2 Missionary Family

Area- Pretoria, South Africa
Companion- Elder Coon
Letter #94

Wow! Nate is a missionary too! weird to think but so excited and happy for him! I'm sure he is loving it even if he was super scared to go to a foreign country. The MTC is fun and sometimes I miss it ha. Can't wait to see all those Elders that I was scared to talk to 2 years ago!

Bantu's baptism is this Sunday!!!! WOOO! He invited his family to come and he was really worried about what he was going to say so he sent us the SMS he wanted to send to proof it and make sure that it was okay. WOW. I don't think he even needs to be interviewed. Don't worry we are still gonna have the interview but man, I don't think that I have ever felt more confident that somebody is ready to be baptized than I do for Bantu. Everybody was always ready but Bantu was ready like a month ago and now his readiness has just multiplied since then. Bantu really is a miracle.

So for the member PMG program the first assignment was to read chapter one and talk as a family about what their duties are as missionaries and how they can contribute. We started it with three families and will follow up this week and will start with Bishops family tonight. One of the families is already doing more than just discussing though! They invited MonaLisa for dinner tomorrow night and for us to teach a lesson afterwards! Love it when members do things like this! MonaLisa needs this fellowship more than ever.

This week was full of giving blessings! Holy smokes. I think we gave six including the one from last week. i love to be able to provide priesthood blessings to others. On Sunday during Elders Quorum the teacher asked us how receiving the priesthood helped us prepare for mission. I never thought about it before but it helps because we receive the priesthood and we are supposed to use it to serve others which prepares us to be missionaries because when we become missionaries we serve 100% of the time. You receive the priesthood to prepare to be a missionary and then you be a missionary to help you learn how to exercise the priesthood for the rest of your life!

Have a wonderful week! I love you mucho!

-Elder Dirkmaat :D

Service, service, service!

Area- Pretoria, South Africa

Companion- Elder Coon

Letter #93

Hi! 

Can I just say really quick that I cannot wait to just talk and tell you all about South Africa instead of typing. Maybe if I could type like Dad it wouldn't be that bad but this'll have to do for now. 

Nate is such a powerful guy! I haven't been able to hear his testimony or anything gospel related from him for a long time, let alone anything for the past couple months, so that was really cool to read his talk. I didn't get to listen to it though. He is really going to be a powerful missionary! Those were some great thoughts that he shared. I think I need to be more like him. Humility is tough! Pretty please tell him to send me at least one email before he leaves in 2 days. 

This week went by really fast and I am having a hard time remembering what we did! We did tons of service on saturday! We started off the morning by going to a spinnathon. Our stake President loves to cycle. He is sponsored by a team. The spinnathon was for charity and there were tons of people there. There was a huge canvas with probably more than a hundred cycle machines. The stake president and his friend cycled for 10 hours straight for 410 kilometres each! Stake president broke a record and raised R50,000 cause he broke 400 k's. He organized a team from our ward mostly of the YSA but we were at his house for lunch when he was organizing it and they needed 2 more on the team so he asked us! Since we were on a team we showed up at our appointed time and each cycled for an hour and then switched. Wow it was tough! I don't know if you have ever been in a cycling class at the gym but it was a lot like that. There was an instructor at the front telling us to up the resistance or stand up or what not. I was beat at the end! After that we went to the Josephs house. They are a member family, the same that had us over for my birthday. We are doing lots of projects for them. In the past we have built and mounted some cupboards, finished a coffee table and hung lights around the gutters of the house. On Saturday we built a brick wall around a drain in the corner of their yard so that they can raise the level of the grass. It's nice to be able to help them out. We usually go help them for like 2 hours every week. 

Leshego was confirmed this week since last week was stake conference. He was late to church but Stake President told us to confirm him during priesthood and he will be sustained next week. He is still continuing to make new friends at church and loves it! He will get to go to a YSA convention at the end of the month. 

The success with the members is getting better! We didn't get to teach many member lessons the past week but some came to us at church asking if we could come on certain days so now they are getting excited for us to come! We are also going to start a pretty sweet program involving PMG. We are gonna teach them a principle from it and give them chapters to study or an assignment. For example we will teach them lesson 1 and then they will study it and next week they will teach it to us. We will do it with 4 or 5 members at the same time and it will take like 2 months to complete. 

Wow, Sara is awesome! She one upped me! My turn, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! :D I hope it was a day to remember. I love you I love I love you! I'm sorry that all your goodbyes have to be so close to your bday(me going to college, Nate going to college, Nate going on mission) but you are gonna have the best birthday ever 2 years from now! ;) 

Till next week,

Love ya fam bam! 

