Serving and Teaching

Dear Family and Friends,

So this past week was probably the best week i've had this whole transfer, we taught many lessons with a member present. Thats improvement for this area, its really been struggling. but i think its gotten better because Andrew isn't working anymore so he comes with us almost every day hehe. he is 19 and has been a member for 5 years, he is originally from Durban. been less active for a while but he is coming back now as my comp and i have befriended him and have gotten him to come fellowshipping with us. he enjoys it and its good prep for him if he wants to serve a mission. which he should, it would really help a lot.

We teach our investigators commit but they don't show up to church. we only had Dorothy come yesterday. She is doing ok. we don't see her as often as we would like since she stays with non members now. well she still stays with her uncle Phillip who is a member but is less active cause of work. so Dorothy went with phillip and they are staying with the Mudapakati family which is a part member family too. we have been teaching Chiniso for a while now but she is too busy to come to church as she does hair for people on weekends for extra money. her husband is a less active. and he is off somewhere working i guess. But she has enjoyed us coming and reading with her from the Book Of Mormon. She doesn't find the time to read it on her own so we have been reading with her and teach using what we read. so that had been good for her.

Dorothy is progressing. She is really good friends now with Andrew. So good support there and from the Chimebe family as well. we finished up teaching her the gospel of Jesus Christ last week so we are going to get into the restoration and Book of Mormon this coming week and hopefully won't have any problems.

We have been teaching a guy, tyler. he is 21 and is 7th day Adventist. he was very interested in the plan of salvation and now really wowed by the Book of Mormon and what it has to say about the Savior. we saw him yesterday after church and read the intro from the Book of Mormon and had a nice discussion on introducing it and so forth. he committed to read it. Luthando came with us yesterday, he served in Joburg from 2007-2009. very power full RM. wants us to help him bring all his friends that he stays with into the gospel haha. we are working on a few. but no big success yet with any.

I'm excited for conference next weekend. we'll be watching all 5 sessions :) i've heard many wonderful things about it. we'll be combining with the lorraine ward since we share the same building. so sat will be at 10 and 2 and 6 and then sun it will be at 10 and 2. pretty excited. had a good DA yesterday at the Chimutis. they are a wonderful family from Zim. we had pop and then ice cream for desert and that made it all good haha. it was really hot yesterday and even today its hotter! YO! i am going to freeze when i come back to Idaho haha. as i type there is sweat coming down my forehead.... really hot today the sun is scorching! i think we are going to go to a game reserve today for pday.i hope the animals will be out and bout to see them. Kagga Kamma game reserve.

we did some service on saturday for the Meyers, we painted the outside of our flat haha. it was fun. did it as a district so we had the lorraine elders come help. what i can give as advice for your lesson mom, and i'm no pro by all means.. just make sure you prepare out of love and teach from the heart by the Spirit. God knows these children, He knows what they need to hear, we just have to be in tune with the Spirit so we can know His will, i know its not easy, i still struggle with that. but it takes work and effort.

well the work will continue to go forth as we as members of the church seek out to those that are in need of the truth, which is everyone! I pray everyday that the spirit will guide me to those that HE has prepared and to guide me in the lessons with them. I love the Gospel, had an experience this past week where we got to go visit a old aged member who is on his death bed. his home teacher called us and told us that we should go and see them since he wasn't available. we got there and found bishop and bro and sis Furrie there. The old man, Bro Gerber, bore probably one of the most heart felt testimonies of the gospel that i have ever heard in my life. Bishop then gave him a blessing and we left. it was a very powerful blessing. i want to reach that point where i can say that i had a successful and happy life. thats why we are here, to prepare to meet our Heavenly Father. Bro Gerber wasn't scared to die, he said he wanted to go home, that touched my heart. all of us want to return home to our father in heaven who loves us so much! i know that! i know he lives! In the name of Jesus Christ. amen

have a good week everyone! i love you!

