Hello Everyone!
Thanks for the Emails. I look forward to getting your letters to hear more!
Once again I have quite a bit to say. It feels like it's been forever since last weeks email. I'm in Klerksdorp now. It's a great place. It was really hard to leave Mamelodi behind though. Each appointment seemed to completely drain me. It reminded me of when I met Elder Bakker (The missionary that I replaced im Mamelodi) at the Christmas party, the first thing he said was "you take care of that branch", I could tell it meant a lot to him. I never understood how he really felt untill I was passing the Branch on to someone else. It made me think about how much we are trusted not only by the last missionary or by our Mission President, but by Heavenly Father. Its really makes you think of the sacred trust we have to take care of each other.
Klerksdorp has just been split. Elder Pidune (from Hamburg, Germany) and I serve in the Town and Elder Torr (from Durban SA) and Elder Ndillango (from Kenya) serve in the Township. Most of the work was being done in the township so our teach pool only consists of two families. Towns are normaly very difficult to teach in. In the next two transfers we will be loosing about a dozen Elders, meaning several areas are going to have to merge, Elder Pidune and I are determined to keep four Elders in Klerksdorp. Our Branch is very small, we have 40 active members. The Branch has quite a few issues to sort out, most of it stems from a social divide between the Africanners and the Africans. The hometeaching and visiting teaching programs collapsed a while back, they are just about to start them up again. Many of the Members of our branch have been members for 40 years, sadly a number of them no longer feel the need to serve or to change. The Sacroment meetings are interesting as well, the first talk was by a YSA on the "Dominion Mandate", it seemed like he had gone online to look for a talk, it was about how the church was not living up to the commandment that Adam was given to have dominion over the Earth. So as you can see there's a lot of work to do, but I am very excited. In my Mamelodi we had so much work to do that it was difficult to corelate our finding efforts with the Members. Here I'll have the chance to work side by side with the branch. We have some of the best members I've ever met on our side. They just called a branch mission leader, he is recently returning from inactivity, but he is very bright and very determined to make the branch what it should be. We live nextdoor to Brother Jubber and his family, the 1st counsler in the Branch. He is a retiered concert pianist. When he isn't teaching piano lessons he's out visting less active members of the branch. He's lived in Klerksdorp for at least 30 years and knows almost everyone. We talk to him almost every day, he is a great strength and is very willing to help. In the five days I've been here he's come out with us once and given us two referals!
His daughter is equaly as helpful. On Sunday the branch had it's first baptism in several years. It was for a man named Johan and his 9 year old son. Sister Jubber is the primary president, she heard about the baptism and volunteered all her asistance. The baptismal service was the best I'd ever seen. She organized programs, refreshments, a musical number, and even gave a talk wecoming Decon (Johan's son) to the branch. We're really hoping the the baptismal service will stir the branch's excitment to share the gospel.
Elder Pidune and Elder Torr have done a great job as well. Right before I came they worked with Brother Jubber to put on a miniature "Music in the Spoken Word" with spiritual thoughts between each musical number. It was a huge success. They had over 50 non-members attend! We're hopping to plan another one for the end of April. The Branch members really loved it and are looking forward to the next one.
Well i wish I could say more, but I'm out of time once again.
I love you all,
Elder Keith Halterman
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