What to expect when you're expecting.‏

Elder Chappy and I with President and Sister Merrill.

Well,  you will all find out sooner or later, so I'll just come right out and say it... I am pregnant.  No, it's not like you are thinking though. I basically just told that I should be expecting a "son". Meaning, I'll be training a new Elder that is coming into the mission. President Merrill came to our district meeting and was talking to me about it. He said since I get along with black people so well I was going to be getting the one African elder that was coming here, but then apparently the Elder didn't get his visa, so I am going to be getting an American. I felt pretty complimented. And I am honestly pretty excited either way! I am going to have a new Elder that is from America, so we will actually be able to relate to each other about a lot more things than mission. It'll be cool. I will be getting him next week Wednesday.

So knowing that and after receiving some inspiration from Dad. I want to "re-dedicate" my temple/body to the service of the Lord. I honestly felt that I was serving hard and faithfully, but I know that there are always areas that we can choose to focus on and get better at. Especially since I am preparing to train a new elder. When you train it's a bit of a big deal because you are literally setting the standard for someone's entire mission. President was telling us that he first selects his trainers, then his assistant, then the zone leaders, then district leaders. He said THE most important job in the mission is to train. So I feel quite the responsibility on my shoulders right now. I am definitely trying to find areas I need to work on to improve so that I can best help the new elder I am going to train.

Now to tell you about this week! Things have been great. We taught 30 lessons this week, baptized four people, committed another two to baptism, ran down a guy who stole my deodorant and then even got fed twice this Sunday.

Now to break down all those stories I just mentioned.

-We taught thirty lessons. Really there isn't too much more to say on the subject. We just were able to see so many people and only had a few of the appointments drop. So lots of them held. It was so nice.

-We just had another four baptisms. Tammy Leroux, Kegan Leroux, Charles DeBeer and Mikhal Johnson. Yeahh, it was amazing yesterday! Our mission president just showed up randomly with his wife to come to our baptism. And yeahh, it was a BIT intimidating because last second there wasn't a teacher for Gospel Principals class, so they asked me. Of course my Mission Pres and his wife are sitting front row. It went well though. I really felt the spirit do the teaching. We spoke of the spirit world and how there IS life after death. A few investigators were really intrigued at the new doctrine and asked a lot of awesome questions. President Merrill's comments were really eye opening. Then during my testimony at the end we had a few people start crying. The spirit was so strong and it was just awesome to be able to carry that same spirit into the

baptismal service.

The actual baptism went great. I baptized Tammy and Mikhal, and Elder Chapman baptized Kegan and Charles. All of the are such powerful wonderful people. Tammy and Kegan and siblings from a once less-active family that we re-activated. They are now all preparing and wanting to go to the temple next year! I sure love the Leroux family. They are now all active members of the Lords church. Mikhal is the 9 year old boy of a once less-active now re-activated family as well. He is doing great. And then Charles is the guy who once had schizophrenia, had us give him a blessing, and now because of his faith he is completely healed.

- We were teaching Malvin and Monica. Monica is a fifty something year old woman and Malvin is her 30 year old son. While talking with them about the gospel of Jesus Christ, Monica brought up how Malvin had been struggling BIG time with drinking and smoking. He then started to explain and got really emotional saying he had a big desire to change. We spoke about how the Atonement of Christ is what can help us change. He said he wanted to change and make it last, so we invited him and Monica to be baptized. They said they want to pray about it. We are waiting for their response, but I know it'll be a yes. Monica said she already knows it's true because of the feelings she has had, but she wants a definite answer.

- A guy was walking by our car and he opened up the door and the only thing in the back was a white shirt and my deodorant. Maybe because he had a date later that night he felt the need to smell nice. So he snatched it out of the car. I just threw open my door and started chasing him down. (Yes, I know I shouldn't have done that.) He got real scared and I yelled "Isela!" It means "thief" in Xhosa. Some guys grabbed him and then he gave it to them just as I was running up and he said, "Sorry Paster!" and then ran off. Pretty crazy, but I got my old spice back.

- And then we got fed by the Leroux family and by Sister Vantandant. So that was really nice. Being fed twice in one day just feels so good. I wish we could have that every day.

That's about it for this week! I am still LOVING mission. I have grown so accustomed to how life is here. South Africa is my home. 

Love,

Elder Mitchell Ryan Thayne

There is the picture of our baptisms!

Then Tammy and Kegan Leroux with all the goodies they had for us after a MASSIVE meal that even Chapman couldn't finish.