Learning Process

Dear Family and Friends,

hey everyone! I'm doing good and it was a better week than last week, even tho we still didn't have very many teaching appointments. Its the ups and downs of missionary life thats all i can say. about details, there isn't much to detail about. we don't teach much cause people aren't ready to see us or they don't want to see us. So the 3or 4 investigators that we do have are the Mngomezulus, Abrahams, Mrs Stoffles and Ivan Mabela, who is leaving to Joburg for the next 3 weeks so he won't be around. Its tuff guys, it really is. My companion and i have never struggled to find people to teach like this. Its a learning process i guess.

Bro Mngomezulu and his family are doing really well. Stephen came to church yesterday and enjoyed it but then i asked him where his family was and he said that they were home cause they were tired and lazy. so its not just me who was lazy and tired back home sometimes haha. we moved his baptismal date to the 22 may. give him plenty of more time to get converted and know what he needs to know and start coming to church more often. we always have fun teaching his family. they always have stories from the day or week and they want to share it with us. Stephen is also sharing with his friends and work colleagues about what he is learning. so hes doing missionary work himself :) so thats good.

The Abrahams family is doing ok. still haven't made it to church. we only meet with the father now Andrew. because of the busy schedule the rest of the family has. So we have taught him about the plan of salvation and he had remembered what the past missionaries have taught about that in the past. so that was a plus. He always has lots of questions, questions like why did the Savior pray on the mountain. yeah, its the kind of questions that really aren't that important but they do have answers. we asked president probst on friday about that after we had the opportunity to teach Pres and Sister Probst. and he said that in the olden days it meant that it was the only place where he could get alone in a quiet place and feel close to God so that was a good enough answer for me. So with the teaching with Pres and Sis Probst, yes we taught them as investigators, for more training. the original plan was to have the Probsts come with us to a teaching appointment but our appointment fell through at the last minute so we taught them instead and they played one of our investigators. it was nice and a really good learning experience haha. its kinda of nerve racking when you have the Probsts there. but they played our investigator Dudley. he was born a Muslim but isn't active in that religion. so they played him and we had to teach them just like it was a normal teaching appointment we focused on prayer and getting him to pray. at the end of the lesson they gave us feedback on what we did good and what we could improve on so we took some good things from that.

Sis Stoffles is a non married women with 3 kids. her boyfriend, been living together for 6 years, works out at sea for months at a time so we haven't met him. but she is a Anglican and we have taught her the restoration and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. really haven't gotten further yet because lately her appointments haven't been keeping. she still wants to learn and have us come teach her, so its just a matter of doing so.

THe funniest thing that happened this past week was on Saturday when my companion and i were going to do some tracting. and before we were implementing the colored accent into our voices haha and so the entire day we were talking with each other like the coloreds talk haha it as fun. and we just meet lots of interesting people that are nice but don't want us to teach them. People always ask us where we are from and how countries are and what what. interesting questions. we met a Muslim chick that is now 3 years Christan and well she is what you call the happy clappy religion haha. very enthusiastic and everything. it was interesting to sit with her and try to share with her our message. she kept wanting to preach to us. haha.

SO yeah the week was interesting thats really all i can say. church was good. had only one investigator at church on our side and then the other elders had 1 as well so we did have our gospel principles class, we spoke about the Atonement. it was nice.

i cant really remember a specific moment where i felt the spirit direct me or anything. at church during priesthood we were talking about charity and and the principle of love came up and a brother mentioned somethin about how kids don't know what is wrong or right and then when we tell them that it is bad and they get sad they will come back to you in a few minutes. it reminded me of Brady back home when i was working on the swather one day and he was there "helping" me and i told him no that he is going to get hurt and i scared him and he went off behind the tire and started to sob. i felt so bad and then i picked him up and gave him a hug and said i was sorry. i miss my family. i miss you guys. i've been missin home a lot, i don't know why. i guess its because i really didn't know how good i have it till now i'm away from home. I love you!!!

I know this gospel is true and thats its the work of the Lord to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. they are our fellow brothers and sisters and we all need to reach out to them and help them feel of our Savior's love. I love the people of south africa even tho we meet some who do not like us and don't care. I love my companion elder mantinto and am so grateful to have him here to help me with the work, i couldn't do it without him. i love my investigators, and my recent coverts, like bro malinga. we spent some time yesterday at their place and visited with them and then of course they fed us hehe. i love them. i love this Gospel and i know my Savior lives and that my Heavenly Father loves me. I know we have a living Prophet who leads and guides us under the direction of our Father in Heaven and his Son Jesus Christ. I know families can be together forever through the wonderful power of the Priesthood. I had the opportunity to give bro Mngomezulu a blessing of comfort this past week. he has been struggling with work and he wanted a blessing to help him. so thats when i felt the Spirit direct me to say the things i needed to say. The church is true the book is blue :)

LOVE YOU ALL
your missionary,
elder Robert S Rigby SACTM