-Elder Dirkmaat :D

Powerful Convert

Area- Pretoria, South Africa
Companion- Elder Coon
Letter #92

Hey family!

Thanks for the email! ;) haha

The temple sounds like it was a really great experience! I def can't wait to watch the new movie. I heard that it is still only on the west coast right now. The Joburg Temple will possibly be very different the next time I get to visit after mission. I heard that they are going to close it for a while when the Durban Temple opens so that they can make some major renovations. That would be pretty sweet and I hope that what I heard is true!

I am wicked excited for a temple surf day!!! ough! It's gonna be nice. All is well in Pretoria. Can't say we've had a perfect day like that but things are happenin! Leshego is a powerful convert. We visited him last night. He sometimes calls us and asks us to visit so we go at night after all our lessons just before we go home. I think he really likes us to be around so that he can learn more and feel the spirit. He was telling us that he used to be so worried about obeying the commandments and that they just seemed so difficult, especially the law of chastity. He was scared and still is a bit that if he even talks to a girl for too long that it will lead to other things. He asked us, "If you keep the law of chastity too long won;t you turn gay?" He learned quite a bit about girls though since he started obeying the law of chastity. His desire for a relationship with a girl is now on the eternal perspective. complete opposite of when we met him. Powerful! He has made many huge changes in his life at the age of 20 and I look up to him tons. His friends and cousins tell him that he is boring cause he won't go drinking or clubbing with them but he tells them why and I can tell from the experiences he shares with us that he is looking forward to the celestial kingdom. The decision to get baptized was 100% his. We pushed him for a while and he kept getting cold feet but when he decided he wanted it he gave 110%. He knows that he has made a covenant with God and he is determined to hold his side of that.

This week we had a lot of cool experiences with the members. We were able to teach like 7 lessons to members this week. We go and teach them certain principles from the lessons in chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel. We haven't received any referrals to their friends yet but I know they will come. We have got a couple referrals to people that they have met at stores and stuff like that. Those people are always difficult to get in touch with but we are still going! the members are learning and growing though, that's for sure! We are gonna start doing this thing where we teach them a lesson and then next we come back and they teach the lesson to us. Should be cool!

We had Stake Conference yesterday and the Sunnyside ward was there so I got to say hi to a bunch of people from that ward. They always always always ask if Sara is still waiting and I say "Nope, I'm waiting." ha. Lots of those people though, especially the kids, look sooo different and have grown up tons! it's weird. And it's gonna be even weirder when I get home....eish man.

I will finally get to go to the temple again at the end of this month! I have been waiting forever cause It's been closed. I think it's been like 6 months or more. I cannot wait. thanks for sharing your experiences going to the temple Dad. Receiving answers like that is an amazing experience!

I love you!
Be superstars!

-Elder Dirkmaat

Waters of Baptism

Area- Pretoria, South Africa
Companion- Elder Coon
Letter #91

Dear family,

Well my new companion is Elder Coon from Oregon. He was my district leader for 6 months in Joburg and now we are companions for his last 5 weeks! ha-ha. We are already having a great time together as companions since we already knew each other for such a long time. He is determined not to get lazy at the end which is perfect cause that's exactly what I want to do. I don't know how I could have a good final interview with President if I was lazy for the last part of my mission.

We have tons of good work to do here though! We just had a baptism for Leshego yesterday which was awesome cause the bishop organized a linger longer afterwards so that many of the members would be able to support him.

It's always so cool to be with them just before we go down into the water and see how nervous and excited they are and then afterwards how calm and happy they are. Leshego invited many of his family to attend his baptism and 2 of them loved the church. They were going around meeting all the members at the linger longer and telling them that they are going to be back next week. Super cool! Baptisms are such a good way for people to come and experience the church.

Bantu also enjoyed the baptism very much. He has already invited his entire family to his baptism which will be Sept 22nd. Yesterday he was able to bring his daughter. she couldn't stop smiling the whole time. It was a really good Sunday to be in the Pretoria ward for sure.

MonaLisa is even progressing again., she wasn't able to come to church for like 4 weeks but now she has been twice in a row and we gave her a baptism date for October. She wants to be baptized so bad and I just hope that her job can stay stable and that she doesn't have any more problems with her car. She is reading the book of Mormon for the third time already!

