Monday, November 28, 2011

Service, Service, and more Service

Dear Family and Friends,

hallo! :) it was a slow week but we managed to teach some people and visit some less active members and oh we did lots of service this week. i've never done so much service in one area my entire mission haha. i love it! makes me miss the good ole work back home! surprise i know. tuseday we helped the furrie family moved some furniture back into their home, they had a big flood back in june and july so everything was washed out in the yard. so big renovations are happening there. always service for us to do there haha. the the on saturday we showed up to get some post from the Lorraine elders while they were doing service at their bishops house and we pull up and they are busy cutting down a tree, and they desperately needed help haha so Elder Rogers and I, in our whites haha, got down and helped them cut down a tree, with a little hatchet and a hand saw. we really could have used dads chain saw that day haha would have been down in 2 seconds ok maybe 30 seconds haha. give it time to cut through. :) but it was hard work i must say, i was sweating big time afterward. then after lunch we went and helped Bro Mike with his yard in the location. we first cut his grass with bro meyers weed eater and then we moved some dirt that was piling up near his fence and was pushing it over. and fix his step that goes into his house. did some really good work this past week, service wise anyway. i enjoyed it :)

with missionary work as i said its been slow.... people are leaving for holiday, mostly students. So all our fellowshippers are headed out this week if not already gone. but its ok i'm only here for a few more weeks. i'm going to miss this ward. the people here love the missionaries too much. Elder rogers and i have really gotten their trust. to top it off i'm singing with bishop and sis meyer and 2 other sisters for a musical for sacrament meeting on the 11 DEC. i'm really excited for that. we practiced yesterday after church for a little bit and the music is so pretty, i'm singing bass, bishop is singing the tenor and then sis meyer is soprano and then the other 2 sisters are singing the alto part. it sounds so pretty when we get all the parts together. i love singing haha. last night when we came back to our flat we had some time, so i said to my comp, elder i feel like singing. haha he said ok then lets sing. haha we even borrow the meyers keyboard and we were singing the hymns haha. i love the hymns. :) the meyers came out and was like elder rigby, what did you eat or drink today that made you want to sing to much haha. i just laughed and said well i love singing. they enjoyed it as well.

on our investigator side, we really only have one progressing. Noxolo. she is doing awesome. we taught her on thursday and then she surprised us yesterday by coming to church! she said she was gunna try to come but then on saturday she cancelled her appointment because she was going to alice to visit some friends. so we didn't think she was going to be here to come to church but she did. i hope she enjoyed it, we had our primary program yesterday. it was funny haha it reminded me of when i was in primary. there were about 20 kids on the stand. they did a really good job. more little talks then actually singing. but it was good! the first one i've seen in Africa! :) the church is true! haha But back to Noxolo. she has read 8 chapters of the Book of Mormon in 5 days we were amazed by that. she told us that she really wants to find out what the book is about haha. she wants to be baptized but wants to be ready so she still has a date for January. i hope she makes it and i think she will. she's facing opposition from her family but thats always one barrier with the gospel it seems like. i pray that her familys hearts will be softened and will accept the gospel in the future.

Erin dropped us this past week. she told her mom that she doesn't want to get baptized and that she wants to live her life when shes 18 she wants to drink and party are so forth. which is understandable for a 15 yr old whose dad isn't the best example. but she has awesome support from her mom. Michelle came to church yesterday and then we went there later in the afternoon, erin wasn't home of course but her (michelles) husband Andy joined us this week! :) we were so happy haha. we just started to watch The Testaments, DVDs are a good way to get people interested. i think he liked it so far. we only watched half of it and then left it with them to finish. so there is progression in that home! Elder Rogers and i are very happy with whats happening there with them. well except for erin. but she is young and needs time to figure out what is important in her life.

we have the Christmas program for zone conference, there is going to be lots of singing involved from all the elders in the zone. its on the 8 dec. for our zone, its going to be a big gathering of missionaries. our zone will be combined with Kwa Nobuhle and then the cape town zones will be combined as well as NAM and then the east london and MD ad Queenstown zones will be combined. so big gatherings haha.

