Sunday Drive 9-26-2010

We decided to take a Sunday drive because the colors are just beautiful right now.  We have been warned that WINTER is on it's way...so enjoy this beautiful weather while we can! 

The camera does not capture how vibrate the colors really are.

I loved this little trail!

Grant's picture taking skills!

We LOVE living in all this beauty.  Know that I will be taking all this back when
it starts to snow! ;)

South Africa: Hello Family! 9-26-2010

Hey family,
I'm glad you got my last letter, I got one of those error reports that said it did not send for a while, so I'm glad it eventually went through!

First of all I loved the pictures! Please print them out and send them...I don't know if color ink exists in Africa so I cant print them out (ha ha).
So sounds like you are not moving Grant up a year in school? Sounds like you got my letter to you, I'm glad because I have been worrying. I got mail this week which was sweet, but the dear elder must have messed up. Half the letters I just got were from the beginning of August. Thanks for the letters!

This has been a pretty event full week. First of all the brakes in our car are...non existent. So we got forbidden to drive our car, BUT we live 20 min freeway drive outside of our area? Figure that one out, we did! two of the Elders were able to get a ride from another district, but Elder Kelly and I hoped on the bikes and just rode into the area. It was really fun because we took the back roads to stay off the freeway and got to see a little bit of Africa off the beaten path. (no wildlife still, but we are going on a hike today so we will see). When we were on our ride we passed this hill/mountain thing they have here in Africa and we thought we saw people snowboarding down? We were more than curious so we decided to investigate. The side of the mountain is sand so there were a ton of people with these snowboards, boarding down the sandy hill. They were all drunk though so we had to leave...(I have grown to hate the affects of drinking while here in Africa, I'll get into that another time though).

Saturday night I got a call to give a talk in church over "preparing yourself spiritually for the second coming". I was really excited about this, but I literally had about a min and a half to prepare. I determined I would look over the subject in gospel principles class on Sunday and then speak in Sacrament, but when we got into gospel principles class someone had dropped the ball and no one was assigned to teach. I was assigned AS class was starting and so we had a lesson on "family responsibilities". I decided that I would have to do what D&C says and take no thought of what to say, but simply rely on the spirit. I did just that and it turned out to be a really good lesson. We had a good discussion about the importance of parents leading their children by example, and also the importance of helping out families that are not blessed with both parents in the home.

For sacrament meeting I still had not had time to prepare, so I relied on the spirit once more and it was by far the best talk I have ever given! No notes or anything, I used the scripture in 2 Peter 3:10 that talks about how the second coming will come as a thief in the night (you don't know when the thief is coming), and also 2 Nephi 31:20, enduring to the end. I centered my talk around seeing baptism as a gate and not a finish line. How we need to set our eyes towards the temple. The Lord does not confuse his children. There is no secret about what he wants us to do in this life: Faith, repent, baptism, receive the Holy ghost, endure to the end. Enduring to the end is one of the most important yet one of the most forgotten. It is important to read the scriptures, pray, go to church, etc. I also focused a lot on "Loving thy Neighbor". I have made it a goal of mine to get the home teaching program in Davyton running before I leave. Home teaching is not a burden, but rather an vitally important way of helping others when they need it.

I have been able to meet with the elders quorum president a few times in the past couple weeks, and they are really starting to get things going. By next week we should have every active member, and everyone baptised in the last year assigned a home teacher so that we can get the ward supporting itself rather than the missionaries supporting every aspect of the ward.

Before I forget I would appreciate it if you could look up a General Conference talk by President Erying. It was the one where he talked about having a journal that he wrote in each night and pondering upon how the Lord has helped him in his day. I have started one of those, I call it my Gratitude Journal and I would like to read that talk so he can show me how it is supposed to be done!

Just as a side note, Elder Holland comes in 2 and a half weeks! To say I'm excited would be an understatement.

