Elder Kaleb Martin in Cape Town: Duwayne‘s Baptism

Hello!

This week was good, some ups and downs, but Sunday was powerful. First it was the Baptism of Duwayne (that’s how you spell it I guess). Some background on Duwayne: he lives with his Grandma and his brother, Theo (who came to the baptism and is in the picture holding the bible). He is 21 and we really hope that he will go on a mission. We have already taken him fellowshipping with us and he will be a powerful missionary. He is a smart guy, but also very humble so he learns very quickly and watches what we do very carefully. He already prays very much like a mormon and uses mormon words. The Baptism went really well. The last baptism we had there was not a lot of reverence amongst the branch, and the font had not been filled up very high. Yesterday, after speaking with the Branch council about reverence and making sure we filled the font up in time, it all went smoothly. It was a great experience to get to baptize Duwayne.

Duwayne was a referral from Leville, also in the picture with all of us. He was supposed to be baptized yesterday too but is progressing a lot slower the Duwayne. We finally got him to church for Duwaynes baptism. Elder Bangerter found Leville with Elder Mammia before I came. Hopefully with the help of Duwayne we can get him and Theo baptized. They are all from the part of our area called Helenvale, or Katunga, which is pretty dodgy but fortunately they don’t live too far in.

The other awesome thing that happened yesterday is we contacted a powerful less active. Me and Elder Bangerter have made the goal of visiting all LAs in our area. Yesterday we visited Joseph Craven. He looks a lot like Uncle Kent, except coloured. Intense would be a good way to describe him, he has super blue eyes, and is very intelligent, also solidly middle class, so he has a car and stuff. Things that make him a kingdom builder. He at one point was a counselor in the branch presidency but then went less active because his wife is a staunch member of the New Apostolic church (a very common church here) and it was causing some marital strain. He got in a disagreement with the then branch president, and apparently the members sided with the branch president even though they knew he was right. Obviously he doesn’t have a good reason to be less active, and it may be hard to get him to come back, but he is a powerful man and the branch needs him so bad. Anyway, the exciting thing is that Elder Bangerter invited him to come watch priesthood session with us (the branch keeps failing to set a time to watch it so yesterday we just decided we would come to the chapel and watch the DVD ourselves). He totally came and said he enjoyed it. And the priesthood session was like all about priesthood duty and activating less actives, so if that doesn’t light a fire under a less active former branch presidency counselor I am not sure what will. While I don’t know the details of the disagreement, or precisely who the branch president was at that time (I have a guess), I can understand this guys deal. The Priesthood in the Cleary Estate branch is kinda a mess and some pretty frustrating things have happened. Hopefully things will get changed around soon.

The weather is changing. Some days it’s really nice, some days it’s chilly. kinda like June in Moscow. I just bought a nice sweater today so I will be fine. Elder Bangerter is down to about two weeks [before going home], thats kinda crazy. What I have gathered about who my next companion will be is that it will probably be a missionary heading home soon, ‘cause all the good older missionaries right now are training or zone leaders. The other possibility that Elder Neilson and Elder Bangerter keep telling me is that I will be training next transfer. I am not sure if I like either possibility.

Anyway, love you all!

Elder Martin

P.S. The nasty food thing is called “smiley”, half a goat head boiled. I had some. It wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t that good. Elder Bangerter had never tried it so he wanted to give it a taste before he went home.