Thank goodness the weekend is over. My companion and I are relieved as we look back, but not as we look ahead. We still have two missionaries staying at our place until tomorrow, then on Wednesday we drive to Ladysmith (a five-hour drive) for a leadership training meeting, then we prepare something called a ZTM (Zone Training Meeting) for early next week.
BUT, this last week was pretty amazing. Soooo much has happened that I want to share with you
guys. I also want to write it in
my journal but have had no time to write since I got here... I’m going to have
to catch up a whole lot.
So, as far as investigators go, the Lord has blessed us with some very
nice people. We are teaching a
younger girl (17-years-old) whom I’ll call Laurie. She lives with the Stake President and his family. You would think it would be a slam-dunk
but its not, and I’m kind of glad.
We have been pointing her in the direction of deepening her testimony
and relationship with God. She
faces set backs with her very tough family background (hence she is living with
the Stake President), but we have seen her pull through those challenges as she
has been living the gospel. She
will be baptized before the year is up.
I don’t know if last week I mentioned about this girl who is from
Lesotho and is studying here in the Free State. I’ll call her Teal.
She just showed up to church two weeks back with her boyfriend. SHE ASKED US if we could come visit
her, so we began doing so. Its
been really tender to learn about her background and to feel her despair and
trouble, but has been even greater to see her act in faith and start praying,
reading the scriptures, and doing what she knows is right. We saw here again last night, after
only one week of knowing her. She said, with emotion in her voice, that all she
wants is to be like us (my companion, two members her age, and myself),
referring to our happiness and joy.
Little can she tell is that the light of the gospel has already began
working in her.
We helped her to see it, and she did. Her desire is to get her life back
on track, and she knows this is the way, and is fully willing to do all she can
to get there.
Another sweet miracle we experienced was actually not experienced by me,
but by my companion. On Saturday, in
our area, we went on splits with other missionaries. My companion and another elder went to see an Afrikaans man
and his family named Pierre. The
missionaries prior to me had tracked into him, but never really went back. My companion went back Saturday morning
and found him working on his car. They
talked with him for a little bit until his sister came up to them and was
ecstatic to see the missionaries. She told them that she was actually the colleague of a church
member, and this member had invited her to go to the Stake Conference we just
had yesterday. She wasn't going to
go until she saw the missionaries.
Then she really felt she ought to. She told them she would be there, and Sunday rolled around
and she was there. She had such a
great experience listening to the speakers: the Stake President, Elder Hamilton
(of the Seventy) and his wife, Bishop Gerald Causse (of the Presiding Bishopric),
and his wife. She exclaimed to us
that she really, really wants to meet with us. I know the Lord works in His own ways, and she was led to us
to receive the Gospel.
OK, so those are three new investigators the Lord blessed us with. There are also a handful of others who
we had equally spiritual interactions with this week.
So, on Thursday morning we were
asked by the Stake President to remove all the plastic
chairs from the
building, take them outside, and wash and dry them by hand, and then take them
back inside. There were over two
hundred chairs, and it took us over five hours to complete the task. By the time we were done we were sun-blistered and worn, but it was enjoyable.
Friday was the big day. President
asked us to fast prior to the conference, then to break the fast just before. Now, there were some adjustments during
the week so, rather than 20 missionaries coming from our zone alone, the
Lesotho Zone was going to join us bringing the total number of missionaries
attending to 38! And with no
Senior Couples, we were left to take care of everything. We were given a budget to work with to
provide lunch for the missionaries, so we purchased HEAPS and HEAPS of food and a
WONDERFUL family, the Van Der Leek's, cooked a nice home made meal for ALL of
us.
We then sat down for the conference. We had technical problems, but got them resolved just after
Elder Bednar began his address. There
was something VERY different about the way he addressed us. Prior to the conference, he asked us to
read three talks he had given on the topic of faith, conversion, and learning
by faith. During the conference,
rather than him standing and talking, he had missionaries in Durban explain
what the spirit had taught them as they studied. He also asked questions
regarding the topics and missionary work.
Elder Bednar also explained a lot (while asking us questions pertaining
to it) about the spirit being the teacher, not us. He then gave the missionaries the floor and they were able to
ask inspired questions to this great Apostle of the Lord. The spiritual out-pouring was incredible,
and I had never seen anything like it. The spirit was guiding, and teaching, no one else. And that was one of the greatest things I
learned, among other things regarding consecration, companionship, power and
authority, humility, and leadership. It was miraculous.
So, after the conference we had eight missionaries stay at our boarding
until Sunday. It was
PACKED!!! But Sunday came around, and we went to
conference. It was perhaps the
greatest day of my mission. Yes,
the talks were good, yes the spirit was present, but that is not what made it. What made it was seeing the people I
love sooooo dearly from Thaba Nchu. Leonard, Princess, Bishop Sabela, Me Sidikelo, The Mporo's,
the Mokapotsa's, some of the young men, and others. I could not have been happier, and it seemed that neither
could many of them.
And that was my week. Glad
it is over, but I look forward to what is to come. I'll tell you though; it has
been a difficult transition for me. Trying to balance the administrative side with the spiritual
aspect of this work. Any
suggestions? If it keeps up this
was, I’m going to come home on a stretcher, but if it is, that’s OK :p
With love always,
Elder Gold
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