Monday, January 2, 2012

It's 2012!! Happy New Year!

Area - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Jenkinson
Letter #8

PRETORIA— Hey hey how goes it in the New Year? :D Man, sounds like you are having tons of fun with all the new stuff and the parties... Party Animals! Since when do you guys go to parties this much? haha.

My new years was pretty good too. The only thing I regret was staying up till midnight... We had some other missionaries over at our flat so we had 10 missionaries in one place! we weren't allowed to go out on New Years Eve or Day so we were just hangin out for 2 days ha. We put cars on either end of the complex parking lot and turned on the lights so we could play soccer for a couple hours that night. Besides that we just sat around and talked, played games(we have a game of risk to be continued later hopefully ha) and ate candy and listened to music. New Years day we just went to church and then back to the flat to hang out some more ha. It was really weird to have nothing to do. Its just our once a year rest for the year. We'll be workin' like crazy starting tonight at 6 till New years eve next year! ha. I am officially coming home next year! ps. its 11:11 make a wish. Apparently it goes crazy here during new years but since our flat is kinda far away from everything and we arent allowed to go out we didnt get to see anything. I hope the flashing lights we saw was actually lightning like we thought... 

This week has been pretty good even though we had less days to work. We still got to teach a lot of people and we are still getting new people to teach. The only finding(tracting and contacting) we've done was like 2 weeks ago, we tracted for a couple hours and contacted for an hour. Other than that people have been showing up/being there when we go to teach somebody else, so we have just been going to appointment after appointment every day. One appointment we went to we parked farther than we thought so we had to walk a ways and then it started raining pretty good. We showed up soaking after climbing 9 flights of stairs and walkin' like a mile or 2! ha. One god/bad thing about the city being part of our area is that we have a bunch of people that live miles from the ground but its a good thing cause even though we have a car we still get our exercise in somehow :D  

I have of course been learning lots and I'm getting better at teaching lessons, asking questions and all that. I realize more and more every time we go to teach that it's the spirit that teaches and we are just there to help them feel the spirit and hear the words that they need to hear. 100% of the time that I am a successful teacher is when things just come to mind that I have learned for myself. Sometimes you ask questions or say something and yes, you knew what you were saying because you had learned about it yourself but it's the spirit telling you what to say. It's tough to explain but I guess you could say the spirit triggers your memory and it's up to you to act on the thought that you have. When you do, everything goes so smoothly and perfectly. When you don't, you kinda feel bad and are constantly thinking man, I should have said that. A little before I left someone in a class said to help you get better at acting on and listening to the spirit just do everything you feel like you should do. As you do that eventually you will be able to recognize whats of the spirit and whats not and also you will just naturally act on your promptings from the spirit. If you are prompted to do something and that thing is good then it is from the spirit. Theres a scripture that I am referring to here but I dont remember what it is right now. But it's in the Book of Mormon! So find it! Don't be worried about whether or not you should say or do something, if it's a good thing, just say or do it. I know that when you act on the promptings you have you will be blessed to have the spirit with you more often and in greater abundance. People will recognize it as well and you will be an example to them. I have been able to tell the difference so much from acting on my promptings. All you have to do is trust in the Lord and he will direct thy paths for good. Doubt not, fear not. 

Yeah for Preacher Bob. ha. Im so grateful to be here out on mission in South Africa! When I am teaching people and they understand the things and feel the spirit it makes me feel so good. You can see it in someone when they really do feel the spirit and want to learn more. The other day were teaching a lady and her brother and sister. We were teaching about the restoration and we thought that they were understanding it pretty well but we would still periodically ask if they had any questions and finally they asked. Once we were able to answer that question it led to other questions and I felt like they truly understood because they were more involved and talking more instead of giving really short answers to questions we would ask them. One of them said he couldn't speak english very well but towards the end of the lesson he was talking almost prefect english. Obviously that was his excuse but he definitely opened up because he was feeling the spirit and wanted to learn more. 

The other day we went on exchanges so I got to go out with the district leader Elder Ncgobo (where the c is a click) and we had a great time. We found tons of families while tracting and also got to teach a few scheduled lessons. His area is a township so that's an area where they have terrible looking houses but way nice inside (sometimes not nice but) There are always tons of kids and people all over the place it's such a great place to be a missionary! All the kids freak out when they see a white guy so they all come running over to say hi and stuff and then the adults and teenagers freak out when they find out im from California ha. So I got to take some pictures with the kids it was cool! Kids always think I am married cause I have my CTR ring on ha so I get to explain what it is a lot and I decided to buy some CTR rings when we went to the temple 3 days ago. Im gonna give them to the kids that get baptized so I gave one to a 9 year old in my ward that we teach once a week named Elvis. He got baptized a couple months ago. He's been wearing it everyday cause I saw him at church! haha. 

Well time is short but HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! WOOOO! 
Love you guys!

Elder Bobby Dirkmaat :D

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