I am currently serving as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Johannesburg, South Africa Mission! I plan to serve for two years before returning home to finish my education.

I am serving a mission because I know that God is our loving Father in Heaven. I have a testimony that he knows each of us personally and wants us to succeed. The gospel Jesus Christ leads to lasting happiness. The fullness of his Gospel exists on the Earth today and I want to help spread the joyous news!

If you are reading this and don't know for yourself I plead with you to learn more. You can gain a personal witness that the Gospel has been restored! Visiting http://mormon.org is a great way to start!

I miss you all and would love to hear from you! See you in two years!

Letter April 6, 2010

Hey everyone!

I hope not to scare you with the late email. Yesterday all the stores were closed due to the holiday weekend. People are on edge with the recent murder of Eugene Terreblanche (the lead political representative for the Africanners), but so far life has continued as normal.

It sounds like the trip to Navoo was amazing! I didn't know that the Church had done so much to build the area up. I can't wait to go when I return! I'd especialy love to see the temple. In our mission we normally attend the Johannesburg temple once a transfer (that's once every six weeks).

General conference sounds like it was spectacular! Conference is going to be shown in our chapels in three weeks - we are waiting for the DVD's to be sent out to each branch. A few members have BYU TV, but most are waiting till then. I am really excited, in the past missionaries could only watch 3 of 5 the sessions because of the time difference, since we won't be watching it live we'll get to see all 5. I'll pay close attention for the talk on patience and the talk on spiritual gifts.

Once again things are great! We are working hard with the Branch to create a Branch mission plan.

Even though we are constantly working with the branch we still do a lot of contacting. The stereotype in the mission is that white people won't listen, I've learned that it's completely false. I am amazed at how often people invite us in, after every 10 doors or so (well, gates technically) a family lets us in. The people of Klerksdorp are so ready for the Gospel, we just need to get the members excited to share it with others.

On Sunday evening we had a great lesson with Johan and his son Deacon about missionary work. We brought Brother Jubber and Brother Clive (our new ward mission leader). Johan is being well fellowshiped, he is one of the few in the branch that have no racial predujices. The lesson went really well. Johan loves fishing, Brother Jubber mentioned that he thought it no coincidence that the Lord chose fishermen to be his disiples. After the lesson Johan gave Brother Clive one of the fish he had caught. It was huge! 5kgs! Johan said that it was about the average size. We've been looking for activities to unify the branch and for people to invite friends to, a father and son fishing trip would be perfect! Johan has 16 rods and plenty of supplies, I'm really excited. This will be a great chance for Johan to really become a part of the branch and for the Elders to become more excited about the Church. We are also planning to put on another "Music in the Spoken Word" program at the beginning of May. It sounds like President Poulsen will come out to see it. We are really excited to begin having meaningful branch activities where members can begin inviting their friends!

The work is going really well. We have three appointments this evening, one of them is especially promising.

In two weeks we'll have another baptism, it will be for a mother and her son.

Thanks for your prayers and support!

Love,

Elder Keith Halterman

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