Rabie Ridge II

The area is awesome!  Rabie Ridge is a townships just about a 40 minute drive away from Joburg.  We live in a town called Midrand.  The hardest part about the whole experience is the fact that there's only two weeks left in the transfer!  I've fallen in love with the people here, and I hope I stay for another transfer or two.

Eat up: moppani worms... I could only handle ten. And i still had cramps all night.  Greatest dish ever.

The District is as follows:

Elder Laminie - He's from Port Elizabeth, SA.  He's a coloured, so he's crazy.  His teaching skills are amazing, the laughs we have are uncapped, and the thirst is real for this guy.

Elder A'home'e - He's a pure bred Tongan. His laugh is absolutely, ridiculously addictive, the ladies can't get enough of him (which isn't a good thing), and his Spirit is powerful.

Elder Carr - [I said more about him with the pic last week]

Pretty awesome guys here.

To come next week, highlights of the area and other good stuff.

-Elder Benson

Sassy selfie with Zizo, yours truly, and Lisa:

Rabie Ridge

This picture kind of defines Rabie Ridge 2 at the moment.

Front right is the best comp in the world, Elder Carr.  Pro Rugby player, ex-lady killer, and spiritual giant.

Front left is yours truly, Elder Benson.

Back row is John aka Elder John.  He's a member who's currently doing absolutely nothing with his life except coming out with us everyday.  He's an awesome guy and I hope he'll get married in the near or probably distant future.

Letter to President Dunn

Hey President!

Seeing that I'm about to head out to Rabie Ridge, I just wanted to thank you for allowing me to serve in Potch/Ikageng these past three transfers.  It's difficult to describe the experience, other than joyful.  It's been a roller coaster through it all; but looking back, I can only be grateful.

A highlight of this week was the exchange that took place on Saturday.  It was an incredible learning experience.  Elder Jorgensen went to Klerksdorp and Elder Zitumane came here.  We visited a member named Sister Bobbi.  She's truly a pioneer in Africa missionary work.  The Charchenko's have a lot of her history if you're interested.  She's been a dear friend of mine while being here in Potch.  We had an incredible visit with her that was filled with the Spirit.

Right afterwards, we went to Promosa, a township just out of Ikageng.  We were planning on visiting an investigator named Moses.  He was a powerful investigator with an extreme desire to know more about the gospel and the peace it brings.  We were going to put him on date!  However, when we arrived, we were met by his friend Njabulo, who is on date for March.  He told us that Moses has committed suicide the night before.  The news hit me pretty hard.  With the renewed faith I've come to find in the Plan of Salvation, I was at peace.  But nonetheless, I was still pretty shaken up.

Through it all, it was a big learning experience for me.  From my journal that night, I wrote this:

"The question is raised, 'How could a dear friend, who I had the privilege of teaching and blessing, who I helped spark a flame within, go from a man with hope for the future to committing himself to such a terrible end?'  To uplift and care so much for a soul in anguish is one of the most rewarding experiences one can have, for this is a glimpse into what Christ did and continues to do for all of us.  The charity that I felt for Moses was a divine gift from on high."

Through it all, I've come out on top.  I've found great strength in writing out my feelings in my journal.  I'm moving on from it all, ready to serve in Rabie Ridge and find new experiences there.

Magic Number Four

A lot of awesome things happening here in Potch/Ikageng.  Four things that are worth mentioning:

4 Months In:

It doesn't feel like I jumped on a plane to South Africa four months ago!!  It's weird seeing how much you can change in such a short amount of time!  Hopefully Africa hasn't changed me too much!

4 Weeks Left:

Four weeks left in Potchefstroom!  I can't believe that I have to leave the people in this area.  There's so much potential here!  We've recently began reteaching all of the college students who have returned from the holidays, and many are progressing nicely.  There's a lot of new investigators that we've also met in the hospital as I've played my violin for the terminally ill patients.  On top of that, the branch is growing!  We've consistently hit over sixty people in attendance over the past month, and they're all diving into missionary work!

It's definitely going to be hard for me to leave behind the people here.  Many life-long friends made and many being brought to their Savior.

4 New Investigators:

This week we've had four new investigators!!  All of them have stemmed from an investigator of ours: Njabulo.  He's a powerful human being!  He's allowing Christ to really take control of his life!  He's leaving behind his life as a full-out gangster and sengoma-believer to Christian.  He's so humble and he's on date for March 20th!

4 People on Date:

Yep!  Like just stated, we have Njabulo on date for March 20th.  There's also Verlicity (Feb. 28th), Vusi (Mar. 28th), and Torraffe (Mar. 7th).

Torraffe has quite an amazing story:

She's the daughter of a short, ugly english man and a tall, beautiful African supermodel.  They fell in love, and eventually had their first child.  They named her Torraffe; it's a mixture of tortoise and giraffe because short-and-ugly and tall-and-beautiful.  She's had a rough life after her parents divorced, and now has 5 children.  She's was looking for the true church, but she wasn't having very much success.  But one day, while she was working at Vodacom (mobile provider) when the missionaries (Elder Asay+I) walked in.  In her own words, she described them as angels walking into the room, filling the room with light.  She immediately asked them what church they belonged to, and scheduled an appointment with them.

