One of the crazy things that happened was that we were meant to be going down to Johannesburg for interviews last Thursday, but we got a call that morning! Saying that they'd been postponed until Tuesday, before World Wide missionary training! (So that left us with a 5 hour gap for us to fill! I was like okay sure, Elder Benson wasn't as pleased :')
I let Elder Benson do the planning, i gave my input when needed but as it turns out, what he planned for us was really inspired because 3 of the people that we met with in those 5 hours really really needed our visits! It was amazing and it really showed to me that the Lord does have a work for us to do here.
A busy week yes! We did 0 hours of tracting/contacting this week! Yet we still got 2 new investigators and a couple of potentials!
Thank you so much for the Rule Britannia CD music, so now every morning when I do exercises, Elder Benson can wake up to the sounds of the British Empire! :-)
We are really blessed to have some supportive members here who really love and appreciate us being here to help them. We had a member make us some fish for us to pick up for our dinner! They are super nice here! We get fed 3-4 times a week here!
Had some miracles this week, one in particular was that we were just walking along the street and this guy just comes up to us, tells us he has a problem with drinking and wants to change, we gave him a "Word of Wisdom" pamphlet and we have a return appointment! I was astounded! People literally just come up to us in the middle of the street to talk to us!
There was another miracle there as this Afrikaaner old couple who always feed us lunch on Sunday. They are "Dutch Reformed" and have their own beliefs so we have mutual respect for each other. Well when we went for lunch yesterday as usual, I asked if I could share a message, and they said yes!!! I was so happy so I shared Isaiah 53 and they offered a couple of comments about it! It was amazing so we are seeping through! I have come to really like them because they are really nice people I've found!
Some of the challenges this week...... really the main challenge is simply getting people to come to church! It's hard with the challenges they have! We had 3 investigators come to church this week! One of them, Njubulo, walked 6km (an hour) just to come to church! I was so happy when he walked through the door! And the best thing, the members took to him straight away, president Kwai Kwai made sure people sat next to him and people talked to him! I was so very happy so our member work is all paying off! He's also overcome the Word of Wisdom problems he has and so hopefully he is on track to be baptised next month!
As always take care and do look at my postal address on this blog and send me a letter. That would make me so happy :-)
Love from
Elder Jack Jorgensen
So very jealous of the snow you have had :-(
It sounds awesome, we have been topping mid 30's Celsius and it is hard sometimes! But we keep working, Friday and Saturday we were just beat but we kept working and kept trying, and it paid off, Sunday was a good day although we didn't get to meet all our appointments it was still a really good day and it went very very well!
This week has gone so fast but it has been interesting!
Elder Benson has been driving Suzie, his first time driving a manual so that has been interesting, several stalls, but no close calls yet and he is getting better! So it is quite interesting.
We had exchanges this week so I got Elder Zitumane, a native South African from East London, who is a super powerful missionary and I really enjoyed working with him, but it meant that I had to lead the area which was a little daunting the day before but it all worked out and our appointments went really well!
The members are trusting us more and we are getting close with them.
Investigators.... we continue to work with them teaching them the importance of the Sabbath Day. For many here it can be a real sacrafice to attend church as they live several miles away and have to walk to/form church. But if we can get them to come and experience it once then they will see and feel what it is like and how it will really bless their lives and bring them closer to christ... but we keep trying!
Our schedule fills up really fast and it is hard to get round and see everyone! So that is something that we have to work on, but it is all going well.
I gave a talk at church this Sunday, wrote it, but only ended up using half of it, for the other half of the talk i just said what came to mind and it actually worked out really well!
We almost had a disaster too because we couldn't find another guy to come with us to our female appointments! But luckily we managed to get someone after some clever manoeuvring!
A member called Tinashe, who is really cool, goes to the university and is the first councillor in the Elders Quorum! He's an awesome guy and gets along really well with us!
Valentines Day we had pink sausage pasta which was really interesting! I sent a picture so that was very exciting
Love
Elder Jack Jorgensen
This week!!!!! It has been a good week, again!
Hope you all enjoy the sunset pictures. It looks absolutely amazing in real life.
We had to go to Johannesburg twice this week! First to pick up some stuff at the Area office and the second time for some appointments.
And because we were still unable to get the automatic car back (Charlotte) we are stuck with Suzie still, our manual Toyota, so that means I have to drive it all the time. So I have driven all this week! And in total over 900 km! But I am getting quite good at it.
Half way through the transfer, so 4 more weeks (it's a 7 week transfer). It is almost certain that at the next transfer it will be my companion Elder Benson who will be leaving the area and me to stay in Potchefstroom so not long before I get a new companion.
It's still been hot hot hot here, and that's brought trouble sleeping, not really for me, I'm actually sleeping a lot better, but it's just a pain. Yesterday I was fasting and I had to take a drink of water because I was literally dying! I was in my suit and it was killing me. I had a nice 5L thing of solid ice in the trunk, and it had melted just enough to drink a little.
But when the people sitting outside saw it they asked if they could have some. so being a missionary I filled up their glasses, and they were really thankful, none left for me but I didn't mind, at least they weren't asking for money. Which they do a lot, because according to Gomolemo when they see us they see a R100 note. We do get a lot of people coming up to us and asking us for money, but we have to say to them we don't have anything.
