Week 37: May 23, 2011

How's it? Excuse the African way of saying Hello,

Thank you all for your letters and continuing support. This week was pretty good, yesterday we baptized two people from Masiphumelele the nearby township one named Susan Mushataganda and Ncebakazi. The program was great and the spirit was so strong as the talks were given as as the actual baptism took place. That makes seven baptisms so far on my mission, but that doesn't matter at all.

For mom, we stay in those apartment buildings just opposite of the sun valley mall, if that helps you at all on Google earth or whatever you used to check out Fishoek. The housing is nice, the only downside is that it has been a missionary boarding since the late nineties at least, so the cleanliness is not up to Hansen par ha-ha. But this morning we did some extensive cleaning and made some headway to getting it cleaner. we found some pretty cool novelty items left behind by other missionaries like a scrap tomato jar (basically just filled up with tomato juice and seeds) from Aug 2008, and no we didn't throw it out we just figured that since it had been around since then it wouldn't hurt to keep around a little longer. The area we are in is relatively safer than the whole of South Africa, in many ways Fishoek reminds me of Seattle because of the people who call it home, except with a SA twang which is awesome and I love it.

Other than the last mentioned, we have scheduled a baptism on June 5th so the work continues to progress and we are really excited about a couple of Investigators who we think have been prepared to receive this the Restored gospel. One is Nosphiwo who can has almost been reading The Book Of Mormon non-stop and is gaining more insights about Jesus Christ and his Gospel with every page she turns. Another is Busisiwe who is a good friend of a member and has been on a search for truth for a while now, and after reading the Restoration pamphlet told us that she too wanted us to teach her and baptize her.

In the MTC we were told that Africa was going to become like South America in terms of the strength of the church, except it would be quicker, and I can see that truly the land of Africa is making leaps and bounds in terms of growth. Many people are finding renewed strength and Faith in Jesus Christ by learning of the Restoration and in consequence the Book of Mormon the record of the 'other sheep' spoken of in John 10:16, who Christ visited after his resurrection. I'm really glad that I was called to serve here and I am really enjoying the time I have been given to do this great work.

Sabonyana,
Elder Nielsen