Well i love you all and hope you continue to have a good week! i love this work. i love my Savior. looking forward to seeing you all soon. i still am working, don't worry. haha. have a good one everybody!

YOUR MISSIONARY,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)

Monday, November 21, 2011

Missionary Moments

Dear Family and Friends,

Well i surely enjoyed the Addo elephant park today. We left this morning and then got back about an hour ago. it was fun, saw lots of elephants! and some zebras and Kudoo and birds and hoping to see a lion with no luck. oh well. i'll have to come back in the future to see one in Africa :) all 8 of us, and the Laprays went. Had fun taking pictures and having big elephants right next to the car. :) its a very big park could've easily stayed longer but we needed to get back.

we had another good week working on our less actives. we even went to PEC on thrusday evening and bishop asked us if we were happy doing that and we of course said yes and then he said "well good! thats what we need to be doing at the present time to strengthen this ward" So bishop was very pleased with our work and also encouraged us to continue working on finding more people to teach as well, need to balance the teaching pool and working with less actives. Sunday was a really good attendance. we had close to 90 people in sacrament meeting. many less actives came, and some students who we thought would come didn't so it could've been even higher. The Goosen family made it and said that they would be here next week as well, i hope i'm still here to see that happen, since it is transfer week. we'll find out later tonight. Sis Spear also came. one of our home teaching families. and many others, oh it was a good sunday. we had a wonderful lunch with the Parkers family and they invited us for Christmas eve. i won't be there haha. but i am kinda disappointed. i'll miss out. but i am so super duper excited to be home with my FAMILY this Christmas. We didn't get to meet with Michelle and Erin yesterday. they cancelled on us after church. they stayed for all 3 hours this week and i think they enjoyed it. Tolla also made it to church yesterday. our dry member haha. he has been coming to church since February in Lorraine ward but then moved into our boundaries so he came to our ward. good guy, needs to get married or either separate from his girlfriend so he can get baptized. reads and prays everyday. so i don't know what the problem is. we did see him on wednesday evening. met his girlfriend, Susan. very nice lady also afrikaans. we hope to focus on teaching her.

I was supposed to ordain teboho to the Aronic priesthood yesterday but he didn't come to church. he is doing good just busy with his exams so he is studying alot.

hmmm, what else happened this week....just visited a lot of less actives and hope to see them at church soon. Bishop has an idea of having the leadership in priesthood go out on every other thursday and visit less actives. so we will also be a part of that, i'll go with some brother and then elder rogers will go with another brother and do double work! :) this ward is awesome the people are great and we had an awesome missionary fireside last night with 30 attendance which was alright. we planned it up with our ward mission leader and had some speakers on family history work and how a member influenced them to join the church and how being a good neighbor can have a big effect on missionary work. elder rogers and i sang our mission song with it combined to called to serve. they liked it haha. then we watched "by small and simple things." it was a gooder fireside. hopefully it had a deep effect on getting the members to do missionary work.

well that was the sum of my week. it was good! I ENJOYED IT. oh we even did some tracting this past week, with little success, we did meet a crazy jewish guy tho. haha and a JW that has a Book of Mormon and knows all about the church and so forth. sigh. the Lord will prepare those. thats all i can say, just got to find them. I love this work. I am so grateful for my family and my friends that have been awesome examples to me. i'm grateful for my testimony that i have to share with the people of SA and the people i will come in contact with when i get home. I have loved these 2 years and have no regrets. i am grateful for the gospel in my life and the teachings i have learned to help me become a better son and servant of my Heavenly Father. i am grateful for a loving father in heaven who knows whats going on in my life and who is always there to talk to and seek guidance from. and many other things i am grateful for! :) have a good week every body! i love you!

