Week 7: October is in the books and November is shaping up to be a successful month!

Well today is Halloween in America but not here. They dont celebrate halloween here but they do have a holiday on the 5th of Nov. where everyone including kids cross dress. They go around singing a song and people put coins in a can for them instead of candy like in America. So its still a pointless holiday like halloween. Im kind of excited to see it lol.

So this week has been great! We had a baptism yesterday. It was for an 11 year old girl named Zinhle Kunene. Her family are all members some less active but both of her parents have passed away so she's being raised by her grandmother and aunt and uncle. Her uncle baptized her.

So this week we had a load shedding where they shut off electricity at our flat. We were getting ready to head to our area so it didnt really effect us. It was back n when we got back.

We went on exchanges again and I was with Elder Ansumana again. It was awesome! I love exchanges. Also this week we met with a 20 year old guy who we contacted on the street. He is awesome! We met with him twice this week. The first time he had read the plan of salvation pamphlet we had given him and had it all marked up and stuff. We asked him to be baptized in the very first lesson. Then we met with him Saturday and talked to him about the Restoration. At the end you could just feel the spirit so strong and he started to cry and said he believes and knows its true. He wants to start meeting like 3 times a week! Im super excited about that. Also theres a lady thats 24 named Masesi who we've been meeting with since I got here and her 2 sisters Julia and Sibongile. Julia and Masesi were progressing really well and were on date for baptism for yesterday. We had never really talked about it so last week I finally brought it up to see how they felt about it and they both kind of wanted more time. They've just recently lost there mother and have been going through a rough time but the gospel has brought that light back into their lives. So Masesi said she would want to get baptized in Nov but Julia had expressed about waiting till the end of the year. Well Julia just got news that they found a mass on her breast and it could be breast cancer. This crushed her and made her mad at god. She expressed to us that she didnt really want to meet with us anymore. Our stomachs dropped. We had a talk with her about why we have trials and how god loves us still. The spirit was heavy in the room. Her sister Masesi then spoke up. She bore a beautiful testimony about how she knows this gospel is true and that she had noticed something was missing until she met us. She said there is no doubt in her mind she is going to get baptized and that she wishes her sisters felt the same. She then said something very powerful. She said "where will you go? if you turn away from God where will you go? There is no one else you can go to." It reminded me of Elder Ballards talk in General Conference. Masesi is going to be baptized on Nov 13. It would have been next sunday but its fast Sunday.

So when I first got to the area I went straight to the area book. The previous missionaries were terrible at keeping the area book up to date so I spent quite a while updating it with Elder Thompson. But what I did do was go through the previous investigator section. I found the name of a lady that was taught about 6 years ago. She was being interviewed for baptism but her mother started yelling at the missionaries. So she was never baptized. I took it out and decided we would go and try and find her. This was when I first got to the area. Saturday we finally go around to it because we had some free time. As I read the notes from the missionaries from 6 years ago I read that they had FHE with sister Gaga. We had just had lunch with Sis. Gaga 2 weeks ago!!! We drove over to her house and asked her about her. Aftering thinking about it for a little she remembered her! She directed us to her house. When we got there we introduced our selves. She was so excited to see us and asked when we were coming over for FHE and dinner! WHAT!?!?! It was as if a pause button had been pushed and we just hit the play button. Her name is Rose and she is now 46. Im so excited to start meeting with her again. Previously she had a baptism date set of Nov. 28 6 years ago. I think that date of Nov 28 was meant for 2016. We're meeting with her Saturday.

I love you all. Have a safe but fun Halloween.

Love, Elder Rash