Your Missionary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)

ps transfers is this week, yo they go by so fast now. as zone leader i will know tonight what is happening, i won't go anywhere probably. but yeah. Zone and district leaders conduct baptism interviews. the only time bishop conducts interviews is for children that are 8 and their parents are members. Missionaries conduct convert baptism interviews. i've done quite a few. requires the Spirit.

Travels

Family and Friends,

Hi! :) so this past week was a lot of fun, i really enjoyed traveling to Knysna and George for exchanges, while we were there we did 2 baptism interviews that we didn't know about so we got back a bit late on saturday evening. but it was good. in Knysna I went with Elder Rako, he is from Madagascar and is a hilarious missionary. he is the district leader there in the 2 man district his companion, Elder Brereton is from Lewisville Idaho so up north of us. way north tho. he went with my companion. i enjoyed the day with Elder Rako. we taught a few people and they serve in a nice little town next to the ocean, township and town town. so they have a mix of everything in their area, we met with a white guy, Bosei, Afrikaans dude. i'm pretty sure he likes drugs and smokes marijuana. he was a little high when we saw him. anyway i guess he's going through a lot in his young life and just separated from his wife who also likes partying and so forth and they have a little boy about 3 or 4 yrs old cute kid. but he wants to change his life so the elders have been meeting with him for some time now. it was interesting to see someone so messed up in his life and didn't care about it and now he does care cause a son came into his life. Interesting how a kid can change a persons view of things, i'll guess i'll know about that in the future... but yeah. We had district meeting with them on thursday and it was really good, Elder Rako did a good job with the Christlike attributes from PMG. the church there is growing and they are on fire, i guess they have past stake presidents and a temple president living there so they have powerful priesthood there to help the branch. its a mission branch.

So then thursday evening about 8:00 we headed to george,about an hour drive. we arrived just after 9:00 Stayed with Elder Nkutha from Joburg and Elder Mupivire from Zimbabwe. I went with Elder Mupivire, the junior companion. we had an ok day. went to the 6man district meeting and then had lunch and went to their area. They are working the township there, thembelethu. and then the other 2 companionships are working in town and the colored area. I enjoyed being with elder Mupivire too, he is a very interactive person with a funny personality. we are actually teaching his cousin here in our area in PE. We didn't have a fellowshipper for the day so we didn't get to teach that much, and we need a fellowshipper when we teach them, for safety of course. But we shared spiritual thoughts and set return appointments for them. we focused on visiting members too, and help encourage them to do missionary work as well. We finished about 9. went back to the boarding and waited for the other guys to come back. then we changed companionships and went and stayed with Elder Musangu from DRC and Elder Howard from Utah. and had companionship study with them saturday morning. it was good. and then did a interview for Elder Nkutha and Elder Mupivire and then headed back to knysna to do an interview for them too. and had lunch at wimpy and did a bit of site seeing and then headed home around 4:00. got home around 7:00. my companion and i stopped at tshipkama bridge and took a picture there at the worlds longest bungee jump. i'll attach that.

Saturday evening, after we got back we went to a members daughters birthday party, of the lorraine ward. i'm in the PE ward. same district tho so thats why we were invited. had sloppy joes, the taylors and then the new couple, the Ven Sickles, were there as well. had a nice evening and then took reports from the other 2 district leaders in pe. and prepared for the sabbath day. and went to bed, i was really tired haha.

Sunday went to church and hardly anyone was there, bishop wasn't even there. but it was a wonderful fast and testimony meeting. i think almost everyone bore their testimony. didn't have any investigators there. it was raining so i'm blaming it on that haha. but then the rest of the day it was still raining and all of our appointments fell through except for one that evening with Twiza and his friend Mondla. we taught them about the plan of salvation and they are having a hard time understanding our beliefs. they showed us this video clip of some paster in USA that was talking about where we go after we die, and for the most part he was sharing truth about the spirit world. so i must say that not all churches are preaching false doctrines haha they just don't have the fullness. so we shared our testimonies and they invited us back to share more about the subject, but my comp and i were discussing this morning in comp study bout them and how they are just wanting to prove us wrong because twiza said he wanted to study up more on it. so we think he is not ready to learn, so we'll see what happens with them. had a good discussing tho. had a good lunch with the parkens family yesterday afternoon, and while we were waiting for the food to be done conference came on, saturdays afternoon session, they have the BYU channel on their dish, so i got to hear the beginning of Elder Bednar's talk. sounds good! i'm excited for the rest of it. really excited about the temples in Africa.

