Well we had a pretty good week this week. We actually had investigators (3!) at church this week—which was awesome. I am beginning to be a believer in the early Sunday morning nagging phone call.This week we saw Anita, who we have really struggled to get to church and we just tried to impress upon them the importance of church. I bore my testimony of how important these small decisions are and how it will effect their children. Anita said she struggled getting up so we offered to give her a wake up call. So Sunday morning I woke up Anita with a call and sure enough she made it to church. So we might actually be getting somewhere with them. The other investigator that showed was this guy named Sinex, who came in his ninja turtle t-shirt and baseball cap smelling of sweat and booze. But he said he really liked the church and he felt all the teachings were very practical. It would be really cool to see him change his life and get baptized.
Our investigator with a baptismal date, Trevor, referred us to some of his friends. We made an appointment with them and they were all very excited and said that they would bring more people to join us. They are all from Zimbabwe and after we made the appointment I told Elder Gillespie that that is why Harare Zimbabwe is one of the highest baptizing missions. They love religion and God very much. So things I feel like are really starting to get going in our area, despite the fact that like only one in four of our appointments hold.
Another family we have been working with a lot is the Mazakazi Family. Sister Lithemba is a member with a strong testimony and just a sweet lady, but is a little on the less-active side because she lives far from the church. Her husband, Thandikile, is not a member but I think mostly agrees with the doctrine of the church. He just hasn’t quite gotten a testimony of Joseph Smith and Modern Prophets (although he apparently loves watching conference DVDs). He is also just a really nice guy and I can tell he is a good father to their two little boys. Working with them has been really nice. Sister Lithemba even let us try some Lusu (sp?) or basically stomach and intestines. So me and Elder Gillespie both tried a bite sized piece of sheep stomach. It wasn’t bad. I have heard missionary horror stories about this particular dish. I think its just important that it is cleaned properly.
Overall, things are going really well. I love my companion, I am running every morning, and the area is really starting to get going. I love you all, have a great week!
Love,
Elder Martin
P.S. Oh another experience to share. So we had a lesson with this girl, Xoliswa. We were supposed to have taught her last week, but we didn’t have a fellowshipper so we were not able to to teach her then. Then on Saturday we were supposed to see her again, but our fellowshipper wasn’t going to be able to come till later, so we tried to reschedule for late that day. She said no—she would be expecting us at the time we originally scheduled. We went to the appointment, planning on just trying to explain (again) why we couldn’t teach her and plead to reschedule, but when she opened the door she had invited over two male friends to all hear our message. One wasn’t actually interested, and she sent him to Steers (like a lame burger king) to buy us food despite our protests (partially because that ended up being like our second of three dinner appointments that day) but the other joined us and participated really well and seems to have some promise. So I definitely saw that as a blessing due to obedience.
I might as well share another experience that I got a kick out of. So I was teaching Gospel Principles on Sunday, and the lesson was about Eternal Marriage. Tina, the girl I baptized like 2 months ago (who is doing awesome) put me on the spot with the question of “If I get sealed to my husband, and then my husband dies, can I get resealed?” I started sweating a little at that question, especially since half the people in the class were investigators. I explained you could get married again but not sealed. I teased her after then she wasn’t allowed to ask me hard questions in front of my investigators to which she responded “Its my turn to ask you hard questions now.” I guess she was always a little nervous about the questions that we would ask her in all our lessons with her. It made me laugh. Also, It was kinda funny the looks of the other missionaries in that class when that question was asked, I don’t think any of them wanted to be up there but they were all enjoying me being up there. Anyway, a funny missionary moment.
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