Our district and companionship are going well. My companion and Elder Littlefield will probably be transferred in 3 weeks because they have been here for 6 months now, but we will see. Because our car is broken I have been able to see Elder Robinson a lot lately. He is the man! I also get to go on transfers with the Zone Leaders tomorrow. They are sending me to town for the first time! I'm so excited, but I think I have already forgotten how to talk to white people, so I am excited to see how that goes.

Well family, All is well here! Sounds like there is a lot going on at home, but it also sounds exciting!

Love you all,

Elder Williams

PS: Dad, I was wondering how much money I have in my account (the one attached to the card I brought). I can't remember if I put a couple hundred or a couple thousand, but I was wondering if you could check to see how much it charges when I take out. I withdrew 120 rand the other day so if you could let me know how much they take out in dollars that would be appreciated. As well, I try not to think about money while here on the mission, but I have 1 money comment I have to make and then I am done for two years. It appears that either the dollar is plummeting, or the rand is going up. Africa doesn't have to much economically going for them so I am assuming that the dollar is going down...fast. Before I got here it was 11:1 and now it is 6 or 7:1. All I'm saying is that if you feel comfortable currency trading, feel free to move my money out of the US dollar. Alright, enough said, I'm done thinking about money now.
(this would be my entrepreneurial son! ha)

Thanks for everything! Hope all is well back home with everyone!

PSS: sounds like Dylan is doing well on his mission. That is great to hear! I will try to write him one of these days. How is Colton doing? I have heard the work is good for him as well. Is his health improving?

A LETTER FROM GRANT

Blake,
I am doing a stamp collection. My first stamp is from your letter.

Have you had any more chicken legs? I have been playing football at school and at home with dad, and I have been playing on the Wii. We just watched a movie called Where the Red Fern Grows.

Some animal came and picked-up the mole, and we saw a deer track in the dirt. Cami saw three deer in our yard then they ran to Brett’s yard.

We drove to the mountains two times this weekend. We went hiking and I fell down. Mom hurt her ankle.

Have you learned any African? Have you had fun there?

Love
Grant

OK OK....FOR THOSE THAT KEEP ASKING FOR PICTURES OF THE HOUSE.

When my kids asked me which house we made the offer on...I said "The Ugly house" .

So that is how it was known in our family.  This is what they call a reverse walkout in

Canada so actually this is the back of the house but it is our front.  You don't see

many like this.  It is sure nothing like the Texas homes but it has a ton of potential

and I LOVE the views!

This is the dining room.  If you look close you can see the whole in the ceiling from

the leak we had in the tub the day after we moved in.  Welcome Home!  :)

This is what Stacy B. called decorating at it's finest!  She put this together and it

looks great!  I am not sure what I would have done without her help.  Honestly,

she breathed life back into me.  I was so spent from everything that had gone on. 

It was so fun to get the juices flowing again.  I am sure we would be the number one

reality show if they filmed us working together.  We  bantered back and forth and

laughed a ton.  Just for the record..If I said alittle to the left, Stacy would say no,

a little to the right.  I noticed that she would finally see it my way but it added to

the fun! (Oh I can't wait for Stacy to read this! :)





The mirror wall.  Honestly this is one of my favorite things in my house. Not only

do the mirrors all have a story but Stacy's Mom Tish started this idea and she,

Stacy and I all have a mirror wall in our homes.  Mine is the BEST!  OK  Stacy's

is pretty great to.  



The Family Room

The view from upstairs.  One thing that I love about the house is that I can stand

upstairs on the landing in my room and see all the way downstairs. 

 I know exactly what is going on the house.

The kitchen table. I love the view out my back window.

This is as you walk in the front door. 

Looking out my kitchen window

My bedroom.  No I do not have the bedding I want yet.  It is a work in progress. 

I just haven't found "IT".  OH Please do not tell Stacy I  haven't found

anything yet... she may loose sleep over it! ;) 

Steve's home office.  It is still a work in progress as well.

Notice the cow picture that MBB painted. I want to get a W to hang over it. 
 Love it!

The apartment.  One of the things we liked about the house is this apartment. 

It is great for company or if we ever need to have Mom come and stay for a while. 

The apartment needs updated but it has it own kitchen and  washer and dryer. 

