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
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