Monday, January 10, 2011

Progress

Dear Family and friends,

Hey everybody! :) how ya all doing? I'm doing great and loving missionary work! :) we had a really good week actually haha surprise surprise guess thats what happens when one focuses on the work and his companion is right there with you enjoying it too :) SO more about elder Lebala :) he is from Botswana and he is 25 years old. been a member since August of 2008. he is also the only member of his family. He said that the missionaries ruined his life and made him a good guy haha he is so funny i love working with him and he and i are having good times working in the township together. Yes transfers was on the 17 Dec. the next transfers are 3 February. so long time still this transfer is 7 weeks since last transfer was only 5 because of Christmas.

We have 7 baptismal dates set. :) great news! haha we have the Hola family. Tata and Khanyi are really progressing and they have made it to church 2 weeks in a row now :) they are scheduled to be baptized on the 29th Jan. the mother and other son haven't been coming to church and we really haven't seen them much. the mother is 6 months pregnant so that is putting a barrier on things we think. Tata has a smoking habit so its been a challenge for him to quit i'm not sure if he has managed to stop all completely yet he got it down to one a day compared to 6 a day which is a big change and its helped him a lot. now he just needs to get rid of it completely to get baptized. he is really excited for it and wants his family to be apart of it too. mom doesn't speak much english so its a challenge, luckily my comp can hear a bit of Xhosa better than i can haha. shes been reading the Book of Mormon tho :) and loves it. so thats the hola family.

Siphokazi is a wonderful lady that we met this past week at sister Ntombiyakes place. she is her sister in law from cape town. She is golden just like Ntombiyake was haha. she already wants to be a member of the church. the first lesson was a piece of cake with frosting on top really haha. she accepted to be baptized before she goes back to cape town, in fact she lives in my old area haha in meadowridge! :) i had fun talking to her about whereabouts she lived and everything. so when she gets baptized we will just send her records there to the meadowridge ward :) she has been reading the pamphlets we gave her and then yesterday she came to church and enjoyed it, didn't stay for the last hour, not exactly sure why, she said something about her children tired or something. We gave her an English and Xhosa Book of Mormon and she committed to read. i bore my testimony of the Book of Mormon and how it has blessed my life and i told her part of my conversion story and the Spirit once again came over me and filled the room. as i was looking into her eyes i could tell that we understood what we shared and that it was true..... we are going back on tuesday.

We also have brother Milton. he is a funny older man in his 50s he likes to drink tho haha so when we go there, most of the time he isn't sober. and he tries to sit and listen always likes us coming and says that we are good people and that we should always come and teach him cause we are men of God. So at this point he is supposed to get baptized on the 22 but its not going to happen, he hasn't made it to church and he hasn't stopped drinking, of course we really haven't gotten into detail about the Word of Wisdom yet so gotta do that before much happens.

Victor is a nice man we met 2 weeks ago. he is in his 30s not sure if he is married. he has a little boy tho so hopefully he is. we have only met with him once and gave him a commitment to be baptized but we haven't seen him since. we called him on saturday for an appointment and he told us he was busy watching the soccer match and that he would call us later. he never did. So we think he is running away from us. don't know if we scared him or what. are we really that scary or what?? haha. He had met missionaries before in an area where there wasn't a church. it was back in 2007 he said. the branch here in Port Alfred only started in 2008 when president Probst came. It started with 8 members and now we have close to 40. not every one of them come to church every week though so lots of less actives if we can ever find them. it a struggle to find homes in the township. houses aren't numbered and streets aren't named so we ask around and see if people know other people haha and where they stay.

SO things are really good :) i love it things have picked up and work is going. Sister O'Dell asked me yesterday if i liked working out in the township with elder Lebala and i said oh yes. she then mentioned that she has seen a change in me and that i look a lot happier :) i thought that was nice and its true. they have just a few more months left. they go home in April.

the branch has primary kids and yes we do baptize them. we baptized Mheli Nteyi back in November. right now we don't have any more that are old enough. really don't work with them too much. I'm in a mission branch i know i've told you that before haha.

Yes elder Heydenrych and elder Moorcroft have an african accent. its cool. a lot like sister Dell who you spoke to on Christmas. glad that Elder Opolot wrote you :) and his father passed away. he is doing great he got transfered to PE.

we had that training in east london on thursday and we basically went over the importance of the Holy Ghost in conversion and that we need the spirit to teach Heavenly Fathers children. we had fun doing role plays and learning how to be better missionaries.

Well i love you all and am very grateful for all that you do to support me and the work of the lord. i hope and pray everything is going well back home and that you all are studying and praying everyday. don't let the Lord down, He loves all of you and cares about you and wants his children to be happy. I know He loves me and that His spirit is definitely with his son and your son. i feel of His love and comfort everyday. :) have a great week!

Love your missionary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)

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