Good Morning from South Africa!

Area  - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Foote
Letter #19

PRETORIA— The sun is shining and it looks like some rain clouds are moving in. That means it won't be hot today but it will probs be boiling tomorrow. P-Day is gonna be great cause we found a Toys R Us. We already have Monday - Thursday filled with appointments. We are preparing for 3 baptisms this Sunday. What more could I ask for?? The missionary work is going so well and Elder Foote and I just work hard and have fun every day! ...Hello Sister Foote and family, I know you're reading this :) Thank you for the treats!

Last Sunday we had 13 investigators at church and this Sunday we had 15! I think this week I gained a testimony of inviting people to be baptized the first time we meet with them. They tell you in the MTC to extend the invitation at the end of the first lesson and all of us are like what? Heck no. But after putting it to practice, it yields results! You can explain for hours what your purpose is, which includes helping them take steps like baptism to come closer to Jesus Christ, but when you actually invite them at the end it finally clicks why we are here and that we are not just sharing the word of God with them and lifting their spirits or whatever. It's funny how 3 months ago I was petrified to ask somebody to be baptized and had no idea how to go about doing it even after I had been taught and practiced a bunch in the MTC and now I can do it completely comfortably and not freak out and not know what to say when they answer "no" or "I've already been baptized". Or even when they say "yes"! Haha. This week alone 10 people answered affirmatively :D

On Saturday we visited the Maake family and had a great lesson. The whole family wasn't there at first but they finally got back from shopping for the last 10 mins. Brother Maake is very interested and even went to the book shop the other day to see if he could buy a Book of Mormon! Of course he couldn't but I don't know why we hadn't given him one yet; he has one now ha. They came to church last week and enjoyed it "too much" but they had to go to a funeral yesterday which is one of the top 3 reasons why people can't make it to church here. The others would be I can't b/c I'm a pastor at my church...Everybody and their mom is a pastor here... or we are going to Joburg for the weekend. But this family isn't making excuses, no worries.

Man, Aida and her family are so difficult for us to teach. They want to be baptized but they can't until we have taught them everything! We bring a translator with us but it's hard for 2 reasons 1. There are only like 2 or 3 people in the ward that we know of who speak either Portuguese or Changani. 2. teaching with a translator is painfully slow. We decided that we are going to try to get 2 RM's to teach them and we will just sit in the lessons with them. It's weird when they teach and then the family answers or asks questions, you can tell what they are talking about and if they understand or not it's just that you don't recognize a single word unless they use an English word that's not in their language. They have a Book of Mormon in Portuguese and they are reading it and they have come to church a lot so the only thing is making sure they know everything.

I am so glad that we are having such great success here and it truly is amazing to see all of these people each week and have the chance to teach them the Gospel. I know that Heavenly Father is preparing these people for us and all we are doing is being obedient so that we can be in tune with the spirit to find these people and say the things that they need to hear. I have had so many experiences where I just know what to say and don't have to think about it at all. Scriptures, quotes, experiences, will come to mind and I have no idea how I remembered these things. Of course it's the spirit helping me. One day we were teaching a guy and I asked him something like "Who is God to you?" He answered for the next like 5 mins at least just saying all this stuff about my king, creator, etc. After he got done I said something along the lines of "yeah that's right. God does all this, created all that and we need to give the respect and honor that he deserves but plainly and simply He is our father and He loves us." That touched his heart. I explained how everybody knows the greatness of Him and the authority He has but most people don't realize that we can have a personal relationship with Him. He is there for us always listening to our prayers and answering them, guiding us in our lives, protecting us, etc. We can talk to Him as if he were standing right in front of and tell Him everything we are grateful and happy for, everything that we are having problems with, and we can ask for His help to improve and overcome challenges. We need to be respectful and honorable to Him but we also can and need to be personal with Him. I am so thankful that I have a relationship with my Heavenly Father and everyday I try to make it better. You should too! :D

Mom, I'm jealous you got to teach the primary kids! I used to be scared to teach lessons at church but now I would do anything to be a primary or youth teacher! It is so fun! I got to teach the 16 year olds the other day. I had no preparation, just walked into class, was handed the lesson and had to teach! Ha.

That's cool that the Fords got to speak about their conversion. Funny, I was there at that first lesson. Ha. Of course I didn't say anything but I do remember that very well :D

So I printed some pictures that I am going to try and send soon and maybe I will take some this week and hopefully send them via email.

Love you family! Smile big always and have a great week!