Come Visit! Just be mindful that Stacy calls this "Her Quarters".

This is my view from my front steps.  This truly is my favorite thing about the house. 

 On clear days the mountains are in full view.  It is stunning here.





The back of the house

OK starting right now.....The FIRST person that comes for a visit gets to take

this wonderful billiard light fixture home.  I have a couple of beer plaques that

I will throw in just for fun!   The homes here are so expensive and not at all as

beautiful as Texas homes....but there are some great things here as well. 

I think (HOPE) we will learn to love it here.  



Boys Will Be Boys....

Football anyone!!??  Grant has a new friend (Jordan) that is as crazy about

sports as he is!  When they get together these two LOVE to wear their football

gear..helmets and all.  They will play this off and on all day!   Notice Jordan

has the BYU uniform and Grant has his beloved Miami Dolphins uniform. 

I hope that one day we can convert him over to BYU!!



This is so funny because when we lived in Texas Grant had a friend named

Blake that was twice as big as him. Grant loved to play tackle with everyone

BUT Blake.  Jordan is smaller than Grant so he of course wanted to play tackle. 

I finally had to tell him that he is like Blake to Jordan. I talked them into playing
FLAG football.  





This is serious business to these two boys.

We all got such a kick out of watching these boys play. ;)



South Africa: Hello Family! 9/20/2010

Hello Family!

How is everyone doing? I have not gotten mail, so I don't know how anyone is, and I don't see us getting mail in any of the upcoming weeks. But from reading the emails it sounds like everyone is doing well. Tyler good luck on your tests! Joel, make sure you smile in your interviews, and Cami good job on your talk!

Dad, your email was not too long last time, I just didn't have time to read and respond to it right then. Sound like everyone is being nice to the missionaries lately! Good job, keep it up! The missionaries must love being invited over for dinner! And don't just do it on Sundays, but if you spice it up and invite them over on a Wednesday or so, that is always nice also.

So Dad, it response to your garden comment, yes the garden is starting to grow. It is pretty exciting. It has a sprinkler head right next to it so we just have to go turn that on every day, but everyone here has gardens. Yes the ground is hard, rock rock hard, but we make gardens all the time. Probably about two a week. I really enjoy working with my hands, and as a result my hands are one giant blister! But its fun to garden. I am sure I told you, but we are also planting random seeds out of the fruits we eat just to see if they will grow.


Notice the smoke from one of the many fires that burn all the time.

 Mom, about the Cd's. I don't know what happened, but most of the stuff I downloaded did not work. That entire 100 song motab CD I got that I was SO excited about did not copy! And half of Tyler's Cd's did not copy either, although the ones that did copy are very good. We are not limited to motab, but that is probably my number 1. Enya and Yanni are tied for second and third. (oh and tell Grant it is OK to sell my games back ha ha, that kid cracks me up!)

So I have been a little worried lately that my letters are not making it to the states. It dawned on me about 2 weeks ago that sending international letters from a township post office is probably not the smartest thing I have ever done, so just let me know when you receive them. Carly I am sending you one today, so be on the look out.

Dad, you also asked about p-day. The word p-day is mis-leading because it is really p hours. We to wake up, exercise, and study like normal days and then leave around 10 to email. We usually try to do something fun during the day and then we start appointments again at 6. Our area has been slower lately. I mentioned that we do not spend any time tracking. This is becoming less true. We have spent more time tracking lately, which I enjoy because it allows you to meet many different kinds of people...which always results in a story. We too try to work with the ward, but find that hard. Our ward does not have many men in it and that is what we are focusing on, because 90% of the people there are women (not sure if that is an accurate guess). It also came to my attention yesterday that only about 20% of our ward actually shows up to church on Sunday. That is largely discouraging, but at the same time it is good to be involved with fixing such a large problem.

Oh dad, also can you send me some info about what you discussed on signs of the second coming in your class. This is probably my favorite subject, but one I have no time to study. I need to get more into the new testament to learn more!