So in our area not much happened this week since we were gone but we are ready to work this week to make up for it, we have the whole week to ourselves :) hehe. found some new young blood on tuesday morning, referrals from Sibosiso, a member. so were excited to continue to teach people about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I love this work I love my Savior. I know its true, i wouldn't be here if it wasn't. I know GOD lives and LOVES us in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

I love you all have a good week. I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures, so why not take pictures! :) memories! Well i love you guys!

Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)

Exchanges

Family and Friends,

Hello! How are ya?! I'm doing good, week has again been slow but its getting better or so we hope. We had 2 exchanges with the district leaders this past week. I stayed in our area on wednesday and Elder Mamaia came to be with me and then his companion, Elder Opolot stayed in his area and my comp, Elder Bagenzi went with him in Cleary Estate, a colored area. the day was good, just did some more follow ups and went through the ward list a bit. then on saturday we had exchanges with Lorraine, Elder Ncube and Elder Bryers. I went to be with Elder Ncube in his area, their area is a white area and very difficult, i think its worse than ours. We follow up most of the day on potentials and then later in the day we did some tracting. yo, i haven't done that for a while haha it was a good hour of having a few doors not open and people telling us to go away haha. all you can do is laugh at the fact that they really don't know what they are missing out on. We did get to go into one home, a colored family that are old apostalics. so very staunch in their faith, but they were very willing to have the us come back and share the message. So i enjoyed both days with a different companion. its good to be with them and see how they work and even how i can help them become better. i'm still learning myself.

So the week in our area as i said was slow, but we met with a wonderful Zimbabwe family yesterday afternoon. Innocent and his wife charity and then his sister and a cousin. so four of them. we found them through another missionary in george who is related to them, so he gave us innocents number and we called and got his address and went to go see him. great potential family. they had many questions about what we do as missionaries and whats so different about us than other churches. they were even wondering why they can't call Elder Mupivire, their cousin in george, and communicate with him. they said we were kinda crazy to not call home every week. We told them that it would distract us and we wouldn't be focused on the work if we did that. So it was interesting to chat with them. We just shared a spiritual thought and set a return appointment for next week. many questions.

Doroth came to church yesterday, the 16yr old part member family. She is now opening up and not being so shy. i think that our fellowshipper, Sibosiso, has helped with that. we had FHE with them last night and made it a lesson about baptism. was very nice then we played, or tried to play a few games as what FHE is all about. so we are basically going very slow with her so she understands everything and so forth. Its been an enjoyable time to teach her so far, still in the teaching stages and understanding is getting better.

Last monday we met with the ward family. they are coloreds and are very active in their church, some christian church, there are so many here i cant remember the exact name. anyways. we just got their feel of the gospel and talked a bit about following Christ and faith and repentance. its a family of four, father, mother and then their son and daughter who are in their 20s. they just go to church cause they have to. I wrote a letter last week about them with my SD card. So that should be coming soon. we are seeing them again tonight and plan to teach the restoration as they were wondering why so many churches, i pray that the Spirit will guide that lesson and we won't loose this family, they would make awesome members.

