ammon from the Book of Mormon:  ...

Thetsane Chapel Sacrament attendance went up to 45!!  We are getting there slowly but surely. We had 2 potential Melchizedek Priesthood holders there! One's name is Manyane, who is a 24 year old guy. The other is named Pheello, who happens to be related to the 1st counselor in the branch presidency! Both of them seemed to enjoy church, and I think we gained some more trust from the elder's quorum because of it. We have been seeing many tender mercies each day, usually 3-4. We are putting people on B-Date each week! We should put at least 2 more this week. Elder Hinnen is still learning really fast and yesterday we taught our best lesson together so far. This guy named Hlompho gave a very sincere prayer at the end, asking to know if the message we shared is true. I know he will get an answer soon! I had the opportunity to go on exchanges twice this week, where we swap companions for a day. It is an excellent opportunity to teach and learn. On Saturday I went to...