Thanks for the cool scripture that you sent me last week (D&C 29 4-7). It really did help me. I kind of regressed in my communication skills when I came to this area but I think that I am getting them back and gaining the same kind of confidence that I had when I was in the township and city and village. I love the part that says you are chosen out of the world cause when you realize what that means you have no thought for what other people think about you. You share the truth with the name of Jesus Christ on your chest. Even our baptismal covenants tell us that we need to take upon ourselves His name. I sometimes get scared to talk to people cause I am prideful and don't want them to not like me. Dumb reason! Sometimes I am scared to make the right choice or to be an example cause I want the crowd to like me. We are chosen out of the world to be an example to them and to help them return to the fold of Him who loves us most. When we do things to please Him we are doing ourselves a favor and preparing to live for eternity in celestial glory and doing others a favor by helping them also receive that blessing.

I hope you all have a great week! The restored gospel is true and we all have a responsibility to share it!

Love you all!
-Elder Dirkmaat

When Your Ready

Area- Pretoria, South Africa

Companion- Elder Center

Letter #90

Hello's! 

That's sweet Nate will be going to the temple soon! What day are you going? I have heard about the new movie but I haven't sen it yet. The temple has been closed for a while. It opens again in the middle of september I think. 

Elder Center is  being transferred tomorrow morning and I'm pretty sure that I will finish here in Pretoria. He was pretty sad that he's going. We got to do a lot of good work and we even have a baptism next week and next month! Leshego next week and Bantu next month. 

Leshego finally feels ready and more comfortable. He said previously he had a lot of doubts but now he doesn't have any and he is ready. When people are really ready you can always tell the difference. He was even telling us the difference that he can feel. He's been taught by missioanries in the past but he never paid attention or aything and now he says he can't forget the things that we teach or ask him to do even if he tried because he knows it's true and it is what he has to do. 

On Saturday we did a helping hands project at a disabled home. There were like 50-60 members that showed up to help them make arts and crafts, braai some boerewors, and paint a courtyard so that they can have a nice place to display all the art they make. We usaully go there every tuesday morning to help the relief society since they are the ones that organized the art class. It's a super cool experience to go there and help them. They are always so lonely and even if we just come to give them company and talk to them they are super excited. They loved it when we all came on Saturday. Bantu even came and while he was there he got to meet the Stake President and the next day Pres Boshoff (Since he was bishop it was Bishop Alexander and now it is Bishop Heydenrych) introduced him to Elder Dale G.Renlund who came to visit. Bantu said he was so overwhelmed and confused as to why he was meeting all the "high up" people. We explained to him that people just get really excited when they find out that we have a super investigator and they want to fellowship as much as they can. Bantu is a really funny and sincere guy. I wish so bad that you could meet him! 

(In case you don't know what it means to braai boerewores, it's a South African BBQ)

Yes we are teaching mostly blacks which is no problem. We teach anybody that we can and I think the members even understand that finding white people to teach is very difficult. I think it helps that we have good friendships with a lot of them. They are starting to help us quite a bit and offer their time to help out. One member referred us to teach his gardener and then yesterday he brought a guy to church. He seemed to really enjoy it. he was smiling the whole time and paying attention to the lessons.

Remember how in Elders Quorum in La Costa they used to hand out the BOM every week? I started doing it here. The Bishop took it last week and Br. Du Plessis took it this week and gave it straight to the friend that he brought! We had a record number of lessons this week... 10!! haha. Things are getting better. Even with the 40 day fast we are starting to be able to teach more lessons to members and President Omer has decided to make it one of our key indicators starting next week! 

I'm pretty excited to be here in Pretoria at this time. Things have been getting a lot better and the ward is awesome!

Keep helping Nate and tell him to reply to emails or at least write to me and tell me whats up! 

Loves! '

-Elder Dirkmaat :D

Service - Being a Missionary 100%

Area- Pretoria, South Africa

Companion- Elder Center

Letter #89

Wow! Thanks for the pics of the awesome vacation!! I did get a petty good taste of it haha. No worries about not emailing last week and I'm also sorry for not emailing you. I'll keep it short today cause I wanna email Nate. Thanks also for the bday wishes! I didn't get the package yet but I'll probs get it tomorrow at zone conference. I'm super excited for zone conference cause we are finally going to get to watch that missionary fireside broadcast from like 2 months ago. I think it is gonna be very helpful for all the missioanaries here in SA. 

Pretoria is doing pretty well. I wish I could say that we are rockin it but not so much. We are doing okay but the work is pretty slow. So far the 40 day fast is great and the members have been doing super and don't even need our reminder calls. We are getting close to receiving some referrals. One family has a friend that is studying to be a doctor and he's 19 years old. They say that he's golden I just don't know when we are gonna receive this golden referral haha. Leshego is struggling with his decision to be baptized. Every time the day comes closer he postpones and says that he is not ready. He has a tough time understanding everything in the BOM so we are gonna read with him a chapter every time we go before we start the lesson. He is really changing a lot so much that his parents can tell that he is a better person and he says that he wants to be baptized but that he's just nervous he'll mess up afterwards. We shall see what we can do this week. 