I'm doing good tho, no problems. my nose has finally cleared up and i have been sleeping pretty well the past few nights. this week starting wednesday we are headed to knysna and george for exchanges, we'll be back on saturday afternoon. its four hour drive there. but i hear its very pretty that side. so i will be sure to take lots of photos. :) well i love you guys! i miss you :) but i am good and enjoying mission. I love the people of SA and i love my Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ. I pray that the Lord will continue to bless the people here and soften their hearts so we may be able to teach them and bring them unto Christ. I know its true! have a good week everyone! loves

your Missionary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)

Be the right companion

Dear Family and Close Friends,

greetings! :) PE is just a windy infested place now with rain and wind storms. The storm last night was pretty intense. it sure rocked the flat and the homes we were in as we were meeting with people. It was cold i might say, i've never been cold in SA but eish it was cold last night. not exactly sure how cold it was ok it wasn't cold it was just the wind and rain making it not pleasant. It was a good week though, we found a few more people to teach as we were looking through the formers. the problem we face is that they can only see us maybe once a week if that at the moment. Too busy with their school work at NMMU. but at least they are still interested with the gospel.

I'm really enjoying being with Elder Bagenzi again. We are the best of friends and its making the work quite fun and enjoyable. He's teaching me well on how to be a zone leader and all that jazz. On Thursday we had our zone conference with Kwa Nobuhle zone combined. Elder Renlund came from the area presidency to tour the mission. he is a really nice guy and knows how the church functions thats for sure. the whole conference was on the focus of companionship unity. If we don't have unity the Spirit is withheld from us and we shall not teach. if we aren't united then the work with cease. They talked bout how everything that we say and do is how we represent the Lord and His church. People observe in ways that you wouldn't think would be possible. so we must be unified as one. i'm so thankful that i've been able to get along with all my companions and that i've been able to adapt to each of them with their different personalities. what a blessing! don't look for the right companion, be the right companion. and that has always and will always stay with me. WE had a really good lunch afterward. Bake potatoes and chicken and good stuff that the Laprays and the Taylors made. I really enjoyed that meal haha.

I had a really nice spiritual experience on saturday evening. we were meeting with a less active family, the Sontsongas. They consist of the mother and 2 children that are members, Sibo and Siya. Sibo is 24 and and studying law and then Sibo is 22 and he is a sports fanatic. loves soccer and rugby. well all 3 of them don't come to church and have been struggling in the home as a family. not much love in the family and Sibo loves partying and has a problem with it. So she was out till 6am and then on her way home she got mugged, they took her bag and lost her cards and ID and many other things, so she came home and phoned the cops and what what then wouldn't go out of the house. So we had scheduled to have FHE with them on Saturday night since mondays are some times hectic for them. We got there, Luthando was with us a RM nice guy and then she told us the story and so she realized that something was wrong in her life and that it needed to be fixed. We ended up speaking about the Atonement and how it can take away the pain that she is feeling at the moment and how only the Lord can help her, if she humbles herself and repents. She understands that she is an addict to partying and that its not good. Her mom was busy in the kitchen but heard all of the conversation we were having. its a great family and they know whats right and whats wrong. so what made it special is that as we were discussing about the Atonement, I was sharing my testimony of Christ and how He can heal us from all pains, sicknesses and temptations of every kind as it says in Alma 7:11-13. the Spirit just came over me and comforted me and i sure hope that it made an impact on Sibo. I know that Christ is the only way to forgiveness!! I know He has suffered for all of us and knows how to overcome it because He has experienced it and knows what it feels like. I love my Savior!

I just wanted to share that, that my testimony has really strengthened since i've been out here. I know that God loves me! I know i'm here because He wants me to be. and i want to be. I love this gospel with all my heart. I know I have become converted to the gospel even more than before as i have done the work of my Heavenly Father. God wants us to be happy, and the joy comes from helping others feel happy. :)

the rest of the week was good, we taught with power and authority and hopefully we made a difference in peoples lives for the better. We are teaching a part member family, the Chimabe family, Dorth is not a member so we are teaching her, she is 16 and wants to be baptized, but she is very shy and doesn't express herself to easily. we talked about the godhead and faith. She understood and committed to a date of the 30 Oct 2011. So we will be seeing her twice a week. mondays and thursdays. the family is a bit less active, they stay in the location and walk to church, takes about 45min. imagine that. so it'll be good to meet with the whole family. They are originally from zim and found the church there and then moved here to work. good family tho, came to church last week but not yesterday.

