Spirit Breathing Dragon!

Area - Johannesburg, South Africa

Companion - Elder Wilkinson

Letter #62 

Me with Elder Wilkinson at the Johannesburg Temple

 

 

Hello!

This week was also great! I'm definitely loving being a missionary. Yes I did get your other package and grandma's and also one from grandma and grandpa Dickman this week! Sorry i forgot to tell you. THANK YOU! They made me happy for sure. Now I'm sad that I don't get to have another Christmas on mission so I can get some more sweet packages! haha. Shall I extend and make that 10 month countdown go to...13 or 15?? hahaha Sorry I know you are frowning right now mom :) SMILE! Thanks for reminding me that it's only 10 more months! :P That's short ya know? I feel like I'm gonna leave this area way too soon and then I'm not gonna be a missionary anymore pretty soon and that's also gonna be sad. It's so much hard work but the rewards are so great! I love to see people change and make it to baptized and start their path to eternal life! My last day in Joburg 1 is most likely gonna be march 5th and I don't want that cause we have so many awesome people that we are teaching that will be getting baptized that month!

Yesterday we had a day planned with some appointments but the first one ditched... you know what that means! The rest of them will also ditch. ha. So also had backup plans cause we are good missionaries ;) but those also fell through. GREAT. Called 2 last people and they were there! Turns out we were led to visit them through all those cancellations and fall throughs cause they were probably 2 of the best lessons we had all week. There were two others but I'll tell you about these ones. The first one was a guy named Adetayo from Nigeria. We met him at our booth before new years and he was super interested. We tried to call him a few times but he never answered. We decidd to call him again and it went through and he answered and had been waiting for us to come visit him! We actually drove to find his place and couldn't find it so we called then. He answered and when he found out it was us he says "Where are you??" "On your street!" haha So he comes to meet us and the first thing he says is where is my book? I wanna read it! At the booth we wouldn't give people the BOM but we would have them write on the list so that we could visit them and deliver it to them and be able to teach them so he really wanted it so I made him sign the list. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and the whole time he was saying things like wow, this is incredible. I am so amazed. I think he said wow over 20 times. I think he already has a testimony that it is true. ha. So that was a great lesson. Then we went to see a guy named Martin. He is a slow learner and this was the second time we met him. I love this man because of how humble and ready he is to learn. The last time he went to church was when he wasa bout 8 yrs old and now he is well into his 40's and maybe his 50's. He trusts us and wants to change his life around NOW. We taught him about prayer and he loved it. Then we asked him to pray and he was so scared. After like 5 attempts and some talking between each one he finally did it and you could tell from his face how hapy he was. It was like a flood of relief came over him. Just before we left he asked a few more questions and my favorites were "So I can pray in the morning when I wake up and also before I sleep?" "Can I pray for my food?" "Can I pray anytime of the day?" YES YES YES!! haha. I am excited for him.

So that's a little bit about my week! It was great!! :D Francis wants to be baprtized this Sunday so hopefully he will be able to! We think he is fully ready. He told us " I know the BOM is true" and explained a little and the spririt was there to confirm to us that he was telling the truth. WE are not gonna tell anyone that he is ready until he gets his interview cause he was being pressured by his friend so it can be all on his own and nobody else will have any idea that he is ready until the day and time and speakers and prayers and songs are set. ha. Pray for him that he can be ready and confident and have no fear!

Love you family! Have fabtastic week!
-Elder DIrkmaat :D