Week 19: Fruits of our Labors

This week has been absolutely wonderful!

So earlier this week we went to a place called Grill King with the family that had us over for new years. We went there so Elder Jolley, who can eat like crazy, could take on the burger challenge they have. He had to eat a 1.5 kg burger, chips, and 8 hot wings in 25 minutes to complete the challenge and get a shirt. He came so close! He finished in about 30 minutes but we were all so impressed. No one thought he would even be able to finish all of the food.

So you may see that I now have a nice gash just above my eye. Let's just say a taxi driver wasn't very happy with me... Just kidding. I wish I had a cooler story than I did. But all that happened was Elder Blackburn hung on the soccer goal and I turned around right as it came down and it wacked me in the eye. No biggy though. All is well, no stitches needed.

Transfers were this week and Elder Blow and I will be staying together. The only change in our district is, Elder Spencer will be leaving. He will be staying in the zone so we will still be seeing a lot of him.

So as you may know from my last letter we had some pretty crazy goals for this week. One of which being our goal of 15 new investigators. This goal was a little daunting. Our goals for this week were 5 on date for baptism, 8 investigators at sacrament meeting, and 15 new investigators. Elder Blow and I truly saw the fruits of our labors this week. This has easily been my most successful week on mission so far. This week we were able to find many who were interested in learning more about the restored gospel. 15 to be exact! It took a lot of prayer and work for us to achieve this goal. It even took tracting the last few hours of our Sunday evening to achieve this goal. This week we contacted a lot of our referrals as well as tracted for a total of 5 hours. We definitely would not have been able to achieve this goal without the hand of the Lord.

On Sunday, as sacrament meeting began we only had 4 investigators there and there were a lot of empty seats in the chapel. I started to get bummed and discouraged. However I should have known better and remembered how Africans work. By the end of sacrament meeting we had 13 investigators at church and many members! There wasn't a single seat in the chapel left.

Fast and testimony meeting in Africa has become my all time favorite. There is never enough time in the meeting for all those who want to bear their humble and simple testimonies. The spirit is so strong although half of the people are speaking in their native language and I can't understand them.

Our investigators class was packed! We had about 25-30 people in the class. On top of the 13 investigators we had at church there were also 7 non-members who we will be meeting with this week. Also 5 other investigators that said they would be at church were not there. There is so much work to be done here in Kwa-Thema and it is beginning to progress very quick.

I have a testimony of this gospel. Prayer has played a huge role in my life and especially this week. I know that as we exercise our faith that our Heavenly F ather will help us achieve our desires as long as these desires are righteous. I am grateful for this gospel and the privilege I have to shared it for the next 2 years. I love you all.

Love,

Elder Rash