May 30, 2016 - Don't worry.

Today is super crazy because of transfers. Ladysmith is right in the middle of the mission so tons of missionaries come to our house to stay. I'll send a longer email tomorrow. We have to take people to and from the bus station all the time today and tomorrow. tonight at 2:30 AM we have to pick somebody up!!!!  It sucks but ill email tomorrow so dont worry. love you

May 23, 2016 - Time is flying!

Hello Everyone!

This week went by so fast! Its crazy to think that today is the start of week 6 in the transfer. I'm almost halfway done with training. At the end of this week I will have been out for 2 months! time goes by so fast. This week we didn't do anything to crazy, nothing like the waterfall last week. 

If anyone is curious about the animals I have seen, prepare to be disappointed. I have seen some Zebras, Impalas and one monkey. there is a game park close to us that we might go to on a different P-Day. 

We had exchanges with the zone leaders on Thursday which was fun. Its always nice to get to know other missionaries. Today we had to do a lot of cleaning because house inspections are this week. after we email we have to go wash our car. it get so dirty from driving on all the dirt roads out in the villages around Ladysmith. 

Im having so much fun. thanks for all the emails everyone sent me. I hope you all have a great week.

Love, Elder Knutsen

May 16, 2016 - What a week!

Hello everyone!

Man this has been a long week! It had some big ups and downs. Last Monday we went to this huge waterfall like I told you guys about. it had to be over 200 feet tall. It was so cool to hike around there. 

It has been so nice too have the car back this week. it has really helped us get from one app to the next. 

I had to take a little driving test on Tuesday but apparently I did great. It was just with Elder Taylor who is the senior couple who is in Ladysmith. 

We had 2 more baptisms this last Sunday. It was fantastic. It feels like our hard work is really paying off. Their names are Nokubongwa and Zendile. It has been so awesome to help them be ready to get baptized. They both asked me to baptize them so that was really awesome. We have a couple other people that are almost ready to be baptized so that is super exciting. Its so much fun to get to know these people and help them.

                                 

My zulu has been getting even better. One of the members of the branch wrote down some things for me to practice saying. I can read a couple of words in zulu now too. Its so awesome to experince these people and their culture. 

I hope everyone has a great week back home.

Love you all,

Elder Knutsen

To Mom: May 9, 2016 - Recipes

Thanks for the recipes. It will be nice to eat something else for once. Also they dont have rootbeer here which is crazy. or anything relating to mexican food or chili which makes me sad. I cant even make a baked potato. oh well. 

Im suprised you didnt cry in the video yesterday haha. 

I love you guys so much.

May 9, 2016 - A week of travel!

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone had a great week last week. I did a lot of traveling. Wednesday morning I rode to Newcastle with the 3 other missionaries who I live with. Then that afternoon we drove to Durban. it took us about 4 hours to drive there. In Durban we had a ton of meetings. we got to the church where we were meeting at 10 am and didn't leave till 7pm. it was so long. but Durban is such a beautiful city. It was nice to be able to see the ocean again. We got home on Friday around 8pm. It was like a little missionary vacation. We had a lot of fun. it was so nice to get to talk to my family on Sunday night. I love them so much. today we got our car back! it is so nice to be able to drive again and not walk. we are driving to this huge waterfall today to go hiking so look forward to pictures and video next Monday. I now can greet people in Zulu. Hopefully by the time I get home ill be an expert haha. I hope everyone has a great week this week.

love you all,

Elder Knutsen

May 2, 2016 - To mom:

So i am calling home at 5 pm or 9 am your time. I should be able to use facetime is what the senior couple said. they have an ipad i can use they said. maybe set up a skype just incase though. thats funny about grandma, im glad she is doing well. I cant wait to see you on sunday.

love you.

I forgot to ask, can you send me some recipes for food. we have 2 meals we can cook, chicken with some rice and pasta but its getting old. thanks

May 2, 2016

South Africa loves its holidays. We had one last wednesday and one yesterday. thats why im emailing today. Sorry about that. Anyways about me learning how to drive a stick... the car died last Wednesday so we have been doing alot of walking. it's fantastic (not). one blessing of not having a car is we found some people that we might not have found otherwise which is great. besides dealing with no car not much has really happened this week. sorry for the short email there really isnt much to say about this last week. we are working hard and im looking forward to call home this sunday.

love you all

elder Knutsen