There was a branch council meeting yesterday, which went really well, they are wanting to do more Home Teaching, 100% goal, which will be really good for our Less Active work! because if we can get all our less actives back we will get a building! So we plan to work with the members on that
With all of our investigators we are going to be eatching about the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day holy and why it is so important to be attending church on a Sunday.
We had a Zone meeting this week which actually went really well, got some more mail! I got a Christmas card (from Sarah and James Gill, say thanks to them from me) which must have got stuck at the sorting office!. If they put the address on next time I will write back.
Working hard is the key to being happy and feeling good. Sunday was a hard day, I was fasting all day and didn't eat anything till like 8pm, which was hard but I remained committed. We had the option of going home at 6pm because due to church we weren't able to study in the morning. But it didn't feel right and I couldn't bear to do it so we stayed out until 8pm (we take dinner then and then it's in by 9) and although nothing fruitful came of it I felt good returning home knowing that we'd kept working.
It was going super well last week and this week has been harder and slower, but we still keep working hard and trying my best !
Probably the biggest highlight of this week was that when we went to teach someone in Promosa, he had his girlfriend and one of his friends there! Which was super exciting and they are all progressing well! So that was amazing. it was Njubulo again! Will try to get a picture of him :P
That's about it for this week. I love you all and I'll leave you with a quote from a deaf lady, Sister Brummer in our branch:
"If we don't have faith, heavenly Father can't help us"
Love Elder Jorgensen!
Time is still flying so fast, it already feels like I have been here for years.
It is amazing how simple life is here as in many homes that we go to they don't really have furniture, so we sit on buckets etc, but in one of the investigators houses we saw that instead of real chairs she used camping chairs! So I am going to get myself one of those so i can sit comfortably in teaching appointments, will tell you how it goes when I get one!
This week has gone fast as usual, been teaching a lot of lessons. All the university and college students are now all back from their summer holidays so we will be exploring opposites there!
Starting to explore more with my food, made sausage pasta and buritos (which are just like wraps) I have a killer tan, I made a nutritious meal of baked potatoes, toast, scrambled egg and cheese.
One of the other amazing experiences this week was that we were visiting one of our investigators in hospital, his name is Jarron. When we first went to see him we saw that he'd been given a good news bible and he wanted to call the guy who gave it to him, because he was going to get him a phone, this discouraged us a little but we didn't let it impact us, he has his agency so we won't impose. But later he called us and asked us to bring 4 copies of the Book of Mormon and finding Faith in Christ DVDs! We were amazed! Later when we went again to play the violin to the people in his ward (Elder Benson playing) more people gathered round and one man was reduced to tears, it was so sweet. It truly was an amazing experience.
Not many trials really. I saw the importance of attentiveness, We were listening to investigator talking about his experience with Sengomas.
If you don't understand ask Kieran about what Sengomas are but the basic is that they are essentially Devil worshippers, they invite evil spirits to come using rituals etc and they command fire to come down upon us and curses etc. thankfully no flaming tornadoes as of yet..... angels must be protecting us. But here in Potch, according to President Kwai Kwai who is from Durban, that the Sengomas here aren't really real ones.
He is Zulu so it is a big part of tradition, but by first listening to what we was saying, we were able to discern and then also to not tell him he was wrong but uplift him, and show him that there are seeds of truth but the fullness is not there (especially with Sengomas) We related it to the priesthood authority and had a wonderful lesson with him
This coming week I will be working on
making my personal study more effective and the same about lesson planning.
I am really enjoying missionary life. It is all about being light hearted but not light minded.
The scenery here is amazing and pictures don't look as good as real life.
There is really only one other amazing thing (there are so many miracles!) We had a prompting to go round and check up on some of our most promising investigators Saturday night. Although we were going to be late for dinner I insisted that we go. As a result all of them came to church! We had almost 70 people there I was so amazed! MIRACLES are happening, we just have to see them! although these seem pretty obvious. That is so much better than the 30 people we had last week!
Our less active work is going really well, especially because we found out that we have over 100 members registered, they just don't come to church so we will be working on this.
This is our new district, the Africans now outnumber us! Not a bad thing because they are all really awesome guys! Elder Zitumane and Elder Opolot (the dark Ugandan one) are the new Elders, we still have Elder Chirwa and Bergman. On the picture, left to right is Elder Benson, Me, Elder Opolot (from Uganda), Elder Zitumane from East London (that's a place in SA not England ;) ) Elder Chirwa (Durban) and Elder Bergman (Sweden)
Keeping busy and everything is going really well here, I always look forward to Mondays and hopefully will be getting some mail through on Friday at district meeting!
I love you all lots and lots and lots and I hope the best for this week!
Lots of Love
Elder Jorgensen
One of the crazy things that happened was that we were meant to be going down to Johannesburg for interviews last Thursday, but we got a call that morning! Saying that they'd been postponed until Tuesday, before World Wide missionary training! (So that left us with a 5 hour gap for us to fill! I was like okay sure, Elder Benson wasn't as pleased :') 
Some of the challenges this week...... really the main challenge is simply getting people to come to church! It's hard with the challenges they have! We had 3 investigators come to church this week! One of them, Njubulo, walked 6km (an hour) just to come to church! I was so happy when he walked through the door! And the best thing, the members took to him straight away, president Kwai Kwai made sure people sat next to him and people talked to him! I was so very happy so our member work is all paying off! He's also overcome the Word of Wisdom problems he has and so hopefully he is on track to be baptised next month!