And now here we are today, with Torraffe progressing towards the waters of baptism and Elder Benson being a very joyful missionary.

Here's a cool little acronym I learned about how to have JOY:

Jesus

Others

You

As we put others before ourselves, but most importantly put Christ first in our life, we will find greater healing, greater satisfaction, and greater JOY in our lives.  He descended below us all; all we have to do is allow Him to lift us higher.

-Elder Benson

PS Pray for me!! Next week, cow intestine and chicken feet are on the menu!!

I am now officially "Tshepo"

It's been a hard couple of weeks.   I've been robbed.  I've gone to the ER (don't worry, I only had my fingernail ripped out).  I'm going in for blood tests to see if I've contracted some creepy-sounding African parasite. . . 

Now the good news!  We went from 30 people in sacrament meeting to 60.  We're receiving more referrals than ever.  We went from 0 people on date from baptism two weeks ago to 4 on date.  Many, many reactivated less active members of the branch.  I was given an African name (Tshepo-trust).  I've developed a closer bond with my Savior than ever before in my life.  And I love it all!  The whole picture, bad and good, is highly addictive and is just plain fun!!

The mission is the greatest.  It is the worst.  I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.  But I definitely wouldn't want my best friend to miss out on the experience.

Please just keep me in your prayers.  I'm going to need it.  I love you all so much!!

-Elder Benson

Ultimate Challenge: Contacting While Being Mugged

Another event checked off of the bucket list!  This is even better than the dogs.  Here's the story:

Elder Jorgensen, my trainee, had a prompting to visit an investigator, so we went to the apartment complex where he lived.  We found him on his way to work, and we scheduled an appointment with him.  With nothing to do, we started contacting people on the street.  It started to get a little dark, so we were en-route back to our car when a man approached us.  He described that he was in a dire situation and needed to contact his mother.

Side-note: Even if the situation seems harmless, always follow the mission rules.

Seeing no harm in the situation, we allowed Guy #1 one phone call on the phone (that's against mission policy).  He called his "mother", and we asked for our phone back.  But Guy 1 ignored us and proceeded to walk down the street to where his "mother" was waiting.  We attempted to regain control over our phone, to which he continued to protest and walked into an alley right next to us.  Not two steps into the alley, I stepped in front of him and told him to stop.  He puts the phone in his pocket and tells us to calm down.  Guy #2 walks into the alley from the direction we had just come from.  They begin to converse in their own language, and we noticed that Guy 2 was playing with something in his waist belt: a knife.

Just our luck: we were getting mugged.

Guy 1 asked for some money.  Luckily, I remembered a week prior to carry some cash in my handbook in case of robberies.  I gave the guy the 100 Rand I had in my handbook and told him it was more than plenty.  Guy 1 and Guy 2 looked pretty disappointed and asked for more.  We emptied our pockets, our handbooks, everything, with no luck.  Obviously a little irritated, Guy 1 said ,"How about we go to the ATM?"

They began to lead us to the ATM just 50 meters down the road.  Me, being a missionary and trying not to make a scene, gave Guy 2 a pass-along card.  He asked what it was and I explained that it was a pass-along card.  He looked curious and then asked what we did as missionaries.  I told him that we testify of Jesus Christ and we help people draw closer to him.  I quickly took out another 150 Rand and gave it to the guys.  Guy 1 proceeded to leave, but Guy 2 said that he'd give the number a call.

I feel that regardless if we had given the guys our phone, we would've been robbed one way or another.  But this made the whole situation a whole lot worse because we disobeyed one of the mission rules, even though it seemed like it was for a righteous cause.

To my future missionaries out there: don't break any mission rules.  There are here for your protection.  I feel so blessed to be protected while out in the mission field, but I feel bad for justifying a simple rule.

On the bright side, I only lost 250 rand, which is around 20 american dollars.  But that's a whole week of my allotment so I'll be living off of instant dinners for a while!!  My son is pretty shaken up by the whole thing, but I'm doing good so no need to worry about me.  We've received calls from President, The Zone Leaders, and many other Church Representatives to help us out.  I'm really glad it happened actually!  It taught me a lesson, allowed me to check off being mugged on my bucket list, and gave us a chance to do some contacting.

Don't have any time left to write about everything else.  I love you all!  Stay safe, stay strong, stay true.

-Elder Benson

How to Do Holidays in Africa

First: get together with your zone and have a giant waterfight.

Two: get together with your branch and have a barbecue. 

Three: Don't get sick with the flu.

There hasn't been much this week to write about.  I got sick with the flu so I've been chilling inside the flat studying the scriptures and watching church movies.

There's two kinds of churches in Africa.  One, like in Potch,

held in school houses surrounded by barbed wire....

.... Two, held in beautiful chapels,

again surrounded by fencing and barbed wire.

No matter where you go, the Spirit of the Lord can always be with you.  You can stand in holy places wherever you go.  I've made it a resolution to always have a prayer in my heart and to stand in holy places at all times.  I hope that we can all stick to our resolutions, and that not too many people paid for a gym membership they won't use.

-Elder Benson

It's true.