Book of Mormon Stand!

Area - Kanye, Botswana
Companion - Elder Dlamini
Letter #46

Dumela majitas!

 This week was super mongovious! We had like 22 lessons and the Book of Mormon stand was off the wall!! We have over 50 people to visit this week!

Elder Dlamini and I are still working hard and giving our best effort. The Gofhamodimo family are not coming to church anymore or even reading so we have not been able to visit them as often. We are not exactly sure why. It seems that the mother does not want us there and also one of his daughters found a lot of anti mormon doctrine and even received a lot of crticism at school in Gaborone. We are sad for them but we have not completely given up hope yet.

The time seems like it is flying by the past few weeks. We are teaching many people and having lots of success. WE have been working to get less actives back to church and part of that is finding out where they live since there are no addressses here. There are two families we are especially helping the Lenong family and Mologkadi family. They both have strong testimonies of the Book of Mormon but did not have much fellowshipping or friends at the church which is the reason we have found that most people are inactive here in Kanye.

Another highlight of the week is that we did a Book of Mormon stand Tues and weds and saturday morning and we received 58 names of people to go visit this coming weeks 35 of which were males over the age of 18. We worked hard to get only people who showed real sincere interest to give us their details so we are hoping for a high percentage of success out of these people. We fasted and prayed for the stand to do well last Sunday and so far it seems that things are going very well. We were able to visit two of the fathers last night to deliver them their book of Mormon and also to share a lesson with them. Both of them were very weel ducated and had many qiestions for us.

As part of the book of Mormon stand we also enjoyed giving law of chastity pamphlets to as many immodestly dressed people as we could. Oh and a makua(white person) came up to me and asked me where I was from. In my mind I was thinking "I'm from Botswana! What the heck are YOU doing here!?" haha She is in the peace corps and they start training in kanye. She is from Salt lake but NOT a Mormon ha. Elder Dlamini tried to give her a bok of mormon and of course she said no and we even tried to convince her to let us come teach her so she could have a cool story that she grew up in utah but got baptized in botswana! haha. We have here number so we might be able to teach her.

I'm sorry i forgot my camera this week... I took tons fo pictures and I was excited!

So there are transfers next week! Guesses? Staying? if yes, new companion? going? where? leadership? or will I be a private my whole mission? haha

So I'm also suoer glad that we had a successful week cause it also could have gne the other way to to the fact that Elder Dlamini found out somebody that may or may not have been very special to him got married last week. i know he still wants to be amissionary but since he only has 3 months left he says he just wants to go home now.

Sala Sentle Family!

Love you all!

-Elder Deekmaat(as elder Kuseni says)

I Slaughtered a Goat?!

Area - Kanye, Botswana
Companion - Elder Dlamini
Letter #45

Family!!

 Glad you liked the pictures! I'll have more next week for sure.

To answer your question:  We can tract and teach in the morning its just that not many are avaiable to be taught in the morning so we don't usually have appointments and if we tract, then all we find is old go-go's who don't know a lick of english. So we serve! We're called to SERVE anyway ;) Even if people are not available we can still do things for them when they are not there or if just the wife is home we can still go work in the yard or soemthing. This week we did a lot of service. painted more house, dug a trench, set up some tents for a funeral, and pushed somebodies truck cause it was broke down. So we taught many people this week but it doesn't seem that we had any really special lessons or anything. The investigators that we found last week, we are still visiting them but they didn't come to church. It's weird, last week we had those 6 investigators at the ysa activity and then one at church and then we had 5 at our Kanye Monate Night on weds where we watched "The Other Side of Heaven" and then on sunday we only had 4 and they were all different from the ones who came to activities! The only one who goes to everything is this guy Sam. He's come to everything for a month straight now. He is an interesting guy. He's 25 but it seems like he is 17 or 18. He doesn't know hardly any english. He can understand and read but not speak so when we teach it is difficult. He loves God and Jesus Christ but he is not super smart. He's the kind of guy where you have to say hi to him or else you feel bad but if you do, you know he's gonna be by your side for the next 4 hours. ha. We love him :)

 

So finally the bad news. I slaughtered a goat on Saturday. I can send pictures if you want ha. I felt sick after and then I also felt really bad cause they didn't tell me how to do it properly so I made it suffer :( Not planning on slaughtering an animal again.

 Have a happy week! I miss ya family!

Love ya,

-Elder Dirkmaat :D

Fantastic Week! + Pictures

Area - Kanye, Botswana
Companion - Elder Dlamini
Letter #44

Howdy family!

