Right Time Right Place

Area- Vosloorus, South Africa
Companion- Elder Martin
Letter #71

y wena's!

I'm sorry I'm not creative with my opening lines. ha. As long as it's something with an exclamation mark to make sure you know I'm excited! haha. Sorry, none of my companions have a blog besides Elder Foote. I know a lot of other missionaries with blogs and it also seems like every single new missionary already knows who I am am! hahaha.

It's been a great week for me! The other elders(Vosloorus 2)had a baptism yesterday so I got to do my first interview which was really cool. The district leader interviews the people who are ready for baptism that have been taught by the missionaries in his district and so I got to do that. The baptism was for a mother and her son. the mother had to be interviewed by the mission president so I got to interview her son, Unathi. I was nervous like 2 weeks ago, when I found out I would be a district leader and would be doing these interviews, that it was gonna be hard and I was gonna mess up or something but it's really quite simple! You just go and have a conversation with them, ask them questions and try to get an idea for their testimony and readiness for baptism, and most importantly listen to the spirit and everything will be alright! the interview was on Thursday and ever since Tues I was just excited for it and not worried at all! It kind of reminded me of when I first started mission that I was always scared to go teach people but now I cannot wait to teach somebody and have an appointment with them. Sometimes during our visits I talk too much now and I have to stop myself and give time to my companion. It's weird how I hardly talked at all and now the challenge is to talk less.

We are going to have a baptism for a great guy named Kgaugelo this coming Sunday. he is 20 yrs old and has made huge changes to be ready for this. He and 4 of his friends have all been being taught but he is the only one that is ready cause he is the only one who is always home and progressing. The others are always busy and out of town so it's more difficult to teach them. 2 of them have their baptism date for April 14 and the others don't have date right now. Kgaugelo says that he wants to go serve a mission so he's gonna be kinda like Charles except Charles was only 16. Kgaugelo can go now and Charles has to wait a bit. After Kgaugelo gets baptized we are gonna start taking him teaching with us and he even said that he wants to come very day!

We met an awesome family this week. On Friday we were absolutely finished. We had like 6 appointments ditch and had tracked a lot and didn't want to do anything. We decided to just tract this street we were on. The first door We knocked a mother answered. Elder Martin said ...something to her that had to do with families. From our point of view it sounded really bad and we laughed afterwards BUT, she yelled to her husband "they want to teach us about families!" and let us in and we taught them! Their son Hlayisane is 20 yrs old and within the first 5 or 10 mins he was telling us that he wants to come to church. Most people we wouldn't take that seriously but he came with his little brother and sister! His parents didn't come sadly but he did! He loved it too! He said it was too short. When the teacher ended the last class he was surprised and thought we still had at least 30 mins more. At the end he asked us for a tithing slip and envelope so he could bring it next week and told us he was going to be at church every week for the rest of his life. In the gospel principles class the teacher taught about the book of Mormon. We had not said a word to him about it yet and then afterwards he said that he needed the book now. This guy is powerful! I wish everybody could feel it the same way he has! That would probably make missionary work too easy though.

So glad that Heavenly Father prepares people at the right time and the right pace and that Elder Martin and I were ready to find them! If we had come 5 or 10 mins earlier or later Hlayisane would not have been there and probably wold not have had the opportunity to come to church this Sunday and feel what he did! Sometimes working sucks cause it seems like nothing is happening but every single time it's the last street or the last door before you go home that Heavenly Father says "alright good work, I trust you to teach this family" If we didn't put in that last effort in the 11th hour we would have never found them!

Thanks for the updates! It sounds like everything is lekker back home. My family is amazing! It's gonna be weird to see you all again cause form what I hear it seems like you are all a lot stronger in the gospel and growing everyday! Thanks!

I love you!
-Elder Bobby Dirkmaat :D