church yesterday was ok, not very many people showed up. we didn't have any investigators there...:( Mondli promised to come but said it in a not so sure way so we don't know what happened there. he is a student doing law. and is very involved in the student council. so he is busy campaigning at the moment and also writing exams. so its been hectic for him. he is a nice guy, a friend of Luthando. we have been busy teaching him the plan of salvation this past week as we met with him. He had many questions about the fall and well mainly everything about the lesson. it was a really good lesson. he agreed with everything. But back to church. Sacrament meeting the topic was on the Holy Ghost my comp and i help with the sacrament almost every week, lack of priesthood in the ward. Elders was really low today. bishop was asking where everyone was. don't know what happened to everyone this week. We have a really good ward mission leader Bro Stuart, served in Joburg from 2007-2009. he's originally from east london. here going to school. we are busy planning a missionary fireside to get the members excited about missionary work its kind of a problem here. as is everywhere i've served it seems like. hmm i think the Lord is trying to tell me something, maybe to get the members excited or what. ?? So we are planning that, still in the idea stage. any suggestions??

Well that was the week, it will go forward as i work diligently and with the Spirit we shall bring sheep into his fold. again i love this work, i love my Savior. I love my family and the support you give, thank you so much! :) Have a great week everyone! Remember who you are and what you stand for! loves

your missionary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)

Oh picts- Elder Rako from Madacasgar never served with him but he and Elder Brereton are in Knysna and came up for the conference, and Elder Lebala my old companion.

Un Jani?

Dear family and Friends,

Supele! i'm good been working. the area is really slow and not producing much fruit at the moment. we did lots of finding this past week, potentials and then the formers and no one is interested. We had exchanges on Wednesday with the APs. it was good i enjoyed it. Elder bagenzi and i are really good friends now. and serving together is making it wonderful. the ward is really nice, good members are here. we are doing lots of less active work, we were going through the ward list and found 3 priesthood holders that are around our age that haven't been to church in the longest time. We saw one on Sunday, Luthando, he hasn't been to church in 3 years. he joined in 2008 and then went to the bush and hasn't been back since. he expressed his desire to come back and have things like they were before. he realizes something is missing in his life and wants it back. So hopefully we will start to come back. we invited him to the ward activity this coming saturday, he said he'd come. the theme for it is Who wants to be a Celestial Heir? catchy eh? haha. We also saw Sibusiso, or Andrew. He is originally from Mpungalana branch in durban. He has been here in PE for almost a year and we were walking in the location and he stopped us and introduced himself as a member from durban and that he wanted to come to church. he came on Sunday, was late but he came and then had to leave just as priesthood was starting to go back to work. he is a hair dresser. does designs and what what. good guy. we saw him after church too. he was headed to the shop after work.

The exchanges was nice, we did lots of looking through the potentials and formers from the area book and had no success. disappointing but its life of mission some weeks. So one experience on that day Elder Tshikare and i walk up to a big house of a potential and i ring the intercom and then a lady answers and i ask for the person who we were looking for and then the lady said that they weren't there, so then i introduced ourselves and then asked the lady what her name was and then she stuttered trying to get out of answering the question and said, um um i'm not going to talk to you right now. People are rude sometimes you know that! and i despise intercoms!! i would rather speak to them in their face than over a speaker, but oh well so we moved on. the work of the Lord can be hard some days...but still have to be positive and get through it. :)

I enjoy being a Zone lord for the most part. its good to have the learning experience and learn more patience with the elders in the zone. elder bagenzi is really good at that so i'm learning from the best haha. PE is a nice city on the coast with a big harbor where VW cars are shipped out. so we drive by the harbor and see all the cars in a big group. there is a lot!! haha i have never seen so many cars in one place at a time. all new!

