Week 38: Working hard to fill our planner in Phokeng

Hello friends and family!

Man I have so much to tell you. Many things happened this week. To start off, I got a phone call from the missionaries serving in Protea Glen, my first area. They informed me that a young women named Sihle who Elder Thompson and I started teaching was going to be baptized on Sunday! You may remember from one of my old emails but Elder Thompson and I found a former investigator teaching record for a lady named Rose. We ended up going and visiting her family. One of the family members was a daughter named Sihle. We taught them about 2 times before I went back home. When I returned back to the mission I heard that they had continued to teach her and she had come to church but that was it. She did not feel like baptism was right at the time. But yesterday, a year and a half since we first met her and at least 6 years since she first met missionaries, she was baptized. It was such an amazing thing to hear.

Also this week I met my new companion! His name is Elder Bindrup. He is from Layton, Utah. We both have so much in common. Especially since we are both from America. That was a relief. He is an awesome missionary! He is 19 years old. I am currently the oldest in age and mission age in our district which is quite crazy. We are both working really hard here in Phokeng. Speaking of Phokeng, It is BEAUTIFUL here! Mountains everywhere. We drive through the mountains to get to our area and then our area is with some mountains. There are houses and shacks on the sides of mountains that we drive up. It is pretty amazing. It reminds me a lot of home. The members here are pretty amazing. They have been praying for many months now for their own missionaries here in Phokeng. Every member we talked to was ecstatic to hear they have their own missionaries. The work has been slow here in Phokeng for some time now but there is tons of potential and Elder Bindrup and I are super excited to go out and find it.

One of the greatest parts about serving in a village is that there are orange and mango trees everywhere! Everyone has them in their yards. So as we are walking down the road we can just grab an orange for a quick snack. Unfortunately, it isn't mango season. Not until December.

We have an awesome member named Tshepo who comes out with us almost every day and has been showing us around. No one really uses address's here so that has been a challenge for us when it comes to finding people so the members have been a huge help. I was stressing pretty bad the first 2 days here in Phokeng. Just the responsibility of training and opening an area was getting to me. But after the success Elder Bindrup and I have had the past few days that stress has gone away a lot. I've always been use to having a full planner filled with lessons to teach but this whole week our planners have been blank. However, we have a lot of lessons scheduled for the coming week. It is going to be lit. Elder Bindrup and I have a motto for these next couple months. "Balls to the wall!" We are going to go all out and really move the work along here in Phokeng.

I love you all. I am doing fantastic. Talk to you next week

Love, Elder Rash