Well.............. I really don't know quite where to begin... so let me just begin.
2 weeks ago we had baptisms of 4. It was really powerful. Brother Cyril just spoke of how he wishes he could get his whole family to be a part of this. (quick story) So we were preparing him for baptism and it turns out he has 15 kids haha... big family? hahaha. So his baptismal record is like huge with all of those kids... Mbekwhapi was sweet as heck. She's like 73 and said in Tswana basically this. "I have waited for this day for 50 years. I've walked the path... sometimes alone... But now I've entered the gate... and with my family. I thank my God and these two young men... man awesome
Mbali is my primary girl and went from this shy little girl and she just stood up and bore like a 2 minute testimony and just kept smiling. it was sweet I love my primary. Nkululeko was a hard core 7th Day Adventist who we finally converted. She basically said this in testimony. "This has been very hard. But nothing is more worth it." Even if you are completely exhausted after finding, the sun, dogs, rejection, days like Sunday make it all worth it.
One other cool thing was Sunday in Primary. I was teaching the Christmas story and we had a picture of Jesus and Mbali just went "awhhhh" one of the kids grabbed the picture and she said "don't touch him like that... that's our Savior." Man such a profound reverence man...Become as little Children. Mosiah 3:19 for sure.
So then Monday from 7 am until 11 pm we were, cleaning, moving, hauling, driving, sitting in traffic, and starving because we were out of food and never shopped. I hit the pillow and didn't move until 6:31 with the alarm still beeping in a daze.
Tuesday I went to meet my son. Elder Black is from Pleasant Grove and is a legend. He's a goofy kid and is just a little shell shocked with everything. Exactly what I was looking for. He's obedient, wants to work, has loads of energy and potential, and is just a bit green. Haha so now my job is simply to take that and turn him into a conversion machine. We had some legendary moments this week... more to come. The rest of the day we traveled... moved in some more... shopped... and hit up one appointment that night with William. He brought his friend Sylvester and though we didn't teach him anything we invited him to be baptized... which he accepted haha. Elder Black was like "man that's so cool... you just invite everyone" Yep... welcome to Joburg mission.
Wednesday we began our 3 hours of study.... eish... 3 hours. It's a new program that we helped bring to the mission in my ZL days and now its here... so I'm one of the pioneers of the program... the second group to go through it... It's a lot of work... but man its powerful, we lived the law of Moses and this is like the Saviors law... the new covenant. We then went to work tracting for two consecutive days with no appointments because of the area split.
Friday we Saw Oscar and Maphule a Family Elder Bangani and I found. We read the Christmas story because they want to more about Christ and after they were just like "we love the scriptures and we didn't even know it yet... We need to do this everyday... so it was a powerful lesson. and then we went to this super rich area I felt like we needed to go to. 2 minutes in we heard "Hello Elders" turns out a member is here visiting her family for the holidays and set them up to meet with us... We continued walking and came to a t junction and I asked Elder Black "where should we go..." perfect response "lets pray" so we did right then and there and we both felt left... so in the next 25 minutes we stumbled upon 7 families all of which we're seeing Tuesday and Wednesday. The very first house we met is a family of 7 who "Can't find a true church anywhere and are seriously looking and "have tons of questions for us" " So miracle....
Saturday was a lot of finding but Elder Black is really getting the hang of teaching by the spirit and being more confident in contacting. He's a bit shy... but that's why I think he got me... Mr. no inhibitions. So he's becoming an animal and we're really gonna see some great things.
Sunday during our 3 hours of Study which with church and a lunch appointment took up most of the day... we were studying our missionary purpose and it gave me a lot to reflect on... I flashed back to when I was just like him green, excited, nervous, not the most knowledgeable. and how the last 18 months I've been refined into what I am now... The simple truth is this. If you lose yourself... you'll find yourself Matthew 16.... Coming into this new year and Christmas season we do a lot of reflection on what we want to accomplish and how far we've come. I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. i mean anything. I rarely get angry but one time is when someone tells us we're wasting our time. This is true in the words of Elder Ramos "this is where we need to be." So have a very Merry Christmas and just remember if you're doing your best no matter how much crap you're going through... its exactly what needs to be happening and exactly where you need to be.
Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday Eli, Happy Christmas Eve and pickle hunt, eat some pumpkin pie for me since it doesn't exist here (I'm super bitter :D)
Elder Robinson
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