Monday, May 21, 2012

Feeling the Spirit

Area - Kanye, Botswana
Companion - Elder Holman
Letter #28

Good afternoon! How are you? I wish you could hear the accent that I'm using. Every kid we see says that to us no matter what time of the day it is, early morning or late at night. The little kids here are awesome and I even played soccer with two, 8 yr old twins the other day in the street which led us to talking to their mother and then a lesson with them last night in which they committed to be baptized on July 1st! :D Pretty sweet experience! When we teach the restoration I use Jenga blocks to explain how Jesus Christ set up his church and then how it fell and then how it was restored through Joseph Smith. I love it when we teach families cause then I get to ask the kids to help me build the church and along with helping people understand everything well it also gives us an opportunity to develop friendships and trust with the family. Random thought but do you remember Tyler from San Jose? I can't remember where he went or if he has left yet but I think he is probably really successful. He was always really good at thinking of creative dates and having fun. Those skills would be perfect for missionary work! ha. Dating prepares you to be a missionary! Who knew?

So I said that the little kids are my favorite but on the other hand the teenagers are a pain in the neck. Mostly. I don't know what is so funny but they can't stop laughing when they see us or if we say something to them. They don't even say anything back! Just laugh and walk by. Weird but whatever. It's funny. A few times they have laughed at us and then a few days later or even the same day we have ended up in their house talking to their parents and they are totally respectful and will talk to us normally. I guess it would probs be the same anywhere in the world. teenagers are just weird when they are with friends...I'm still a teenager! ha.

Last night we also had a nice experience with a nice family, Mike and Sazi and their 2 kids. Well actually two cool experiences one on Monday and the other last night. Last week Mike wanted to know more about how the prophet is chosen today and so we explained it a bit and watched a General Conference clip of one of Pres. Monson's talks. They really enjoyed it and learned many things. After that we talked a bit about how to feel the spirit and i could feel the spirit very strongly. So strongly that I told them "What you are feeling right now, the feeling in the room, that is the spirit. *pause* And you can continue to feel that same spirit as you read from and pray about the Book of Mormon. These kinds of feeling are the way that the Holy Ghost lets us know of truth." I said some other things not sure what but it was a great experience to feel the spirit so strongly that I could tell them without a doubt that they were feeling it. So last night was also nice because we were going to teach them about the gospel of Jesus Christ but after talking to them and answering some of their questions we realized that it was not the right thing to teach. I learned another important lesson of developing relationships and trust with investigators because it wasn't until we had finished our lesson and even had a closing prayer that Mike just asked some questions about wordly things that eventually came back to spiritual matters and he told us about how he and his wife had attended church before and the one thing that they enjoyed most was the focus on families. Def gotta teach them why the focus is so much on families through the Plan of Salvation! :D

So those were some cool things from this week. The zone leaders had 3 baptisms yesterday. 2 fathers and one of their daughters so that was way exciting! I'll have to get pictures of the font sometime. It is sweet. Which reminds me, operation camera is a go. Elder Foote was unable to acquire the target.

I hope you have a superawesomecoolfun week! Keep going to the temple, sharing the gospel, and getting buff! I dunno if my peanut butter and bread diet is gonna keep me fit but I'll do my best to keep up ha.

Love you family!

-Elder Dirkmaat :D

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