Excuse me, did anyone see where I put the last 2 years of my life?

with his new companion, Elder Manuma

Aweh!
Eish this week has been a fast one but a great one! Especially the weekend we had some cool lessons, heard some great things and are looking forward to even more great things!
                We had several lessons with an investigator named Lucky. Now, Brother Lucky is a sweet guy whose sister is a member. This week we’ve been teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and today (Sunday) we finished it. After concluding, Elder Manuma asked Bro. Lucky how he felt about what we had shared with him. He understood the seriousness of it all and the impact that it would have on his life. His faith was an example to me as he said, “I’m thankful you guys are letting me pray about this because this is something that’s big. This is something that I’ll have to follow for the rest of my life if I get my answer.” So often, I think people don’t quite grasp the concept of gospel living and all that it entails and when a baptismal invitation is given, they just say, “Sure!” Now, a positive response is good but 10 times out of 10 I would rather teach someone like Bro. Lucky who understands the covenant we make at baptism and wants to make sure he’s doing it for the right reasons. At the close of that lesson after his sister bore a very cool testimony, he asked if I would pray and, “include me and my desire to know the way from God.” Sho, it was a great experience! Many good lessons this week but I would have to say that was my favorite!
                The Soweto stake gets to view General Conference next week in Pimville but we did hear who the 3 new Apostles were! It’s pretty cool that when Elder Renlund was serving in the Area Presidency here in the Africa Southeast area, I got to be in the same sacrament meeting as him! Haha funny little “claims to fame” that we have in the church eh? :P But speaking of keeping good company with people in the church, today we were invited to the home of Elder Mdletshe who is an Area Seventy who lives in the Florida ward of our stake. He works for the CES and has his office at the Roodepoort chapel so when he heard that I was leaving and that our District Leader also has his same surname, he invited us over to his house for lunch! What a great guy and his family was awesome as well! So we got permission from our ZLs and went there today after church for a nice lunch and lesson. Haha I know Area Seventies are no different church members than you or I but after being with the Chatora family in Centurion and now here in Joburg, the pressure always seems a bit higher when it’s your turn to share the lesson haha. But it went well! The spirit was strong and we all learned a bit more about having our hopes motivate us and give us the anchor we need to get through this life and share the gospel with those we love and interact with. And one more cool fact, Elder Mdletshe was the first black South African missionary to serve a mission for the church! He served in the England London South mission in 1985 so that’s pretty cool! He’s one of the pioneers of the church for the black people of SA.
                Other cool things that happened…  three brothers who were baptized last week were confirmed today and also sustained to receive the Aaronic priesthood and 3 members received their endowments on Saturday including one of our ward missionaries who leaves in like 2 weeks for Botswana/Namibia/Pretoria mission! Also, we had interviews with President Dunn and all he could talk about was me going home haha crazy:P He made a funny analogy though about thinking about home. He said that an airplane, when landing doesn’t all of the sudden drop out o the air until 30m above the ground. No, he glides in slowly and smoothly descending. So it is with me and that I shouldn’t worry about thoughts of home just as long as I don’t dwell on them. Eish, that time is less than a month away….
                …Excuse me, did anyone see where I put the last 2 years of my life? They seem to have disappeared. If you find them let me know ;)
Cheers tho hey?
-Elder Smith

Sister Lebo's Baptism

Johannesburg temple gardens

with Elder Lea'aetoa at the temple

Brother Llewellyn wasn't best pleased with Elder Smith's transfer news.
Brother Llewellyn hosts the missionaries in his garden flat.