Sister oh Sister,
How are you doing? I didn't get my weekly Grant letter! What happened there?
I wanted to write you a letter this week, but then it turned into this way to deep super complicated story about life, so I will work on it and it should get to you sometime. But I had an experience this week that I thought you and I could both learn from so I wanted to share it with you. I KNOW that in almost every letter I send you I talk about being grateful, have a good attitude, etc. But I just want to emphasize it AGAIN! So this week I had a sad experience. I had the privilege of meeting with a man who did not have anything going for him in life. He had no Job, his wife left him, he lives in a shack, I could go on and on but the point is, everything you and I have going for us, he did not have. After talking with him for a bit he broke down to me and told me how he had just sold everything that he did have in order to purchase a gun (which he had in the house) so that he could take his life. I will not go into details for obvious reasons, but I had a very powerful hour with this man where we talked him out of taking his life.
This and experiences like this get me to think of how blessed we are back home. Fast forward a couple days in the story and this man came to church. He was so happy. I had never seen something so simple as attending church make someone so happy before.
The moral of the story is to count your many blessings. We can either go through life complaining about the things that we do not have, or the things that are not going our way, OR we can go through life rejoicing and giving thanks for the things that we have been abundantly blessed with. If we give thanks, it is obvious to see that we will be much happier, instead of complaining about, school, weather, friends, etc.
Things to do:
1. Look for the good this week. Focus your efforts on finding good in the situation instead of the bad.
2. Show that you recognize the good. I learned something very interesting in school before I came on my mission. We had a lesson one day about the power of complimenting people. I tried it out and amazingly it was very affective. As you strive to look for the good in someone, and complement them, that person thinks of you as a much better person than they did before, and you feel happy as well.
This week I would like you to try at LEAST 3 complements per day on 3 different people. One of those need to be in your family each day as well. THEN if you don't mind, write me a letter at the end of the week and let me know how it goes.
Alright I better go write a family letter now!
Love you
Elder Williams
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
South Africa: Family!! Nov. 22nd 2010
Hello Family!
Sounds like half of you are freezing in Canada at the moment. Well it is definitely getting very hot here lately. We are just starting summer and I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to deal with the middle of the summer in a white shirt and tie. Sorry I have not sent many pictures lately, I don't think I had many exciting ones but attached I put a picture of a car that I was working on this week! (Brother Williams is teaching me how to work on cars). There is a picture of the worms we ate, my friend, and Brother Williams family at the Baptism.
Mom, to answer your question of the package, if you are around a pen store and want to pick up more "fine tip zebra f-301" pens that would be greatly appreciated. Their kind of a mission favorite so Elder Kelly tends to take some as well. But thank you in advance for the package! I will check for your letter when I have the chance. We have not checked mail in over a month now, but transfers are in a week and a half so we will check then. I MIGHT get transferred, but it is not likely.
So I don't really have an intense story to share this week...I only had one and a half highly intense moments this week but I should not share the one, and the half was just two taxies running orange lights at the same time right in front of us and they crashed head on. It was pretty intense, but only enough to count as half of an intense on an African scale.
This week however we had an African area broadcast. This was exciting! So we showed up to church and no one really knew what broadcast we were watching, we thought it was just a stake conference, but then when it turned on we saw elder Oaks and President Packer sitting there! So turns out it was an Southern Africa Area broadcast from Salt L:ake City. Elder Oaks talk was the second best I have heard lately, closely behind the one Elder Holland gave us missionaries. Here in Africa there are a lot of traditional things that go on. This was the topic of Elder Oaks talk. He addressed almost every sensitive issue I could think of! Including (but not limited to): Lebola, which is the purchasing of your wife for marriage. Just think of that one sisters if your husband had to pay for you! That ritual goes as follows: The fathers of the husband and wife meet together and discuss how many cows the woman is worth. factors in this include everything from her beauty to her education. Once they decide on how many cows she is worth they have to figure out how much those cows are worth so they can pay with cash. So for example if they agreed she was worth 6 cows the husbands wife could say that she is not beautiful enough for this to be 6 healthy fat cows, so she is only worth 2 fat cows and 4 skinny cows. Anyway! turns out the church is against this practice because no one actually ends up paying the cost and people just live together without being married.
He also gave an interesting statistic. He said that 40% of all children now born in the US are born outside of a father/mother family. This statistic shocked me because Africa has to be twice that, if not more. But he addressed all the traditional issues and told the churches stance on them. I was surprised when members who still practice these traditions greatly enjoyed the talk. They said that it was amazing how tuned in the prophet and apostles are to their individual needs and challenges they are facing today! I loved it as well.
If you could somehow find a copy of that talk I would more than enjoy it. Thanks
On a separate not, our district has been working a lot with the ward lately. (While trying to stay as positive as I can), our ward is falling apart and has been sense before I got here. I told you earlier that our inactive rate when I got here was 80 percent. Well that is only growing. We have been trying to work with ward leaders to correct the problem, but with slow if any progress. We have looked for help from up top but we have been counseled to take the problem into our hands and fix it. This is actually good news for us because it has been hard to work through ward leaders. We are still to involve them as much as possible, but we are to make sure the problem gets fixed. Some of the ways we are doing this is by organizing a choir to get people to know each other, organizing frequent, regular temple trips, organizing a ward mission plan, and I have been put in charge of making sure the visiting and home teaching gets going.
