Monday, February 20, 2017

February 20 letters

To Mom:
So this last week was pretty interesting.  Elder Ellis came from the quorum of the seventy and he trained us.  He gave a really nice training.  One of the things he shared with us was that after any training we receive we need to bind ourselves to act.  If we do then we will have glory added to us in the celestial kingdom.  If we don't than glory will be taken away.  He said if, in 2 months you say, "That was a great training from Elder Ellis.  I don't remember what he trained on but I remember it was great"  than you have pretty much failed hahaha.  But it was very nice.

We met some new investigators this week.  One of them was an old ma'khulu named E.  We were reading some scriptures from the book of morning and she was just like "Oh! Oh! I feel the angels for the God!" haha it was funny that that was her description of how she felt the spirit hahaha.

Next Week is my last week in Mdantsane.  At church we were telling all the sisters that I was leaving and they were all so sad and so we have so many DA's for the next week and a half.  At least 1 every single day.   

So back in December we were planning for 10 baptisms on the 25th of February.  That number moved down to 5 in January.  So this last week we were preparing our 5 candidates for baptism and planning on them, and then on Saturday everything got wrecked.  We have 2 girls, I and B, and a guy L who are all siblings.  18 15 and 12 years old.  When we went to get the paperwork their dad absolutely vetoed it.  He said no way.  My kids have only been a member of your congregation for 6 months.  They need more than that and they have already been baptized.  So that kind of sucked and it dropped us to 2 baptisms for next Saturday. 

Then we went to get paperwork signed for our other investigator named W who is 17.  W is a guy that I really love.  He's been faithfully coming to church since November last year, but we couldn't get him baptized because he left for December.  But anyway we've been working with him and he's just been so powerful and ready for baptism.  He gave up smoking and stuff and he repented of all of his sins and he said he wouldn't trade anything for his baptism.  Anyway we thought everything was going to be fine but when we went to his grannie she absolutely refused to sign the paperwork.  Turns out it is a very sad story.

W's mom was shot and killed by his dad.  First of all that is very sad.  Then W went to live with his grannie who is sort of abusive to him and doesn't like him at all.  In fact she hates him.  She is going through the courts to legally disown W so that she won't be his legal guardian anymore.  She refused to sign the paperwork because she said W isn't a good kid and she doesn't want to act as his guardian anymore.  We asked W and he said he has truly repented of his sins and that his grannie is actually abusive to him even physically.  So that was especially sad for me because W was one of my favorite guys and I was actually going to baptize him.

So that leaves us with one baptism for next Saturday which is a 15 year old kid named L.  He's a really sweet guy and he's just dedicated and everything.  It's a little sad that we are only baptizing 1 but L is sweet so I'm ok with that.

To Dad:
There was a new worldwide broadcast to all the missionaries that we just barely got last week.  In the broadcast they were talking about a lot of really interesting things.  One of the things they talked about is how a missionary can measure success.  Elder Bednar read some scriptures from Alma 26 about how success is a gift from the lord, and nothing you do can bring success.  Basically he said we need to be worthy of success, and then if the lord chooses to, he will bless us with success.  It was really interesting though because he was talking about how success varies in the world but how everywhere we can be successful.  I guess I should tell you that last week in our district which is 6 missionaries, we taught over 100 lessons hahaha.  :)

I have one full week left in MD and then next Wednesday I am going to leave to a new area.  I have no idea what I am doing yet.  The earliest I might know is tomorrow but most likely on Saturday I will find out.  

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