Companion- Elder Center
Letter #86
Hey there!
So the subject is my phrase of the week. I have a small book that gives some phrases in Afrikaans and for some reason that is the phrase that I could remember the most. It means, "I am thirsty. Can I have some water?"
It's been a pretty good time here in Pretoria. We could possibly have 2 baptisms by the end of this month for Mona Lisa and Lesego! Mona Lisa had a difficult time coming to church for the first few weeks I was here but now she has come three times and we are planning to have her baptism on the 28th. When we taught her the word of wisdom a while back we found out that she was doing 3 of the five no-no's and we thought it was gonna be a huge challenge but she has completely stopped everything! her biggest problem, used to be smoking but she hasn't had a cigarette for a month now! Powerful! Yesterday at church we saw her talking to like 5 or 6 different people and it seems like she is really becoming apart of the ward now which is awesome. Lesego is also gonna be ready for the 28th. He is really serious about deciding if this is the right thing for him and last time seemed like a tuning point in his decision. He let us know that he was really scared that he was signing a contract with God, which is correct, but the thing he is scared of is if he makes a mistake after baptism. He felt like he had to be perfect and no longer mess up otherwise he would be "fired" immediately. We helped him understand and it really eased him. We helped him understand that repentance is a continuing process for the rest of our lives and that if he messes up it is not the end of the world. I think all of his mistakes and things he knew he had to work on started to pile up and he got overwhelmed with it all. I'm glad that he was able to understand. He is a powerful young man and I know that he is definitely on the path of conversion. Sometimes he tells us how sorry he is that he is always asking questions and tings like that and we always tel him how great it is that he does that. It really is a blessing that he will voice his concerns and tell us when he doesn't understand cause there is nothing harder than teaching somebody who has absolutely no concerns and questions and you have no idea whether or not the person is ready.
We got to visit William again yesterday and he was excited again to see us. During the week he asked us if we could get a nice leather quad for him and that he would pay for it. We got it and he said it felt like Christmas when we gave it to him. Right when we got to his house there were some Jehovah's Witnesses leaving and we were kinda worried and thinking, "what is this guy up to now?" We found out that they were just there to visit the owner of the house and she had asked him to sit in the lesson with them. He even asked them what they thought about the Book of Mormon and some other questions that he had asked us last time. Turns out he was not satisfied. He told us that when he talked to that missionary in Durban and when he learns from us it is the first time that anything about the gospel coming from anywhere but the bible has ever made so much perfect sense to him. He really has been prepared to receive the gospel at this time. His only problem is still going to be transport since he stays so far away.
Yesterday we were handing out cards at the robots and a guy drives up and says "How many wives you got?" I was so tempted to say "3, and you wanna know a secret, every time I baptize somebody I get another one." I told him the truth though and it was funny cause he was completely lost for words. The light stayed red for a long time so we got to talk to a few people. I walked by one guy and he didn't take the card and a little bit later he pulled up next to us and started asking us questions and became very interested. He said that he wanted to invite us for coffee one day and talk about the things we told him some more. I said, "sure that would be great, we do this everyday!" Not thinking about the coffee part, and then he says "You do coffee everyday?" oops. I really hope that he calls. His wife was in the car and I think they had 3 young children as well.
I guess that's all for this week. Elder Center and I will be together for another 6 weeks as we just got the news on Saturday. Cool deal!
Have a super week! Jealous I didn't get to go kayaking and snorkeling!!
-Elder Dirkmaat :D
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