I have been working on Home Teaching since I got here and I was finally able to see the fruits of my labor last night. I have worked with the elders quorum president to assign home teachers to individuals. Surprisingly that is a large task. Last night I was visiting a recent convert when his home teachers showed up! I was so excited because I had only asked them once and yet they did it! Situations like that show us that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
I actually have really enjoyed working on programs for the ward. I have grown to love solving problems while on my mission and I will have plenty of opportunities to do that here.
Well I am out of time. Love you all
Elder Williams
I am having trouble down loading the pictures that Blake sent this week. I will post them as soon as I can figure it out.
sw
 |
| Look what's for dinner! |
Hello Family!
Sounds like half of you are freezing in Canada at the moment. Well it is definitely getting very hot here lately. We are just starting summer and I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to deal with the middle of the summer in a white shirt and tie. Sorry I have not sent many pictures lately, I don't think I had many exciting ones but attached I put a picture of a car that I was working on this week! (Brother Williams is teaching me how to work on cars). There is a picture of the worms we ate, my friend, and Brother Williams family at the Baptism.
Mom, to answer your question of the package, if you are around a pen store and want to pick up more "fine tip zebra f-301" pens that would be greatly appreciated. Their kind of a mission favorite so Elder Kelly tends to take some as well. But thank you in advance for the package! I will check for your letter when I have the chance. We have not checked mail in over a month now, but transfers are in a week and a half so we will check then. I MIGHT get transferred, but it is not likely.
So I don't really have an intense story to share this week...I only had one and a half highly intense moments this week but I should not share the one, and the half was just two taxies running orange lights at the same time right in front of us and they crashed head on. It was pretty intense, but only enough to count as half of an intense on an African scale.
This week however we had an African area broadcast. This was exciting! So we showed up to church and no one really knew what broadcast we were watching, we thought it was just a stake conference, but then when it turned on we saw elder Oaks and President Packer sitting there! So turns out it was an Southern Africa Area broadcast from Salt L:ake City. Elder Oaks talk was the second best I have heard lately, closely behind the one Elder Holland gave us missionaries. Here in Africa there are a lot of traditional things that go on. This was the topic of Elder Oaks talk. He addressed almost every sensitive issue I could think of! Including (but not limited to): Lebola, which is the purchasing of your wife for marriage. Just think of that one sisters if your husband had to pay for you! That ritual goes as follows: The fathers of the husband and wife meet together and discuss how many cows the woman is worth. factors in this include everything from her beauty to her education. Once they decide on how many cows she is worth they have to figure out how much those cows are worth so they can pay with cash. So for example if they agreed she was worth 6 cows the husbands wife could say that she is not beautiful enough for this to be 6 healthy fat cows, so she is only worth 2 fat cows and 4 skinny cows. Anyway! turns out the church is against this practice because no one actually ends up paying the cost and people just live together without being married.
He also gave an interesting statistic. He said that 40% of all children now born in the US are born outside of a father/mother family. This statistic shocked me because Africa has to be twice that, if not more. But he addressed all the traditional issues and told the churches stance on them. I was surprised when members who still practice these traditions greatly enjoyed the talk. They said that it was amazing how tuned in the prophet and apostles are to their individual needs and challenges they are facing today! I loved it as well.
If you could somehow find a copy of that talk I would more than enjoy it. Thanks
On a separate not, our district has been working a lot with the ward lately. (While trying to stay as positive as I can), our ward is falling apart and has been sense before I got here. I told you earlier that our inactive rate when I got here was 80 percent. Well that is only growing. We have been trying to work with ward leaders to correct the problem, but with slow if any progress. We have looked for help from up top but we have been counseled to take the problem into our hands and fix it. This is actually good news for us because it has been hard to work through ward leaders. We are still to involve them as much as possible, but we are to make sure the problem gets fixed. Some of the ways we are doing this is by organizing a choir to get people to know each other, organizing frequent, regular temple trips, organizing a ward mission plan, and I have been put in charge of making sure the visiting and home teaching gets going.
I have been working on Home Teaching since I got here and I was finally able to see the fruits of my labor last night. I have worked with the elders quorum president to assign home teachers to individuals. Surprisingly that is a large task. Last night I was visiting a recent convert when his home teachers showed up! I was so excited because I had only asked them once and yet they did it! Situations like that show us that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
I actually have really enjoyed working on programs for the ward. I have grown to love solving problems while on my mission and I will have plenty of opportunities to do that here.
Well I am out of time. Love you all
Elder Williams
I am having trouble down loading the pictures that Blake sent this week. I will post them as soon as I can figure it out.
sw
Monday, November 15, 2010
South Africa: Hello Family Nov. 15, 2010
Hello Family!
It's a wonderful day and great to hear from you all!
Its good to hear that the Canada house is turning into a bit of a party house! Grant Keep up the good work and try to finish the Book of Mormon ASAP!
Well, Sounds like you enjoyed the story of driving the kid to the hospital last week. If I had known you enjoyed stories like that I would include them more often. If you want to hear about something just let me know. If its intense/exciting, I experience it here. But I have no time to write in my journal lately, so I will start trying to include at least one story from the week as a bit of a journal via e-mail.
