Hey!
Wow, this week was fast! At church I said to this lady "How have you been since Wednesday?" and she was like "...you came to my house last Sunday." Time is going by so quick, something that happened a week ago feels like 2 days! It is insane, but cool.
So yeah, I'm a year out now, so that's also cool. :)
It was an awesome week! There were some questions that I had for President Dunn that I was worried about. One was for an investigator who lives like a kilometer outside our area, and he gave us permission to still teach her because she's progressing like crazy and her good friend is in our ward. Then the other one was for an investigator who was supposed to be baptized last month. When we were at her house, preparing her for her baptismal interview, we realized that she was still living with her boyfriend. Well they were in the same house but in different rooms, and someone else also lives with them. So we told her that she would have to move out on her own, and she was pretty sad. I was pretty sure that that's what needed to be done. But last week she said that she felt like she should still get baptized, and so I was like okay, I don't know everything-- I'm not going to be prideful, and I'll ask the mission President. So I did. Basically he said, “Has she committed to live the law of chastity? If she has, then she can get baptized.” Since they weren't in the same room, and due to some other unique circumstances, she'll be getting baptized at the end of the month! She is so happy and so are we!
We had a lot of cool lessons. The Spirit was with us strong this week. Probably my favorite was with this recent convert, Esther. She stayed the weekend with a friend in a nearby township called Alexandra, which is a dodgy place. She was pretty upset because there were 3 different people who got murdered during the weekend around where she was staying, so she was just like the people in Alexandra could never accept the gospel-- they're just too wicked. So we listened and then used the scriptures to show different examples of people who were (you know, past the point of no return like the Lamanites and especially the story of Jonah), and how they changed, and by the end she was happy and not discouraged anymore. It strengthened my testimony of the scriptures because the same things that happened back then still happen now. We taught her how there have always been Alexandras, and there always will be, but prophets have never ceased preaching to them because people can always change. So it was a cool lesson.
Then on Saturday we fasted because we forgot last Sunday (not sure how, but we forgot) and what I felt prompted to fast for was the area. When I first got here we had a good amount of investigators for a town, but they have been baptized and we dropped a couple so the list has gotten pretty small. I fasted and prayed that we could get some new investigators, and after Sacrament meeting a lady brought in these two people and was just like "they're looking for you--I found them outside." It was a boyfriend and girlfriend, in their mid 20s, basically the girl’s mom just got baptized in a nearby city called Pretoria, and now she's like "I want you to come to my house today and teach us, and I want to get baptized!" It was a complete miracle and answer to my prayers!!! They don't currently live in Randburg, but they move here at the end of the month, so they'll be taught by other elders until then. It was awesome!
I visited an inactive member yesterday who was baptized and then the Bishop asked him to teach the Sunbeams during the second hour, so he was offended and his family hasn’t been to church since. He is a Freemason and offered for us to play video games with his sons and told us to do all these disobedient things because the church doesn’t know what they are talking about. I was pretty angry. Fortunately, I bridled my tongue, but it was lame. Then afterward we went to a member’s house and the 15 year old son was playing a cool arrangement of “O Come O Come Immanuel” on his violin. I played the accompaniment on the piano and it brought the Spirit right back. Cool experience.
Tell Brother Martella that I love him! It was super nice having him prepare me for the temple, and especially attending the session where we got to go through together. It’s a really good memory I will always have of the temple. Hope he's doing alright. Tell him thanks! His emails are always inspiring.
Yeah, that's about it for this week. It was pretty cool.
Love you all and talk to you soon!
