Family and friends!
Another week in the life of a missionary is complete, it was a pretty tough week. Had some difficulties with the car this week, they are such a blessing but a hinderance sometimes! We spent our entire P-day getting the car serviced and fixed up today. So here's what happened... Last P-day after emaling we went to Port Shepstone (about 25 minutes from here) to get the car key fixed, it was sort of bent. We take it to the dealership and it seriously took about 2 hours to get a new key after jumping through a ton of hoops. After getting the new key, they take a look at our service log and the car hasn't been serviced in a REALLY long time, they said that it's dangerous to even be driving it haha. We couldn't get it serviced that day though because they were about to close so we scheduled an appointment for this morning. Well during this past week the car battery died and we had to get the branch President to come give our car a jump. Anyways, today we brought it in and it took about 5 hours to get it serviced and the battery replaced. After it all got fixed, our credit card wasn't working so that took a while to get it all sorted out. So what did I learn from this if anything? Patience truly is a virtue and more specifically a Christ like attribute. I had been studying Preach My Gospel this morning and reading through the Christ Like Attributes section, I read over the section on being patient for a while. I'm glad I read over that and we definietly had to exercise patience with the car this past week haha.
Okay so now that I'm done complaining about the car, onto what matters most: Forwarding God's Kingdom on the earth today! On Wednesday we drove down to Durban for Zone Training Meeting. One of the goals my comp and I came out with was to weed out our teaching pool and to focus more on proselyting around the chapel. We have a couple of investigators who we would consider "Eternal Investigators." One of those investigators is a lady who has been meeting with missionaries since Feburary of 2011! I was shocked when I was told this. The only commitment she keeps is that she reads the B.O.M. each time. She never attends church and doesn't have a baptismal date. While we met with her on Tuesday, I felt prompted at the end of our lesson to ask her why she has met with the missionaries for so long and what she expects each time we visit. This lady doesn't like questions and I didn't want to ask the wrong question, but I felt prompted to ask. She responded by telling us that she expects us to preach our message and eventually once were all done to leave and she will continue to attend her church. Wow, I was stunned. Basically somewhere a long the line the missionaries failed to help her understand our purpose. Well after she said that my companion and I bore powerful testimony and made it VERY clear what our purpose is, the spirit was really strong. So if she wants to meet with us in the future she has our number and hopefully we'll be able to go back sometime and help her take that next step towards baptism. In addition to not meeting with this sister anymore, we also had to drop some of our investigators out in Gomilocki. It's just too far away from the township and the people that live there can't get to church so unfortunately we're not utilizing the Lord's time effectively by continuing to teach them. It's sad to have to discontinue teaching some of them because they are so humble and willing to listen. The other problem with teaching people in the township is that they don't understand English very well. I've come to believe that for the church to really expand exponentially in Africa there will have to be missionaries who speak the native languages here. Many of the poorer Africans don't know English well enough and aren't as willing to meet with you. Unfortunately I only know Zulu for basic conversations, not teaching the gospel!
We also did a lot of proselyting around the chapel this week and man is that tough. I almost feel like I'm in Europe with some of the difficulties we face when it comes to people wanting to meet with us. Around the chapel here are the rich homes, these people have huge fences and pretty scary dogs. So most people aren't very willing to meet with us but we did make some good contact. I know the Lord is preparing people for us to meet, I firmly believe that if we continue to exercise faith, obedience and dilligence we will be blessed and be led to those in need of the gospel.
Besides that everything is going well. My companion is awesome and has an amazing testimony. I've seen the hand of the Lord through my short time here on the mission and I have come to really appreciate the power of prayer. It's amazing what a prayer in the morning will do for your day and the difference it makes when you really listen after you pray. The Lord truly is mindful of each and every one of us as it says in Alma 26:37. I've grown to appreciate the B.O.M. so much, there is so much to learn from its teachings. I love the people here and want so badly for them to reap the blessings of the gospel. It's sometimes disappoting when they aren't willing to listen but I know that everything happens for a reason and some people just aren't prepared yet. Each time we talk to someone or hand out a pamphlet, I know that we are planting a seed for future missionaries. The church is so true and missionary work is truly divine!
Love you guys!
Hamba salhe!
Elder Summers
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