This week was pretty exciting. We had 3 baptisms yesterday. This was Brother William and his family. Probably the first family I have found on my own efforts, taught the whole way through and then baptised. Two members of the family failed the baptism interview, but we are still working on them and they are scheduled to be baptised in 2 weeks. Brother Williams is a massive guy so he had to be baptised on his knees and his son (who is a member) performed the baptisms. It was very exciting to see them baptised. I'm happy for the family.
We also had zone conference this week. They are doing a lot of changes to missionary work lately, so we had a 6 zone conference, led by the Mission President. When I say its changing, what I mean is that in the past they used to use the memorized lessons, then in 2002ish they went to Preach My Gospel which was the move for missionaries to teach by the spirit. What ended up happening though was that missionaries would pretty much learn the steps in a lesson, and then use the spirit to decide which lesson to teach. Once they decided on the lesson, the spirit was not used AS MUCH as it should have been. So the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 came out with these "8 new lessons" Which are not really lessons at all, but teaching you to use the spirit in everything you do. So instead of making a lesson plan before a lesson and saying "OK were going to teach the restoration. I will take points ABCD and you take points 1234" you go into the lesson saying "What commitment do we want to see at the end of the lesson?"..."Praying as a family each day, alright, then we will use lesson 4 which is revelation through prayer". You then go into the lesson and rely solely on the spirit to help you achieve that commitment. This is done a lot by asking inspired questions.
Not really sure how I just got onto that tangent, but yes, that is what we are working on, and it is helping out A LOT. The mission is also focusing on the Ward mission plan to get the wards involved in missionary work. Our mission has a goal for 2010 baptisms in 2010. We may or may not hit that goal, but either way the president made it clear on Wednesday that 2000 a year is not enough. there are 48 million people in South Africa and 2000 is a slight drop in the bucket. The only way the gospel is going to be preached to the world is by getting members involved. A quote a ran across this week in preach my Gospel which I liked goes as follows, "It will Be a great day when our people not only pray for the missionaries throughout the world, but ask the Lord to help them to assist the missionaries who are laboring in their own ward" -President Hinckley So in summery, Help the missionaries in your ward!
OK so it is time for a story from the week. As far as I can remember in detail (which is about Saturday), I have not physically saved any ones life this week, but I had another story that I wanted to remember, so you get to hear it! So last night Elder Matunya and I got to go teach this man named Brother Paul. Background on Brother Paul is that we found him in the area book as a man taught by missionaries 2 years ago. The missionaries were pulled out of the area so he has not been taught sense then. Paul is a good guy, has a family, job and little "tuck shop" connected to his house (tuck shop is a little shop on every corner here that sells bread, drinks, soap, basics). He uses his shop as an excuse to get out of all his commitments, reading, church, etc.our commitment was to be "get him to read the book of Mormon every day, or drop him" (sorry it sounds kind of harsh). Well when we got into the lesson, we started talking about the importance of the Book of Mormon and scriptures in general. We used one of my favorite teaching methods of likening the scriptures to him. I likened him to Nephi when the Lord had commanded him to build a ship. And he said that if the Lord had told him to build a ship that he would do whatever it took to build a ship because he knew that the Lord would provide a way (Good answer Paul!). So then I felt the impression to get him to keep the sabbath day holy, so I was like "that is great Paul, but I have good news, because the Lord has not commanded you to build a ship, he has commanded something much easier of you". So I turned with him to Exodus 20 and read the commandment of keeping the sabbath day holy and how we should not work on Sunday. So I pretty much told him via the scriptures that he needed to close him tuck shop on Sunday. Once this sunk in he got TICKED. He was SO mad at me! To the point that he had tears of anger in his eyes and I packed up my scriptures because I was convinced I was going to be thrown out of that house at any moment. He turned his argument away from doing what the Lord has commanded to, "If my conscience does not tell me it is wrong, it is not wrong" (typical Daveyton answer). Well this is the part that blows my mind. My companion and I were somehow able to bring the spirit back into the lesson and we were walking out of his house 5 min later with:
1. A commitment to read a chapter out of the Book of Mormon.
2. Pray specifically to know if Joseph smith was a prophet
3. A return appointment
4. A plate full of the most delicious briskets I have ever had!
To this very moment I am still asking myself what happened!? The spirit is the Key!
Oh! I have 4 min left and forgot to tell you my last p day story!
I went to a pet store last Monday which Dad, Grant and Tyler would have LOVED! African pet stores are so much sweeter than American ones! This pet store Was HUGE! But it had like every animal EXCEPT for the jelly fish that I am getting when I get home. It had snakes big enough to eat me, huge fish, like every variety of fish known to man, dogs, and then birds out the wazoo! There turned out to be an outside to this pet store and they had one of those birds that looks like it has a banana on top of its beak...and they had this duck that Dad would have loved! It had like 15 colors! AND then I almost stepped on this Huge peacock that was hiding next to my foot!
Love you
Elder Williams
From Stacey: I sent Blake a note this week and this was his response. I thought it was totally BLAKE!
Hi Kids,
OK ,so you know that your big gift is the trip here. Sorry about that but it is pricey to get you here. I know “Blame Canada” or “Dad” Anyway, I hope to be able to get something else as well so give me some ideas of something that you need or want. OK top 3 things… Also while you are at it is there anything you hope to do or see when you are here and what foods do you request?
Let me know….