-Elder Dirkmaat :D

How's it wena?

Area - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Foote
Letter #18

PRETORIA— Gas is $4.50 a gallon?? man, I guess it's close here. R10.30 a liter. Not exactly sure what the conversion is... Dad, you can't get a lame prius though cause then I can't tell people about the sweet truck my dad has! ha. Wish I could be skating with you guys! But I showed a kid how to ollie on the skateboard the other day in my missionary attire. I will be honest, I think it's against mission rules to ride skateboards :/

Yes we did have transfers and so I have a new companion! His name is Elder Foote and he is from Reno, Nevada. He has been out 9 months and this is his 3rd area. We are having a great time and are already super good friends. I was expecting to get a black companion since that's how most companionships are unless you are training but I got Elder Foote which was surprising ha. I think that we are going to do some good missionary work together and we are going to be able to have fun at the same time. I'm excited.

Every transfer meeting there is a musical performance of some kind by whoever wants to and so Elder Clarke (zone leader last transfer, currently in Utah and probably already proposed to his gf) did a cool thing. One guy started with one o those shaker things (yes my vocabulary is terrible) and then C man started his beat on the djembe and then 2 guys started playing the guitar and then 2 other guys started singing. They did the song Armies of Helaman or whatever it is called but you should check to see if it got posted to Youtube by parents some time this week cause it was super cool!

This week, because we had to go to Joburg for transfers we had to limit our k's that we used on the car the rest of the week so we just stayed in Pretoria central and walked everywhere which I have never done before. I felt like a missionary from The Best Two Years since they are in the city too. It was cool just saying hi to everyone and talking to so many people. Usually in the past we would just drive everywhere but I say forget that! Elder Foote is fun to be around cause of how happy he is and his ability to talk to people and be friendly. I was always scared and never really got the chance yet but now I enjoy it, and talking to people on the street, no matter who it is, is just fun. Nothin better than having fun doing missionary work!

 The other day we were at a street corner and some guy behind us says "hey do you get high??" Of course we said no and he kept asking us random questions along the lines of that one and he just couldn't believe it. "You're from California and you don't do drugs??" He was just a regular teenager. Well he was probs like 24 cause I always think they are younger than they really are. I always think the blacks are younger than they are and they always think I'm older than I am. One time a guy thought I was 26! Anyway, it's just crazy how normal these things are and you can't be normal unless you smoke, drink, whatever. I'm glad I know better.

Another event from the week. There is a lady, Aida, that has come to church a few times with her kids and she has been wanting us to come teach her. Uno problemo. She only speaks Portuguese and some other African language so we haven't been able to teach her. A guy who speaks her language moved into our ward last week so we set up a time to go see her on weds. Sfiso helped us by translating and then he just got carried away and taught her stuff since he was a missionary before ha. So we didn't do too much talking. We were able to teach a little bit about God and Jesus Christ and also about prayer and then we gave her a chapter to read in the portuguese Book of Mormon that she already had. The next time we went her husband was home but Sfiso couldn't come and so we had to go without him. It was pretty difficult but the good thing was that if we gave her something to read she always understands it very well. Her husband can speak ok english and so he could kind of translate. It's weird having to have a translator and I kind of know what it must be like to be greenie in a mission where you have to speak a diff language! ha. They are a good family though, three grown up kids who are members in a diff ward and three more kids at home all under 10 yrs.

I have had a super week and I'm glad that I got Elder Foote as my new companion. We will have a great time together! I honestly had more fun as a missionary this week than I have the whole time. Not fun like doing things that we are not allowed just making the best of every situation, laughing about things, putting smiles on others faces and teaching the gospel by the spirit!

Love you family and I hope that you have another fantastic week! So much is happening there and it sounds realy exciting from this end! I hope my e-mails sound like I am having a good time as well. Cause I am! ha.

Oh, and nope I don't know Dave's pals but they could be in the Pretoria East ward.


-Elder Dirkmaat :D

Another Good Week!

Area - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Jenkinson
Letter #17

PRETORIA— FAMILY! How are you? Cause I am doing great. :D Sounds like you had another great week. How do you have so much fun stuff happening AFTER I leave?? ha. No worries though cause I'm glad you are.

Sophie: yes, I teach a lot of people about the church! That's what my job is! :D 10 - 9 every day! ha. The only thing about teaching people is that they don't all understand/want to understand. We do our best to help them though!