I think maybe I need to step it up a notch and maybe I'm not being as faithful and diligent as I could be. I have seen a lot of missionaries when they are going home, they "die". They just get lazy and don't work as hard. I really don't want to do that but I feel like maybe I am a little bit. I always feel so much more excited about the work and have lots of things to say when I am working 100%. This week I will be 100%!   90% is not good enough! One of my favorite quotes from the movie Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration is when he says "Remember, only the best for the Lord. We are not just building a temple here, the Lord is building us." Only the best and that's what I need to give! 

We got to do some exciting service this week. A sad reason though. An investigator that the Elders teach in Mamelodi came home drunk one night and burned down the shack he stays in and the one next to his. The next day we went to clean up all the mess and we rebuilt one of the shacks. It was super fun to do and we got to something that probably so many south africans have never done! It took half the day from like 9 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon. The family was so grateful that we helped and they even tried to call the local newspaper to come and report it ha. The guy who came home drunk said he knew exactly why it happened. He had just been taught some of the commandments and he went out and disobeyed. It was great that he recognized that and hopefully that will set his repentance in motion! 

Have a great week!

Love you!

Elder Dirkmaat :D

I Love Being a Missionary!

Area- Pretoria, South Africa

Companion- Elder Center

Letter #88

What's up family!? It was sweet to hear from y'all! Thanks! The fact that you were all at the beach made me super jealous, but guess what?? I'll be there next time! Can't wait to to go to the new campsite.

Elder Center and I have been seeing great changes in our area and even in the whole zone. When I got here there were three dying missionaries all going home on the same day and they were all literally dead in a
missionary sense, so we've been doing a lot of re-building. We only have 12 missionaries in the zone so basically half the zone was not doing well. We are well on track to achieving the mission vision of
every companionship baptizing at least once a month which is awesome! Dad, you talked abut how misisonary work is not abut baptizing people but about getting them to the temple and that is 100%. If you baptize somebody that you're not sure if they're gonna make it to the temple then they are definitely not ready! Currently in this are we have not been having any baptisms but I keep hearing stories of people that I
taught in my past areas that have been getting baptized which is super cool. I wish i could be there to see them but it makes me so happy jsut to hear that thye finally made it instead of "yeah, we dropped that guy" ha.

We have started to have quite a bit of success lately. It hasn't been from our finding or from the members that we have visited but it has been completely random people. A few minutes ago a member that I've
only met but never really talked to called us and gave us a referral. he said that he was talking to some guys who are catholic and were complaining that their church cold not give them answers to the
questions that they had. He told them "hey, I know some guys that can come over and give you all the answers you need" They accepted and we are gonna give them a call very soon! It seems that just the
committment of the ward to do this 40 day fast is already producing blessings! The fast doens't startuntil the 1st of August! Just cause we don't see results from the tracting and handing out passalong cards
and v isiting members that we do, Heavenlyt Father sees the work that we are doign and sends those whoa er ready to us whether we have talked to them or not. I feel like the members are really starting to
gain our trust and will give us more people to teach. the bishop this week said that every time we have a baptism he is going to organize a linger longer so that more people will stay to watch the baptisms. I
think he is super excited that we actually have some baptisms coming up. I love it when the leaders of the ward start to catch the wave of missionary work and encourage the rest of the members to help!

It's sad that I will be coming home pretty soon but I am pretty excited too cause there is so much to do! I for sure will not stop being a missionary and sharing the gospel with all that I can. I am
def the same person but now that I have a greater knowledge of the gospel and have seen the expereinces of others who have received it who never knew it previously, I think I understand better why it is so
important. I'm so thankful that I have all of you, an awesome family that I can look forward to spending time with, having loads of fun, and preparing to go live in the celestial kingdom! Some people would
think that the more dedicated you become to the gospel the less fun you can have but it is really the opposite! When yo are living a good life, helping others, changing your own bad habits and just generally doing good things you feel free and more able to enjoy all the great blessings that God has given us. Surfing is a blessing that He has given us and I am gonna be a better surfer than Nate when he gets home! :P The church is also a blessing that he has given and I hope to never fail in a calling that I receive and to partake of the sacrament every single week until I die!

Have a radical week! I love you guys!
-Elder Dirkmaat :D

Elder Jenkinson says that I need to say radical more cause I'm a surfer haha