Love you all,
Mom
Momma Llama,
Thank you for including me in the email. If you could have roast beef and mashed potatoes with home made rolls in remembrance of me that would be great.
Elder Williams
It's a wonderful day and great to hear from you all!
Its good to hear that the Canada house is turning into a bit of a party house! Grant Keep up the good work and try to finish the Book of Mormon ASAP!
Well, Sounds like you enjoyed the story of driving the kid to the hospital last week. If I had known you enjoyed stories like that I would include them more often. If you want to hear about something just let me know. If its intense/exciting, I experience it here. But I have no time to write in my journal lately, so I will start trying to include at least one story from the week as a bit of a journal via e-mail.
This week was pretty exciting. We had 3 baptisms yesterday. This was Brother William and his family. Probably the first family I have found on my own efforts, taught the whole way through and then baptised. Two members of the family failed the baptism interview, but we are still working on them and they are scheduled to be baptised in 2 weeks. Brother Williams is a massive guy so he had to be baptised on his knees and his son (who is a member) performed the baptisms. It was very exciting to see them baptised. I'm happy for the family.
We also had zone conference this week. They are doing a lot of changes to missionary work lately, so we had a 6 zone conference, led by the Mission President. When I say its changing, what I mean is that in the past they used to use the memorized lessons, then in 2002ish they went to Preach My Gospel which was the move for missionaries to teach by the spirit. What ended up happening though was that missionaries would pretty much learn the steps in a lesson, and then use the spirit to decide which lesson to teach. Once they decided on the lesson, the spirit was not used AS MUCH as it should have been. So the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 came out with these "8 new lessons" Which are not really lessons at all, but teaching you to use the spirit in everything you do. So instead of making a lesson plan before a lesson and saying "OK were going to teach the restoration. I will take points ABCD and you take points 1234" you go into the lesson saying "What commitment do we want to see at the end of the lesson?"..."Praying as a family each day, alright, then we will use lesson 4 which is revelation through prayer". You then go into the lesson and rely solely on the spirit to help you achieve that commitment. This is done a lot by asking inspired questions.
Not really sure how I just got onto that tangent, but yes, that is what we are working on, and it is helping out A LOT. The mission is also focusing on the Ward mission plan to get the wards involved in missionary work. Our mission has a goal for 2010 baptisms in 2010. We may or may not hit that goal, but either way the president made it clear on Wednesday that 2000 a year is not enough. there are 48 million people in South Africa and 2000 is a slight drop in the bucket. The only way the gospel is going to be preached to the world is by getting members involved. A quote a ran across this week in preach my Gospel which I liked goes as follows, "It will Be a great day when our people not only pray for the missionaries throughout the world, but ask the Lord to help them to assist the missionaries who are laboring in their own ward" -President Hinckley So in summery, Help the missionaries in your ward!
OK so it is time for a story from the week. As far as I can remember in detail (which is about Saturday), I have not physically saved any ones life this week, but I had another story that I wanted to remember, so you get to hear it! So last night Elder Matunya and I got to go teach this man named Brother Paul. Background on Brother Paul is that we found him in the area book as a man taught by missionaries 2 years ago. The missionaries were pulled out of the area so he has not been taught sense then. Paul is a good guy, has a family, job and little "tuck shop" connected to his house (tuck shop is a little shop on every corner here that sells bread, drinks, soap, basics). He uses his shop as an excuse to get out of all his commitments, reading, church, etc.our commitment was to be "get him to read the book of Mormon every day, or drop him" (sorry it sounds kind of harsh). Well when we got into the lesson, we started talking about the importance of the Book of Mormon and scriptures in general. We used one of my favorite teaching methods of likening the scriptures to him. I likened him to Nephi when the Lord had commanded him to build a ship. And he said that if the Lord had told him to build a ship that he would do whatever it took to build a ship because he knew that the Lord would provide a way (Good answer Paul!). So then I felt the impression to get him to keep the sabbath day holy, so I was like "that is great Paul, but I have good news, because the Lord has not commanded you to build a ship, he has commanded something much easier of you". So I turned with him to Exodus 20 and read the commandment of keeping the sabbath day holy and how we should not work on Sunday. So I pretty much told him via the scriptures that he needed to close him tuck shop on Sunday. Once this sunk in he got TICKED. He was SO mad at me! To the point that he had tears of anger in his eyes and I packed up my scriptures because I was convinced I was going to be thrown out of that house at any moment. He turned his argument away from doing what the Lord has commanded to, "If my conscience does not tell me it is wrong, it is not wrong" (typical Daveyton answer). Well this is the part that blows my mind. My companion and I were somehow able to bring the spirit back into the lesson and we were walking out of his house 5 min later with:
1. A commitment to read a chapter out of the Book of Mormon.
2. Pray specifically to know if Joseph smith was a prophet
3. A return appointment
4. A plate full of the most delicious briskets I have ever had!
To this very moment I am still asking myself what happened!? The spirit is the Key!
Oh! I have 4 min left and forgot to tell you my last p day story!
I went to a pet store last Monday which Dad, Grant and Tyler would have LOVED! African pet stores are so much sweeter than American ones! This pet store Was HUGE! But it had like every animal EXCEPT for the jelly fish that I am getting when I get home. It had snakes big enough to eat me, huge fish, like every variety of fish known to man, dogs, and then birds out the wazoo! There turned out to be an outside to this pet store and they had one of those birds that looks like it has a banana on top of its beak...and they had this duck that Dad would have loved! It had like 15 colors! AND then I almost stepped on this Huge peacock that was hiding next to my foot!