Tomorrow is transfers and I'm getting a new companion!!! Scary/exciting! Elder Jenkinson was worried all week about whether or not he would be staying here in Sunnyside or getting transferred. He's been here 6 months so it's understandable. I am not going to be training so no pressure ha. This week has been a good week. Didn't get to teach as much as we could have due to some ditched appointments and also companero wanting to say good bye to a lot of people. We still had some good lessons though. I am definitely improving so much and teaching people is not too scary anymore. I think I say that every week but whatever. The 3 that got baptized last week got lucky and got assigned to home teachers that actually do their home teaching so we got to introduce them this week :D

2 pictures a week??? man that's tough but okay I will try to. The computers are slow so it's difficult but I'll do my best. Not this week though cause I didn't bring my camera cord :/

Well, my mind is completely blank right now and I'm almost out of time so I better go but I hope that you all have a great week and keep doing fun things! Love you all :D

-Elder Dirkmaat :D

Happy Monday! Baptisms & Pictures!

Area - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Jenkinson
Letter #16

PRETORIA— Contrary to your terrible vegetarian sunday dinner I had a really good lentils and rice vegetarian saturday dinner from the Rwandan family in our ward :D The only problem was they gave 3 times as much as I could possibly eat, or so I thought. Elder jenkinson only finished half of it. It sounds like you all had a great week though! Glad you got to go to the temple too! I miss that temple. I bet you enjoyed that hug Ollie ;) Sophie, on p-days we usually go do things with the other missionaries nearby. Sometimes we play sports, sometimes we go see lions, and they want to go ice skating next week. This morning didn't start of my pday too well. Since we (elder Jenkinson and I) have to be within sight and sound of each other I had to endure the pain of being in the same room while his foot was stuck full of needles at the physio! My insides are still rolling around and MY foot feels weird! ha.

Yes we did have baptisms yesterday! Angela, Henry, and Clement were baptized and we also baptized one of the members 8 year old sons Dallan. It was another great service of course but this time we planed better than normal and so it was a lot nicer. I got to perform all 4 baptisms! We are supposed to get members to do it but angela wanted me to so we decided it would be easiest to have one person do the baptizing. Henry is the funniest guy we have ever taught. He got his baptismal clothes on and was so happy and wanted to take a bunch of pics. Hopefully I'll be able to send one today. The other day we were teaching Henry and we asked him a question about the gift of the Holy Ghost and he just started talking for like 30 minutes. It was fine though cause i didnt want him to stop! He was telling about a pastor in Nigeria who says he is a prophet. He starts his sermons by waving his arms over the crowd and teling them to receive the Holy Ghost an then everybody falls down. Then henry said "If that was the Holy Spirit then what about the cameraman? why didn't he fall??" hahaha henry is very passionate about everything and I think he could be a missionary based on the way he understands everything we teach. All three of them have really strong testimonies and all the members were very happy. This baptism had the biggest member turnout compared to the other ones.

The Lekomo family (the guy who called us and wanted to be taught again) has been doing very well. We met with them the other day and the father said that he wouldn't be able to make it to church since he still has responibilities at his other one but the rest of his family was at church and they enjoyed it! He has 4 kids, his wife, and also a cousin who stays with them who were at church. His son is 10 (Ollies age) and one of his daughters is turning 8 (almost sophies age!) They are such a great family and the kids are my favorite. They are always really happy and do random things. For a period of like 5 minutes I just sat there and watched them talking and walking around and playing just laughing to myself the whole time. Pretty much kids just make me happy. I'm so glad that we are teaching a lot of families lately cause families are exactly what the church needs!

Overall this been a great week but so fast! I feel like I just emailed yesterday. Tuesday next week Elder Jenkinson will be in a new area and I'm gonna have a new companion! 3 months already!

Thhanks for being such an awesome family and for all the emails! I love you guys andIi hope you have another great week!

-Elder Dirkmaat






Me and the kids in Mamalodi, "lekua lekua!" ha ha it means "whiteman whiteman!"

 



More Kiddos!

 



Me with Esnat and her family





Henry thug style in his baptismal suit!



 



The chapel in Sunnyside nestled between two 8 story flat complexes, ha!



 



Elder Balmforth and I at the Christmas party



Me, Elder Jenkinson (my trainer), and Elder Samoela (Elder J's trainer from Madagascar)

 

More Baptisms!

Area - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Jenkinson
Letter #15

PRETORIA— Sophie are you going to be a soccer star when i get back?? My mission is going great but im probably not playing soccer as much as you.

