More Baptisms!!!

Area- Johannesburg, South Africa
Companion- Elder Wilkinson
Letter #67

Good afternoon!

A new iPad? You cheese boy!! haha. Sounds like everybody had a nice valentines day! good deal. We also taught Busisiwe and DaCosta about marriage on valentines day so maybe we also had a good Valentines day? ;D Busisiwe was not able to come to church this week again cause of work but DaCosta came again! He loves it! This time he was asking questions and giving answers in class! We went to visit DaCosta's cousin last night who we have been trying to visit for a month now, cause we met him while we were teaching Busisiwe one night, and while we were visiting he told us that Busisiwe got Sunday off and instead she is gonna work on like Tuesday or something so we are super excited for that! he said that the boss never lets people change days or get a day off but he did for her! What a blessing!!

Thanks for the preaching dad! I enjoyed it. You could go make a church and be the richest man in South Africa! But I will be praying for you, definitely. Heavenly father blesses those who keep his commandments and have righteous desires. Like you! ;)

This week we were able to have the baptism for Charles! His cousin Sandile baptized him and it was great! It was Sandile's first time to perform a baptism so he was really nervous and he did mess up a bit. the first time he did it perfect but then Charles didn't go all the way under and that's when he got really nervous. Afterwards he was out teaching with us and felt really bad and wanted to go home and so we had to talk to him and tell him that it was no problem that it didn't go perfectly. In the end it was good and Charles was baptized. I even told him about Elder Jenkinson baptizing somebody 10 times and then finally just swiping his feet so he would go under all the way. He still felt bad so we are gonna see how he feels on Tuesday. But Charles was happy! His mom even came with his little brother for the entire church service and she was talking and making comments in class and all that so I think she really enjoyed and maybe this will soften her up so that we can be able to teach her!

Wilson was not able to be baptized this Sunday because of some marriage issues. In Zimbabwe people usually just get married tribally and don't register it with the government. It has to be a marriage recognized by the government in order for someone to be baptized so we didn't know that until Saturday night. Bishop could have got him married legally that night or even the next morning but they needed to have a letter from the embassy saying that each of them, Wilson and his wife Mary, have never been married before in their own country. So that's gonna get done this week and then Wilson will be bale to be baptized this coming Sunday! Wilson came to church with a white shirt and tie yesterday and then after church we went to visit him and Tau and we taught them about eternal marriage. They both loved it and it strengthened their testimonies incredibly. We taught first about being sealed and then about baptisms for the dead cause Wilson had a son who passed away. Then Wilson asked, "So there are baptisms for the dead and we can also be sealed to our families in the temple, can we also be sealed for our grandparents, etc?" Great question! haha. When you use the expression blown away you need to have in mind the reaction Wilson was having at the end of the lesson. He was physically and spiritually blown away, especially his face showed it(remember he's the one who makes funny faces when he feels the spirit).

I guess that's the highlights of the week! Things are going very well and there are once again gonna be so many people getting ready for baptism right after I leave that I'm gonna have to miss! Why does it always happen that way??

Have a wonderful week! I love you family!!

-Elder Dirkmaat