Monday, October 27, 2008

Best Days of My Life

To answer some questions: We are on bikes or in a car. My first 6 weeks we were on bikes everyday except Thursdays and Saturdays. Now we've got it Tuesdays as well. We share the car with the other elders in our flat. They work at Kwa-thema.. the neighboring township.

I will see Phil again. I should see him at these transfers on November 5th, that's when I lose my trainer too. I'm going to get a new companion in about a week. I am a
little nervous. Elder Brown and I get along very well and we are doing so much good work. With 11 people on baptismal date and a few more possibly on the way, I'm not sure I am up to taking over my area. I just hope I get a sweet new companion. Also, everyone in my branch loves Elder Brown. I have a big name to live up too. He was like the spark that got this place going and now I'm gonna have to keep it going. I guess we'll see what happens.

So there's not too much new this week. This Sunday I confirmed Wandile, it went well. We had an investigator show up to church that we've been teaching since I got here. She hasn't been able to come to church because she works everyday and when she hasn't been working she is too poor. She started crying on Saturday night when we taught her because i gave her 50 rand to get to church (thru taxis). She has wanted to come to church so bad. Then she made it and started crying when she had to leave after gospel principles. It was such a good day. This week has just been fun. My companion has started to open up more and we joke a lot more. We still are working hard but having so much fun at the same time. Man this place is just hoppin. I can't wait until next month comes and we can try to get all of these people baptized who
say they want to. It will be a challenge.

Thanks for the love and support. I'm having the best days of my life and they are going too fast. I love you all!

Love, elder robinson

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Bittersweet

The Johannesberg Temple

Well we were supposed to have three people baptized on Sunday, but then something happened. One of our investigators tried to kill herself. She tried to OD on some medicine that was for her dad. She didn't even get close to succeeding but she still went to the hospital. So the day that we were supposed to interview her we went to her house. She had left a note on why she wanted to kill herself and she said it was her family. When we went to the interview she was at her Aunt's house. So instead we just had a talk with her family. Now you have to know that by family I mean that she lives with her Uncle because her father died and her mother can't support her. She also has a brother from another father(same mother) that lives in this house. Then there are two daughters of the uncle who live there. The oldest daughter was baptized about 3 months ago and has an illegitimate baby, the younger sister and the brother were baptized last month. So you'd think that some Christ-like love would be over-taking the atmosphere of the home. This is what was so frustrating. The younger sister who lives in the home has something against her cousin, Johanna, our baptismal candidate. Anyways, we tried breaking down some of these barriers but all this little sister could do was laugh. Her cousin (who she calls her sister) just tried to kill herself. We asked her how she would have felt if she had succeeded. She just said "awe she would been buried, it would have been fine"... this made me very angry. All I could think was to pull out the pride card and shambock her with some scriptures. It didn't seem to have any effect on her. I'm not sure what to do. So that was very frustrating, but the week ended happy.

We baptized two future priesthood holders.
(L-R) My companion, Elder Brown, Wandile, Ernest and Me

They are both very smart, one of them even used to be a Jehovah's Witness(who know their scriptures very well). They both had a lot of issues with the gospel at first. It even took a while but eventually they came through. One of them was taught by the older couple missionaries that work with us. So we owe that one to them. The other, Ernest, was originally taught by my companion and his previous companion. I simply got to reap the reward of all their hard work. But still it was an amazing baptism. Their testimonies are so strong and they are going to be huge additions to this ward. We have 10 people on date for next month. It's going to take a lot of work to get them all to go through. We'll see how that works out.

Here are a few other pictures:
The township we are working in.


Another picture of our flat!


Love, elder robinson

Monday, October 13, 2008

My First Confirmation

It is getting very warm now and there are very few a\c units in all of Africa. So, our flat has no a\c or heat. They say up in Botswana and where it gets really hot it's easy to get up on time because you can't sleep once the sun comes up! We'll see when it gets hotter. We don't tract into white people at all. In fact the only time I've taught a white person was on exchanges when I taught in town. Only black and colored people live in townships. It is very segregated still. Even though there are a lot of blacks in the government, it's just that many years of aparteid takes a long time to change. There are a lot of problems in this country. The funny thing is that South Africa is the "most stable country" in Africa, yet they just illegally impeached their president a few weeks ago- with only 6 months left in office. So there is a lot of turmoil. But hey, life goes on. It could be worse. It could be war. Let's just cross our fingers against that one.

So this week:
Well not too much happened this week. We put a few more people on date and now we have 13 on date for baptisms. Our neighboring township (Kwa Thema) has 20 people on date! But they have a chapel. If we had a chapel we'd be exploding too. Even still the work is going forward fast. We have tons of investigators, almost too many to keep up with. This sunday we had the confirmations of those that were baptized two weeks ago. One of them, the young man Paul, asked me to confirm him. My first one. Man I was nervous. But ya know what, I prayed in the morning and I really felt led by the spirit as I gave him his blessing. It was awesome.


Love, elder robinson

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Summer is Coming


My first baptism last week. We had three in one day!

Hello!

It is too cold to be summer. The weather is pretty crazy right now. It finally rained though. It was perfect too. We went in for a lesson, it rained the whole lesson, and then it stopped by the time we were done. Also, our bikes were not even wet.

I'm going to try to make the pap and meat that they eat here. I can't wait to make some of this stuff for you guys when I get home. I'm gonnna try and make my own kotas for you. It's great. We do have a microwave though and a stove. We do run into people that don't speak English and normally we just keep going on. Most people know English and unless they are really interested we just use our time on people that will be able to understand. In fact this week we started tracting in Gelukstal (thats pronounced Hall-uk-Stall with a gurgle on the H... its Afrikans). It's an area in Tsakane that has nicer houses and is almost completely colored (that means black/white mix). Anyways, it's sad but true that the whiter they get the higher economically they get. It's a sad reality and a product of my ancestor... DF Malan. I haven't really read Preach My Gospel from cover to cover. But that is not how you are suppose to read it anyways. More like I study the parts that are revelent to me
at the time. I should be studying out of it more though. I'm trying to do that. I am better with my scriptures but no where near a scriptorian haha. It's really hard for me to remember where certain scriptures are. I'll get better at that though. I'll try to write Sister Walker. She's awesome.

Elder Phil Hall and I met up at transfers.


A peek at our flat:


Well this week was not too exciting. Monday we just played basketball in the township. Then this weeek there weren't too many interesting stories. I guess the most excitement was General Conference. Man, I love General Conferece now. We watched the Saturday morning session live on Saturday at 6-8pm then a rebroadcast of the priesthood and Saturday afternoon sessions at 11am and 2pm on Sunday. Then we watched a live session of Sunday morning at 6pm on Sunday. So we only missed the last session. Did Elder Holland talk in the last session? If he didn't that would be disappointing. At least I can read it when the Ensign comes in a month. My companion and I kind of got annoyed by how lightly the Africans take conference. At almost every session the chapels we went to would have been empty if it wasn't for the missionaries, besides a few members. But yeah, I love hearing from the Apostles and Prophets. It's sweet. I hope you guys enjoyed conference as much as I did.

Well that's all for this week. I'm going to cook the navajoes this week so we'll see how that goes. Thanks so much for the support. I do realize how lucky I am to have such a strong family in the gospel. I am blessed for it and others will be blessed for it as I am an instrument in the Lord's hands. Thanks again for everything. I love you all.

love, elder robinson

ps. It's not really that cold. It's actually started to finally warm up. We had a hot, hot day just this week. Summer is coming!