Hello everyone! Yeah, sorry about the one email last week. The power went out in the shop after I sent that big one so we just left instead of wasting all P-day for the power to come back on. Sometimes this email shop is kinda lame, but hey, its cheap so that’s why we go!
Yeah, I meant to send captions to the pictures. That is the Naidoo family, and the guy in the UI shirt is Elder Nielsen. His dad played football for the Vandals back in the day and I guess is a big UI fan, and so is Elder Neilsen, so he is pretty familiar with Moscow. He has been my District Leader since coming here and we are good friends—he is a funny guy.
Well, this week has been pretty interesting. The BYU Young Ambassadors have been touring South Africa, and they did a performance here in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday and a fireside Monday. We went to both. The fireside was really nice, some awesome music. The normal performance was good, but I don’t know, not really the kinda thing that I would normally enjoy. Pretty cheesy. All the missionaries from like within 2 or 3 hours of PE came, so there was like 30 of us there, I was surprised how much effort was put into having us all there, but it was fun.
Well, me and Elder Wolfgramm are getting into more of a routine. I do Miss Elder Bangerter though. I kinda feel like I am making most of the decisions right now which kinda scares me sometimes. But Elder Wolfgramm is a great Elder and we have been putting in some really good work.
Theo missed an appointment and when we went and saw him on Friday, he was really sick. I gave him a blessing and Duwayne said he has been getting better so thats good. I guess he is still really struggling with some tobacco and drug addictions, so I guess it’s hard to say when he will be ready for baptism. Kinda a bummer.
The Naidoo family is also struggling a little bit. Rajan had a smoking relapse, but sounds like he is back on track. They are a really sweet family, I just hope Prinetta gets baptized before I leave.
We taught Leville the Law of Chastity Saturday night; it was a pretty darn interesting lesson. He understood it well, and is apparently trying to live it, he is just fetchin’ crazy. The lesson was pretty funny. Elder Wolfgramm was like laughing through half of it and I was just kinda sighing to myself. He is a pretty funny kid, but wow, I wish I could have filmed that lesson. First he was like drinking a glass of wine, cause he said it kept him away from the “goodstuff”—which I think means weed. He told us how he was like chasing this guy around this morning hitting him with a pole and threatening to stab him (apparently he had no intention to stab him, he just was messing with him) and then like every time his girlfriend walked through the room he would yell at her “you must obey the law of chastity!” And that was like half of the craziness. He still didn’t come to church yesterday, its hard to tell if he is actually going anywhere, but I guess we can keep trying. I think he will come around eventually it just might take 10 years.
We did find some fairly promising investigators this week. Especially this guy named Richard who is Catholic, but was asking us like every golden question in the book. It was really exciting, but as missionaries its kinda confusing cause its easy to fall into the trap of trying to answer all his questions at once. He seems super-prepared and it kinda reminded me a little of Duwayne when you just want to give him all the pamphlets and Book of Mormon and say come to church sunday we will baptize you. We will see him tomorrow so I am anxious to see how it goes. He is an older married dude, which is sweet cause this branch needs good priesthood holder like nothing else.
Another family that has been on my heart a lot the last week is the Kathan family. The parents 12th anniversary was last night, and we tried to watch Together Forever with them but it didn’t work so we talked about the Book of Mormon. They have like an 8 and 10 year old, just a really cute nice family. Even though we have taught them only a few times, I can just tell that they are a really special family, I love them a lot and I REALLY want them to be baptized. They need to be an eternal family. Godfrey, the dad, is super nice and really tries to be a good Christian dad. His mother was very close to the missionaries before she died, but I don’t think she was ever baptized. The only down side is that they are pretty active Catholics. I brought up baptism last night and explained our purpose, they didn’t seem super gung-ho about that but also said in time there family would decide if baptism is something they would pursue. I have just praying that they will except that gospel and we as missionaries will be able to teach them effectively. So if you could all pray for that too that would be good.
I think those where the major events this week. I got your letter with the emails for Ben and Josh, sounds like Ben’s mission is baptizing like crazy. Sounds like they had some kinda difficult companions. I am really glad I am in an English-speaking mission. I also got a letter from Debbie, two from Granddad and one from Jordan Lunsford! it was good to hear from her and hear some news about Moscow people. Anyway, well I love you all, have a Lekker week!
-Elder Martin
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