Elder Kaleb Martin in Cape Town: The trouble with illegal immigration

Well this week was really kinda slow. We did not get to teach much. The highlight has been getting Sherrington ready for baptism. He passed his interview on Saturday, so he will be baptized on Sunday. It was looking pretty bad, though, Friday evening. So this guy Emmanuel who just passed away was trying to go on a mission, but couldn’t get the Melchizedek priesthood cause he was an illegal alien (also from Malawi), and we were talking about this with the former branch president at a dinner appointment on Wednesday. He was under the impression if they weren’t legal, they were not supposed to get baptized. This got me kinda worried about Sherrington. On friday when we were filling out the baptismal record with him (an interesting experience in itself) I asked if he was legally here and that his paperwork was all good. He told us (and showed us the paperwork) that he came here legally, got kinda like a refugee asylum visa for six months, and kept renewing it, but about a year ago they denied his application to renew it (there are a lot of foreigners in SA, and they are mostly economic refugees, and I guess the government stopped wanting so many of them here), he tried to appeal, but it got to the point that any further efforts to appeal would risk deportation, so he just let his visa lapse. I don’t think they are really to zealous about deporting people here, at least not like the states. Anyway, so we told him that that may prevent him from getting baptized now (and we explained why) I was pretty bummed at this point, but his attitude was really inspiring as he said he would keep coming to church and meeting with us till it was resolved. Anyway, but we talked to our ZL who called President and its actually fine, he can still get baptized. To go to the temple or get the Melchizedek priesthood he would need to be legal, but for right now its good. Quite the relief.

At church on Sunday he came wearing what looked to me like a new shirt dress shirt , and maybe new dress shoes and slacks and a case he bought for his bible and Book of Mormon. That was pretty touching to me. He is definitely ready for baptism. His wife I think is definitely interested, and has been present for all our lessons and seems to really like us, and I think she can understand us pretty well, but her English isn’t so good so I think she feels a little uncomfortable about coming to church. I think she will be there next week for the Baptism, and I am sure we will get here eventually, especially as Sherrington learns enough about the gospel to start teaching her in her language.

Filling out the baptismal record was pretty funny. Definitely from Africa. Their marriage date and Sherrington’s birth date were both on Christmas (which I kinda doubt) and Agnus didn’t really know her birth date, we had to go get her passport to see what they had written on that. One of the required dates is parents birth dates. I don’t know that I have ever had a baptism where they knew both, and Sherrington didn’t really know either. We are looking forward to his baptism though.

This week is gonna be CRAZY! I think because its a short transfer a lot of things have kinda been left to the last week, so here is whats going down. On Wednesday we will have our exchanges with the Zone Leaders, on thursday we have New Elders training with President (which I have already had twice), Friday morning I have a leadership training again with President, and after that the AP’s are going on exchange with us, on Saturday we will have our District meeting that the Zone leaders are coming to, and they will be with the APs that day so they will be coming too. And next week is transfers.

Another kinda funny thing that happened this week was Joe and Lorraine came to church. Joe and Lorraine are this kinda older couple that we tracted into in Simons Town. They are either really rich or like to pretend they are, cause they say some pretty funny stuff. We initially thought they were married but they’re not, and we have talked with them a few times and taught them the first lesson, but we kinda determined that they are probably more interested in us as missionaries then the gospel. But they said they were going to come to church on sunday and sure enough they showed up. It was a pretty normal sacrament meeting with loud kids, and I guess that really bugged them and they booked it out of their after Sacrament. It was a little amusing. Don’t think family has ever been a huge part of their lives.

Anyway, well that was kinda the week! Love you all!

-Elder Martin