I do not have much to report from the week. We had the opportunity to go to the temple this week, which is always exciting! The Joberg temple is very nice, but definitely the smallest I have ever been in...by a lot. We are also doing a baptism temple trip with some of our recent converts on October 9th!

We had another Baptism last night. Her name is Sister Agnis and she is the one that I told you about. The father is in active member, and we want them to make a goal to go to the temple to be sealed as a family. The son is 16 and I talked with him last night. We set a goal for him to be baptised in December ( which should be about the time I leave Daveyton).

This week I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Kelly. We do exchanges every week, but this was exciting because we brought the bikes to our area (and our area is so big that it is really a car area). Its amazing to see how many people don't even know who the missionaries are because we are in a car all day! It felt like we were opening up a new area with every ones reactions. They were like who are these two white kids riding around the township with white shirts and ties?? It was pretty fun!

OH and I almost forgot! That family that we baptised (the one I sent a photo home of) they gave their first talks yesterday at the baptism, and I felt bad because we told them at like 8 at night the night before! But they did awesome!

For my scripture reading for the week I somehow got to Joseph in Egypt. That story is SO good! There are countless lessons learned from this story, but the one I like the most is titled "Just run Joseph!". When Joseph was tempted with sin in Genesis 39:12, he did not stick around and try to talk his way out of the situation, or try to explain himself. He saw that he was in a situation that was not good and he got out of the situation as quickly as possible. He is the man! And then after he got out of the situation he reward was being thrown in prison. Only to then be put second in command over all of Egypt! Its such a good story! You should go back and read it for yourselves. Just start in Genesis 39 and go from there.

Well I better go, Glad to hear everyone is doing well! Thanks for the picture mom, that looks fun! please print it and send it to me whenever you send me something next. Pictures are awesome!

Love you all!

Elder Williams

(the photos attached 1. The temple! 2. I got to go on bikes this week and elder Kelly was taking photos of me ha ha 3. The sweet sunset, but for some reason the sun is like a third of the size it was in real life? 4. you have to blow the picture up to see but I was riding through a flock of birds...)

IT'S A SMALL WORLD AND IN THE CHURCH IT IS EVEN SMALLER!

Just a couple months after we moved to Canada my dear friend Angi moved

to California.  She had mentioned that I should look out for an Elder Draper

from California as he is in my mission and Angi and his Mom have become 
friends. As fate would have it I had been asked to help serve a lunch the
very next week to missionaries for a Mission Conference.  I called Angi
and told her I would look for Elder Draper. Elder Draper's Mom Teri
called me and was so excited that I would see her son today! 
It is funny how thrilled we are as Mothers that someone we may not
even know gets to see and talk to our missionaries! If you have ever
had a missionary out.. you know exactly what I mean! I was so happy
to track down Elder Draper and his Zone.  I think they all enjoyed the
 attention as well! Elder Draper is the one in the middle.



The Zone



Now this was a BONUS for ME!!  While I was in the kitchen preparing the meal

a sister asked which General Authority was here.  Someone answered her...

President Zivic of the 70's.  I gasped!!  They said what?  I said he was my 

oldest son Tyler's Mission  President in Spain!! After he had eaten I went up

and asked if they remembered Tyler.  They both jumped out of their chairs

and gave me the biggest hugs...It was a tender and teary moment for me as

I know how much Tyler loves them and what a wonderful influence for good

they have had on his life.  They were thrilled to talk and said some very sweet

things about my boy.  I felt a bit like a groupie and guilty for taking the time away

from the missionaries but for some reason I felt like the Lord sent me a

blessing today. :) The only reason I took my camera was to take a picture of Elder

Draper.  Good thing I had it with me!



After lunch was over the whole group sang Army of Helaman.  At the end they

sang and thank you for the food....It was moving and darling all at the same time. 

I couldn't help but think about my Blake in South Africa serving in much the same

way these boys are.  I am so thankful for the members there that are good to him. 

It was a wonderful day!

HEY BUFFALO 9/17/2010



This is Grant and his new friend Jordan.  I took the boys to see this field of
Buffalo I had seen earlier on in the week. 



