Good to Talk to You!

Dear family and Friends,

WOW! :) i so enjoyed the phone call yesterday. it was so nice to talk to everyone and i'm so glad that everyone is doing good and well. Yes i thanked sister Dollman for letting me use her phone. she said it was a pleasure. :) She is such a wonderful woman who basically is a mother to missionaries. it is great. yesterday wasn't the best day of missionary work. all of our appointments fell through so we had lunch at sis Dollmans and then just kinda hung out till phone calls. yes we were there longer than we should've been but its ok. had a nice afternoon with them. Church was really good. i gave a talk as i mentioned and then we had 4 investigators at church too :) so that is always a plus. they all enjoyed it as well. In gospel principles class a brother taught which i haven't had in a long time haha one of the missionaries has had to teach in my past areas. so it was good to just sit and interact with the visitors and RCs good discussion on the Lords covenant people. we are that because we promise with GOD that we will keep things in the agreement He makes with us and the portion we get in return in blessings. Priesthood was about tithing and offerings. Bro Petier mayburg taught the class. he is the farmer i spoke about last night. he and his wife lived in preston for 6 years and then they moved back to south africa where he farms winter wheat all dry farms. and have some sheep and a really big pig too or so i'm told haha. so i thought that was cool. his wife is American her family lives in Idaho so thats why they lived there i guess. as i was talking to him he mentioned that they miss Idaho, its quiet and wonderful. i just smiled.

The week was good. we had some good teaching opportunities with our investigators and they are slowly progressing. with the 6 people that have baptism dates 3 of them were there yesterday. Tientus, Tatanda and Rein. Tientus is from Congo. he is a good guy who struggles with english a bit but we are able to communicate with him and teach him. he comes to church every week. but his understanding is slow, mainly because of the language barrier. going to get him a french Book of Mormon to read so it'll be easier for him to understand.

Tatanda is from Zimbabwe. he is 26 and has been in south africa for 4 years i think he knows a lot about Christian philosophy and the Bible. ha so its kinda interesting to teach him sometimes, he brings up interesting questions that my companion and i are like uh we don't know about that haha so i guess we need to study harder for him. He has come to church for 2 times now. he works for a restaurant and also studies different things at the same time. he loves languages, he can speak English, Shuna, Spanish, and is learning Greek and French. i was surprised haha. thats intense to know those languages all at once. so a very intelligent dude haha

Sister Rein is also from Congo. She is the girlfriend of bro Sebastian who is a member. she really struggles with English so Sebastian has to translate everything for her into french. so as of now we will be teaching her english cause she has been taught pretty much everything so now its just making sure she understands the gospel. she is excited to learn and wants to be baptized so her and sebestian can get sealed in the temple at the end of the year. Sebestian is our ward mission leader, he moved so now its difficult to have correlation and things, he now lives in the bellville boundaries but still plans to attend milnerton cause of his calling.

So it was a good week. we have some other investigators that really aren't progressing too much. Anele who is originally from Mdantsane, he and his mother stay here in Phoneix. haven't made it to church yet but are reading the Book of Mormon. We saw him saturday evening and he is really excited to know more. he just needs to make the effort to come to church. he is 20. We are also trying to teach another lady from Zimbabwe, Lorrain, she is 19 and stays with sister Nomsa who is a recent convert. she seems to always make the commitment to church and then at the last minute she has excuses why she can't come. so as my comp says she is a joker haha. they just say yes to please us and then don't do. so i don't know how much more this is going to go on.

I love the ward. the members are awesome. :) we visited some this past week. the mthembu family. Bro Martin is less active but his wife, jackie is active and is in the presidency of the sisters of the society :) they have a little girl who will be turning 3. they are a wonderful family. martin served his mission here in the SACTM and here he found his wife :) haha. he is originally from Limpopo. we are having FHE with them tonight, we are excited. we have lots of less actives that the ward wants us to visit so we will be focusing more on that this next week if we can find them home.

the district members are Elders Naylor and Pearson in Bellville. and then Elders Anderson and Bradshaw in Panarama ward they are the ZLs. its a good district. i will send my SD card home this week there are over 800 pictures on it haha so enjoy and yes i got a new camera from GAME. its a L22 Nikon 12mega pics so i hope its a good one. very similar to my old one.

Well i love you all and hope you all have a Fantabulous week and enjoy the weather :) i know the Lord loves us and wants us to be happy we must do our part to make it happen. loves

your missionary,
Elder Robert S Rigby (SACTM)