Zoning In...Pretoria East

Witbank and Kwa Guqa Visit Today

Once a week, we have made the effort to get out and be amongst our Elders in different zones. This day was a unique “Zoning In” for a number of reasons.

First, we drove further out today to meet with Elders. It ended up taking us almost 3 hours to get there, due to traffic. Second, we got to witness a mission call being opened and we participated in a investigator lesson.

We arrived in the town of Witbank and headed to the flat of Elder Kaufusi and Elder Jackson. We didn’t get a chance to study for the full hour, but we did address some of the recent questions they have encountered with recent investigators that were challenging. It was a great experience to discuss these issues with them and talk about the problem of getting into religious debates with investigators.

The accommodations they have are very nice and it is important to take a look at the flats and give feedback about how much effort they have put into keeping them clean, organized and maintained.

(Elder Hehir, Elder Jackson, Elder Kaufusi and Elder Hughes in their flat.)

We then followed the 4 Elders across town to the Witbank Chapel where we met the local Bishop and his counselor. It was an exciting day, as we brought a mission call with us for a young man named Sipho, in the ward. He met us there and we got to watch him open it.

His call was to the Zimbabwe Harare Mission. He opened the call with Elder Menendez on the phone, due to the fact that Sipho was the first baptism of Elder Menendez almost 20 months ago. A special moment and a very exciting call.

Our final activity of the day, was a teaching appointment with Elder Novotny and Elder Johnson with their new investigator, Kevin. We watched the Restoration video with him and had a discussion afterwards. It was touching to see and feel of Kevin’s desire to continue to explore the gospel and commit to read the Book of Mormon and attend church.

All in all, it was a good and enlightening day for us. We learn a lot when we see our missionaries on the ground, serving in their areas and seeing them in action.