Love you
Elder Williams
From Stacey: I sent Blake a note this week and this was his response. I thought it was totally BLAKE!
Hi Kids,
OK ,so you know that your big gift is the trip here. Sorry about that but it is pricey to get you here. I know “Blame Canada” or “Dad” Anyway, I hope to be able to get something else as well so give me some ideas of something that you need or want. OK top 3 things… Also while you are at it is there anything you hope to do or see when you are here and what foods do you request?
Let me know….
Love you all,
Mom
PS: Elder Williams I just could not leave you off the list of an e-mail to my kids! We love you and pray for you every day.
Momma Llama,
Thank you for including me in the email. If you could have roast beef and mashed potatoes with home made rolls in remembrance of me that would be great.
Elder Williams
Monday, November 8, 2010
South Africa: Hello Family... Nov. 8th, 2010
Hello Family!
One part of me feels like it was yesterday writing an email to you, while the other realizes that SO much has happened in these 7 days. I have come to the conclusion that you could take ANY week out of the life of a missionary in South Africa and make a 3 hour movie on it with no problem. But before I get into anything you mentioned that Cami's school is doing a service project in Botswana?! (It really is Botswana) Did you mean somewhere else? Because Botswana is in my mission. It's the safe area that is richer than where I am. I am also told that there is a lot of wildlife there. ex: Monkeys are supposed to be everywhere, but they also have deadly snakes everywhere! What were they doing in Botswana? That's not exactly the place I would imagine a group of students flying around the world to serve at...
So How are the other kids doing? Tyler, Kaylee, Joel, Carly? How is school going? I still can't believe you all are going into Doctor stuff! I had an emergency room experience this week where I decided there is not a chance in this would I will be a doctor.. but, I will explain that story later in the email.
Before I forget, We missionaries bought a HUGE bag of potatoes this week for close to nothing and then we realized that we don't really know what to cook with them, besides mashed potatoes. So if you could send me a simple recipe or 2 of what a man can cook as a meal with an endless supply of potatoes, that would be appreciated. If possible not using butter or cheese because those are expensive here. And if you have any peach recipe's up your sleeve that would be appreciated as well. We have an endless supply of peaches as well.
I had quite the interesting food story AGAIN this week. One of my favorite families who is planning on getting baptised on the 14th decided to feed us this week. I was SO excited because that is pretty much the nicest thing anyone can do for a missionary, besides giving them an ideal referral. So we showed up only to find out that they were feeding us their favorite....cow stomach and intestine. Now I have had to eat some crazy stuff here, but all the missionaries tell me to avoid this one at all costs! The worst part is probably the fact that they believe the less you cook it, the better it is. SO there are no spices or anything, just a cow stomach, thrown into a pot of boiling water, then plopped onto your plate. The cow stomach has the nickname of carpet because it looks and has the texture of carpet on the outside with a greenish coloration. The cow stomach I was able to get down fairly easy but then I ran into the problem with the intestine. You can chew the intestine for 10 min and you would still be at the same point you were for the first chew! This one was pretty hard for me to get down and I found myself gagging twice! It was too close for comfort. Although it was hard to eat, it was still appreciated!
I got attacked by my first dog this week! (Don't worry Mom, I was attacked with love). There is a family the other Elders in our district teach that have this horse, that under further investigation turned out to be a large dog! His name is Bruno and we are actually really good friends. The first time I saw him I thought my life was going to end soon but then I pet him and now we are best of friends. On Friday it was raining when we were going over to their house (I was on exchanges) and Bruno came up to the gate excited to see me and COVERED in mud. Being the good friend I am I pet him for a good 10 seconds but then decided I needed to get out of the rain. Bruno took this as a game and did not want me to stop petting him so he jumped up on me! and his FACE was level with MY face! (HUGE DOG!) I was laughing so hard and Elder Kelly was laughing at me as well. I think he finally realized that he had covered my shirt with mud, so he eventually got off me and my white shirt was covered with muddy dog prints the size of my hand! No worries though, we are still friends.
OK so now the ER story that I'm SURE mom is waiting for (I only tell this story via email because too much has happened this week so this story has not made it into the journal in its fullest, so if you could keep this email for me, that would be sweet, so this will be in the form of a journal entry)! Saturday all 4 of us Elders showed up to the chapel for a service project to make gardens for people in the ward. We had been there probably about 2 min when Sister Mavis came running around the corner with her hands in the air screaming "What do I do! What do I do! Elders Help me what do I do!" Not knowing what was going on we dropped everything and sprinted over to her, realizing very quickly that she was in shock and that she was pointing to her car we ran as fast as we have ever run before over to the car only to find that she had accidentally backed over her 4 year only child with the car. The good news was that he was screaming, but he was in bad shape with scrapes all over his body and a very large and deep gash in his forehead. Within a matter of seconds the child, sister Mavis, and her daughter were in the back of our car while Elder Kelly hopped in the drivers seat and I in the front seat. (a little background on Elder Kelly is that he was a professional dirt bike racer before he came on his mission, and his greatest love besides the gospel is fast cars, so when we told him to hurry, he did just that). We drove like we had never driven before, reaching questionable speeds on the highway and flashing and honking at all the cars ahead of us to get out of the way. Miraculously everyone seamed to realize there was an emergency so EVERY car accept for one got out of our way. The whole ride there the mother and daughter were keeping the child sitting up while not letting him fall asleep. After exiting the freeway we even had to CAUTIOUSLY (looking both ways first) run red lights. As a side note about South African Cops, we broke many laws in front of 3 or 4 cop cars and none of them even gave us a second look. We finally reached the hospital where the mother and child ran into the hospital while we parked and ran after then. One of the many miracles of the event was that there was actually a team of doctors waiting when we got the kid into the emergency room. I was pretty worried about the child and this is the moment when I decided that I would never be a doctor! But we went to the waiting room to comfort the mom because she was still in such shock.
