A Little bit From Cayden's Skype on Christmas Day

(He didn't send a long email today since we were able to skype yesterday so here are a few bits I typed up from our skype conversation yesterday.)

Today was one of the harder days of my mission cause no one here celebrates Christmas. They treat it just like every other day. The people are just roaming the streets and it's hot. No one even says Merry Christmas to you, it is just another day.

A Video of Cayden Speaking Ndebele 

So I did get a haircut. The hair cuts are about $2- $3 for an African and they try to charge the white guys $5.  I got a guy to do it for $3 and it was horrible. It was so bad. They don't know how to cut white guys hair. When they shaved my hair they shaved it going from back to front! The area around my ears didn't even get cut and my side burns were about two inches different in length. My new companion Elder Guajardo bought a cheap shaver in Harare and I buzzed all my hair off because it was so nasty.

The African missionaries serving in Zimbabwe are very old.  It's so weird, my first companion Elder Ngobi was 24 and one of the guys in my area is 28. Most of the African missionaries are from 24 to 28, they are adults serving with us 18, 19 and 20 year olds from America. I'll go to a member's house and talk to the guys our age and I'll ask how old they are and they say, "I'm 25 and I'm thinking about serving a mission. But I'm not sure, I might send in my papers soon." And I'm thinking, "man I hope to have a kid by then!"

We don't hand out free Book of Mormons here. If you hand out Bibles or Book of Mormons people will take them and then sell them for money so we aren't allowed to hand them out. We can only give them to recently baptized members or super progressing investigators that are getting baptized.

You find everything here is made by American companies but they are made here. Like the bottled water Ivan is a Coca Cola company made here in Zimbabwe so it isn't really American. The water is OK.  They say the water in Harare is really bad but here in Bulawayo it is fine. But if you look in the water you see little things floating in it and you just ignore it and drink it anyway.

A 100 Billion Dollar Bill.

I am now on the search for the One Trillion Dollar Bill.

None of them are worth much.

Things are cheap here unless you buy American things and then it is very expensive. Like if you buy American Chocolate it is very very expensive like $5 and they only have it at the really nice stores. When I buy lunch I spend 50 cents on sadza, soup and vegetables. The place we go to eat is literally called "Restaurant"

This mission is so different.  There is no organization in any of the churches. My last companion has served 18 months and he said that the ward I am serving in now in Entuname is probably the most organized ward in Zimbabwe. The last three weeks no speakers have shown up. It's like they literally get up and ask, "Is Titemba here?  Is Brother Rogina here? Is Rogenoh here?" and  it's like Nope.  Nope. Nope.  It's crazy, it is so different. No one can play piano so to start out one person sings "I am a child of God." Then they go "1, 2, 3 Start."   And then everyone starts singing... but no one really sings.  It's just me and my companion. And all the kids are laughing at us just because they think we are funny.

We have ants of all kinds. There are small ones like we get at home, then medium, then big and then big big. Bugs are huge. Triple that size and you get these one beetles with pinchers that are ginormous. And they are everywhere and I almost got bit by one and a member was like, "don't get bit by that or you will have to get your finger cut off." and I  said "Oh OK I won't touch that then."  On some days that are really hard I'm like "Hmmmm is loosing my pinkie finger worth coming home?" Haha

They eat mice here... I'm really scared.  They serve it a lot and they literally just fry it and then eat the whole thing bones and everything.  I don't want to eat the bones. They will finish their chicken and then chew up the bones and and swallow them.

 I have already had 11 baptisms. Everyone here is religious.  About 95% of the people already know how to pray,  they know who God is and they know who Jesus Christ is. The biggest problem here teaching people, they all believe that all religions are true. If you believe in Christ then your church is true.  You can't get people to be serious. We've taught people every single lesson and they agree with everything we say, everything we teach but  they won't be baptized because they believe every church is true so they will just stay in their church.

 Cool Animal Statues.