Monday, April 21, 2014

#transfers

Molo!

Bernhardt Ramat was born in 1992. For thirteen years of his life he was at a boarding school far from home. He only saw his family during the holidays. So being on a mission away from his family hasn't been super hard. His whole family is members of the church and extremely strong and faithful to it. His branch has bout fifty people in it and he held three callings at the same time. One of his callings was playing piano in sacrament meeting. He learned how to play by ear. He is a super talented guy. Getting his call took him about four an a half months then he had to wait another four to come here. He loves to dance, loves to freestyle rap with me and LOVES to work hard, but have fun. So I can really tell we are going to get along. He also is a basketball player and can play soccer as well.....  YES. Basically I can tell this is going to be a great transfer.
This week not a ton of missionary work was done. Which honestly felt really weird.. I don't really like it. Basically the reason we didn't get a ton done was because of transfers. We were driving missionaries all over, picking up others and dropping off some, unpacking, reorganizing, cleaning and showing them the area and introducing them to people. So we weren't able to teach as many lessons as we normally do during the week because of all the stuff we had going on. We plan to hit it really hard this next week though.
Our Zone Leaders car got hit by a drunk driver. So now mission wide we have to be in our flat's by six thirty or seven at the latest. Riots and drinking and things like that have been so common lately that they are trying to keep us inside to stay safe. Kind of a bummer though with how much time that takes away from our work and teaching.
My Discourse on Faith:
"Oh Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me!" That is what Alma the Younger cried out as he was in ultimate agony. He was wracked with the pains and memories of a damned soul. I think all of us have felt that sort of pain at one time in our lives or another. We have all probably also cried out in suffering asking for God's relief. I know that many times in my own life I will call out asking for help, but not really having the faith or putting in the effort to receive help. We can change, but we can ONLY change as we turn to him and have faith that he can make up the difference. What we all ask for daily is nothing short of a miracle. We ask to be forgiven, blessed with what we need and changed to become better. Our investigator Thabo has turned away from a very loose and crazy life of drug dealing and partying, and is asking Christ to help him change. It is going to take a miracle for that to happen. But miracles are an everyday occurrence in the line of work that we do.
As I have studied Christs life I read all about the MANY miracles he preformed. In every instance, He called upon someones faith to help make it happen. He didn't just heal someone for nothing. He would either call upon their faith, or the faith of a friend or family member. It spoke of Christ going to a city, but he worked no miracles because of their unbelief. Faith is the key to every miracle. So if you are asking for a miracle, you have to have the faith that it can happen. You need to do everything you can and continue asking for the Lord's help. I think the saying faith without works is dead can also be swapped with works without faith is dead. If we try to change or work for blessings, but we don't have the faith that it can happen then it probably wont. Our faith as we work is what will bring the blessings and the change. 
Faith precedes the miracle. The more I study faith, the more I realize I don't know. I think its funny, I probably have a 1st grade understanding of faith. In heaven we will probably we working on our Masters or PhD. Anyways, that is my little rant for the day. 
Those people that we are working with are all doing extremely well. Please feel free to pray for them and pray for us to be able to find more people to teach as well.
Pray for:
Mlondolozi
Abigale
Phelisa
Lamla
Thabo
Derrick
Bongi
Jacque
And pray/fast that we will find more wonderful individuals to teach and help change.
Ohh and things have been pretty crazy here lately, so pray for the missionaries.
Love you all! Cheers!
Elder Mitchell Ryan Thayne
Well it's been another week. I now have a new companion... It's pretty sweet. His name is Elder Ramat and he is from Tanzania. Whoa, I know.

This is Elder Ramat and I. Not our best selfie day.


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