Due to time I will rap up the story. The biggest miracle of the day was that there was no internal damage to the little boy. They stitched up his large gash and after a scan decided that ,that was all that was wrong with him. Judging by how hard he was hit, that was a true miracle. We had to follow an ambulance to another hospital where they checked him in for a check up, so when Elder Robinson tells his mother, who tells you that we were being escorted by an ambulance, that is why.
But this is my second time in 3 month dealing with a child under the age of 4 being hit by a car. Teach the young ones not to play around cars! There is nothing worse than being in that situation with a young one.
Well family, that is all I have time for today! Let me know how everyone else is doing. Keep me updated on life. Things are going well here. My companion is still the man and we are having 5 baptisms this next week. Oh as a side note we definitely found an entire area inside of our area last night that we had no idea existed!
As well there is a woman's world cup that is going on INSIDE my area! It is pretty exciting! So you should watch it if you get it back home.
Alright I got to run!
Love you all
Elder Williams
One part of me feels like it was yesterday writing an email to you, while the other realizes that SO much has happened in these 7 days. I have come to the conclusion that you could take ANY week out of the life of a missionary in South Africa and make a 3 hour movie on it with no problem. But before I get into anything you mentioned that Cami's school is doing a service project in Botswana?! (It really is Botswana) Did you mean somewhere else? Because Botswana is in my mission. It's the safe area that is richer than where I am. I am also told that there is a lot of wildlife there. ex: Monkeys are supposed to be everywhere, but they also have deadly snakes everywhere! What were they doing in Botswana? That's not exactly the place I would imagine a group of students flying around the world to serve at...
So How are the other kids doing? Tyler, Kaylee, Joel, Carly? How is school going? I still can't believe you all are going into Doctor stuff! I had an emergency room experience this week where I decided there is not a chance in this would I will be a doctor.. but, I will explain that story later in the email.
Before I forget, We missionaries bought a HUGE bag of potatoes this week for close to nothing and then we realized that we don't really know what to cook with them, besides mashed potatoes. So if you could send me a simple recipe or 2 of what a man can cook as a meal with an endless supply of potatoes, that would be appreciated. If possible not using butter or cheese because those are expensive here. And if you have any peach recipe's up your sleeve that would be appreciated as well. We have an endless supply of peaches as well.
I had quite the interesting food story AGAIN this week. One of my favorite families who is planning on getting baptised on the 14th decided to feed us this week. I was SO excited because that is pretty much the nicest thing anyone can do for a missionary, besides giving them an ideal referral. So we showed up only to find out that they were feeding us their favorite....cow stomach and intestine. Now I have had to eat some crazy stuff here, but all the missionaries tell me to avoid this one at all costs! The worst part is probably the fact that they believe the less you cook it, the better it is. SO there are no spices or anything, just a cow stomach, thrown into a pot of boiling water, then plopped onto your plate. The cow stomach has the nickname of carpet because it looks and has the texture of carpet on the outside with a greenish coloration. The cow stomach I was able to get down fairly easy but then I ran into the problem with the intestine. You can chew the intestine for 10 min and you would still be at the same point you were for the first chew! This one was pretty hard for me to get down and I found myself gagging twice! It was too close for comfort. Although it was hard to eat, it was still appreciated!
I got attacked by my first dog this week! (Don't worry Mom, I was attacked with love). There is a family the other Elders in our district teach that have this horse, that under further investigation turned out to be a large dog! His name is Bruno and we are actually really good friends. The first time I saw him I thought my life was going to end soon but then I pet him and now we are best of friends. On Friday it was raining when we were going over to their house (I was on exchanges) and Bruno came up to the gate excited to see me and COVERED in mud. Being the good friend I am I pet him for a good 10 seconds but then decided I needed to get out of the rain. Bruno took this as a game and did not want me to stop petting him so he jumped up on me! and his FACE was level with MY face! (HUGE DOG!) I was laughing so hard and Elder Kelly was laughing at me as well. I think he finally realized that he had covered my shirt with mud, so he eventually got off me and my white shirt was covered with muddy dog prints the size of my hand! No worries though, we are still friends.