Your missionary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)










Monday, November 14, 2011

Exchanges

Dear Family and Friends,

hey Everybody! :) my week was good! we went to Knysna and george for exchanges. it was awesome i really enjoyed being with the elders that side and getting to teach with Elder Brereton, from Lewiston Idaho and i also got to go with Elder Larrabee from Utah. had 2 good days with them. they have awesome areas and really cool people to teach. President was there on saturday to do training for elder browning and elder simpson who are fairly new missionaries. so we got to join in on the training. it was a good review of the doctrine of Christ and the importance of the area book and so forth. it was fun. and then pres took us out to nandos for lunch! :) really cool! its so pretty there in those 2 towns. i hope, if i stay in PE, that i will get to go one more time before i travel onward to my life back home. So yeah! it was fun!

Tuesday was basically the only day that we had in our area this past week and then of course yesterday after church. so on tuesday we did lots of less active work. we first did some service for the furrie family. we chipped out some concrete using a pick axe so we could get out their jukoozi. it was hard work. my hands are still sore from it but i enjoyed doing that kind of work for a change. then the afternoon we saw sis spear, we home teach her, she is an older woman, very nice, but less active. they have a special 40yr old son that talks alot. but its kinda funny to tell you the truth. but we shared our message at the park nearby their home. it was nice out in the fresh air. Then later we saw Nanga, been trying to teach her friends but have never been able to meet with them. they are busy with exams. she has many friends that she wants us to teach which is awesome. she just gave us another one last night. we saw an investigator that moved from the lorraine elders area. tolla. he is a really nice guy. afrikaans. in his 40s not baptized yet due to cohabitating. so we hope to get that all figured out asap. Then that evening we saw bro upward. he and his wife just need to come to church. they have the desire but haven't acted on it yet, we don't know if they are really serious about it or what. I hope the spirit touches them and they will come.

Wednesday we saw another less active bro Kaiso. from bostwana. he's a really nice guy, studied law. and now doing his masters. we just shared a spiritual thought with him. then we had correlation with our ward mission leader bro Stewart Chaberlian and then we headed out to Knysna! 3 hour drive but its a beautiful drive on the garden route! i attached some pictures of our trip. The largest bungee jump in the world! again no one was jumping when we stopped by but its ok. still pretty cool to see the bridge and the big canyon. then spent the next 3 days on exchanges and had a blast!

Saturday we came back and and then Sunday, yesterday we went to church. had 3 investigators there. the ward couple came! :) and Erin came with her mom but they both only stayed for sacrament meeting. its a start! i hope they enjoyed it. we went to Erins after church like we always do, and she hadn't read anything from the Book of Mormon so we read alma 34 with them and explained about earth life and the atonement. good lesson. We also saw a new investigator, Noxolo. she is on fire, very smart. she read the restoration pamphlet and basically told us what she read we were shocked. haha so we explained more in detail and she committed to be baptized in January. ;) it was cool so see how the Spirit had touched her this past week and as we sat there with her. she prayed at the end of the lesson and it wasn't a normal investigator prayer that i've heard before, she really wanted to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and if the Book of Mormon is true and if this is the path that God wants her to follow. it was awesome! :) We really had a good day yesterday.

thats basically the week of elder rigby and elder rogers! haha Dorothy moved so we don't see her anymore. we are going to do some finding this week i think, our teaching pool is kinda shaky at the moment. need more people to teach!

that zl picture was taken in front of the Rhodes memorial in cape town. pretty cool eh? :)

well i love you all and hope you all have a fabulous week in idaho! i'm excited for the snow! haha :) loves you all

your missionary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)




Monday, November 7, 2011

ZL Council

hey Everybody!

Well i had a good week in SACTM. its getting hot in SA again surprise surprise haha. I'm excited to come home to snow and go snow boarding again haha... i really enjoyed zl council from Monday till Wednesday. we had some good training from President and The assistants. lots on the Book of Mormon and how sometimes we take it for granted and don't use it like we should. We also had training on working with our Stake and ward leaders and helping them do missionary work and how we need to gain their trust for them to give us referrals and people to teach. then we also had training on how to conduct baptismal interviews. It was really good. I thoroughly enjoyed it. President Wood is serious when he needs to be and conducts the work as it needs to be but his personality is so humorous and he spent time with us during lunch and dinner and while we were waiting on wednesday for our flights back to our areas he played ping pong with us. I think he and sis Wood love spending time with us and interacting with us. it was a blast. but i must say by Wednesday i was tired of sitting all day in meetings. So i was really excited to get back to the area and go and visit people.

