Companion - Elder Dlamini
Letter # 39
Botswana!
Elder and Sister Moss. They are from Carlsbad! The Carlsbad stake though
Another fantastic week?? MY goodness you are loving life! Guess what! So am I! :D Funny story:
The subject in your email and Sara's email were both "Hey there" ha. Just thought you should know that!
Well this week was not even as successful missionary work wise as even last week was. Bummer. But I still got to learn and grow lots! We had zone conference friday and interviews with President saturday so I was on a spiritual high! I don't know why but no matter how spiritual you are trying to be out in the field it is difficult to feel the same spirit as you do at zone conference and when around President Omer. Better change something, yeah!? In interviews with president we were able to talk a lot about our investigators not keeping their commitments and one thing that we decided I really need to let them know as guided by the spirit the impact and importance that each of these commitments will have for each for the rest of their lives. So many people just take us for granted and are glad that we are there to teach them about the gospel of Jesus Christ but don't realize that our purpose is not to teach them. Our purpose is to invite others to come unto christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy Ghost and enduring to the end. All those steps require them to make changes in their lives. No matter how close to Jesus Christ they are, they need to make changes and those changed truly will bring them happiness if they choose to act. One thing President told me is that not everybody we are teaching is not ready at that time and that we need to listen to the spirit as we try to discern if they are. Something I have never done yet is dropped an investigator that we were regularly visiting. The only people I have "dropped" are the ones who ditch appts, are never around or too busy, or who tell us that they "have their own church" It's something I hate doing cause I don't want them to go but PRes helped me understand that if they are not progressign after a long period of time then we need to tell them that we need to find those that are ready to act on the message we share and that we will keep in contact and visit less often adn if they don't have a change of heart when they realize we wont visit them if they don't do the things we are asking then they probably aren't ready. It's difficult cause you love these people and you want them to receive the gospel in their lives! It is important though cause we can't, for lack of a better term, waste our time visiting them who just like us for friends and thats all.
We still have many of the same people to teach but in the coming weeks we will be sifting the wheat from the tares. I'm super glad that Elder Holman and I were able to revive the area and get many people to teach but now Elder Dlamini and I have to perfect the area and keep it going strong before it falls back to nothing again. I guess that's how it goes and as much as I hate seeing people go, it has to be done. I'm way excited to start finding new people to visit and bring the restored gospel too! It should be fun! We are still teaching Mike and Sazi and the Gofhamodimo family and they are still progressing small small. The Gofhamodimo family more so recently and I'm actually really excited for them! There will not be any baptisms this sunday but we have planned them to be on Aug 26th now. The other day when we were at the Gofhamodimo's home they had a friend walk in towards the end of the lesson. A week previous we had taught them to keep the sabbath day holy. Rra asked if the friend would come to church with them on Sunday and he obvi didn't want to. Then Rra started to explain how he needs to keep the sabbath holy and how he can perform his labors in 6 days but sunday he must go to church and do "sunday" things. It was way exciting for me and I had the hugest smile on my face! They ended up no being able to make it on Sunday casue of problems at the cattle post ans they weren't back in kanye until sunday afternoon. But that was def a sign of change in him! I really wish you could meet him. I will have a picture of him hopefully next week. :D
Well family I am so glad you are having such a great summer! Keep catching all the waves for me!
Love you all!
-Elder Dirkmaat
No comments:
Post a Comment