March 3, 2014

Wow the time just flies buy. I cant believe that transfers are already here!! This week Elder Pimentel will be the new Assistant and Elder Whitaker will be serving with me here in Luanda 2. I am going to really miss Elder Pimentel. I have loved working with him. He has helped me learn so much. He is a great missionary!! But I am also excited to work with Elder Whitaker. I don't really know him, never lived with him or served with him, so it should be really fun!!

 

We always did have a great BBall team! I love hearing from all of you and I am so glad that you are all doing well! Something that has been on my mind lately is the mission (I know, of course) But missionaries are serving their two years and going home and we are not receiving more missionaries. They are going but not coming. When I got here there were 42ish and now this week with Transfers we will be down to 32. Visas are not being released. I know that the Lord has a purpose for everything, I trust him. He knows whats best for Angola.

 

But we had a great week. It was a little slower because of Zone meeting and interviews with President. Oh yeah,...we had Zone meeting and it went 100 times better than the last. I actually had a lot of fun. I don't know if the missionaries learned a whole lot but I sure did and I had a blast doing it! the meeting lasted about 2 hours and at the end we ate with Irma Gomez. She is from Venezuela so she speaks Spanish mixed with Portuguese. its really hard for me to understand. But she is an amazing lady!!

This Saturday we will be having 4 baptisms!! The three sisters and Irma Marinet! We finally got their forms signed by their older brother. It was a long and agonizing process but finally its almost all worked out. We are still waiting on a few things. Also at church we had 14 investigators come!! Holy smokes I was blown away! What a blessing!!! The Lord is helping us so much!

Elder «Cook of the 70 came and gave a training to us and the Local Church leaders. It was very cool. But I was asked to translate for some of the other missionaries so I lost a lot of the content. It was hard for me to focus. Whew, translating is a tough job, I had a whopping headache after. trying to listen in one language and then repeat it in another is no easy task. I'm not sure if they were able to understand what I was saying the whole time. But I made it through. But I was touched by the Spirit in a few specific moments. And there it was all worth it to me. I strongly believe in personal revelation. I also have found that we need to write down the ideas that come to our head as a soon as possible or they will fade away. Heavenly Father is good enough to give us the inspiration so we need to take care of it.

 

I wish you all the best of the best! I love you all so much!!! Thank you!

Elder Dredge