Companion - Elder Foote
Letter #21
PRETORIA— Once 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
good work Elder Dirkmaat <3
ReplyDelete