So we got back on Wednesday and went to the area that evening we Prince and Jabulani, Bro Rodericks brothers and had a good lesson with them on faith and improving their spiritual welfare. and gave them a baptismal date for the 18 of dec. Then we saw Tebaho our R.C. he is doing really well he even came out fellowshipping with us yesterday after church and he enjoyed it. he bore a really nice testimony of reading the scriptures at Michelles and Erins. That was a good lesson. Michelle came to sacrament meeting yesterday! :) i was so happy to see her. and she felt comfortable and said that next week she's gunna try to stay all 3 hours. So thats exciting for them! Erin wasn't "up for the challenge" as her mom told us so hopefully we'll see Erin soon at church. yesterday with them we read 2 Nephi with them to help Erin with her reading of her Book of Mormon and also help answer questions about the plan of salvation. it was a good lesson.

We've done a lot of less active work this past few days. We saw Gram and his investigator roommate Cornelius. we introduced the Book of Mormon to him with Gram there and it was good. He accepted it and didn't have any problems with it, he is willing to read it and find out if its true and said he would do so. we were quite happy at the end. We have also seen sis Nanga. she is doing good. she is originally from Mthatha but is here for school. we had a nice little chat with her we are trying to teach her friends but they didn't pitch up for the appointment so we just visited with nanga and shared a spiritual thought and so forth. We also saw bro Upward. he is from zimbabwe and was baptized last year and hasn't come to Church in a year so horrible retention on him, Elder Whiting and I saw him and his family on friday on exchanges and he showed desire to come to church but hasn't made it yet, he says that sunday mornings things always come up that he as to attend to and can't make it. Dorothy doesn't want us to visit her anymore, i thought we were going so good for a while but then Elder Rogers called to set up an appointment with her and she told us she doesn't want us to come and that she wants to still come to church at time and find out if its true. i think she has some influence from the people that she stays with. Sis Chiniso, Upwards wife, doesn't like us and told us all these bad things about how upward doesn't want us to come and how dorothy doesn't want us to come and how their Son Chum doesn't want us to come so i think she just has some bad influence from Chiniso. Dorothy came to church yesterday but left after sacrament meeting.

I went on exchanges with Elder Acton in Cleary Estate. it was an ok day. we couldn't do much cause it was Sky Fox day and i guess thats pretty dangerous at times with people lighting tires on fire and then swinging them over their heads and then fire crackers going off all day and so forth and its not good for missionaries to be out walking in that so we spent most of the day at a members house. so i think we are going to do another exchange next week so we can have a good work day in their area. i enjoyed being with Elder Acton tho, he is from Washington. has a gaming business at home that his dad is running while he is gone. he's been out just over a year. nice guy.

Church yesterday was really nice. had a powerful fast and testimony meeting. Then gospel principles class was also nice. it was on the law of chastity. and then priesthood was on home teaching and what we can do to improve it and how we do it. went around the room and everyone stood up and introduced themselves so everyone can get to know people better so we can become more unified in the ward. Then the rest of the day was also wonderful. had a wonderful DA at the butlers and then went and saw Michelle and Erin and then saw a widowed lady in the ward sis Fuller and then saw the Sweigglar family and had a nice little game of go fish with Talissa and her mom Talissa is turning 8 in dec and is going to be baptized by her dad that has recently come back to church and is now one of the counselers in the elders quorum presidency. so thats pretty cool.

Well that was basically the week on my side. we were cut short in the area cause of zone leader council but i think we made up for it. I feel good about our area and the work we do. especially with less actives. and then this week we are headed to knysna and george for exchanges so again the work in our area with be put on hold. we really don't have any progressing investigators that i'm worried about. We've been working on strengthening the members. Well i love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! Enjoy it! :)

your missonary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)

ps i love you