Well this week was good, but also a bit of a roller coaster. Monday and Tuesday, Elder Hama and Elder Grobler where both sick, so me and Elder Swenson went on splits and worked in my area. It was nice to get to know him better. We even gave our best investigator, Tina, a baptismal date for July 22nd, soon, but hopefully she will be ready. We have tried to invite her to be baptized before with not much success, but on Tuesday we read 3 Nephi 12 with her about when Christ appears to the Nephites and the first thing he instructs them to do is to be baptized. After reading that with her I know she felt the spirit telling her she needed to be baptized and she accepted a date. She is a sweet girl and very intelligent. She was a referral from one the YSA [young single adults] guys we going fellowshipping with a lot and seems to be really developing good relationships with the YSA (lots of YSA in our ward because of a couple of universities in the area) so that’s been really exciting.
We also are slowly but surely making progress with a couple of 12 and 13 years old boys who have been going to Young Men activities and church for a long time and want to be baptized. Teaching children is a little bit more of a challenge, its sometimes hard to put things simply and hold their attention, but its a good challenge, they are nice boys.
When we arrived to church yesterday we were greeted by one of the counselors in the bishopric with the assignment to speak in sacrament meeting. Another one of their speakers had fallen through. It was kinda of a hectic 15 minutes trying to think of something to share, but I ended up speaking about how members need to be involved in missionary work. I made some jokes about how I thought it was awkward, before I came on mission, when missionaries asked for referrals after you feed them. So I hope the humor got my point across in a non-threatening way. Sister Mphyke (a really sweet lady), the Relief Society president, must of felt something cause afterwords she said I had humbled them and she has a family she want’s to invite to a church activity, so that’s cool. In my short talk I spoke about how I really regretted not sharing the gospel more with my non-member friends before I left on mission. I used that same scripture, mom reminded me about in Mosiah 28.
The dinner appointments have been really good here, last night we ate at the Masati’s house. I think they might have killed a whole pig just for us. So no, I haven’t really been cooking at all.
So you asked that I share my testimony of the work. I know what I am doing, and all missionary work in general, is a very important work. I have begun to realize how dependent on the gospel I am, and how terrible it would be to have a grown up in a home where I didn’t learn to pray, and how hard life must be for people who don’t know they have a loving Heavenly Father who they can talk to. What we have in the gospel is what everyone else wants. Everyone wants to be happy in this life and be at peace, and people seek this in all sorts of things, money, material things, vices, different religions etc. We have what they want, we have the key to peace in this life and joy in the life to come, and its our responsibility to help others to come to the same knowledge that we have. If we love our friends, and even complete strangers, we should try to help them to see that we have the answer. We should always look for missionary activities, but as a full time missionary I feel a sense of urgency. My time here in South Africa has flown by and even though I have a lot of my mission left, it to is going to fly by. I need to make the most of the time I do have. It’s a two year race that needs to be run very hard.
Well, thats all I got for this week. Zone training is this week, so I am looking forward to some training and interviews. I am hoping it is combined with the Queenstown Zone because I sure would love to see Elder Ndlovu again. Thanks for all that you do for me, love you all.
-Elder Martin
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