We had a good sunday yesterday, had one investigator come to church. Mondli. he is xhosa and is a student at NMMU, studying law. Haven't met with him yet since i've been here cause of exams and what not. but he came to church with a member also studying at NMMU, Luthando, different one than up above. he served a mission in Joburg from 2007-2009 good guy very funny. always teasing me that i'm elder rigby and i like to play frisbe haha. he's an interesting character. hes the ward clerk. We had a nice DA last night with the Meyers. the family that we stay behind. had some nice chow main stuff or whatever it was. they are coloreds, can't remember if i told you that last week or not hehe. and then she made us Milk tart. i will get the recipe from her for you mom its really good and easy to make. she lets us use her washing machine to do our laundry and they feed us often or so i'm told. i offered to pay her to use her machine but she declined and said that your prayers are far more important than anything that we can pay her. James 5:16. I was touched by that, such powerful testimony of a sweet sister and mother to a wonderful family. and to see how much she loves the gospel is amazing and can strengthen ones own testimony.

I love my Savior Jesus Christ and i know He loves and cares for us. I know i am put in this position to not only teach the people here but also to teach me. Mission does much more than anyone can every imagine. i love this work. i love this gospel. i love my family. I love the scriptures and am so happy we have them to teach us the plan of our heavenly father. Zone conference is this week. Pres Renlund is touring the mission so that'll be cool to have a general authority join us. the transfer focus is Unity. Comp unity, unit unity, mission unity. brings us closer together to move the work forward. I know its true! i know I am a child of GOD in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

your son, brother and missionary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)

ps got my package! thank you for the goodies and for the supplies! hehe love you guys!

Transfer News

Dear Family and Friends,

Molo!! haha nice mom i'm good! or should i say indepele! :) hehe Well i'm no longer in the wonderful part of milnerton i'm now in port elizabeth as a zone leader! i still don't know what to think about that... haha and to top if off even more i'm with Elder Bagenzi, my old MTC companion haha its awesome! we are so enjoying it and loving being together again. and Elder Tshikare is the new assistant to the president and they are here with us now for a few days. WE go on exchanges on wednesday with them, i don't even know the area at all, and then they go with Kwa Nobuhle tomorrow so yeah they stayed with us last night then they will come back to us tomorrow evening. and then won't leave till thursday morning. fun stuff being a zone leader. there are lots of responsibility to do. but its alright. I'll get to go to George and Knysna for exchanges and they are the prettiest places to be on mission and i'm hoping while i'm there for a few days i'll be able to get a Book of Mormon covered in skin. there is a guy there that does it. :) we'll see what happens.

So traveling on my bday wasn't the coolest thing to do for a bday party haha. but i flew from cape town to port elizabeth at 2:45 and its a bout an hour flight so i didn't get here till 4:00 and when i saw my comp i just gave him a big hug and oh it was nice to see again. :) I've never served in PE before mom so i don't know where you got that idea, this is my first time being in PE. I do not know anyone here haha i'm so lost haha. I served in cape town and east london so i know how to get to places but here its all new territory for me. its interesting! but its nice. The soccer stadium is pretty close to our boarding thats cool haha. we stay behind members in a flat. its a lot more quiet than Milnerton was so i have been sleeping much better the past few nights. its an ok place. shower stinks but its better than nothin. and the members we stay behind are really kind to us and always make sure we are ok. they are a coloured family. Sis meyers brought us ice cream last night it was awesome haha.

so my area is PE central. is mostly a white area with coloreds and we even have a township, walmer township. We have a few members that stay there. It's an old ward, most of the people there are old and have been in the ward for a long time, but very friendly. our teaching pool on the other hand is really low and we need to pick it up this transfer. we have maybe 5 investigators and i haven't met them yet. they are all busy with studying at NMMU that we haven't been able to meet them yet. hope to this week.