Carly and Joel taught Grant the game called "Hey Cow". When you pass a
field of cows you scream as loud as you can "HEY  COW" !  You get a point
for each cow that turns to look at you....Well we live in the country and so we
play "HEY EVERYTHING"!  Here the boys are playing "HEY BUFFALO"! 
We have gotten more than a few laughs out of this game! :)  



Welcome to Canada! 9/17/2010

This is what we woke up to this morning.  Granted it is only a skiff of SNOW but it is

snow indeed and it is only Sept. Camille walked out of her room this morning

and said...What is this!  I said it SNOWED..welcome to Canada Sister.  She

just moaned!  :) 



This is the deck on the back of the house. 



You can see that the snow did not stick much on the ground but 
look at the roof tops! 



So I guess it is the season for fireplaces and hot chocolate!  I am afraid we are in for

 a long cold winter!



Welcome to the 21st Century!

News Flash!  I am now the PROUD owner of a garbarator or in US terms a garbage disposal!!!  Honestly,  how do people live without those things!!

South Africa: Hello Again 9/13/2010

The garden

Hello Family!

How is everyone doing? Before I forget, Mom, I sent you an email with two pictures from this week. I have not been taking many photos lately, but those were two from this week.

Dad, thank you for your letters, they are both very long and I am short on time this week so I have printed them out and will get back to you next Monday.

Grant, you are a big silly!

So parents I saw your Canadian friends here last week! Even though I don't know them it was still pretty exciting. We went to the office and when I was getting mail (I GOT THE PACKAGE) this couple missionaries said hi and were like wait! your elder Williams with family in Canada!? And so we talked for a bit, that was pretty fun.

But yes I got your package! It was so exciting! We had a big party in the flat to open it up and it was so fun! Axel, they loved your ties! We actually played games to see who would get first pick in the ties. Lucky I won! and...I didn't get to read your note until about 30 min after opening the package, and by that time the Elders had already gone crazy with the toys meant for the African children...so..sorry about that. I still have a few things left I can give them though. It was mainly just those tablets you put in water and they form into dinosaurs. Yea...that kept them entertained for a good hour at least! And the pictures were amazing! Missionaries LOVE pictures! So you were asking me what I want in the next package..um...I don't really know. Pictures, Motab CD? Talks on taps? you know, the nerdy missionary stuff! CHEAP ties (I'm in Africa, ties do not last so make them cheep), and the lifesavers were good! OH! and the pens were amazing as well! ha ha

Speaking of packages though I started teaching this family the other day and when I went into his house I discovered that he loves to make painting like I did! I literally spent 30 min talking to him about his paintings and how cool they are. I attached a picture of my favorite one. and he paints them on a lot of different things. He had a couple that were on sheets of tin, wood, this carpet material, everything! So yea..I'm gonna need to baptize him so that we can remain best friends. But I have only met with him once so far and he already loves us, and the best part...he said he wants to make me a painting!! So my question is, how much would it cost to send a painting around the world? everywhere from 1ft by 1ft to 5ft by 5ft? Everywhere from $50-what? I may just have to make the investment to ship it home.

Also, if you have not yet bought the ctr ring, good! idk (I don't know)what my comp is thinking but we just measured him again and now he is saying 9.5 not 19, so I am not sure how measurement's work, but whatever one seams like it would fit me (19 or 9.5) just get that one)

So I have a couple stories from this week I would like to share. In the mission field you get to experience a lot of miracles, I would like to talk about two that happened. So early in the week we got a call around 7 in the morning telling us that we needed to get into the area to give a blessing. We asked if it could wait until 10:30 when we would be there, but they said it was to urgent, so we jumped in the car and went straight to the area. It took us a while to find this house because we had never even met this lady before, but we eventually found it, walked in, and found a lady very close to death. Mentally and physically she was not all there and we had no idea what was wrong. All we were told by her aunt was that she needed a blessing. This lady was so sick that she could not even sit up during the blessing. We left the house immediately after and I was expecting a call that day telling us that she had died, but the call never came.