Ollie how did putting that valentine on Summers door go? I bet she liked it! :D I hope that you will be able to find a cooler helicopter soon. You should tell mom and dad that you want to go on a helicopter ride for your birthday this year ;D

Dad those rocks were sweet! I want one! haha. That one with the three. That's awesome that you could find that one. sounds like you guys had a blast on that campout though. We've got some spare broken washer in our flat if you need it for the next campout :D Wow that's exciting to hear about the Fords and how well they are doing! Makes me happy to know that they are doing so well and seeing all the blessings that come from living this gospel :)

Mom glad you enjoyed Brother Travers talk. You'll have to tell him Hi for me. That's so true about repentance. Nephi's repentance is a perfect example of repenting with a sincere heart. Thanks for sharing that :) The sister missionaries are still there? wow! Have they been companions for like 4 1/2 months now? ha now that I think about it that's actually not too unordinary.

So do I get a note from amber too?? just put her paws up on the keyboard and see what happens :D Too bad we cant skype and watch her run all over the house!

This week has been great for me just like it seems it has been for you! We had our thre baptismal interviews the other day and they all passed and are ready to go on Sunday! Yesterday while we were tracting we found another father led family and now we have 5 new investigators! wow! They are all very humble and interested in what we have to teach. We shared a scripture from mosiah 4 and thought about families and are going back on wednesday. The 3 kids are all between 12 and 19 and they all were interested not just one person, everybody! :D Also they have 13 new puppies just born and I was so bummed that we are missionaries and are not allowed to have pets cause they actually gave me one! I asked and they said yes. I walked out the front yard carrying it but then had to come back and say I was just kidding.

We got to go to the temple on Friday and like always it was an amazing experience! I won't go off on how great they are this time since I have already done that like 4 times ha. If you havent been going to the temple every week but still want that candy bar I guess I will be merciful and let you slide if you start going now! Also this week we had stake conference which wasn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be but we had three investigators there even though it was an hour away and they could only get there by bus. And Clement who is getting baptized this Sunday was singing in our ward choir at the conference!

Like always I am so glad that I am here and am having a superb experience always. Elder Jenkinson and I are getting along very well and teaching in unity very well also. I feel more like a missionary every day!

I have to go buy some food now since I have absolutely nothing. No worries though cause I have money! ha

Love you guys!

-Elder Dirkmaat

Hello from Soshanguve!

Area - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Jenkinson
Letter #14

PRETORIA— So today we are emailing in Soshanguve with some other missionaries hence the title ;D

Formal looks like it was way fun Nate! Jealous you got to have it at the zoo! Mom, we can't find a father led family and then baptize them within 2 weeks...crazy fool. ha jk. but yes we are planning on having them baptized sometime soon. In this ward we are only allowed to have baptisms on the last sunday of the month and they wont be ready for this month. My new companion and I will have some good potentials to work on though! Transfers are on March 6th so I SHOULD get a new companion but you never know. I may also be training a new missionay also so that will be intense! The ringworm is mostly gone. It just takes 3 weeks to be completely gone but it's fine now. My lion bite is gone as well :(  wanted a scar from that ha jk.  Jakaranda trees eh? Well I've seen the name all over the place but I have not seen their beauty yet since it is not spring ha. I dont think I will actually unless I am nearby Pretoria next year. BUT yes there are tons of the trees lining the streets of Pretoria.

This week has been a pretty exciting/busy week like always! We had most of our lessons (like 15) in the first couple days of the week and then the rest of the week we ended up needing to run many errands for other missionaries. Blessing? You know it! On thursday we had to obtain some baptsimal clothes from one of our members in Philip Nel Park and bring them to the missionaries in Mamelodi who live in Faerie Glen so that took a long time. Then later that day we got a call that their car broke so we had to drive from Sunnyside to Mamelodi, pick them up and then drive back home. I will save myself the time to tell how far everything is and exhort you to utilize your internet skills and get on google maps :D

One of the father led families I told you about last week was at church yesterday and they really liked it! The other one had something "urgent come up" that he "had to attend to".   Innocent till proven guilty right, we shall see...

On thrusday we had another exchange. This time Elder KcKnight came to sunnyside with me. He's a big black guy from Orem and has been on his mission for 17 months. We went to that Indian family to do some service. They are remodeling and have a bunch of junk in their backyard. Cleaned it up pretty nice! Then we played some cricket with their kids and some neighborhood kids.  Missionaries vs. the kids. Guess who won. Of course, we did. Crushed em! haha but it was fun they are making preparations for next time we come do some service.  Afterwards the mother wanted to talk to us and she told us that she needs to start having the lessons again. We were able to have a small spiritual thought with her and she seems more keen than usual for baptism!