Pres Wood called me on Monday evening to give me the news and he first says that he is calling to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comforted haha i just laughed. he then asked me if i would accept the assignment as Zone leader in port elizabeth. i of course said yes, but i was kinda shocked. i wasn't expecting to go zone leader. but the Lord works in many ways that one does not understand sometimes. I hope i can do a good job and be an example to my elders in my zone. My comp and i are zone leaders together so we do everything together. I like that part. :) lots easier when we put our ideas together and come up with a plan. :)

I'm going to miss milnerton but i know i am needed here in Port Elizabeth. its a windy city but good people here to teach the restored gospel to. We have a mission tour this transfer with pres Renlund from the area presidency. that should be really fun. thats next week. Well i love you all and thank you for all that you do :) i am so grateful to be a missionary and to be serving my Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ. I know this gospel is true i know families are eternal and can be together forever through the temple, i loved your testimony mom... thank you. I love you. I also can't wait to stand in the temple with my family and see all our loved ones again in the next life. church is true book is blue! have a great week.

Your son, brother and missionary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)

ps haven't gotten package yet elder Naylor in the office told me it came in tho so i'll hopefully get it this week. :) love you!

Baptisms!

Dear Family and Friends,

Hey guys! it was an alright week, taught people from the bottom of my heart and did the Lord's work! :) what better can you get! haha Had our baptism of Jacob and Phumla yesterday! :) yeah man! haha they were pretty excited when they got into the water. Brother Freddy baptized them it was his first time baptising someone so he needed a little training haha. it was really nice tho, they were smiling all day and it was a spiritual experience for them both and for the people that were there, had a better turn out this time than we did for the mbambus. so yeah! great stuff, sis Lotter was surprised to see so many baptisms in 2 months, she said were having a baptism every month, you guys are doing a really good job. it felt good to hear someone say that to me, knowing that i am making a difference in the ward and that i'm helping it and not diminishing it. Bishop of course thanked us for our hard work. i love bishop taim, hes a good bishop, always on top of things. and very supportive of the missionaries. never had a bishop in any of my areas where he has been so friendly and supportive to the elders. I love this ward a lot.

so that was the highlight of the week i guess haha a baptism is always wonderful and highlightful! HEHE On monday we went to the zls boarding and played tennis, it was fun. not sure what were going to do today tho... hmmm....but after that we went to Laura dollmans and had FHE with her and Kimberly. cathy dollman lauras mother is out of the house for a while staying with a friend so we just met with Laura and Kimberly. it was a nice evening.

tuesday- we saw Nomsa, RC, she had a family crisis back home in zimbabwe so we went there to cheer her up a bit. haha i always seem to cheer people up, ok it depends on if i'm happy and cheerful and smiling. but i do a good job at it i think. We also met with Meshack, he is a golden! haha he reads what we give him and he came to church yesterday i think he enjoyed it. We've been seeing him 3 times a week well this past week anyway. He only has been in south africa for a few weeks so he is still new to the area and doesn't know his way around very good but he managed to find the church which was awesome! we have him a baptismal date for the 30 of Oct this past week and doing really good with it.were excited for him. We also saw taylor, he is doing alright, he had 2 deaths in his family so this past week he was busy with funerals and what what. we went there last night and met with him and we got talking and he is currently working 27-7 he doesn't have anytime for himself. i don't understand how someone can work so much and still have the energy to go about what hes doing. he said last night that he needs to slow down and calm himself. he as a very nice paying job, he works with property and he is only 26 years old. i was shocked to hear that a 26yr old is that wealthy. he bought his first property when he was 18 and the cost of that building tripled in a year so he sold it and got lots off of that. and now he owns 4 apartments that he rents out and also does his daytime job from 8-4:30, which alone pays him quite well. so he is doing very well for himself. but he really needs to slow down, he hadn't slept in a few days. he works with a lot of American clients so he has appointments with them at 10 in the evening because of the time change and so forth. wow... haha. busy man.

we found out that anele, who had a baptism date for the end of sept is in jail now. ha. so we can't do anything till he comes out. he was caught with meth in his pocket. So his mother told us that he was in jail and that court is today and going to settle all of that and so forth. he seemed so sincere when we saw him on wednesday to change his life and now he is in prison.... shame is all i can say. its quite amazing to see what drugs can do to someone isn't it? hmm..

