Monday, April 2, 2012

"The Lord is My Rock, Then Why Should I Fear?"

Area - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Foote
Letter #21

PRETORIAOnce again, great week! :D Even when things don't go as planned what's to stop us from having a good time doing missionary work? Nothing! We are doing the Lords work and "nothing can stop the work from progressing" or us from being happy ;) We had like half the number of lessons this week as we usually do but it's alright cause we got to visit the people who are preparing for baptism at the end of this month and most of them are excited already! A couple are unsure still but if they do the things we ask them and come to church I know they will be able to know that it is the right thing for them to do by the end of the month.

The people are...
Annah is a recent converts sister who just moved here from Nigeria a month ago. Annah is pretty wacky and likes to joke around a lot. Then all of a sudden she will get very serious for a minute and then back to joking. She has been to church for 2 weeks straight now.

Musa I think I told you about, he used to be a Muslim but heard about Jesus Christ and wants to be a christian now. He was at church 5 or 6 times before we even saw him. Every time we teach him and then ask him to pray about things he says "why? I already believe it. If you tell me I believe." We have been able to help him understand though that he needs to get an answer from God. It's good that he accepts everything but accepting is different than commiting. Baptism is a lifelong commitment so that's what we are trying to help him understand right now.

Hendrick and his wife Lebone and daughter Tumelo. We are taking a more basic approach with them since Hendrick hasn't been to church since he was a boy. He tells us he feels good every time we visit and he wants to learn more and change his life. We taught them about prayer last and at the end of the lesson Hendrick reluctantly agreed to pray and he did it perfectly. :D The only problem with them is that he works on Sundays sometimes and never knows if he will or not till the day of and he drinks. As much as I love teaching this family, it's always awkward cause she always feeds their newborn baby when we are there. I'm just glad she covers and that it doesn't happen multiple times a day like it does to the missionaries in townships and villages!

Lawrence and his wife Grace and 2 kids Prudence and Tebogo. Lawrence is the one who went to the store to see if he could buy the Book of Mormon. He is very shy and quiet but the more we visit the more he opens up and has more questions/understands.

Then there is Aida and Ernesto and their 3 kids who don't know english that well. We have to bring a translator with us. This week we taught them about the Restoration and then we watched the DVD with them yesterday. They have been praying a reading and attending church very intently. I just hope we can teach them the things in time for April 29th! Otherwise they will have to wait to baptized until the end of May.

This week we also got to bring these new member kits to the ones who were baptized last week and that was my favorite cause in the kit is a picture of the temple and we get to teach them about temples and how their next goal after baptism is to be ready to go to the temple one year from now. The temple is my absolute favorite so every time we talk about it I just get really happy :D

Nope, the lady from Poland we aren't gonna be able to teach her. She is pretty crazy and even if we tried to teach her she would answer a question with an hour long essay. Ha. The bible group kids were pretty receptive and they want us to come back. there were a few that were interested but they didn't want us to come visit them...yet.  I think we will be able to teach a few of them. They had spring break last week so we didn't get to go but this week we will hopefully.

Funny Story. The confirmations yesterday were kinda hectic ha. Elder Foote and I were a few minutes late to church which was weird. We got ready like normal and did everything the same but I guess we just didn't look at the time cause when we were about 10mins from the chapel I look at the clock and it was 8:55! So luckily the ward mission leader had done his job and asked some people to do the confirmations. However, they didn't know how to pronounce the names and 2 of them had to start over.  One of the mistakes wasn't realized until he was almost done with it. He started over and said something like "these blessings that have been previously pronounced upon you we give you now."  In the end everythning was done right though which is the thing that counts.

Well, that's my week! I hope you have a super week/month cause it sounds like you have some fun stuff planned!
Happy Easter next week!!
Oh and I can't comment on general conference cause we dont get to watch it till the week after Easter :(

Love you all!

-Elder Dirkmaat :D

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