11 Months Today!

Dear Family and Friends,

Hallo!! little Afrikaans for you, yes thats what im trying to learn now since i'm in a white area haha. Maagie Vol ogies toe! which means tummy full eyes closed hehe :) my companion is trying to teach me a bit of Afrikaans. its quite the language to learn very hard, its kinda like dutch like when Elder Calhoon on the best 2 years trying to learn dutch, yeah thats me trying to learn Afrikaans haha my comp just laughs at me and tells me no its not such and such its this and this. wow gotta love mission

I love my Heavenly Father and the love He has for me as his son and servant. So i'm doing better but not all the way there yet i WILL get there tho, tracting is becoming a nice way of just working hard. we walk and can talk to everyone even tho people don't want to talk to us we still say hello and how are you and such, they usually say i'm good or i'm fine and keep walking. I loved how you gave me the information on this little town. its definitely true about the holiday homes and luxury homes. YO there are very wealthy people in the world its quite fun to go and knock on one of these big homes and see the reaction of the people who stay there, usually old retired people. but yeah we did find a good family to teach after the holidays. they are leaving and said we should come back in January. they have a very big home and own a game reserve or manage it or something not exactly sure haha on their cars it has the logo of the game reserve so we are still trying to figure out it they own it or just work there. but the lady who answered the door was very interested and said that her and her husband had just talked about going back to church and were discussing which one to attend so hopefully the Lord has prepared this family and they will like what we share! :)

We have others that we have tried to share the gospel with but we set appointments and then they aren't there when we go. why don't people just tell you up straight that they arent interested??! like really it would be so much easier for us it they did. which i'm used to now. 11 months today....CRAZY! don't feel like it at all haha but i can say that i know how to do missionary work, i've learned so much so far and still waiting for more learning experiences.

Had interviews with pres on friday morning. Yo it was nice!! haha i really enjoyed visiting with him and sharing my thoughts and feelings with him. he really does know what to do in my situation, he gave me good advice on pretty much everything. He told me that tracting is a sacrifice that i have to make to show the lord that i'm ready to work, also told me to find joy in it and to just lift up people and their relationship with God. i never thought of it that way before, even when people reject our message our job it to make sure that we lifted them a bit on the gospel. and make them feel good about it. its kinda funny how people always reject our message but congratulate us or commemorate us for the work that we do. they always say things like that, its interesting.

No, the O'Dells didn't cook the thanksgiving dinner. they are having their own lunch today with other couples in Gramstown. So they aren't around today. which is ok. i think we are going to go to the big pineapple in bathurst. and see the farms! :) i hope haha. we'll see what the district thinks....something to do. had a nice lunch yesterday at Sister Dells place. she fed us some good food. she made this thing that had crapes and hamburger meat and cheese it was really good. we also had potatoes and a veggie dish. then desert was very sweet, warmed bread with butter and jam on it then covered with custard! yo it was nice haha she let me take what we didn't have home with me :) so i get to have custard today for a nice sweet treat hehe.

One interesting well experience that we had this past week....we tract this street and come across a lady who was taking down her laundry. we walk up to her and she says "you can't convert me i was a mormon once, my parents were both mormons and they brought me up in the mormon religion and i just didn't find the happiness in it. so i decided to just read my bible and forget about the Book of Mormon. and oh i felt a big change in my life. i have accepted Jesus in my life and i love Jesus" etc. It was quite the debate so i finally just bore her my testimony and told her to have a good day. she tried to tell us that we don't follow Christ and that we are part of a cult and that we don't know the Bible. and such I about had enough of it and just got to the point where nothing i said was working, so we left. My comp and i talked bout it after and came to the conclusion that we aren't loosing anything and she is loosing everything. Some people are difficult! haha

Well my time is up i love you guys so much! :) I'M SO gratefully for the true gospel of Jesus Christ in my life and the opportunity to share it with others! I love YOU have a good week!

Your Missionary,
Elder Robert S. Rigby (CTM)