Loving the People

Area - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Jenkinson
Letter #12

PRETORIA— Greetings from South Africa!

 First I want to apolize for not sending pictures yet. We have been having some crazy busy P-days lately and so I keep forgetting to bring my camera with me! I might print some off and send them in a letter if I keep forgettting in the future. But I promise you will get some soon! I have some good ones! :D

Good job with all those wedding photos mom! Wish I could have been there to help you out! That would have been fun to get to go to all those places.

Dad, always coming up with new environmental cheap ways of doiong things, I like it. You gotta teach me how to make this stove thing so that just in case I'm caught out in the bush in one of my areas I'll be able to have some warm food!

I'm sorry to hear about Nate getting hurt again.  Has he been able to play a single game this season?? Also, I heard from Sara that Nate got accepted to BYU-Idaho! Congrats! Thanks for tellin me family! :P haha jk. That's cool though, when does he start?

Oh no Ollie has a big knife... That's awesome. I heard one of the missionaries here used to carry around a machete when they walked around their area. hahaha. He never got robbed so I guess it worked!

Tell Sister Poppleton congratulations! She will do great as a missionary there! :D 

Wooo for Sophie! That's gonna be a great experience for her! At our baptism on Sunday there was also a little girl that got baptized along with Pinky and Bernard. She just turned 8 so her family was there.

The baptism was really nice and kinda funny too. Bernard wanted Elder Jenkinson to baptize him, so he just did both of them since he had to borrow my pants, and Bernard is a big guy! Pinky went first and she is not on the light side either. She was almost dropped and I dunno how Elder Jenkinson brought her back up. I even got splashed in the face! haha. Then Bernard went and he weighs even more so he went under prety fast too so I got splashed again and then my companion couldn't bring him up at first so Bernard was trying to help himself back up by bouncing on one leg trying to get his balance. Ahhh it was so funny to watch BUT they did have a spiritual experience and were very happy afterwards.

This week has been a really great week. Our numbers were a tiny bit lower this time but it was okay cause we still had some really great lessons and found some new people to teach. We got a call one morning from a guy named Samuel. He said some other missionaries used to teach him and that he was now ready to come and be baptized! We went to his home and found out that he is a secretary at his church but he is not happy and doesnt like it. He will do all it takes to be able to worship with us. His wife and 4 kids just moved in with him since they had still been in Nigeria while the other missionaries were teaching him so this is a new father led family for us and it looks very promising! We have still only tracted about 4 hours total in my 7 weeks here cause of people like this that just keep popping up. Pretty much we don't have time to find cause we have so many lessons that we have to teach each week. (can you believe I have been gone for more than 2 months already??? Went by so fast!)

This week I have been really trying to focus on loving the people. I would have to say it is one of the most difficult things for me especially since I'm not really a talker. I feel like if I can have sincere genuine love for everybody especially the people we are teaching then everything else will come easier.  Talking to people, thinking about how to help them best, remembering facts about them, asking questions to understand them better, etc. I really want to be a missionary like all the ones in the Book of Mormon, Alma, Nephi, Sons of Mosiah, all those guys. When they see wickedness they are grieved in their hearts and ask the Lord to stop all the wickedness and support them to be able to help bring the truth to the poeple. I am excited to do this work and I want to help other people come unto Christ and receive salvation but in order to be fully committed love is the key. So just fyi that's my goal for the next little while haha.

I love you guys and thank you for all the support! :D

-Elder Dirkmaat