OK so now the ER story that I'm SURE mom is waiting for (I only tell this story via email because too much has happened this week so this story has not made it into the journal in its fullest, so if you could keep this email for me, that would be sweet, so this will be in the form of a journal entry)! Saturday all 4 of us Elders showed up to the chapel for a service project to make gardens for people in the ward. We had been there probably about 2 min when Sister Mavis came running around the corner with her hands in the air screaming "What do I do! What do I do! Elders Help me what do I do!" Not knowing what was going on we dropped everything and sprinted over to her, realizing very quickly that she was in shock and that she was pointing to her car we ran as fast as we have ever run before over to the car only to find that she had accidentally backed over her 4 year only child with the car. The good news was that he was screaming, but he was in bad shape with scrapes all over his body and a very large and deep gash in his forehead. Within a matter of seconds the child, sister Mavis, and her daughter were in the back of our car while Elder Kelly hopped in the drivers seat and I in the front seat. (a little background on Elder Kelly is that he was a professional dirt bike racer before he came on his mission, and his greatest love besides the gospel is fast cars, so when we told him to hurry, he did just that). We drove like we had never driven before, reaching questionable speeds on the highway and flashing and honking at all the cars ahead of us to get out of the way. Miraculously everyone seamed to realize there was an emergency so EVERY car accept for one got out of our way. The whole ride there the mother and daughter were keeping the child sitting up while not letting him fall asleep. After exiting the freeway we even had to CAUTIOUSLY (looking both ways first) run red lights. As a side note about South African Cops, we broke many laws in front of 3 or 4 cop cars and none of them even gave us a second look. We finally reached the hospital where the mother and child ran into the hospital while we parked and ran after then. One of the many miracles of the event was that there was actually a team of doctors waiting when we got the kid into the emergency room. I was pretty worried about the child and this is the moment when I decided that I would never be a doctor! But we went to the waiting room to comfort the mom because she was still in such shock.
Due to time I will rap up the story. The biggest miracle of the day was that there was no internal damage to the little boy. They stitched up his large gash and after a scan decided that ,that was all that was wrong with him. Judging by how hard he was hit, that was a true miracle. We had to follow an ambulance to another hospital where they checked him in for a check up, so when Elder Robinson tells his mother, who tells you that we were being escorted by an ambulance, that is why.
But this is my second time in 3 month dealing with a child under the age of 4 being hit by a car. Teach the young ones not to play around cars! There is nothing worse than being in that situation with a young one.
Well family, that is all I have time for today! Let me know how everyone else is doing. Keep me updated on life. Things are going well here. My companion is still the man and we are having 5 baptisms this next week. Oh as a side note we definitely found an entire area inside of our area last night that we had no idea existed!
As well there is a woman's world cup that is going on INSIDE my area! It is pretty exciting! So you should watch it if you get it back home.
Alright I got to run!
Love you all
Elder Williams
Monday, November 1, 2010
SOUTH AFRICA: HELLO, HELLO FAMILY 11-1-2010
Hello Hello Family!
So yesterday was Halloween and it sounds like everyone had a fun time! They don't do Halloween here, so I didn't even realize it was a holiday until the end of the day! What did everyone dress up as? Did Grant go around the neighbourhood? and I saw the picture of Brother Smith and Rousseau..they would ha ha
Well sorry I will not be attaching pictures this week, we are in a different Internet shop today because Elder Littlefield is involved in an emergency transfer to Botswana. They were having US visa problems there so he got a call 2 days ago telling him he is going to fill in. Botswana sounds like the place to be. Both my trainer and follow up trainer are coming from there. It sounds richer, safer, and more exotic. It is so safe that they even have sister missionaries there! Try to imagine your daughter opening up that mission call "Johannesburg South Africa", oh snap. I hear that they even have monkeys running around all over the place! Well hopefully I will be able to head up there sometime, but its 10 hours away, so It wont be any time soon. We will miss that little guy. We don't know who the new elder is, all we know is that he is African. We will go pick him up after this.
So I got your packages this week! They were pretty exciting! Thank you for everything. Whenever someone gets a package it is a district event to open it. So we set up the little Christmas tree and got the American Christmas lights out (although we didn't have an adapter so we couldn't turn them on. And then we opened the package! It is good that these packages have things for the other elders as well so that its not just for me. The other elders loved their gifts and say that Elder Williams has the best mother! I did save the Christmas package for Christmas EXECPT for 1 gift. I HAD to get the Mormon Tabernacle CD, so I got that one out and we have been listening to it. Motab is the best!
Before I forget, I had worms for dinner last night...we didn't plan ahead and we didn't really have much food for Sunday dinner, and then Elder littlefield got a bag of worms as a goodbye gift from a lady in the ward. They call them worms but they were more like fat caterpillars (Those fat fuzzy ones). So that was my exotic dinner this week.
Honestly, a lot happened this week! We got invited over for the best dinner known to man! It was lasagna and it was quit delicious!
We also went to the temple as a zone on Friday and it was a really good session, I felt like I learned alot this time. I began to really appreciate the plan of Salvation and how it is all set up for US. I know its kind of obvious, but everything that has happened is for us and I am trying to be more grateful for it.
Africa watched general conference this weekend! It was very very exciting! There were literally only 15 people watching it on Saturday (8 of those 15 were missionaries), so it was quiet and I was really able to take in what they were saying. It was kind of funny though because everyone in our district seamed to think there was a different theme to conference. For Saturday I personally thought there was a theme of Families and the importance of it. Rosemary Wixom mentioned that the world will teach our children if we are not willing to. I really liked that and it seamed so simple to me. As well, Robert D. Hales told us to make our homes incubators for spiritual growth by having family prayer, meals, scripture study, etc. I thought there was also a big push on agency this time as well. Kind of, you know what is right and wrong, YOU choose which path to take. No one else is to blame accept for yourself.