 Man, your week sounds like it was way fun! The pictures of nate at the apartment are making me miss college so bad! ha. I can see that you set him up nice. I remember that at first I was embarrassed that you were with me but then it was super cool to have you there! I got all the inside knowledge and swwet hook ups! Even Zac kept telling me how cool my parents are haha. I guess Nate is having too much fun at school already cause I haven't heard anyting from him. In those lobster pictures you both look like teenagers! Dad looks like he's a premissionary again! haha and Thanks for taking Sara out too! That's awesome. Be careful when you put dares out cause she won't back down! haha

 

The week for me was also fantastic! We got to do a lot of service in the mornings. Between 10 and 12 we can't tract and we can't teach so we decided to schedule service opportunities. On tuesday we helped a lady clean her yard after a year of not taking care of it. They all have dirt yards and so I learned how to rake a yard and make it look...pretty! haha. On Weds and thurs we helped a family paint there house. It took for ever which is why we had to go back thurs and we are finishing tomorrow.

I exercised everyday of the week! Proud? you better be, ha.

We had 8 new investigators which is the most we have had since Elder Dlamini has been here. Lots of the investigators we have are not progressing so we need to find some more people to teach! It sucks not to teach all day. At the beginning of mission I used to be so scared of teaching and would secretly hope that they would ditch but now I just can't go without teaching! It's getting to where I have fun teaching. Even when the people are difficult and don't want to understand or accept what we are saying, it is still fun to figure out how to help the person and try to feel the spirit to let it guide you.

We haven't been able to see Donny this week cause he has been in Gabs but he told us that he is going to be around for a while and most likely even until Nov 11 which is baptismal date! The next time we see him i wouldn't be surprised to find out that he has read the entire Book of Mormon.

On Saturday there was a stake YSA convention in Kanye and Mmokgodumo Dam and we had six investigators come! The activity was pretty cool and good thing that we decided to go cause we had to help the investigators interact with everybody else.  Even though we had those investigators at the activity on saturday we still only had one at church. Confusing? You bet! I dunno what their deal is! haha.

We are still teaching the Gofhamodimo family and they are having a difficult time now. They used to be really excited to do the things necessary to be baptized but now they are lazy again and don't seem to care as much. They keep telling us that their cattle post is what makes it difficult for them. Elder Dlamini and I decided that our service activity for this week is to burn down all the cattle posts in Botswana. The only thing the cattle post is good for is making people not come to church and lose their place in the kingdom of heaven!

Elder Dlamini is starting to get very anxious to go home. He is so worried, scared, excited, and thinking way too much about everything! But it's fine, he's still doing good missionary work. ha.

I got to go on exchanges this week with elder Fackrell the dl. I got to go to lobatse and for the first time out of 16 exchanges here in Kanye i got to leave the area! haha. It's good to saty in your own area but we all love to go see another missionaries area, to meet new people and see a new place.

I'm probably gonna be transferred this time on Oct 2. Am I gonna stay in Bots or go back to SA?? Oh, you need to set up the flag pole in the front yard and fly the botswana flag ;)

Well that's my week! Love you family!

-Elder Dirkmaat :D

Missionaries in Botswana



Me and Elder Dlamini hangin' with the locals



Me and Caiphus, a YSA from Gabs, won't be my friend until I put his picture on the blog!



Playing with the kids in Kanye

More Pictures!

My Companion Elder Dlamini

Homemade Exercise Bikes!

Nice House in Bots

Transportation in Bots!

Brother Donny!

Area- Kanye, Botswana
Companion- Elder Dlamini
Letter #43

NATE! "I'm a big kid now!" haha. That's crazy, i still can't believe Nate is going to college! I wanna go with him! MOM! It's yo bday this week! HaPPy BIrthdAy!! You're still only 30??
 

Well I've done so many things this week that I can't remember anything! My favorite part of the week though was yesterday. It was fast and testimony meeting of course and the guy that we met last week, Donny, asked me if he was allowed to go up and testify also and of course I said yes!  He went up and bore a powerful testimony.  He talked about how he had been reading the Bible and looking for answers and he met the missionaries. They came and taught him and as they taught all of his fears and questions were answered and even especially as he has been reading the Book of Mormon he feels something that he can't explain.  He's already more than halfway through and can explain what happens better than I can!  Now he's come to church and he said in his testimony "I seem to have been converted" with a huge smile on his face.  A few minutes later one of the members, brother Monty got up and told how Donny is his childhood best friend.  Everything so far is going perfectly with Brother Donny and we are SOOO EXCITED! haha.

Elder Dlamini and I are having a super time in Kanye. We got to do lots of member lessons this week since I got my license! and we are gonna do more next week!  I love having fun while doing missionary work, it's so great.  I would be happy to stay in Kanye a transfer after this all the way until November with Elder Dlamini.  I love having good companions! Haven't had a bad one yet! haha. Not to jinx it or anything haha.

Man, I don't know how I keep running out of time so fast.  It seems the more I have to say the less time I have. :( I will send some pictures next week.

Love you family! Have super week! Don't miss Nate and I too much!

-Elder Dirkmaat :D