Later that night we went to teach another man and his family.  He has been seeing the missionaries since before I got here. We were teaching about the Book of Mormon and we were reading the last paragraph of the introduction with him. He believes the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith but he doesn't believe in the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We were trying to help him understand that he can pray to know since he only thinks the stuff is true but hasn't prayed. Well we found out why he hasn't prayed. I asked him if it was something he wanted to find out and he says "No, I'm fine. I don't need to." He explained that he belongs to ZCC (popular south african church) and that he is firm in that and will not leave.  He talks a lot so it took like 20 mins for him to explain that ha. Kind of a bummer that happened but it is to be expected :/

Man, so every flat went through "deep cleaning" today. We woke up at 6:30 and started cleaning at 7 all the way till 11:30! Long time but wow our flat is nice! haha. I think I wouldn't mind staying in Sunnyside my whole mission as long as the flat is like this!

We have some exciting things coming up this week! Temple trip on Friday and Stake Conference this weekend!

Well that's some highlihts from the week!  I love you all and thank you for your support and emails and all that good stuff! :D

-Elder Dirkmaat

For us, We are Missionaries

Area - Sunnyside, Pretoria
Companion - Elder Jenkinson
Letter #13

PRETORIA— Woot woot! Sophie is baptized! I got the announcement in the mail the day before it happened just in time! ;D It sounds like you all had a great time and that Sophie is very happy :) Thanks for the pictures too, my favorite is the one of Ollie and Sophie, I LOL'd ha. and then I got weird looks... What a nice spotlight Nate gave, you're too sweet brother :D

For me, I am a missionary. When I went tracting with my district leader, Elder Ngcobo, when we would get to a door he would say to the person "for us, we are missionaries" and then just wait for them to say something. It was super awkward but I guess it works cause most of the time they would say "oh come in, come in!" It was funny. I tried it on Saturday and it didn't work. The guy was like "and....? why are you here?" No worries though! We still got a return appointment!

Nonetheless, I have had another wondaful week! We were able to continue teaching lots of people and we found some more father led families again. There is one father that we started teaching last week that I think I may have told you about. He called us one morning and said he used to see he missionaries and now he is ready to be baptized now that his whole family is here from Nigeria. He says he wants to come to our church but he is a secretary at his church. He doesn't like his church and he is scared to tell them that he won't be at church for one Sunday. He doesn't want their service to go into disarray since he is the one that organizes the program each week. We told him that all he has to do is call the pastor on a monday to give him enough notice and then it will be fine. We are not too sure why he is scared but it reminds me of when I would always have to call people for my Eagle project or just something I needed done. Dad would always tell me that there is no reason to be scared cause all you gotta do is tell them what you need and 99% of the time people will help you out. Hopefully he will take our advice and be at church next Sunday!

This week we are going to be concentrating on teaching investigators about why church attendance is so important and we are going to make a bigger effort to help them attend. We had 7 at church yesterday but 5 of them were trying to get welfare... The ones we want to come to church are never there. This week will be different though.

Funny story. We were walking to the chapel the other day and this hobo lookin guy was walking towards us. We were preparing to tell him that we had no money ha but then the first thing he says (in a British accent) "Is it true that you used to not consider blacks human beings?" What???? NO. "well is it true that you didn't let them have the priesthood until 1978?" Yes that is true. "Doesn't that make you question your religion?" No. "Do the people in your congregation know about this?" Yes. He kept up like that for a while and eventually we just walked away. He says he was a researcher but he never read the Book of Mormon or visited LDS.org or anything of the sort. Elder Jenkinson hates it when people do stuff like that so he got pretty mad at the guy :\ At the end I was just like "Well it was nice talking to you, we have to be to an appointment. Have a nice day" I feel bad for the guy but there's nothing you can do when all someone wants to do is argue with you.

We are really excited for this month and next because we should be baptizing a father led family this month and completing another one by baprtizing his wife! Then next month we have 2, possibly 3, father led families that we are hoping will be ready! Next month I may possibly be training a new missionary so that will be a good experience for him :D I'm so glad that I am here doing the Lords work and each week just gets better and better and better! :D Thank you for all your support and I love you family!

-Elder Dirkmaat :D