Sunday sessions we actually had a lot of investigators attend and they said that it was "Number one"! And every other investigator that was there said that they loved it and could tell that these were men of God. I was really grateful for this response from them. Brother William (the one I sent a photo of the other week) really enjoyed it. I was extra grateful for that because him and his family are on date to be baptised on the 14th of this month, but last Sunday he was offended by the bishopric (which is NOT uncommon here) and so he started to back away from the church. But once he heard the prophet speak he really enjoyed it and it was a positive experience for him. We then went to his house after and watched finding faith in Christ and the family really enjoyed that as well.
In other news with the ward, we are trying to find ways to get the ward closer together. We hope to start a ward choir this next week (because everyone LOVES singing). I am really excited about this as well because I will most likely be the conductor! Yea, ME! I learned how to lead music in the MTC and now I love to lead! But If I have a choir to lead I can probably increase my talent by doing a two handed lead!
As well I have really been seeing the importance of Family history lately. Although our building has a set up for family history its not really running at the moment, so I met with the Family history guy this week to get that rolling as soon as possible. Does anyone know how far back the family history of our family goes?
Alright family well I better get going, Everything is going great here and I hope all is well back home!
Love you all,
Elder Williams
So yesterday was Halloween and it sounds like everyone had a fun time! They don't do Halloween here, so I didn't even realize it was a holiday until the end of the day! What did everyone dress up as? Did Grant go around the neighbourhood? and I saw the picture of Brother Smith and Rousseau..they would ha ha
Well sorry I will not be attaching pictures this week, we are in a different Internet shop today because Elder Littlefield is involved in an emergency transfer to Botswana. They were having US visa problems there so he got a call 2 days ago telling him he is going to fill in. Botswana sounds like the place to be. Both my trainer and follow up trainer are coming from there. It sounds richer, safer, and more exotic. It is so safe that they even have sister missionaries there! Try to imagine your daughter opening up that mission call "Johannesburg South Africa", oh snap. I hear that they even have monkeys running around all over the place! Well hopefully I will be able to head up there sometime, but its 10 hours away, so It wont be any time soon. We will miss that little guy. We don't know who the new elder is, all we know is that he is African. We will go pick him up after this.
So I got your packages this week! They were pretty exciting! Thank you for everything. Whenever someone gets a package it is a district event to open it. So we set up the little Christmas tree and got the American Christmas lights out (although we didn't have an adapter so we couldn't turn them on. And then we opened the package! It is good that these packages have things for the other elders as well so that its not just for me. The other elders loved their gifts and say that Elder Williams has the best mother! I did save the Christmas package for Christmas EXECPT for 1 gift. I HAD to get the Mormon Tabernacle CD, so I got that one out and we have been listening to it. Motab is the best!
Before I forget, I had worms for dinner last night...we didn't plan ahead and we didn't really have much food for Sunday dinner, and then Elder littlefield got a bag of worms as a goodbye gift from a lady in the ward. They call them worms but they were more like fat caterpillars (Those fat fuzzy ones). So that was my exotic dinner this week.
Honestly, a lot happened this week! We got invited over for the best dinner known to man! It was lasagna and it was quit delicious!
We also went to the temple as a zone on Friday and it was a really good session, I felt like I learned alot this time. I began to really appreciate the plan of Salvation and how it is all set up for US. I know its kind of obvious, but everything that has happened is for us and I am trying to be more grateful for it.
Africa watched general conference this weekend! It was very very exciting! There were literally only 15 people watching it on Saturday (8 of those 15 were missionaries), so it was quiet and I was really able to take in what they were saying. It was kind of funny though because everyone in our district seamed to think there was a different theme to conference. For Saturday I personally thought there was a theme of Families and the importance of it. Rosemary Wixom mentioned that the world will teach our children if we are not willing to. I really liked that and it seamed so simple to me. As well, Robert D. Hales told us to make our homes incubators for spiritual growth by having family prayer, meals, scripture study, etc. I thought there was also a big push on agency this time as well. Kind of, you know what is right and wrong, YOU choose which path to take. No one else is to blame accept for yourself.
Sunday sessions we actually had a lot of investigators attend and they said that it was "Number one"! And every other investigator that was there said that they loved it and could tell that these were men of God. I was really grateful for this response from them. Brother William (the one I sent a photo of the other week) really enjoyed it. I was extra grateful for that because him and his family are on date to be baptised on the 14th of this month, but last Sunday he was offended by the bishopric (which is NOT uncommon here) and so he started to back away from the church. But once he heard the prophet speak he really enjoyed it and it was a positive experience for him. We then went to his house after and watched finding faith in Christ and the family really enjoyed that as well.
In other news with the ward, we are trying to find ways to get the ward closer together. We hope to start a ward choir this next week (because everyone LOVES singing). I am really excited about this as well because I will most likely be the conductor! Yea, ME! I learned how to lead music in the MTC and now I love to lead! But If I have a choir to lead I can probably increase my talent by doing a two handed lead!
As well I have really been seeing the importance of Family history lately. Although our building has a set up for family history its not really running at the moment, so I met with the Family history guy this week to get that rolling as soon as possible. Does anyone know how far back the family history of our family goes?
Alright family well I better get going, Everything is going great here and I hope all is well back home!
Love you all,
Elder Williams
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