Ah, my friends. Today is a glorious day. Elder Marumo and I woke up and we went running for the first time in seven weeks, I got my hair cut for the first real time since January (do the math...four months) (also, S/O to Sister Herrington for learning how to use the buzzer so quickly!), and church is as true as ever!
Eish, I forgot my planner today which has everything in it I want to talk about, so you'll have to bear with me if I forget anything! I guess we can start with a cool story. So flashback months and months back to my first zone conference in Bloemfontein. I met an Elder Menlove there from Bountiful. He got transferred after that, and I was never able to see him again that side. Fast forward to last Saturday night, and we find him at the Herringtons with his parents as he's dying and they're touring the mission with him. He says to me, "Whoa, I've met you before! You've lost weight!" And sweeter words could not have escaped his mouth. Proud to say that I've broken the stereotype of missionaries gaining weight on mission! Since I left, I've shed twenty pounds. And the trick? Running, exercising in the morning, and eating way better (and by eating way better, I mean not getting a Hot 'n Spicy McChicken, Mini Mac, and extra-large Diet Coke from McDonalds multiple times a week) than I did back home. Hoorah for Israel!
So what happened this week... Ay, the schools were on holiday, so more people bunked appointments than I was hoping the first week with my son. But perhaps it was a blessing because it gave us some time to do less-active finding! Up until this point, we've been blessed with such a huge, progressing teaching pool that we've hardly had time to do any finding. And I don't remember if I mentioned a few weeks back, but we've been encouraged quite a bit to seek out less-active Melchizidek Priesthood holders using the My Family books to help the Newcastle District progress towards becoming the Newcastle Stake.
Great week with solid lessons, and it's so cool to teach people that are undergoing real conversion. I think a lot of times, you sorta go on auto-pilot as you're teaching the Restoration. Not to say that the lessons are any less spiritual, but you get to the point that you can teach it without thinking too much about it, and you almost forget that it's the first time someone's hearing about Joseph Smith. But I was reminded multiple times this week as people shared testimony with us that the spirit they felt, the emotions they had while we were teaching had made such a huge difference in their lives. I was reading something in my journal from the night I was set apart, and President Nelson blessed me that I would have opportunities to change the courses of peoples' lives. Kind of a big responsibility when you think about it. But it's such a strong testimony to me of the truthfulness of the gospel. The lives I've seen change because of the influence of the Holy Ghost... It's incredible.
Sunday was just fun. We were a little nervous in the morning because we only had one appointment scheduled for the rest of the day after church, and we were suspicious it would fall through. But thank goodness, Brother Gbenga and Lungani were able to come with us the rest of the day! After our lunch appointment cancelled, we went to the boarding and cooked lunch. Brother Gbenga and I kinda put an ensemble together with his pipes and me on the guitar. What we ended up doing the rest of the day was visit less-active members and former investigators and share a song with them. Ah man, it was great! Elder Marumo and Lungani were good sports and shared such strong testimony all the while. Man, we made such a great team!
Great things happening here. The work is moving forward. Life is good and happy as ever! Sala kahle, stay positive, love your life my friends.
Much love,
Umdala Johnson
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