Monday, March 14, 2011

Change Lives

Dear Family and Friends,

hey everyone back in Idaho! Sounds like its wet and even more wet haha. sucks for you! its been really sunny and breezy the last week here in the cape. I love it haha. My face sure shows that i've been in the sun oh and my arms, gotta nice farmers tan like always haha. on pdays i wear shorts just cause its too hot to wear my jeans. and well lets not get into details on how white my legs are haha. not good. but what can a missionary do! Glad to hear that everyone, well mostly everyone is good. get well Krista and jared! not good to be sick. I wasn't feeling too good one of these past days. i can't remember which day it was, my stomach hurt again. wasn't my idea of fun, so we chilled in the boarding an extra hour at lunch so i could feel a bit better to go out and work. which i got to the point where i had enough of the laying around and told my comp that lets go. i can't just sit here anymore. i'll be alright. he was kinda worried when i said that but it was fine. :) went out till the rest of the evening. The rest of the week was good.

Monday we went and played some pool at the family center in the Pramanade mall in Mitchell's plain. it was fun haha i didn't do very well, its been a long time since i played pool haha. that evening we went to the area and checked with the Little family to see how they are doing and well we went there and they had a big concern about the Book of Mormon. They said that their church doesn't agree with it and so forth so we had a nice little discussion about how they need to read it and pray about it to know if it was true. and by the end of the lesson their whole view of it and attitude turned around. so they said they would read and pray. we went to follow up on friday and didn't find anyone home. so its very difficult to see how they are doing with that.

Brother Mngomezulu is doing very well. he wants his whole family to be baptized all at the same time. which is possible except for his 6 year old son haha. The wife has been really showing interest now and they told us that they really like us visiting them and sharing the word with them and that we have changed their life. So that was a plus :) i love when the people we teach start to see the change in their lives and they want more. its the spirit working in their bosom :) The Book Of Mormon truly does wonders to people that want to come closer to the savior. They have been reading and praying. so its going good with them. but unfortunately they didn't make it to church yesterday. Stephen had to work night shift and sat so he was really tired. the rest if the family and i guess the Khamwendo family as well went to the Mountain to pray. Elder Mantinto and i were like uh ok. we didn't really see why they had to go to the mountain to pray. some of the things that people do is interesting like really. So hopefully we will see them again this coming week in between transfers and sit down with them and have a lesson about prayer.

Brother Malinga is doing really well we had his baptism interview on sat night, while we were on exchanges. he passed :) few things that needs more explanation on and things so we'll get that all done this week before his baptism on sunday :) I was with Elder Morris in his area for exchanges and i had a good day. it was fun to teach with him and learn more even from another missionary. their area is huge tho haha lots of homes, we kinda even went exploring to try to find where a few former investigators stay and we ended up exploring haha good times. Elder Morris is a good missionary and also likes movies so we had fun quoting movies all day haha.

Well that was pretty much the week. nothing too exciting. so as for the conversion of Bro Hola in Port Alfred. When i first got there he was smoking and didn't have work. He really didn't seem like anything was going to change for him or at least thats what i observed. then Elder Aphane and Elder Lebala met with him and started to teach him more. then when i got moved to that area we really started to teach him and help him see the importance of church and how important the Book of Mormon is in his life. He came to church once with his family and they liked it, but it took a few almost a month to get him to come again. He told us that he had the desire to stop smoking to be baptized. so Elder Lebala and I continued to visit and work with him to help overcome smoking and getting him to read and pray everyday. We set up a plan for him to over come smoking by only smoking 5 a day then get it down to 3 and down to 1 and so forth. he got it down to one and it was really hard for him to quit completely. We talked about how prayer is a wonderful tool to help with that. So he committed to pray every time he wanted to have a smoke. then one day Elder Lebala and I went there and follow up on him to see how he is doing and he told us that he had quit :) and said i'm never going to smoke again. I feel happy and i know that the Lord has helped me and my family. We just smiled and shared the excitement with him. So from that point it was just helping him understand the scriptures in the Book Of Mormon in preparing him to be baptized. he was humbled, just like the people in Alma. Humbled because of his afflictions. I really felt success when Bro Hola told us that he had quit. it was such a great feeling... He is happy and wants his family to be baptized. so i hope things are going well for him and that the elders are continuing to work with his family and helping them come unto Christ.

had an interesting experience yesterday afternoon. We decided to do some tracting and we knocked on one door and the door was open, we saw in the corner of the home leaned up against the wall saw some swords and dragon swords. the big ones! YO! when the dude came down to answer the door he was a stout man with a ponytail. We asked him what those are for and he said well i'm a martial arts teacher. haha we were pretty fascinated by the swords and ninja stuff. i made a remark about how those things are monsterous and then he said that he was the monster and that its all about the ability of the one operating the swords and whatnot.... he was a Muslim guy that lived in China for 12 years and then came to south africa and is actually going to move back to china. He just basically told us that he believes Jesus to be someone totally different then what we believe him to be. They believe that he was just a prophet and that he never died and resurrected. it was interesting to chat with with for a few moments.

I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. it brings happiness to families as they apply the Atonement and the principles of Jesus Christ into their lives. i have seen miracles. Bro Mngomezulu is proof of that. he has seen the light and wants more of it in his life and his families lives. I KNOW God loves me and that Jesus Christ His the Only Begotten of the Father and that He atoned for me. I love my Family and am so grateful for what they taught me as i was learning in my youth. I Know the Book of Mormon is another testament of Christ and that it is Convincing evidence that the Restoration occurred. I am so grateful for a wonderful mission President and his wife for all they do for me as a missionary. I am grateful for my companions and what they have taught me and what i have gotten from them. Elder Mantinto and I enjoy each others company. i love my companion. I can't do it without him. I am grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost in my life and for its guidance, comfort and protection in my life. I leave you all these things in the name of Jesus Christ. amen.

with LOVE,
Elder Robert S Rigby (sactm)

ps....we are hiking table mountain today. i'm excited :)

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