Monday, September 3, 2012

First Confirmation

Sowubona umdini! 

I had the chance yesterday to perform my first confirmation. C_____ was confirmed a member and it all went very smoothly, I was pretty nervous to confirm someone a member but I know that blessings come by the spirit not me! I am so happy to see that wonderful family now be led by a member of the church and soon to be priesthood holder. 

Okay so there was some pretty big news that came in church yesterday. The branch president (we live on his property) who has been serving as president for over 7 years was released. It came as pretty big news and he has served for such a long time! It's funny because Elder Jallah and I, no joke, had just been talking about the day before how he has been serving as branch president for a really long time. Sure enough the next day he is released! 

Not a lot of news from this past week but we're really making a lot of progress still with our investigators with baptismal dates. We started "weeding" out our teaching pool with some of our investigators who aren't making any real progress. We expect to have a few baptisms in the beginning of October which will be great for the branch. It's amazing the difference the gospel is making in some of these peoples lives, it makes me so happy each time we meet with them and I see them growing closer to our Savior. 

On Saturday we were asked to go to Port Shepstone (very outer part of our area) to help the church deliver about 25 wheelchairs to St. Martin's school. Apparently the church has donated over 500,000 wheel chairs in just the past year here in Africa! Wow! We were told about this very last minute so we didn't really know what we were going to do exactly. When we arrived, we helped off load the wheel chairs and then a member from the Durban Stake Presidency arrived and a member of the Church's public affairs department. The wheel chairs were given to the handicapped individuals who needed them and then we had a program. The entire program was in Zulu so Elder Jallah and I just sat there with smiles on our faces not really sure what they were talking about. The leaders from our church were talking to everyone there and basically explaining what the church does. Then the member of the stake presidency motions for us to come up and we had no idea why! So he puts us on the spot in front of about 70 people and asks us to sing "As I have loved you." Wow I'm really glad that song is only one verse because I could hardly remember the words haha. Good thing Elder Jallah and I sing together all the time! Apparently we sounded pretty good according to some people there- must have been the gift of tongues helping us there haha! 

Sorry no real crazy stories from this past week, just continuing to teach and do our best here. It's amazing how close you feel to the spirit when you study for a few hours in the morning from the scriptures and all worldly distractions are eliminated. I've come to appreciate the Book of Mormon more fully and the central role it plays in conversion. If the Book of Mormon is true then that means God LIVES and this is HIS church, nothing else matters. It's amazing the things you can learn from diligently searching its pages, there is no way Joseph Smith wrote that book in 3 months time. It was by the power of God and nothing else. 

To all those who have asked- no there are not lions and zebras running around on the street haha. 

Love you all and wish you the best from Margate. 

Elder Summers

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