Monday, February 13, 2012

Hello from Soshanguve!

Area - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Jenkinson
Letter #14

PRETORIA— So today we are emailing in Soshanguve with some other missionaries hence the title ;D

Formal looks like it was way fun Nate! Jealous you got to have it at the zoo! Mom, we can't find a father led family and then baptize them within 2 weeks...crazy fool. ha jk. but yes we are planning on having them baptized sometime soon. In this ward we are only allowed to have baptisms on the last sunday of the month and they wont be ready for this month. My new companion and I will have some good potentials to work on though! Transfers are on March 6th so I SHOULD get a new companion but you never know. I may also be training a new missionay also so that will be intense! The ringworm is mostly gone. It just takes 3 weeks to be completely gone but it's fine now. My lion bite is gone as well :(  wanted a scar from that ha jk.  Jakaranda trees eh? Well I've seen the name all over the place but I have not seen their beauty yet since it is not spring ha. I dont think I will actually unless I am nearby Pretoria next year. BUT yes there are tons of the trees lining the streets of Pretoria.

This week has been a pretty exciting/busy week like always! We had most of our lessons (like 15) in the first couple days of the week and then the rest of the week we ended up needing to run many errands for other missionaries. Blessing? You know it! On thursday we had to obtain some baptsimal clothes from one of our members in Philip Nel Park and bring them to the missionaries in Mamelodi who live in Faerie Glen so that took a long time. Then later that day we got a call that their car broke so we had to drive from Sunnyside to Mamelodi, pick them up and then drive back home. I will save myself the time to tell how far everything is and exhort you to utilize your internet skills and get on google maps :D

One of the father led families I told you about last week was at church yesterday and they really liked it! The other one had something "urgent come up" that he "had to attend to".   Innocent till proven guilty right, we shall see...

On thrusday we had another exchange. This time Elder KcKnight came to sunnyside with me. He's a big black guy from Orem and has been on his mission for 17 months. We went to that Indian family to do some service. They are remodeling and have a bunch of junk in their backyard. Cleaned it up pretty nice! Then we played some cricket with their kids and some neighborhood kids.  Missionaries vs. the kids. Guess who won. Of course, we did. Crushed em! haha but it was fun they are making preparations for next time we come do some service.  Afterwards the mother wanted to talk to us and she told us that she needs to start having the lessons again. We were able to have a small spiritual thought with her and she seems more keen than usual for baptism!

Later that night we went to teach another man and his family.  He has been seeing the missionaries since before I got here. We were teaching about the Book of Mormon and we were reading the last paragraph of the introduction with him. He believes the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith but he doesn't believe in the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We were trying to help him understand that he can pray to know since he only thinks the stuff is true but hasn't prayed. Well we found out why he hasn't prayed. I asked him if it was something he wanted to find out and he says "No, I'm fine. I don't need to." He explained that he belongs to ZCC (popular south african church) and that he is firm in that and will not leave.  He talks a lot so it took like 20 mins for him to explain that ha. Kind of a bummer that happened but it is to be expected :/

Man, so every flat went through "deep cleaning" today. We woke up at 6:30 and started cleaning at 7 all the way till 11:30! Long time but wow our flat is nice! haha. I think I wouldn't mind staying in Sunnyside my whole mission as long as the flat is like this!

We have some exciting things coming up this week! Temple trip on Friday and Stake Conference this weekend!

Well that's some highlihts from the week!  I love you all and thank you for your support and emails and all that good stuff! :D


-Elder Dirkmaat

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