Fast forward to the next day. We were tracking housed and we got into a house where a father was very very sick. We asked if he could come to the living room and it took a few min just for him to walk from one room to the other. He was in better shape than the lady, but in Africa, once you go down hill health wise, your body ends up 6ft underground. We talked to the man for a while and he said that he had been sick for 3 months. In fact he was so sick that he could not even watch the world cup in the next room. That right there just tells how sick he was because south Africans did anything and everything to watch the world cup. Also, the doctors had not been able to figure out what was wrong with him. We offered to give him a blessing and I was told to do the anointing. Honestly that was one of the times I have physically felt the spirit the most. I laid my hands on his head and when I said "by the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood" It was like I could almost FEEL the spirit going through my hands! Now I know that's not possible because the spirit is not physical, but that's how real it felt! Elder Onsongo gave him a blessing promising him that he would be healed. (I was a little worried about your promise to be honest  because he was not in great shape)  Anyway, we once again left and set up an appointment to see him 2 days later.

Back to the Lady. We went back two days after giving the blessing and did not find her in her house! So we looked around a bit and found her in the neighboring house, just hanging out in the front room watching TV! We talked a bit and turns out she is has HIV. But long story short with that one, not only did she not die that day, but she was up and about. We invited them to come to church and they said they already have their church....so we got nowhere with that one ha ha. We asked them to simply read the plan of salvation pamphlet (15 pages, bold lettering double spaced, half the pages are pictures) and they didn't even keep that commitment.

Now back to the man. We went back two days later and he too was not in! they said he had gone on vacation! So lets just outline this real fast. This man was stuck in his room for 3 months because he was so sick, we give him a blessing, he recovers, goes on a vacation, and fails to even call us to say he will not be at our appointment. But that's OK, he got back yesterday and we were able to talk to him. We talked to him a bit and he seams to be pretty excited about the gospel. Ill try to keep you in tune with that one.

Once again I leave myself with only a couple min for spiritual insight for the week, but Ill try. This week I was reading in second Nephi 29:6-9. The whole thing stuck out to me, but my favorite part was when the lord says "because I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my work is not yet finished." This stuck out to me because here we have a lot of people that are against the book of Mormon, prophets, etc because they say it is the bible and that is it. That is really restrictive of someone to say that. To say that the lord has this short window of time to say all that he wants his children to hear, and not only that, but it has to all be written and documented (in the bible) or else he did not say it. This section also made me realize the importance of listening to modern day prophets. The lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He speaks to his children now just as he did in biblical times and it is just as important, if not more so to listen to his words now (through the prophets) than it is to see what he said to his children thousands of years ago. So get excited for General conference coming up. Get your pens out and take notes!

Alright my time is out!

Thanks for all your letters and prayers!

Love you!

Elder Williams

Small Town Country Fair 9/11/2010

On Saturday we headed out to our community's country fair.  It was so fun to see all
of the different and unusual entries .  We saw everything from the biggest vegetable
to the weirdest shaped ones.  This was my favorite part of the fair.  Grant is so
excited to enter something next year.  I am not sure what we will enter but we will
enter something!  I am so glad that my kids get to be exposed to this small town
country feel.    

Grant with the pony at the kids petting zoo.  

Grant was so excited to ride this horse named Spice.

They had these bicyclist doing a show.  They were pretty impressive.

They even had a football game going on.  Steve and Grant enjoyed sitting

and watching the football game. Football is NOTHING like it is in

Texas but it was fun anyway!

They had several boxes that the kids had to stick their hands in to feel and guess 
what was inside.  Camille and Grant had a contest to see who got the most right. 
They even had the trimming of horses hoofs.  Now that was a bit gross in my book
but thank heavens they also had Purell....

This was my favorite part of the fair.  All of these entries for all sorts of things. 
This was the baked goods part.  I am sure my friends Christine R. and Krista M.
would have cleaned up in this category. On the way out to the car we stopped
and bought some fresh picked corn on the cob and had it for dinner.  Now that is
a day in the country and what a fun day it was!