PJ Update

March 11, 2013

Hello everyone,

This past week had a couple of pretty great experiences. We have really been having difficulty getting people to accept baptismal challenges but this past week we were able to get a lot of people to accept. I will relate a couple of experiences. We have been teaching this guy named N______ for about 3 months now. He has been hesitant to accept baptism because he says he hasn't received his answer yet. We have had some incredibly spiritual experiences with him but he says he needs an extra push. Well he finally got that extra push through the help of a member. In our area it is difficult to get members to come with us because of transportation issues and lack of members here. We had a recent convert who is about the same age as N_________ come with us. This recent convert is pretty famous here in PJ, he started the Anglican church here and is just very well known. Anyways, N______ actually knew our recent convert and was shocked that he is a member of our church. At the end of the lesson we challenged him to be baptized on April 14 and he accepted. He has read about the 1/3 of the Book of Mormon and he is really enjoying it, hopefully he will continue to progress. When we have members with us it makes missionary work so much easier!

We were also teaching a mother by the name of L____. She has been meeting with us for about a month now. She told us that she wants to be baptized because she has been praying for answers and the day we showed up at her door was a direct answer to her prayers. She said she isn't feeling peace at her church right now and that she wants to change. The difficulty for a lot of people here is that they are afraid to move churches because of what people will say. I loved what L____ told us though: "I cannot serve two masters, I can only serve God and if this is true it's the right thing to do." I wish more people understood this statement. The mission faces a lot of problems...cultural differences, transportation concerns, inactivity, etc but the biggest difficulty is that literally everyone already has a church here! It's rare that we find someone that doesn't have a church. There are a billion different christian churches here in South Africa (further evidence of the apostasy). We are doing our best though to really help people understand the role of the Book of Mormon and authority. It takes time but we are getting there!

I hope everyone has a great week!! I hope Anaheim is ready to receive a great new sister missionary!

Elder Summers