Eugene is awesome haha we saw him on wednesday and saturday. we taught him the 10 commandments and the sabbath day and then went over the plan of salvation with him on saturday. he is just awesome haha came to church yesterday and his brother Tyrone came with him too. so that was cool. hes inviting his family to take part of the restored gospel. thats how the world is going to know about the restored gospel is through family and friends introducing them to the message and then to the missionaries. thats the only way. referrals is key or member missionary work.

We went to a part less active family on wednesday evening. the Thom family. The mother and 3 kids come sis thom is the young womens pres, but her husband doesn't claim to be a member anymore. i think its because he is a fly fisher by profession and well sundays are good days to go fishing, hes been to the states a few times, been to Idaho! for fishing. haha hes a really nice guy tho, has his own fly shop by his house and they fed us some nice stir fry. ate it with chop sticks haha. but i asked him why he doesn't to church he basically shut me right up by saying that he has nothing to say about it. so its not his time i guess.

We went to the Mthembus on thursday evening for a DA. we had chicken and rice and beans and garlic bread. it was yummy. but funny thing. have you ever had dessert first?? I have haha we had ice cream with a really good cake of some sort. haha we ate it first cause the other food, the dinner wasn't quite done yet and we were a little pushed on time so Sis Jackie brought out the dessert first haha. it was interesting. but nice. i always enjoy being in that home. such wonderful people.

I went on exchanges with elder pearson in bellville on friday. it was a good day. they have a some really good investigators. i enjoyed it with him. he is a funny elder and really cool to serve with.

Saturday was a really nice day, had a few appointments fall through but the day in general was nice, as as i said we saw Eugene and Meshack and Jacob and Phumla. We also met with John. He is doing good. he is the friend of peter from burundie. he hadn't read much from the Book of Mormon. he was busy with work. he struggles with english, so i ordered a Swahili Book of Mormon for him and he was really happy when i gave it to him. we taught him about prayer and scripture study. and got him to pray in english before we left too! :) he wasn't going to but we were patient and persistent and well it happened and it was a really good prayer too. then we visited the Welo family. they are orignialy from DRC, members. bro Welo is very successful in his security business and sis welo works at pick n pay. so she works a lot on sundays. but they have a strong testimony. wonderful family. I love visiting members and getting to know them and to hear their testimonies. its such a pleasure to do that and get close to all of them and feel of their love for the gospel and even for me as a missionary.

Sunday was a good day. Had 6 investigators as church. is was a big gospel principles class. i taught the class, it was on the Lord's law of health. good participation from the class. for sacrament meeting I shared my testimony and my favorite scriptures, funny story bout that. I walked in the chapel and bishop comes up and asks me when transfers was, i told him that its this coming wednesday. so he said that well you've been here a while so you might leave us so would you share your testimony and a spiritual thought. i just thought...wow...haha so i did. and then sis jackie Lotter gave a talk from the liahona about how the Spirit is here with us and that we are not alone. and then Peirt Mayburg gave a talk on how we can avoid temptations. very nice. then we had the baptism. for lunch we went to the pattersons. they fed us chicken curry and pumpkin and veggies and then had custard and cake. very nice i was very full when i walked out of their home. they all made fun of me cause i ate too much. haha haven't been that full in a long time. it was a good feeling to have even if it was uncomfortable for a min. haha. then we went and saw peter. he is doing ok. i hope we finally addressed his concern about the sabbath day. he didn't seem too pleased when we were done. but i don't know, the Spirit needs to work in him and convert him. he is a 7th day adventist so it has been a struggle to get him to realize that sunday is the day we go to church and worship. I know that if he prays the Lord will let him know, but i think there is unbelief there with peter and he won't ask in faith. we'll see what happens.

Well that was the week for you! haha i hope it was eventful. I know that the Lord loves us and if we do our part of the work of this wonderful plan we will have our will come into his will and we will receive happiness. Christ is the mediator between us and returning to our Heavenly Father. I love you all and hope things continue to go well back home. love you guys! church is true book is blue and you can know it too!

your missionary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)